It Could Happen Here Weekly 130

our society and culture. The quest to eliminate transgenderism includes harassment, care campaigns targeted against specific individuals, boycotting companies that feature trans people in their marketing, and banning queer books, media, and art from libraries across the country. The conservative right has decided that the boogeyman of gender ideology and the woke mind virus is one of the most pressing threats

to Western civilization. This brand of transphobic militancy opposes any form of visible queerness, viewing it as an ideology that acts as a viral cultural contagion. That's why they spend so much time trying to ban drag shows and art featuring queer people. They know they're losing the cultural battle

and that really scares them. As trans people have been trying to weather this huge wave of organized transphobia, Trans and queer artists continue to push forward, with multiple hit films coming out this year from trans directors and transactors and actresses are taking more and more high profile roles. Last episode, I interviewed comedian Ella Yerman and filmmaker Ver

Drew on the process of creating independent queer media. This episode will focus on why we are seeing this new wave of queer art, why mere representation isn't enough, and attempts to go beyond the online media ecosystem. Ellie Yerman is the host of Late Stage Lives, a Queer gen Z public access late night show on Brooklyn Public Access and YouTube. The format of late night comedy is almost

wholly dominated by old white, sis straight men. Late Stage Live attempts to deconstruct the genre in which it aligns itself with, utilizing sketches, correspondence segments, and original reporting, but for a younger, queerer, more politically radical audience. The show is not just made for gen Z queers. It's also made by an entire team of young, queer and trans people, which gives it a very unique feel compared to literally

all of its competition. The show itself feels queer and highlights the massive gap between simple queer representation and queer art, or in this case, queer late night comedy. There's a palpable distinction between hiring a gay person to work on seth Myers versus having a late night show that is built on queerness. On that note, here's a clip from my interview with Ella Yeerman, host of Late Stage Live.

is like, what's the game, what's the perspective? And then why is it us delivering this perspective? Because anyone can write a piece of political analysis, lots of people do, but like, what about this story is uniquely coming from us, uniquely coming from the host ella, from the writer's room.

And I think we found it most strongly in the last two pieces, the Lives of Stickock piece, and then the episode before that, we did a segment on the Alliance Defending Freedom, which is a spooky, evil conservative cabal that trains lawyers to overturn Scotis cases. And I think those both found felt really focused in on sort of us as young queer people. And I think the gen

Z part is also really relevant for us. A lot of Late Night is hosted by old men, and as much as I love John Stewart, he is an old man, an old sis, white man, an old sis, as far as I know, heterosexual white man.

and the news and politics impacts these groups of people. And the way we achieve that is, Yeah, we don't just have one token queer writer.

Even if the daily shows fired all of their writers and hired only trans people, I think it would be a hard pivot to get the show to suddenly be doing what we're doing, just because the whole structure is built differently.

the airwaves and charts her own path. This plotline, like many others, mirrors the director's own life, and the movie itself is a perfect example of how creating a piece of art inherently built on a multimedia experience of queerness will produce a wildly different result. Than simply having a gay person in the writer's room. Here's a clip from my interview with Vera Drew. It's not even that I feel like queer representation is like too straight or cist.

It's just not even like an accurate reflection of queer reality. You know, Like every gay couple I know is nothing like a straight couple. I mean some of them are, but like those those gay couples always break up, like it's like they're just they're just in you know, reenacting cycles and thousands and thousands of years of patriarchal bullshit on each other when they could just be having hot gay sacks with each other. And like that to me

is like the biggest tragedy of like representation. And it's like is also why I think people lash out at

us so much. Like I on one level, I understand the idea of like this is getting shoved down our throats, you know, because like it kind of is that's coming from a place that I sort of agree with, because they're getting sold this like propaganda that it's like they're just like us, you know, and like to me, it's like my experience is so specific to me and so specific to you know, like the experience of a trans woman. There are things about my life that are similar to

that of assis woman but not certainly not identical. So like I never want to see art that is that. I also, I'm like really over trans people being used in a way that they're either I mean, it doesn't really happen anymore where they're like treated like freaks, but like it's kind of the tragedy porn or kind of pedestalizing us. I guess, like I hate that, like my identity is inherently political, like just because I I this is who I am, Like I it's not a pleasant

situation to deal with. So I think with joker, Yeah, I want people joker, I really wanted to talk about representation in a way that also just wasn't annoying because like I also, it's not even that I'm tired of

having this conversation. It's just sad that people like us keep men having to have this kind of conversation because like I've also heard it now within our own community that like you know, I've heard other trans filmmakers say like we should only be telling happy stories, we should only be spreading queer joy or what absolutely not No, absolutely, not like it's that's embarrassing. Yeah, I want I want

to spread queer panic. I want to it's not even panic, just like queer existential uh horror, I suppose I don't know.

in a movie that I made? And and I don't know, it's like I think what I hate about the queer joy thing and the like the people's Joker is like

a very funny movie. It's very pel it's very campy, but it's also like devastating, you know, like it's it's got a very serious message to it that I think it brings up a lot of emotion in people when they watch it, both SIS people and trans people, And you know, I think that speaks to something else, just like about representation is like I told this story that was so specific to my experience, and like trans people are identifying with it and relating to it, but so

are CIS people, you know, Like yes, like you know, we should be telling stories that portray the trans experience honestly or the queer experience honestly and specifically. And if we do that, like if we do that effectively, that is still art that a SIS person can consume because SIS people also go through transitions. SIS people also have to die and be reborn sometimes, and like I think

just everybody kind of comes of age. It's just like trans people and we were people kind of have to do it more visibly and publicly and externally a lot of the times. And and uh, I don't know, for me, it's like that was like another reason too of like of just being like no, like we're gonna get this out into theaters and and you know, like make this

kind of theatrical experience before anything else. You know, it was always made made to be like viewed, I think with like a crowd of people like yeah, yeah, kind of like a midnight movie vibe.

lot of Jesus stuff around my house. Like I'm I'm just obsessed with like the iconography and really love it the story itself as like a myth and like the mythic understanding of of death and rebirth, and also just thinking of it as like another example of like the hero's journey. And I don't know, like it's somebody asked me at a Q and A like how basically like how do you have the balls to like cause by the end of the People's Joker, like you basically find

out it's like cut it is like Dune. There's like a weird Messiah story happening, And that partially just comes from like I think for me, queerness is inherently like a very spiritual experience. It just has been for me, and I think a lot of trans people actually deal with Messiah complexes. I think it's something that I feel safe saying I have, and I also really wanted to unpack that just idea of the like Joseph Campbell White Savior Hero's journey thing.

the sort of default way of sharing video art. A big reason why is simply because the platform is so accessible without many of the hurdles and roadblocks of more traditional distribution models. But sometimes I worry that it's become so default that our reliance on YouTube has actually become a self limiting factor that overdetermines the scope of our own art. Let's return to my interview with Vera Drew

to continue this topic. Queer people, specifically trans people have kind of been stuck with a lot of their art or video art just becoming this thing that you throw up on YouTube. We've done a good job in making like a community there, I suppose, but at certain points it feels very like insular, like we've created this little tiny bubble that everything is just trapped inside of. Because obviously we can't like rely on like big studios to make our own stuff or distribute our own stuff like that.

That's not happening either. But I feel like we're kind of kicking ourselves in the foot if our only artistic output is like techno music and YouTube video essays, both of which can be good, both of which can be art. But there's a whole other world out there that I feel like we have closed ourselves off from, and so I'm kind of interested, like like on that choice to like not put it on YouTube and actually like ride this thing out as like a movie.

earliest memories are are wanting to make films. Like right around the time I saw Batman Forever, I was like, I want to be a director, and I came up in post production just because like a lot of editors end up sort of following, you know, a lot of editors are really just direct like frustrated directors. So I was kind of like, here's a place where I could like sort of learn my craft. And I've always loved experimental animation and visual effects and stuff and also just

like incorporate that as well into like my career. And it's good. I'm so glad I had it as like an incubation period for me to kind of find my voice and my aesthetic and and learn a lot from these like super talented people. But there was always this frustration that I had because when I would take stuff out to pitch or anything that was like my own story, like you can't really get trans art made in any

sort of mainstream space. I think that's one of the things that's most frustrating about the whole like woke culture bullshit, just because it's like they act like we're some sort of like elite class that's like favored by the media, which it's like I can just tell you, like that's I'm on my press week right now. Like the media is certainly enamored with trans people, but like I don't think it's like coming from a place of like we're trying to change and put everything and you know, make

these people in charge. It's just uh, you know, it's it's click baity and it gets people, it keeps people arguing online. So it's very hard just to even break through as a director too. Like I mean I was at that, you know, forget pitching shows that I've written or whatever, like just trying to get episodic TV work. I just couldn't do it, like once I changed my pronouns, Like I was literally up for jobs that went away

after I came out. So I just reached this point of like I think, maximum frustration and kind of like wanted to whatever I did, you know, I don't want to say like I was ready to walk away from like working in the industry in twenty nineteen, but I kind of was like I was kind of just at this point where I was like, I need to make a fucking movie or something on my own and kind of just put all I have into that, and that's going to be the way people will either finally take

me seriously as a director, or like I'll at least have made a movie and then I can just be

in debt and I'll have a movie I made. So to me, it was always about not necessarily like finally being taken seriously by my indus, but just like kind of making this giant piece of art that is not only like a big like look what I can do, you know style thing, but like is also just about all of that about the frustration of being allowed in but only being allowed in in these certain ways, like whether it's on like a diversity cast or like, you know whatever. Like I was, I worked on the show.

I can't really talk about it because it's like NDA stuff and I don't think the show will ever come out. But I was in the writer's room on a cartoon that was being rebooted and it was one of my favorite cartoons of all time. But I had a day where I was like just sitting in the writer's room and I was like looking around at my coworkers and it was I was like, oh, wait a minute, it's all girls, and I'm I'm a girl, and I'm a trans girl. We're all just being brought in to rehabilitate

this like problematic piece of art, you know. And it was like this crazy moment of having like like also have had lost jobs because of my identity and now in this place where it's like my identity is like this bargaining chip. So anyway, how does this connect to the online art conversation? Like I've always kind of had to also play in like online spaces, Like I started a public access station with my friends a few years

ago called Highland Park TV. A few years ago. I was like ten years ago now, but that's still going on today. And it was basically just this space for us where we could like just record whatever. You know. We'd meet up one week and come with like some pretty simple sketches and shoot it on our public access

set and throw it up online. And you know, like twelve people would watch it and that was it and that but that was cool, like you know, you'd build like little followings and communities that way, and I had always just wanted to break out of that, you know, because I think my sensibilities are pretty me and edgy and weird. But like I'm really kind of a basic bitch, like when it got to the stuff I like, like, I really like my taste is very college dorm room.

I have a back to the future tattoo. Like I'm very influenced by like genre film, and you know, like I love David Lynch, I love experimental film and stuff too. But like I've always like really felt like I.

it really was. I mean, I mean, maybe it's ego thing, but it's also just like I've been doing this long enough to know like the movie was gonna always find its audience, but there needed to kind of be a plan in place so that like I could actually put it towards having a career that the career that I've

wanted my whole life. You know, Like, I think it's ridiculous that we live in a culture now where every artist, even the ones like me who have had a trade in this industry, Like in an industry like that, we have to really carve our own path in online spaces or on Twitter or YouTube or whatever. It just keeps us all in cycles of poverty. It like, like I

fucking hate posting to Twitter. I do it still just because it's the easiest way to get the word out, But every single time I send a tweet, I'm like, this sucks. Like I'm supporting one of the worst people alive right now just by still using this site, somebody who hates me and people like me so much that he literally won't talk to his own child. Yeah. Like, I really just wanted to kick the door down for myself and hopefully for some people that come after me.

And you know, I really don't want to be the type of filmmaker and the type of queer filmmaker who like holds the ladder up behind them, like it's not even that I have integrity, it's just that like this movie is that to me, this movie is such like it's a gospel on how we need to be making art more ethically and more for ourselves and from a place of care. And yeah, that's just I want to hopefully change my little corner of the industry as much as I can toward that.

not just gonna be like a fan film. It's like, this is an actual, like expressive piece that we're gonna It might mean that you won't see it for another two years, but it shows like a level of like actual artistic commitment that I found gave gave the project a real sense of like wait, oh, thank you. The notion of this comfortable YouTube bubble we've created is perhaps why I find the public Access TV side of la

Yeerman's Late Stage Live so compelling. A lot of queer people around my age grew up with the transgender video essay as the primary form of our artistic video output, and there's a lot of good video essays out there, but at a certain point it started to feel like the main way a young, radical queer person could engage with the art form. It's gotten to feel so insular and a bit restrictive, like we're enforcing our own bubble. On top of this self limiting aspect, I'm not even

sure how much growth the format even has Anymore. Recently, I've begun to see more queer artists specifically trying to make things outside the strict video essay framework. Even some of the most popular trans video essay creators have been

trying to move into documentary and narrative film making. I asked Ella about moving beyond the video essay bubble because although Late Stage Live does it air on YouTube as well as Brooklyn Public Access, the format is not just your average transgender video essay.

aspect to that that I think. Yeah, like it's partly YouTube is so accessible anyone can post on YouTube that I understand why queer people have sort of relegated themselves to this bubble. Trans people wrote like why we've ended up with like you know, the trans video essay scene,

thank you Mother Natalie. But it makes it hard to sort of break into this like final frontier of legitimacy, I think, and I think by like, yeah, like not fully committing ourselves to being a YouTube show from the get go, we do sort of leave doors open to be considered like a more legitimate television production, which is exciting for like growth opportunities. I think the live studio

audience also really pushes us out of that zone. We get a lot of accusations from people who are mean on the Internet of using a laugh track, and I just want to say, and I will say it till the day I die, It would be so much easier if we were.

stand up and as a theater artist. And also like, yeah, just pulls it into like a slightly different genre of thing that we're making, and I think certainly in terms of like growth and audience building and like the potential

of being picked up by some larger organization. It definitely puts us in like a different It makes us look slightly different than like a YouTube show, even if we can all like sort of quietly acknowledge, like, well, what all of our growth is happening on YouTube and Instagram?

But like, as you said, like Real Late Night is huge on YouTube now too, and there's all these other extra correlating factors of like monetization on YouTube sort of died a few years ago after the ad apocalypse or whatever, and you have to go through crowdfunding sources like Patreon or sponsorships or x Otherwise, like there's not like you can't.

of content and form is like really exciting. And I think like, even as we grow and gain a budget and are able to buy nicer cameras, we want to like keep the aesthetics and vibe of like edgy radical public access because it's like a part of the voice of the show along with sort of the practicalities.

never get made by the big studios. After trans filmmaker Jane Shanbron's successful festival run of her small scale future debut titled We're All Going to the World's Fair back in twenty twenty one, Her next film, called I Saw the TV Glow, got picked up by Emma Stone's production company and a twenty four The film is now coming

out later this month. In the case of the People's Joker, it dares to take Warner Brothers and Disney at their word that their privately owned intellectual property is in fact our culture's version of mythology, our very own Greek gods.

And so if these characters really are the cultural icon that the monopolized companies who own them claim them to be, what happens when we actually do treat them like mythology and use these characters to artistically mythologize our own lives By skillfully sidestepping copyright law via effective legal parody, we get to have a Batman film through the lens of transgender chaos magic, which I'm afraid would simply never happen under Warner Brothers Discovery, as they can't even stop deleting

their own finished films to get tax write offs. A few weeks ago, I showed my it could happen here co host Mia Wong the People's Joker, and afterwards we talked about what makes it feel so special and it's placed within the pantheon of queer cinema.

because it's trans and it's partially because it's actually a movie. Yes, because and then this is this is this is this is Vicky's argument, you know, and this is this is the hidden truth about the film industry is that movies are not designed to sell movies.

toy sales, yeah, and sales of stuff afterwards. Right, So what you're actually seeing when you're seeing a superhero movie is just an ad And this is Yeah, and this is part of what the people's joker is that makes it different, right, And you know, and it's because, like specifically, because it is trans and because of the way that is trans this makes it impossible for its being made by corporation, and because trans people fought to make it, it gets to be an actual movie and not a

fucking toy sales thing.

has been very referential. It's been very much based on experiences that trans people have as kids, engaging with media, whether that's with something like Buffy the Vampires Layer, whether that's with DC comics, and it's because transness is so

much about recontextualizing your whole life and identity. A lot of trans media has also been about this form of recontextualization, both with I think The People's Joker is a great example also, uh uh, the upcoming film I Saw The TV Glow, which is very much based on like Buffy and other and other kind of like Monster of the

Week title TV shows. It's combining all of that kind of stuff with a lot of lynching influences, both both in these cases, both in The People's Joker and in I Saw The TV Glow to create this like fever dream of self identity in this referential format, and that's been an interesting trend to watch in trans cinema, and I think that's that's something that's something to look I think that's something to look for when you're engaging with future trans cinema projects, seeing if those kind of things

pop up and if and if they don't, why is that what else is actually happening instead? I think those are gonna be some interesting interesting ways to uh engage with our own diy art in the next decade here, because as much as like everything we talk about is so like depressing, like on this show, like about how everything dealing with like trends stuff is about how everyone's trying to like kill us and restrict our medical care, that does not actually stop us from becoming people who

actually engage with culture in any real sense. I think despite everything that's targeted against trans people, it does not stop us from actually having a cultural output. And the thing a lot of conservatives are afraid of is our cultural output. The fact that trans people keep being actually really compelling artists and really really compelling people in general makes conservatives service. I don't think it's impossible for conservatives to make art.

is the result of a combination of two things. One is that trans and queer artists have been and continue to be chewed up and spat out by the traditional media machine, and two, the traditional media machine itself is slowly rotting from the inside, which can be a tricky

situation to navigate for a lot of queer artists. But simultaneously, it also means that we're in this position, we're having been spat out, we have full rain to go make our own, massive, grotesque, degenerate queer art on our own, because there simply is no artistic alternative. Trans people need to be submitting to film festivals regardless of whether or

not CIS viewers and critics will understand the work. Filmmaking is one of those art forms that you can't really do all by yourself, but that doesn't need to be a limitation. That can be an asset. Gay people are good at a lot of different things, and filmmaking integrates so many different artistic areas and skills, and as we've seen, a movie made by a community of queers can create

such a unique result. When talking with Vera Drew, she mentioned that having a whole team of artists help her complete the movie is also in part what ensured that she would find a way for the film to be distributed the right way so that it's seen up on the big screen and not just published online for free.

donation link or whatever. It was like like I have all these artists that just worked on this movie with me for two and a half years, and like, no, we're gonna fucking do this, Like I said I would do this, and I'm gonna do this cause like I can't just like feed this back into the incubator and the fucking feedback loop of trans Twitter and like cool underground circles that I totally love to be a part of, but we're all trying to, you know, get more visibility

outside of those things. So yeah, I always really just wanted to honor that, honor the team and make everybody feel valued, and you know, I paid as many people as I could, and you know, was very str forward about what I could afford, and a lot of people worked in ways that they just felt compensated and that

was very appreciated. You know, I think in general, like everybody on this was very underpaid, but like it was such a labor of love and such like a a personal thing for for all of us that everybody just like showed up and really rallied around each other and really just kept saying yes and to everything, and it's so cool. I don't I don't know how I'll ever really be able to replicate. I don't think I should either, just because it's it was it was quite a Gargantiouan task,

but you know, it was. It was literally the best

time of my life was was making this movie. Like I think it really it taught me just how to be a human being and how to love and how to like finally feel connected to my to my queer community, because I think like the People's Jokers really more than anything, it's really about nuance and like relationships and family and politics, and it talks about nuance by really leaning into these like extremes, which I think just is also inherently queer, and I don't know, I mean, that's to me, is

like another thing. It's just like I hope and there's a lot of trance filmmakers that are like starting to pop up in the genre space, but like I hope we see more of it, just because like we all grew up on the same movies that Sis people did, so like, why can't we make similar art, you know, and tell our stories in the process, and also do it in a way that's like not hiding in the shadows.

community and like mutual respect. I'm Ella Yeerman. You can find me on Instagram at La dot Yeerman, on x dot com at Ella Yeerman. I think I'm on Blue Sky. Also, though I don't do anything there. You can find Late Stage Live as Late Sailers Live on all platforms. That's Instagram, x YouTube, TikTok probably also Blue Sky, but those are the big ones. And then if you're interested in finding my stand up show, we're at T four T Comedy

on Instagram and x oh. And then most specifically, if you're interested in helping fun blade stage and make us bigger and better and shinier, you can go to patreon dot com slash Late Stage Live, where we post. Yeah, we have a behind the scenes photos and videos, and we make a semi frequent podcast where my head writer and I talk about the news and shoot the ship and talk about the process and a lot more detail

episode by episode. And we're so grateful for our current patrons and for opportunities like this, and we're excited to see where the show.

We've talked about sort of mid mid sized chains. But today we're talking about the unionization of a place called Friday Egg I'm in Love in Portland's which it's it's if you sort of imagine the platonic ideal of what do you think a place called Friday Egg I'm in Love is going to be? Like it is in fact that And with me to talk about this is Soul and Janey from the Friday Egg Workers Union. Yeah, both of you, welcome to the show.

wasn't a thing that caused it. We were all, like me and five other people were just sitting around a table and decided, Hey, we should just start a union, and so we kind of looked into what that looks like and the snowball started rolling downhill.

We're like happy, we're well paid, everything's great. And then you know, you look at you, you look at what happens to them, and it's like, oh, well now you have boeing Right, It's like, well, you you will, you will, you will never organize, you no longer have any power,

and your planes are like falling from the sky. So yeah, this this is a I'm gonna I'm taking this, taking my soapbox moment to be like you two out there, even if your job is good, at some point it's going to not be and you should unionize first before they I don't know, like be google and decide that I don't be evil actually constrains them from making money and decide to be evil, So get get out ahead of them before.

But it's also understandable that as things start to grow, it's a lot better if it's a collaborative process in terms of making it the best place to work that it can be. And I think getting a seat at the table is something that we have to make for ourselves, but it doesn't necessarily have to be a threat or a retaliation.

they're pretty chill. But you know, like one of the dynamics that sets in is like you know, it's not what the actual conditions are, isn't necessarily always going to be under their control, even if you know, like even if they want to do the right thing, and the demands of things like scale and you know, the demands of sort of market competition have this sort of disciplining effect on what, you know, like what what your working conditions can be if you're going to sort of compete

with like I don't know, you're your like doughnut shop that like torches is union workers.

And the more that the more that I'm meeting union organizers and union reps and people from IWW, the more that I'm realizing we're in a situation where we can establish some really lovely precedent for similar workplaces who want to start a union, who are about the same size as us, or even like neighbors in our like on the on the streets that are locations are at where we can do things like there's not enough precedent in the IWW for a service industry in general, but particularly

it's it's very common to be in the negotiating process and one of the things that will be offered to the employer in exchange for whatever you're negotiating on is like a no strike clause, like okay, we'll just we'll give this to you of like we're just not gonna be able just to strike for the duration of our contract, and so in exchange we can get some other stuff

that we're asking for. But because we have such a strong majority, and in all four locations we have a strong majority, I think we're currently planning on keeping the right to strike. Hell yeah, and you know we're not planning on it. I hope that we don't ever have to do that, but just having that as precedent I think will help our community and other similar unions.

was like a federal thing. But the thing about no strike clauses is that it makes you know, we've talked about this a bit before on the show, but one of the sort of issues when you have a union is like, okay, see, even if you get a contract right, and that usually takes that takes a long time, takes a lot of fighting, the company is immediately going to start trying to violate the contract. And so you know, your contract is only as strong as your ability to

enforce it. And you know, one of a really really good way to enforce it is by being able to go on strike. But normally, like yeah, people aren't organized enough to actually like fight their employers on it, and so it just ends up being a kind of standard part of contracts, And yeah, it's really exciting that y'all are committing to fight for that from the beginning, because it's it's it's hard, it's it's not it's not an easy thing to do.

it's it's not like a threat. It's not like, Okay, we're uh, we're going to have this union and everyone's going to go on strike the next day and our business is going to tank.

of an incredibly militant shop. But I think if you can, if you can actually get the precedent of you know, having companies treat this as normal, because it's something that should be normal, right like this, this is how a lot of the US used to work, right it used to be. If you were on like an auto line assembly line, there'd be there be a guy in a

back with a whistle. And if and if you know, if a contract violation happened, or like you know, if if the company is asking you to do something that you aren't you know that you're not like contractually obligated to do, the person would you know, the union person would blow the whistle, immediate strike, the entire assembly line goes down, and you know it turns out you actually

can run a completely functional like economy like this. But the kind of the mentality of the people who own who own businesses right now is that you should never at any point, like you know, you should never at

any point let your workers do anything at all. You should immediately fight them at the moment they try to unionize and I think you know, having a president of like you know, of of being able to get this kind of stuff without immediately having to launch like you know, like I immediately kick off a series of stricture with your employer. Is is a good one? Is a good one to set.

And that's true of like basically all unions because and especially shops at your scale, because you know, a lot of these unions are using like a very kind of crude cross cost benefit analysis and their their assessment is like, well, why should we bother to organize like this shop that has thirty five people at it, because you know, this is going to like where we're like the amount of dues money we're going to get out of it is like not you know, is not is not worth the effort.

But on the other hand, you know, like do you know how many workers there are, like how many of these like how many of these tiny shops across the there are across the entire country that if you know, and if everyone just refuses to organize them, then you're leaving like tens of millions of workers just sort of like screwed.

Pacific Northwest like union for unions kind of thing. It's not surprising that like our values are aligned and it's like making making for something like really fun and like you know, setting a new kind of industry standard for service industry.

Mississippi location. That was just you know, hiring a whole new staff for and you know, getting them in, you know, collecting them into the fold. And yeah, iww was very helpful and like how to like kind of create those processes to like ensure that you know, we were approaching people in the right way. And yeah, have it getting a proper headcount?

working for them and what they do. They have absolutely no idea, and so you have to do their job and figure out what everyone does.

But then you know, every once in a while you just get a shop where it's just kind of everything just clicks and goes.

what starting a union actually looks like. And i WW has been very helpful providing these little trainings that I've been able to go to. It's funny is that they're on Sunday afternoons, and so I'm pretty sure I'm the only person at our brunch restaurant who doesn't work Sunday afternoons, so I've been going to those.

out after the Labor Dights episode that I'm doing. But something that I feel like I don't hear much discussion of in union organizing that I feel like there should be is like fighting management on scheduling and like trying to fight for you know, people actually a having consistent schedules and b not just having like I don't know, Like I know a lot of people who find out their schedule on Facebook, like four hours before they have

to go in, right, Like, that's insane. That is that is not a way for industrial process to function.

could potentially be open. We are open for breakfast. We're done at too on the weekdays and adding in a standing union meeting at four pm once a week was very easy to add to everybody's schedule, I think, I think and the nature of the breakfast place led to that working very very easily.

I know you're not doing anything after this, and I'll give you a ride helps a lot because then they go to their meeting and they're like, wow, that was awesome. I never knew I could take control of my life in any way.

being released into like hell world. But yeah, you know, I mean, I think one of one of the aspects of of of those camps is that like just there with a bunch of people who you get to talk to and organize with. And it turns out that actually being there face to face with a bunch of people is just great. And that's that's the thing. That's the thing.

You can also like that you knows, as much as like union work can just can be work, right, it can be you sitting in front of a spreadsheet and going, oh my god, what this person responds like it's also I don't know, it's it's also like it could be really great and I don't know, you should you, dear listeners should experience it because it rules.

So we can let goose states, inevitabilit and think outside of it to realize the freedom and power of all the people most people aren't anarchists, unfortunately, but I've noticed that generally speaking, some folks are more receptive to anarchist ideas and others just seem to shut down without engaging

with it earnestly or meaningfully. You get a mix of those reactions in my comments, so overwhelmingly toward the receptive side, because I mean, that's the kind of intellectual curiosity I tried to attract my space, But the more hostile reactions had me thinking about a book that I read many years ago and their video on years after that was

called The Authoritarians by Bob Altemeyer. So once take another look at the ideas in that book, because even though Ultimid doesn't land in any truly radical conclusions, his scholarship, in my opinion, gets us closer to understanding the psychology of both authoritarian followers and authoritarian leaders. Also rest in Peace. I found that he died when I was preparing this, just this year in February, but that aside. We'll be talking about the former first, and that is what's up

with authoritarian followers. Let's get into it first. We need some context. So in the wake of World War two, social scientists sought an explanation for the evils perpetuated by the Nazi government during the war. Theodore W. A'dno Els, Frankel Brunswick, Daniel Levinson, and Nevitt Sandford published The Authoritarian Personality in nineteen fifty, proposing a personality type for the

fascist follower ranked on an F scale. They particularly concentrated on prejudice within the psychoanalytic and psychosocial frameworks of Freudian and Fromian theories. Their work was highly critiqued, but it was also highly influential in laying the groundwork for our understanding of authoritarian personalities. In the aftermath of Adorno and Company's book, social scientists will continue to tweak, develop and

expand our understanding of authoritarian psychology. Most notably, the concept will be refined by Bob Altemeyer, a Canadian American psychology professor, proposed the right wing authoritarian personality in nineteen eighty one. After numerous studies, Altimyer presented his findings in his free book The Authoritarians in two thousand and six. I had to clarify, though right wing here is not being used in the context of the political spectrum, which is a

concept thats to n scrutiny. In this context, Ultimaya uses the word right in the sense of the old English writ an adjective for lawful and proper. Aultimia defines authoritarianism as quote, something authoritarian followers and authoritarian leaders cook up between themselves. It happens when the followers submit too much to the leaders, trust them too much, and get them too much leeway to do whatever they want, which often

is something undemocratic, tyrannical, and brutal unquote. I find this definition of authoritarianism lacking, but a monarchist so of course I would to me, if authority is defined as the record is right above others in a social relationship to give commands, make decisions, and enforce obedience, then I would define authoritarianism as a matter of degree to which you

uphold the principle of authority. I think many people are at least authoritarian light because that's the status go unfortunately. But more specifically, I think the people we call authoritarians are those which are especially invested in the enforcement or advocacy of strict obedience to authority at the expense of

freedom and plurality. So right, being authoritarian followers or RWAs are those which overwhelmingly support the established authorities in their society, like government officials, arms of the state, and traditional religious leaders. In North America and elsewhere, r was tend to be or other. I should say high r WA is because the RWA thing is a scale, but the high art

ws tend to be political conservatives. However, that doesn't mean the authority and personality is exclusive to conservatives, no, as exclusive to North America, but the scale is definitely tailored to a North American and English speaking audience, lendin to its documented issues that translate into other regions, But with effort, I could definitely see it being adapted to other cultural

contexts as well. And as also my argues, the concept of the right wing authoritarian could equally apply to society with the established authorities claimed to be represent in the left. So what defines the right wing authority and personality? Psychologically speaking? They feature three primary traits or attitudes. For one, a high degree of submission to authorities were perceived to be

established and legitimate in the society in which one lives. Two, a general aggressiveness directed against various persons that is perceived to be sanctioned by established authorities, and three a high degree of adherence to the social conventions that are perceived to be endorsed by society and its establish authorities. These traits are measured with the Right Wing Authoritarianism Scale or

RWA scale for short. It's readily accessible online, so I'm not going to go through the entire scale point by point, but basically includes a mixed series of statements that folks

can indicate their level of agreement or disagreement with. Statements like our country will be great if we on other ways of our forefathers, do the authorities tell us to do and get rid of the rotten apples who are ruining everything, or what our country really needs is a strong, de tillman leader who will crush evil and take us back to our true path. And just to mix things up. A woman's place should be wherever she wants to be. The days when women were submissive to their husbands and

social conventions belong strictly in the past. As you could imagine, the degree to which you agree or disagree with these statements would place you somewhere along the scale. The lowest total possible score and ultimized version of the test would be twenty and the highest one hundred and eighty, but most people low hit either extreme. A sample of one thousand Americans in two thousand and five found that the

average score was ninety. Technically speaking, high RWAs are just people who score higher than the average population, so it's really a relative to Also another disclaimer, in the context of psychological studies, personality tests can definitely make mistakes about individuals, so it's not a diagnostic tool for individuals to determine if they make a good storm trooper. However, the scale

can reliably identify levels of authoritarianism in groups. Also, keep in mind that stuff like the interpretation of wording and fore knowledge of what the test is trying to measure can definitely influence results. Still, this tool has been used for most of Altimayer's research and authoritarianism, so it's good to be familiar with it. So now you may be wondering how well does the RWA skills measurement of submission, aggression,

and conventionalism map onto people's reality. So for submission, higher RWAs tend to believe that people should submit authority in almost all circumstances, so they put a lot of trust in the law and the authorities. Maybe not all authorities and every single circumstance, but they definitely bought into the

concept itself. They're the types who trusted Nixon during and even after the Watergate crisis, likely the ones in Germany in nineteen forty five who refused to believe that Hitler was responsible for the Holocaust, the type to rapidly support

anti terrorist initiatives, no matter how invasive. Throughout his research, Altimhere found that high ars are far more likely to tolerate police burglaries, drug rades without warrants, police crackdowns on peaceful protests, subversion via Ajan's provocateurs, and so on, as far as they're concerned, Father knows best. Their favorite authorities are above the law, But like I said, they don't

always submit. Their blind support can be trumped by other concerns, but most times they're not big fans of holding officials accountable for their actions. They really don't care if a cop kill someone in broad daylight or someone drives through a crowd of protesters on the street. In terms of aggression, higher w is aggress when they believe right and might on their side. Right meaning their hostility is authority approved might meaning they have a physical, tactical, or numerical advantage

over their target. They don't fight far, and just like they go easy on authorities who commit crimes, they go easy on anyone who attacks people they're prejudiced against. But they definitely don't go easy on the people they hate. They seek to sentence criminals to longer terms than average, and as some of the loudest supporters of capital punishment. And if they hate one group, bet your bottom dollar they probably hate other groups too. You could call them

equal opportunity bigots. Chances are if they hate immigrants or trans people, those are not going to be the only targets of their ire. Their pressures has more to do with their own personality than their targets actual attributes. Still, they don't always aggress when they think the proper authorities approve, just that they don't always submit. They are always more factors that play in any given situation, including a fear of counter aggression or consequences that may hold their hostilities.

Regarding conventionalism, higher ws believe that everyone should live by the norms that their authorities have decreed. Whilst like culturalism, plurality, diversity. Those things clash with what they consider correct and what they consider wrong. They usually get their ideas from fundamentalists religions, so you'll find that higher WA's are strong advocates for the traditional family structure, with patriarchal husbands, submissive wives, and

obedient children. They're also far more likely to support their governments patriotic version of various historical narratives. Most interestingly, their conventionalism even influences their response to the high r W test itself. If they were totally average response for a statement on the test, they were far more likely to

adjust their answers to the mean than most. When asked what they would like their own RWA score to be, low rbs said they would like to be low rw's, middle or w is said they'd like to be lower w's, but higher ws said they want to be middles, not lows or highs. Why because they tend to rank being normal very highly in values tests. Also, just because they want to be normal, let's mean they don't want to be richer or smarter than others. Not doesn't mean they're

necessarily going to drop their prejudices. They may get tugged slightly, like with there's somewhat decrease in prejudice against gay people after the legalization of gay marriage. But their normal is often a measure of what's normal in their in group. So if it's still normal in their in group to be violently homophobic, more than likely they will still be violently homophobic.

in hierarchy to facilitate said absolutism. But there are authoritarians who also favor absolutist forms of government with slight differences, believe n that the presently dominated in hierarchy should be overthrown and replaced with their own. These have potentially been called left wing authoritarians, even though the right and right wing authoritarians didn't have anything to do with the political spectrum.

Let's keep pushing. In chapter nine of The Authoritarian Inspector, Altemeyer conceptualizes left wing authoritarianism or LWA as also composed of submission, aggression, and conventionalism, so essentially LWA is a

subcategory of RWAs. He's also quick to point out not all leftists are LAS, but as he describes them, l WA's are revolutionaries who one submit to movement leaders who must be obeyed aka submission, two have enemies who must be ruined from capitalists to counter revolutionaries aka aggression, and three have rules and party discipline that must be followed

aka conventionalism. In essence, authoritarianism is psychological. R WAS support the established authorities, LAS oppose them in favor of their own, but the underlying positional core is still authoritarianism. But the focus is on AR debays in general here concerning these traits submission, aggression, and conventionalism, it's clear that people with right wing and thworitaring and personalities are rather dangerous. They find it easier to bully harass, punish, name, torture, eliminate,

and exterminate their victims than most people do. They're more willing to join mobs and militias, more likely to blame victims for their misfortune, and more likely to condemn common criminals to long brutal sentences in jail. They seem to have a lot of hostility boiling away inside them that their authorities can easily unleash. So we have to ask what causes this? Why are they like this? According to Albert Bandura's social learning theory of aggression, aggression occurs after

two conditions are met. Firstly, some feelings like anger or envy lead us to a hostility. Secondly, inhibitions or content actual restraints against release in that hostility would have to be overcome. Only then can the aggression erupt and flow. So let's discuss the instigator and releaser of authoritarian aggression. High days are highly motivated by fear, like they have an extra dose of fair response in their genes more than most people. They probably learn to be fearful from

their parents about all kinds of things. You know, radicals, atheists, kidnappers, queer people, et cetera, et cetera. They grew up in a scarier world than most, which is probably why they tend to score so highly on the Dangerous World Scale.

That scale, like previous scales, provides statements and measures levels of agreement or disagreement with stuff like quote, If our society keeps degenerating the way it has been lately, it's liable to collapse like a rotten dog, and everything will be chaos and quote any day now, chaos and anarchy could erupt around us. All the signs are pointed to it, and cou everything to them is a sign of the times, a perversion corrupt in society in peaceful times and in

generally dangerous ones. Higher ways feel threatened. But what releases that aggressive impulse to act? Also, I have found, more than anything else self righteousness. Of course, almost everyone thinks they're a bit more moral than average, but higher ways they tend to think they're the holy ones, the chosen, the righteous. That empowers them to isolate, segregate, humiliate, persecute, harass, beat,

and kill. That self righteousness, combined with their high scores on the Dangerous World scale, is what empowers their prejudice, their heavy handedness, their means spiritedness and their eagerness to crusade against the other. So how do highs become higher WA's? Are they born that way? Possibly? Do their parents make them that way somewhat but not completely? See no one as a complete carbon copy of their parents. So what

determines a person's position on the art of experience? Our life experiences teach us lessons that our parents and payers may not, or experiences with authorities shape or perception of authority. Especially when someone hits adolescens, they tend to chafe against authority, even if they submitted to authority as children, those hormonal urges, desires for austronomy, and new experiences could shake up their early lessons completely. Experiences could either end up reinforcing the

authorities teachings or contradicting them entirely. Naturally, it's easier for kids from authoritarian homes to remain authoritarian and vice versa. But ultimately experiences do most of the shape middle or ways have some mix of experiences and upbringing that keep them in the middle. When it comes to higher was,

their experiences were probably very controlled. Authoritarian followers usually live in a homogeneous bubble of patriotic, traditional people an echo chamber apart from the evils of the world, safely kept on a short leash for most of their lives. But I just hope yet. Automid's research has shown that higher ws can change if they have some important life experiences. That's why university can be such a game change of people.

It's just meeting new people, leaving that small, enclosed world and developing relationships with people of different walks of life, and that makes a big difference. There are a couple of traits that make higher ws such good followers for would be dictators. In short, those traits are illogical thinking, highly compartmentalized minds, double standards, hypocrisy, a lack of self awareness, ethnocentrism, dogmatism. In long well, consider syllogism. All fish live in the sea.

Sharks live in the sea, therefore sharks are fish. Logically speaking, the conclusion doesn't follow. Even if sharks are fish, and they are the premises don't support the conclusion. But if higher WA's were asked if the reasoning was correct, they were more likely than most to say that it was. When asked why they'd answer because sharks are fish. In essence, because they agreed with the conclusion, they assumed the reasoning

was right. That simple test shows that if authority and followers like the conclusion, the logic involved is fairly irrelevant. Reasoning is what should justify the conclusion, but as far as they're concerned, the conclusion valuates the reasoning. Of course, let me not overstate a lot of people have trouble

with so logistic reasoning. Higher w has just happen to be slightly more likely to make such mistakes, but higher de wus generally have more trouble than most people do realize in a conclusion as faults, they have a harder time determine whether empirical evidence proves or doesn't prove something. They more easily fill gaps in science with supernatural forces, and they have trouble being critical of anything unless they've

already gotten their talking points from their authorities. Regarding the highly compartmentalized minds, I mean, we all have some inconsistencies not thinking, but their minds as be like oil and water. One second they say in free speech, next they say in ban critical race theory. One moment they're talking about individual freedom, and next their basically throat in the boots of the state. They don't merge files in their brain to really see what fits. They sense to just pick

up whatever their demogogues are saying. And if your mind is such a mess of contradiction, so you're going to end up a lot of double standards easily justify by whatever idea you hold it's most convenient in the moment. Principles are really irrelevant. Keep in mind the excuses they make for those in power and how hard they are in victims. Classic example is the difference between how they treat a prisoner who beats up another prisoner versus a

police officer who beats up a prisoner. Low d was usually don't have such stark double standards when it comes to hypocrisy. I'm going to keep you using this example because you know it's still somewhat topical critical race theory. As much as authoritarians accuse the left of being anti free speech, politically correct types, rda WA is a far more likely to report a desire to censor ideas they don't like. This is also because they tend to lack

basic self awareness. If presented with a list of things, right wing authoritarians are likely to do like be prejudiced, conformist, et cetera, and then ask how true it is of themselves compared to most other people. They really have no idea how different they actually are, and that's actually because of the bubble they tend to exist in us visus them is a very hard line in the sand for authoritarians.

Humans as a whole do have a tendency sometimes to fall into tribal patterns of thinking, but authoritarians see the world far more sharply in terms of their in groups and our groups. And most we do tend to associate with people who agree with us in many issues. But authoritarians really do stick to their bubble of validation and ethnocentric reinforcement. That's why they don't realize how pressureous, or aggressive or submissive they are to compare to most people.

By avoiding challenges to their beliefs and holding faster their authorities, they remain stuck in a secular logic of I'm right because the people I agree with say I'm right. Finally, in terms of dogmatism, higher ws holds to unchangeable, unjustified certainty,

righteousness beyond a shadow of a doubt. They're more likely than most people to agree with statements like the things I believe in are so completely true, I could never doubt them, and there are no discoveries or facts that could possibly make me change my mind about the things that matter most in life. I am absolutely certain the

ideas about the fundamental issues in life are correct. Meanwhile, they're more likely than most people to disagree with statements like it's best to be open to all possibilities and ready to re evaluate all your beliefs. And flexibility is a real virtue in thinking, since you may very well be wrong when you receive or absorb, rather than contemplate, your beliefs, you have no basis upon which sho determine whether or not they're true. So you avoid challenges by

staying in the bubble as much as possible. When that can be avoided, threatton out whatever talking points you got from wherever, and if that dialogue tree fails, you can always fall back in your group's assurance that you are right. I could challenge your beliefs, or you could insist your right and retreat. What option do you think high it will be a sentage use Yeah, the double down exactly.

Talkingtism is by far the best fall back defense, but it's also the most blatant, that giveaway that the person doesn't know why they believe what they believe. Alas hired w is only one side of the authoritarian coin, then nothing without their leaders. So next time we'll be talking about those leaders, those social dominators. Until then, all power to all the people. This, yes, welcome to it could happen here. I'm Andrew Sage of the YouTube channel Andrewism. Once again, I'm joined by.

general aggressiveness directed against various persons. It is perceived to be sanctioned by established authorities and the third is a high degree of adherence to the social conventions that are perceived to be endorsed by society and its established authorities. We also speculated the roots of authoritarian aggression and looked at the mind of the authoritarian follower, which demonstrates straits such as illogical thinking, highly compartmentalized minds, double standards, hypocrisy,

and lack of self awareness, ethnic centrism, and dogmatism. Today, as promised, we're looking at the other side of the coin. We're looking at the leaders, but also what we can do to address both followers and leaders. So let's begin. In nineteen ninety four, social psychologists Fleescher Prattu and Jim Sedanias presented the social dominance orientation test as a measure

of belief in social inequality. Social dominators agreed with statements like code, this country would be better off if we cared less about how equal all people are and code some people are just more worthy than others. While disagreeing with statements like code, if people were treated more equally, we would have fewer problems in this country. Fellow social psychologist Sam McFarland took their test and twenty one others, including the Art of Way scale to determine which would

be the best predictor of prejudice. His research found that only two of those tests, the social dominant orientation and the Art of Way, could do the job well. But the thing is, though, while both tests were able to identify prejudiced people, they will identifying different types of prejudice people with very little overlap. Social dominators and high art double ways authoritarians of two flavors. They have some things in common though, besides prejudice. They tend to support the

same political parties. They tend to have shared economic philosophies, usually conservative on both counts, but they also have some huge differences, starting with a desire for power also why I conducted two surveys with students that included the question how much power as in the ability to make adults do what you want? Do you want to have when you're forty years old? In this sense, automayer is using power in the sense of authority as I would define it.

They recognized right above others in a social relationship to give commands, make decisions, and enforce obedience. So the scale went from zero meaning they don't care for it, to me and their goal is to have a great deal of authority. Social dominators consistently wanted to have much more power than most people did authority and followers did not. Now, obviously, people often want authority for different reasons, some more self

righteous than others. But social dominators take thrill in authority in and of itself. Doesn't matter what the cause is, as long as they can control others in the process. There's another scale out to my users, the power Mad scale. On it, social dominators agree with statements like a mistake to interfere with the law of the jungle, some people were meant to dominate others, and do you enjoy taking charge of things and making people do things your way?

They also disagree with statements like life is not governed by the survival of the fittest and we should let compassion and moral lawers be your guide. Social dominators are some of the highest scores on this scale, and high scorers tend to be intimidated, ruthless, and vengeful, with no care for nobility or charity. They despise empathy and have a dog eat dog mentality toward the world. They love the power to hurt in their drive to the top.

High ruays just don't have that drive. And while authoritarian followers might highly value group cohesiveness and loyalty, social dominators don't because, like I keep saying, they're in it for themselves, for their power, and they will betray their own group if push comes to shove. Another area where social dominators and higher deg way is diverge is when it comes to religiousness. Authoritarian followers are usually religious fundamentalists, while dominators

don't tend to be that involved. Some of them do go to church regularly, but that's for manipulative reasons because social dominators could lie. They lie a lot. All they have to do is pretend to be religious and say the right words, and boom they get through. The higher was reminds me of a certain politician.

take advantage of them. Social dominators disagree with statements like it gains a person nothing if he uses deceit and treachery to get power and riches, and all in all, it's better to be humble and honest than important and dishonest. In essence, social dominators admit to strive and to manipulate, to be in dishonest, to be an immoral and treacherous. They see their followers as suckers, fools to be controlled. What else makes them different? Well, I could go back

to the roots of hostility. Social dominators actually show greater prejudice against minorities and women than hired was do, but their followers are much more hostile towards LGBTQ people. Why Well, it ties back to the religiousness point and the hired wa respect for the law. Since attacks against minorities are less clearly supported by religious and civic authorities as they used to be. Authoritarian follower aggression towards these groups both

overt or sneaky how to be curved a little bit. Meanwhile, social dominators are hostile because they already live in the apocalyptic jungle that hired WA is fair, and they are the epect predator. They don't score highly in the dangerous world scale because they're not scared. They're the ones ready to weaponize that fear. Dominance is their first priority for everyone they meet, they need a reason to not try to control them. They don't care too much about the

law either. It's just about not getting caught. They're not as self righteous as higher w is because they're quite immoral, and higher ws aggress when they believe right and might on their side. Social dominators aggress because might makes right for them personally. Higher W is heat crimemount of fair and self righteousness in the name of authority. Social dominators hate crime ount or share desire to intimidate and control. Lastly, we need to look at the differences in their thought process.

Social dominators, for the most part, don't have a web of contradictions, weak reason and skills, compartmentalized thinking, or gullibility that define higher w's mental life. They're not particularly dogmatic or zealous about any particular cause or creed. They just want authority. They say whatever they need to say to get ahead. Because they have no consistent values, they'll be hypocrites like hard wa Is, but they're probably aware of

and find their own hypocrisy. For example, they're cool with wealth, inheritance and corruption. They're opposed to welfare. They're unconcerned with income inequality or photo disenfranchisement. They're apathetic to racial inequality and injustice. They believe that people should have to earn their place in society, and they don't care if most of them can't. They still talk about how the only way to have a level play and field is to

get rid of things like affirmative action. And part of what defines social dominators is their utter disregard for equality. So we have to ask again what causes this? Why are they like this? And well, social scientists just are show Yet if we look at the life shape and experiences or social dominators, they would probably report the deceit and cheating were good tactics because it led to what they wanted. Taking advantage of suckers felt great. They enjoyed

having power and having people afraid of them. Life boiled down to what you could get away with, and of course the experiences led them to believe that life is a jungle. Dominators were probably rewarded early in their lives when they cheated, took advantage of people, weaponized fear, overpowered others, or got away with something wrong. Whether or not their parents gave them that outlook on the world. Because of the psychological law of effect, they simply learn into the

Being amoral, unsympathetic, and exploitative worked well for them. So what happens when higher was and social dominators worked together. In this field of research, the lethal union refers to the combination of happily subservient hired ws with social dominators who share their values in the drivers, eager to dominate and control, a death spiral union that develops all the

time in the real world. As Altamaya aptly described, quote true, sufficiently skilled social dominators served by dedicated followers can make the trains run in time, but you have to worry about what the trains may be haulin' when dominators call the shots and the hirer was do the shooting end quote. While most social dominators get fairly low scores on RA tests and vice versa, a, very very small percentage of people in ultimiya samples scored highly on both r A

and social dominance tests. These other double highs. If prejudice was as sports in the Olympics, hird WA's we get bronze, social dominators we get silver, and double Highs would definitely get gold. Now you might be wondering how do they manage to score so highly on both tests? Social dominators and highways have so many differences. How can there would be a submissive dominator? So there are a couple of reasons why want to be dictator with score highly on

both tests. One is because some WA scale statements are open to interpretation. Take the statement code our country desperately needs a mighty leader who will do what has to be done to destroy the radical new ways and sinfulness that are ruining us, and code follow ull be like yes please, and a dominator will be like here I am behold, I'm your leader. Double Highs still score highly on all the power scales, like other social dominators and

unlike other higher ways. Secondly, double Highs are the religious among the social dominators, so they respond to this religious items on the r WA scale that other social dominators don't, thereby significantly raising their art wa IS score. I don't think I need to go into too much detail. I feel like I should be absolutely clear. The double highs suck.

Whatever the su they probably are on the wrong side of it, the worst of the worst, prejudiced, power hungry, exploitaive, mad, religiously fundamentalist, dogmatic, dangerous, worldest a noxious stew of the worst of all social dominators and hired was. Regular social dominators might end up in charge of pts, howays, workplaces,

local governments, and other personal kingdoms. Not all of them succeed in life due to the animosity they create, the obstacles they might face, or their lack of intelligence, attractiveness, or network to gain the kind of power they want. And some of them might even get caught in their lives and i legalities and don't have the capital to

get out of it. They see double highs, they tend to have a head start will Regular social dominators have to fake their religiousness to get the support of hired was. Double highs can more easily get started in their own churches, already part of the in group, sharing their prejudices, economic philosophies, and political leanents, even if they are faking it a little bit. A double high already knows all the code words,

dog whistles and Bible verses. They need to get ahead if they know what stands they should hold about evolution, the role of women, abortion, school prayers, censorship, law and order, et cetera, et cetera. Double highs run the show you dig?

likely to change their minds. Trying to change highly dogmatic, evidence immune ethnocentric people is an exercise in frustration and futility. It's also hard to fight the share fair mongerant power of the likes of Fox News and Facebook to combat the class and religious roots of ethnocentrism and to reduce the self righteousness of their followers. It's even harder to convince them that they are being systematically misinformed and played

for fools by their leaders. Even if they listen to these episodes or watched my videos or read ultimized books, they would either get defensive or honestly, because a lot of them aren't self aware, assume that this is about someone else finding a way to compartmentalize, misinterpret, rationalize, and dogmatically deny anything I've said so far. So what to do? First,

and foremost, representation matters. It's important to hire see more of the breath and diversity of human existence and experience. The reality is skewed. The visibility and representation of people from other backgrounds, not just in media, but also in their personal lives is very important. One thing studies have shown is that higher w's who know a Cay person are far less likely to be homophobic than their fellow

higher ws. And the best exposures different types of people is through access to higher education, or more broadly, just any space with diversity. College may not necessarily turn them into commit to revolutionaries, contrary to popular belief, but the environment of higher education has a tremendously beneficial impact on higher ws. Four years of undergrad experience can knock their

scores down by fifteen to twenty percent. Academic spaces need to be alive, vibrant, and most of all accessible, and we need people in academic and non academic spaces to embrace the power of influence. I don't mean this in a give them an authority and to follow kind of way. I'm not talking about becoming a club president or ordering

people around. I'm not thinking about hierarchical leadership, but rather the natural influence of individuals who model exemplary behavior and provide an example for others to look to, people who freely lend their talents and knowledge and mentorship to others. In a conformity experiment, in however, in the late nineteen forties, real subjects were surrounded by actors who deliberately gave obviously wrong answers to questions. Usually, the subjects went along with

the wrong majority at least some of the time. But if in another condition of the experiment, one other person gave the right answer, real subjects were much more likely to do the right thing, even though it meant joining a distinct minority rather than the majority. So I'm saying that as the people who hold radical beliefs, it's important to stand up. You know, you don't have to form

majority to have an effect. Two or three people speaking out can sometimes change the decisions of entire school boards, church boards, or other institutions. Obviously, reform is not going to be enough, but we do need to present some opposition on that front and that sphere. You know, lack of opposition teaches dominators to keep dominating, and it only

takes one person to start the opposition. The domino effects that could potentially influence even higher wis because at the end of the day, it's clear that they want to be quote unquote normal in their bubbles and their echo chambers. They don't really realize how extreme. They are. Then, to be exposed to the perspectives and experiences of people outside their tight circles, Mutual aid and other organized efforts can show them the humanity of other people finding common ground

in common course. But ultimately, in my view, the best long term solutions require youth liberation and prefiguration. We need use liberation both at home and at school and everywhere else. As long as we continue to reinforce the notion that children need to blindly submit to authorities, as long as we refuse to grant them humanity and autonomy. We will continue to be without humanity and autonomy. We will continue to have adult generation after generation who do not know

how to resist authority. We must prefigure those relationships in our personal lives and our social spaces, or we must prefigure our liberation. It's not enough to just campaign against social dominators. We have to dismantle the systems that allow them to dominate in the first place. The only way to keep social dominators from season power is to prefigure a system where no one person can so easily coerce

and dominate. To quote Barb Waltimaya one last time, we cannot secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity if we sit with our oars out of the water. If we drift mind leslie, circumstances can sweep us a disaster. Our societies presently produce millions of highly authoritarian personalities, as a matter of course, enough to stage the Nuremberg rallies

over and over and over again. Turn in a blind eye to this put someday point guns at all of our heads, and the fingers on the triggers will belong to right wing authoritarians. We ignore this at our peril. Social dominators want you complacent, apathetic, hopeless and out of the way. They want to control everything and everybody, and they have their loyal followers ready to mobilize. They are not the majority, but they're determined to win. Do not

let them. If you know what's happening, if you spot these signs in your own spaces, it's your responsibility to do something about it, to organize, to educate. Because one person could accomplish so much, and two people could accomplish so much more. Good luck, all power to all the people because it could happen here. Can follow me on puture dot com. Stas Saint Drew. This has been Andre sage Araism. It could happen here. All La Jazz.

here with James Stout. He and I have both reported from the ro Javon Project, and we are talking again with Arthur and Debbie Bookchin about what's going on there now, kind of as as the struggle continues, so to speak.

people instead. But another thing that we do is try to build kind of movement to movement relationships, now, like finding social movements in the United States that we think share a lot of affinity with movement over there, try to put them in touch and try to kind of facilitate dialogue.

And one of the things that we're also trying to prevent right now is the sale of any more F sixteens to Turkey, which, as I'm sure your listeners know, are used in the bombing of people in Rojeva and also in Turkey and in northern Iraq. So that's a very critical issue in fact.

continue degrading the capacity of the self administration to maintain civil society exactly.

female leadership, women who are leaders of the movement. And you know, there's not a day that goes by really that doesn't include strikes from Turkey into Rojeva.

that territory still to this day. But when it's been unable to seize more territory directly, it kind of has this twofold strategy where the other side of the coin is to just do everything possible to make life unlivable, right, So that's where the assassinations come in.

Can you explain what's happening there and what the sort of I think the plan you've sort of very well summed up already, right, which is to make life unlivable for the Kurdish freedom movement. But can you explain what's been happening in the last few weeks for people who haven't caught up.

that light. So for the same reasons, the Turkey wants to crush the revolution in Northeastyria, the Turkey wants to crush the PKK, the Kurdistan Workers Party, right, and the gorillas of the PKK are based in northern Iraq, and time and time again they've tried to sort of dislodge the gorilla forces from the mountains, but it's pretty hard to do. You know, this is NATO's second largest military and they still after decades, have not been able to crush this insurgency.

There's often like a weather wind for the fighting in the mountains as well, and so when the snow starts to melt in the spring, you start to see an escalation of the fighting in the mountains, which often winds down in the fall. Again, but it's yet to be seen.

again sort of cranking up again. It's funny that on World Press Day, which was May third, Kurdish journalist was arrested, you know, strip search, a woman thrown in jail, and this is you know, another sort of wave of politicians being arrested. Just again on Monday, I think thirteen politicians were sentenced to six years plus in jail, in prison.

So this sort of policy that seems to show itself every time Airdawan feels a bit threatened is one that we're seeing right now, in part I think as a result of those election defeats that his party suffered.

how deeply engaged they are on the civil level. In our group at the Emergency Committee for Rojeva, we're in contact with a lot of people in civil society and it's I'm always amazed at how many sort of requests we get for, you know, exchanges of information and scholars and they're building the university there to do more and more technical things, you know, whether computers or agricultural sciences or you know, just a vast variety of graduate program

they want to do right now in social ecology that I've been working with them on. And so so, even though there's this effort by Turkey to kind of terrorize the civilian population, and I'm sure you know, people can imagine what it must feel like to have drones flying constantly overhead and wondering if you get into a car whether it might you might you know, be the subject

of a drone attack. Nonetheless, there is still this extraordinary sort of hopefulness and also energy towards building the society.

And for example, one of the things that they recently did, and it took a long time, but they rewrote their Social Contract, which is what we would think of as a constitution, to empower women even more, you know, to empower various ethnic minorities more, and to make it a document that is truly inclusive in terms of how it was written and how it will be implemented, and so on the ground, I think, even though they are suffering in a lot of ways, and they are because you know,

Rojaeve is also a region that is subject to terrible environmental dislocations because of global warming, there's still a huge sort of excitement I think about about the fact that they are self governing and the fact that they are empowering women, and those kinds of activities, especially on the part of the women's movement. Congress star just continue to go on. You know, they've built an alternative justice system.

They are increasingly turning their sort of economy as much as is feasible, and it's a slow process, but into a more of a cooperative economy. So all of those things are very much underway there. And education is a huge part of that.

fear in an immediate sense around these drone strikes. I mean, you guys have been there too, right, Like I've been home I think eleven months now, and I still every time I hear a small airplane, my body just even if my brain knows that it's just a plane, like my body's convinced it's a Turkish drone. And imagine, you know, you live your whole life in a place like that, or you've spent the last ten years, So a lot of people are living in this constant state of fear

and uncertainty. Even on a practical level. You know, say you're a farmer and you're going to plant your seats this year, do you know that you're even going to have your land in a month or six months? You know, people are taking Turkey's threat of an Invasionviously, it hasn't happened again since twenty nineteen, but I can tell you I talked to people there almost every day, and they're

taking it extremely seriously. So there's kind of this idea of impending invasion sort of hangs like a cloud over

daily life in so many ways. And on top of all of that, of course, since I left Northeast Siria, there was this major wave of attacks against civilian infrastructure right around the time you were there last, James, you know, and you can probably speak to it more, but I mean we're talking about power stations and oil wells, and hospitals and schools and food storage facilities, So they're still.

And you get to see this what is like it's a beautiful spectacle in a sense, but also like, you know, you can't spend a week in Roger were a Nazi, a little baby say goodbye to their dad, or just a dead baby, and that's that's terrible, you know.

think is very hot. I mean the United States has been all for most of our lives, but it hasn't nowhere near the same impact on our daily lives it has had there.

people who want to help. Like everyone knows what it means when people when you talk to people and they have the little green picture or the little little yellow picture on them, Yeah, which is it's a profound part of the lived experience of being part of the Kurdish freedom movement or just existing as a Kurdish person in that area. And that's it's it's really hard to grasp the scale of that.

We're not familiar with that on a cultural level as much. But I think it's it's a mistake to see it that way. I think there's something incredibly profound about it that has to do with the way that people really identify their whole lives, the meaning of their lives with the revolution, with the movement, that that is what that is the purpose of their lives, that's the purpose of

the life of their families and come what may. That's something that you know, movements here can't really relate to in the same way.

have a lot of those in the United States. I'm going to guess most of the people listening to this show have at least some of those, right, whether or not you think there's any realistic chance of seeing that during your own life, it's a very different thing from being from living it, which people do. You know, about three million of them in Rosheva every day, And the sacrifice is a part of it. The kind of continual

conflict is another part of it. Because you know, it's worth emphasizing we're about a decade into the project right now. Right if we consider that being from you know, the start of the self administration in varying fashion, and that's that's not like it's not a perfectly even process, right, because it occurred as part of this series of broader conflicts. But what you've seen is both the retreat of the

government that had formerly controlled the area. You've seen a successful war prosecuted against isis you've seen when you could look at as one conflict or kind of a series of conflicts with both these Turkish backed militias and the Turkish military itself, and then this also this continuing conflict both with the environment, you know, just because that that is really that's a force at work here the Cold War, that kind of that's not even really a perfect way

of describing the situation with the the Asad regime and with you know, their their backers in their Russian government, but it's a it's a complex, interwoven series of conflict. But kind of the result is just a life of conflict for the people who are are part of this revolution as sort of a just a fact of daily life. And I think that is really hard to grasp.

could call it. It has to do with the kind of movement that they've really actively been building for themselves, and the kind of spirit that their movement has taken on that they've cultivated themselves, sort of painstaking me for years. I mean, I think one of the things that I know, Debbie and I really want to get to in our conversations with the speaking tour that we're working on which is coming up later later this month on the West Coast, is we really, well, we want people to be.

and that would be a mistake too. I think the truth is that what Rojava shows you is a real revolution is incredibly messy, and they only were able to kind of face the threats and the opportunities that crisis brought to them in Syria because of the kind of movement they had built for themselves, and they had these practical tools to kind of help local communities govern themselves in that sort of chaos in the power vacuum that arose.

And you know, in a moment like this the world over, especially here in the United States, you know, we're the cris that we're facing, the crisis that we're looking down the barrel of I think there's been no more kind of relevant or urgent time to think about how those lessons actually could apply here and what it means for us. What kind of movement do we need to build to be ready for that moment.

in a state of reaction. But one of the things that the revolution in Roseeve teaches us is that, first of all, that moments of crisis can also be moments of great transformation, but really only if we're prepared for them. And that's why, you know, whenever I talk about the Roji of a project, I feel it's important to remind people that it didn't just spring miraculously out of nowhere

in the moment of the Syrian Civil War. The folks on the ground there had really been preparing for years, I mean decades, even for the opportunity that opened up

for them during the Syrian Civil War. And in various ways, of course, they were educating themselves on radical history and particular understanding, you know, the failures of classical Marxism, Leninism, you know, which had been embraced previously by the PKK, and putting also into practice clandestinely the kinds of grassroots democratic social structures that we see operating on the ground

there today. So I think that that's one of the lessons that we hear in the US can absorb that you know that we need to be able to exploit the crisis of legitimacy that's growing here today, thinking about what kind of alternatives we want to build and showing people that those alternatives exist, you know these Yeah, that, and you know that's includes engaging in a kind of prefigurative politics that really focuses on things like dual power,

you know, cooperative economic project but also local assembly, democratic politics. So that's one of the things that I'm also really excited about talking about talking about as Arthur and I make our way from Seattle down to San Francisco and Oakland during the course of these six presentations and chats and talks and discussions that we're really excited about having beginning next weekend.

to organize the revolution at home. And that's on us, you know, it's a it's a it's easier said than done, right, And we're not saying we have all the answers, But what we do want to do is to invite local grassroots activists especially to come join the discussion and let's talk together about what it would mean to apply these basic principles, not to copy and payte then, but to apply these basic principles and lessons, principles of direct democracy,

local autonomy, you know, cooperation, feminism. We haven't even talked about how central you know, gender liberation.

look at what these people are up against, which is part of again, I guess ultimately why, as we've repeatedly come back to, I think this is so important for people in the West to study as things get worse for a lot of folks here and as we attempt to arrest and take charge of the situation in our own lives. You know, we have all these questions about how do we stop our government from arming not just Turkey, but all of these regimes around the world that are doing such terrible things.

is life. Actually embracing that in a way that matters, and when you focus on sort of the challenges to like the sheer amount of work that has to be done here, the very primitive state of any kind of meaningful resistance, the relatively primitive state of organizing on the left, compared to, for example, the organizing that the right does in tandem with paramilitaries in the state. It can seem

like an impossible challenge. But ten years on, the people in northeast Syria are still are still fighting, you know, and I think you have to. I think paying attention to that makes it clear that it is actually possible to win.

for you to be in solidarity. And I hope that folks who are in this country will appreciate that and be in solidarity with people in Roche as well.