Episode Transcript
[00:00:14] Speaker A: Hello, welcome to Call It Like I See it, presented by Disruption. Now, I'm James Keys. And in this episode of Call It Like I See it, we're going to discuss whether the trend of Americans becoming less religious may be impacting our political behaviors and how we experience our American ness.
And later on, we're going to take a look at some recent proposals to increase investment in social studies and civics education, to address eroding trust in democratic institutions to which may be related. We'll get into that.
Joining me today is a man who understands that if there's hell below, we're all going to go Tunde. Ogunlana Tunde, Are you ready to break down why we shouldn't worry?
[00:01:03] Speaker B: No, if we're all going, I guess you screwed me up, man. I don't know how to respond, because I was gonna say if we're all going, then maybe we shouldn't worry.
[00:01:12] Speaker A: There you go.
[00:01:13] Speaker B: But it seems like something to worry about.
You stumped me, sir. That's what I'm gonna say.
[00:01:22] Speaker A: Now. We're recording this on March 22, 2021.
And I want to get right to our discussion today. We both took note of a recent piece in the Atlantic which made the case that as Americans as a group are collectively moving away from religion, with, for example, church membership dropping from around 70% of Americans to below 50% in just the last 20 years, Americans have more and more been treating their politics in ways that resembles religion, which is not something historically, at least over the last hundred years or so, that was very prevalent in America. So, Tunde, what are your thoughts on this idea that the decline in church membership and religious practice, explicit religious practice, has led to political disputes taking on more of a religious feel?
[00:02:12] Speaker B: I think it's a very fascinating kind of thought to weave through and to tie yourself in knots with, because I felt something, I guess, similar, maybe not exactly the same over the last 20 years or so. And I think I've joked to you about it that the Constitution has replaced the Bible for some people.
And I just thought of that over the last 10, 15 years, watching our national discourse and kind of realizing that a lot of people that espouse a Constitution are similar to those that espouse the Bible, which is they pick and choose what they want to see out of it to justify kind of their own views.
But then if their challenge was something else from it, then they either brush it off or they justify why that's not important or why that doesn't mean what it might say. Right in black and white in writing.
[00:03:07] Speaker A: So put another way, just in that sense, just put another way, people are comfortable ignoring wholesale parts of it for their own benefits.
Yeah, go ahead.
[00:03:18] Speaker B: No, and that's what I'm saying is that because I feel like what happened in the last 15 years or so in our politics, what I saw is the kind of the emotional pull that I saw traditionally more in religion I saw permeating our politics here in the United States.
And I say that very clearly, that it may have permeated other nations and cultures, whether modern world or ancient world, but that was, for me, in my lifetime, this last 10, 15 years or so. Like I say, this period has been where the polarizing effects of politics have kind of crossed over how we've traditionally seen the polarizing kind of effects of religions and cultures through tribalism, maybe is a better way to put it in certain parts of the world. So I think. But to answer the question directly, I think there could be a correlation between the decline of, let's say, organized religious membership and maybe then the need for some to believe that that has been replaced by politics and the way that politics. I would say this also the way that politics is dealt with today in our society through all the different outlets, social media, cable news media, talk radio.
So we have, especially cable news and talk radio, several decades of ecosystems that have kind of primed the pump for this. And then I think the advent of social media over the last 15 years and the kind of plethora of spread of information and the organs and vehicles of which information can be shared have all kind of led us to where we are. And it's a very interesting question, because I don't think there's enough evidence. I mean, the only evidence, I think, from a statistical standpoint, for those of us that like to see kind of the empirical studies and all this stuff is just that we know for a fact there's been a statistical decline in church membership in the United States over the last 30 years.
But I wouldn't say that's why I say I think there's a correlation. But I don't know if there's enough evidence to say because specifically of the decline in religious affiliation or fervor, that it automatically translates to politics. I think there's a lot of noise in it, and I think there's a lot going on in our country that can explain it other than just the religion. But I think it's an interesting correlation, for sure.
[00:05:53] Speaker A: No. Yeah. I think at this point, this kind of thought experiment is kind of in the Hypothesis state, like I don't think it's possible to make a conclusive case for this at this point, but it's an interesting way to kind of approach taking a lens, a long view lens and looking at it in the terms that you would like to use, taking a 30,000 foot view. And your second part is where it really, I think that what really touched on it to me is the way news and information is presented now is in a more engaging way. It's meant to engage you and that's to keep your attention, you know, that's to make it so that it's something you'll pay attention to more than just maybe for 30 minutes or an hour a day at the nightly news or whatever. They want more of your attention. And that's on me. News has been trying to present it in ways that are more compelling to us as human beings. And I mean, the evidence is pretty clear that about the most compelling way to present things to human beings is almost in a religious type of way. Like religion has been dominating people's attention for centuries. So I think that maybe the tactics that the news media has adopted over the last 20 or 30 years to try to really appeal to the emotions and the need to belong and the same things that religion has tried to appeal to these senses of purpose, these senses of self, all of those types of kind of sales approaches have been adopted into the news media because again, they make money by keeping you in front of the television, watching them or keeping you on their website. And so I do think that there is a connection there, like you said, a correlation.
It looks pretty compelling to me. I say, I mean, obviously, yeah, it hadn't been studied and this would be a difficult thing to control for and to study, but I do see it, but I don't know that it's, it's hard to parse out where the cart is and where the horse is because again, what I'm saying here is that the way that news media is presented may drive this. But you could also look at it from the alternative angle and say that just as our humanity, we desire certain feelings in terms of we want things to make sense to us. We want to feel like we belong to something bigger than ourselves and that the things we do, the menial things we do are part of some grand, planned grand scheme and that there's going to ultimately be a happy ending somewhere. And you know, people that are right or righteous and just, you know, good things will happen to them and bad things will happen eventually to the people who aren't doing that stuff. So all of those things are things that we want to feel anyway. And so if you're not getting that from some organized religious setting, then maybe you will seek it out elsewhere. But again, I can't tell where the cart is and which one's the cart, which one's the horse. Are people seeking that from news media more now? And therefore, because they're consuming it in their news media, that's then influencing or controlling the way they view politics? Or has the news media said, hey, religion has showed us that this is a great way to keep people's attention, so let's just adopt these tactics, whether it's expressed like that or whether it's just trial and error, and you come to these same conclusions. And so I don't know, but I definitely see it. I can see, as you kind of pointed out, the.
The way people are approaching these things, People are not having debates on tax policy or whatever, just from a, hey, let's just figure out some reasonable way to do this. And then we walk away in a dispassionate way. Like these things, these issues have all become ones. Issues of passion, even things that are pretty menial.
[00:09:34] Speaker B: Yeah, I'm just. You lost me. Cause you made the term happy ending in there, so I'm still thinking about that.
[00:09:42] Speaker A: You didn't hear anything after that?
[00:09:44] Speaker B: No, I just was thinking about which religion I can go to, where I can constantly have a happy ending.
Because, remember, we started this where we're all going to go to hell. So, you know, you got me all screwed up, man.
Yeah. Coming into the show. But no, it's
[00:10:03] Speaker A: what I'm saying, though, by the way, because that's an example. Because hell is always presented for the others, the ones who aren't doing the things that all of the sacrifices that you're making. You, like he's presented to you all the sacrifices that you're making, all of the things where you could have done something wrong and you decided not to or whatever. Hell is presented as that. Whereas you're doing all these things that you do, so you don't go to hell, so you go to heaven. So that's what I mean.
[00:10:24] Speaker B: But if we all go to hell, then is it true that we're just like Misery Loves Company, Right? Like we're all together still?
Is it that bad?
No, that's why there's.
[00:10:34] Speaker A: Man, you better let that Curtis Mayfield just sit in the wind, man.
[00:10:37] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. I was just gonna say, it's funny you say the cart before the horse I guess this is why we could banter these kind of things around forever, right? But now it's going back to the conversation at hand.
It's very interesting. You asked a question the way you asked it about kind of, you know, the cart before the horse or the chicken and the egg type of thing. In terms of the way this is, we see the potential for this morphing.
I think you're right. Like, I was, as I was thinking, thinking about this stuff, it made me realize we're curious creatures as humans. And you've alluded to this in past discussions we've had on air. There was a time when people didn't know what made rain come out of the sky.
Now we understand that water evaporates, condenses in the clouds, and it comes back down. But there was a time when humans didn't have that type of information. And so you thought, you know, most
[00:11:34] Speaker A: people thought of human existence.
[00:11:36] Speaker B: Yeah. Thought that you prayed a God or a God and you know, that there were. And a lot of, like you're saying most of human existence wasn't even one God. You had a God of rain, and that's what you prayed to. And then you had a God of fire, and you had a God of this and that. And so what I think it really comes down to, and what I was thinking in preparing for today and reading stuff was really, this comes down to humans, right? And I think you're right. There is two parts of this.
There's the environment.
Like, we as humans need to believe in something and we need to have an explanation. And we're curious creatures.
So science has solved certain things, like why it rains, but it hasn't solved a lot of other things.
And then you look at the political landscape, like you said, and that's where I think the media does come into play a bit in the style of media. And this is everything, like I said before, the ecosystems of talk radio, of cable news, and now lately of the last 10, 15 years of the Internet. And what does that do that religion traditionally did was two things.
One is most people go to those outlets, whether they listen to the radio, watch cable news, or find it on the Internet, to make order out of what feels like disorder in the world. And that used to be the place of the Bible and church on Sunday or mosque or synagogue or whatever the religion you choose to worship.
Then there's other things, like, besides the explaining and making a chaotic world seem somewhat sensical, you have the idea of heroes and villains.
So what is in. Let's Just take the Bible and even, let's say the Old Testament, because then you can wrap in all three major religions in the world that have that as part of their foundation. Islam, Judaism and Christianity.
There's a lot of heroes and villains in those stories, you know, from Moses and Abraham being the hero types all the way to, you know, lot and sham. And then we got outliers out there like the King of Tyre and all these different characters.
[00:13:45] Speaker A: That's the original Marvel Cinematic Universe.
[00:13:49] Speaker B: That's what I'm saying.
But like you're saying, that's a good point, alluding to Marvel and not to discredit religion by me saying that. What I'm saying is that.
So traditionally, we have had religion as kind of our serious outlet. Then you've had things like Marvel or the superheroes, as, you know, when we've had movies and books, stories that have been around forever, whether it be the stories of Gilgamesh or Aesop's Fables or whatever. That's what I'm saying. It's not a knock on religion. It's just that we've had these ways of telling stories.
But as you're saying recently, in the last 20 years or so, kind of media's figured out how to take all that and I guess, bring our politics into this world. And one of the things that I realized in reading this is that he said secular as goal.
Sorry, the secularist goal, if you looked at, let's say, the Founding Fathers, is more secularist. That started this country and made the First Amendment.
Because I went back and it's interesting. I'll do a quick thing here.
The First Amendment is interesting because it establishes that we will have no religion in this country that's legislated by the government, and it allows for freedom of speech and freedom of the press. Because at the time, if you look at the late 1700s and you look at Europe, Europe will look like the Middle east looks like today, where it was all religious infighting. Protestants, Protestants and Catholics mostly. And a lot of people coming to the Americas from Europe were religious refugees.
So the idea was that they looked at it just like a lot of people, like I said, look at the Middle east today and say, well, how come they can't get it together? Why are they so passionate and they're so irrational in how they deal with themselves? And a lot of people blame religion. And I think that's the big glaring mistake of kind of the secularist crowd is that they thought that it was religion that was creating all these passions and getting People to infight. And that if we just had a society that was based on law and order, let's say, and the rule and law and norms, that we can then
[00:16:03] Speaker A: have a neutral on religion.
[00:16:04] Speaker B: Yeah, neutral on religion. You would have more diplomatic debate to solve problems and not this war is politics by the. Another mean type of thing like we see in today's Middle East.
And so what I realized though, in reading all that was thinking like, well, that was the big fallacy of the secularist, because they didn't have yet the pleasure of knowing people like Sigmund Freud or Dunning and Kruger or they didn't have FMRI machines that show us when the brain lights up at certain responses. And what I'm getting at is I think what we didn't realize.
[00:16:39] Speaker A: They didn't have Twitter.
[00:16:40] Speaker B: Yeah. And they didn't have Twitter. But that's my point is I think what we're realizing is this is how humans are wired.
And so there's kind of no escaping this. Like, if you take away.
[00:16:49] Speaker A: Well, but that doesn't mean, though, that it's not an.
Well, let me say that doesn't mean that it wasn't a worthy aim, though. In fact, I think what they did kind of worked. You know, it kind of worked in the sense of trying to design, you know, with the Constitution and so forth. That we're having this discussion now means that they had some level of success, you know, 200 and something years later, almost 250 years later. And so that aspect of it. And one other thing I wanted to add to you, or add to one thing that the social media and even the regular traditional media as it is presented now, it also provides community, which is another thing that religion.
[00:17:25] Speaker B: Religion does provide.
[00:17:26] Speaker A: Exactly, yeah. Yeah. So I thought that was gonna be your second one, actually.
[00:17:30] Speaker B: So I was like, oh, no, no, but that's a great one. I didn't think of that one. But you're right. I mean, yeah, traditionally is a place of community.
[00:17:38] Speaker A: Yep, yeah, yeah. A major part of that. And so I did want to keep moving though, you know, like the. My question for you would be this, though. Like, do you think the driver being our humanity, do you think that. And this is kind of going to where you're already going. But I just want to ask the question.
The uniqueness of America being founded on this principle of neutrality towards religion, like the state is not going to have a position on religion, even though in practice, you know, it was.
The country was a large part Christian, but ultimately the government, like I said, wasn't supposed to take a position on that. Do you think the uniqueness of that has played a role in how this has evolved? Or do you think, are we at an inevitability right now, or is this a matter of our current circumstance and us sorting out how to deal with all this new technology, these new approaches being taken by these media organizations that are, again, these organizations, by and large are doing this stuff for money. They're doing this so that they can sell more ads because they're keeping your attention longer, you know, so it's not like this is some, at least that we can make out from here, some master plan to make everyone in America follow the religion of media, you know, or news or politics. It's just that this is the best way to tap in to our humanity to keep our eyeballs on you. So what are your thoughts on that in terms of, you know, like, the uniqueness of the American setup, at least, you know, for its time, and then how this stuff that we see now, these tactics and stuff like that, how they're infiltrating now, like, is this where it's going to be? Is this, is this the inroad? Or, you know, is this kind of a growing pains type of thing?
[00:19:16] Speaker B: No, I think it's a growing pains because in the end, like we've been talking about, it's humanity, right? So as much as we think we're so fancy in today's 21st century world with our, you know, airplanes and computers, this has all been done before historically, just without the modern technology. So you're right, the modern technology, again, history doesn't repeat, but it rhymes. So we're back here to one of these periods of tension in human history and a society's history which is a culmination of. And that's what I mean, this cycle happens regularly throughout human history, every hundred years or so. And you can break it out into smaller and longer cycles, which is you have big demographic changes along with technological change, and you're going to have conflict, period. Whether it was the demographic changes in Europe over the last decade caused by the Syrian conflict and millions of refugees from the Middle east going there, or we could say some of the social unrest that we saw in the early 20th century, both in Europe and here, due to new technologies, because you didn't have horse and buggy and trains anymore, you had cars and planes in the early 20th century. And then also demographic shifts and all that.
And also let's include in their economic shocks, that also helps to prime the pump. So this isn't new. And this too shall pass at some point and our society will figure out its new order. I mean, I guess what we're really saying here is we're in the process of a societal entropy, if I can be that grandiose about it. But I wanted to read a quote from the article which alludes to what you were just saying. He does a great job in saying, though the United States wasn't founded as a Christian nation, Christianity was always intertwined with America's self definition. And I think that's a great way to put it because you're right that the First Amendment clearly states the separation of church and state. However, one cannot deny the influence of Christian culture and Christianity on the United States. So the two are linked in a certain way. And there's nothing wrong with that.
I think what we're in the process of is, and that's why it's an interesting kind of this whole discussion, because it's not that anyone's questioning Christianity, it's just that they're noticing that what people had traditionally, at least, we're used to seeing in our country reserved for religion. That type of passion and fealty, let's say, has now bled into politics where we traditionally didn't see it in the United States. And kind of what does that mean for our society? And so that's what I find interesting.
[00:22:00] Speaker A: And guilty is a good word as well. Like the way you like the way that it's this with political leaders. We're starting to see this unquestioned support. Like I am with this person no matter what. No matter. Like this is just my guy and he could be right, he could be wrong, and it doesn't matter to me, which is very similar like to the
[00:22:23] Speaker B: way religion is presented. Think about it to your spouse, where
[00:22:25] Speaker A: there's absolute good and there's absolute bad.
[00:22:28] Speaker B: Yeah, let me.
[00:22:29] Speaker A: I'm gonna ask.
Well, I wanted to mention also with this because, yeah, the point here isn't to attack religion, you know, but I do ask the question. When you look at these types of situations, I think it is worthwhile also to look at religion and ask the question of whether religion has adapted, whether religion in terms of how they are interacting with people.
Obviously there's been a change, as you pointed out, with the rain, and I've talked about that in the past. We don't need religion to tell us some of the answers to those questions anymore.
But there are things that religion can and will be very helpful for in dealing with science will never have all the Answers. And so I wonder if religion holding on maybe to some older fights that may necessarily. They don't need to have as big of a role in anymore and not leaning into things where there is ultimately such still a need for it in terms of like the need for community, the need for meaning and so forth.
Those are like the places where religion can really shine.
But if they're doing squabbling, if religion is decided to take up the mantle of we need to tell you guys what the law should be and so forth, if religion wants to exert influence in politics and, and is kind of dropping the ball a little bit on some of these other things as far as meaning, as far as community and things like that, then I wonder if that can contribute to something like this as well. And at this point I'm asking the question. I don't know. But I do see religion kind of polarize itself in many instances where they take positions that, I mean, if that's how the religious leaders want to do it, then fine. But it's not positions that they have to take for the purposes of the religion. It's positions that they want to exert and influence on society in certain ways. And, you know, maybe because they used to do that or they've been historically, they've always been able to do that or I don't know. But I think that that's a part of the question that goes along with this as well, is just has the religion evolved in a way that allows it to maintain its prominence and it's being principle in certain areas of life? Or if religion has kind of moved towards governance and politics in a way that, that wraps these things up all the more.
[00:24:46] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, you're talking about, I think, the classic, let's see, tension and friction in societies that I think, again, the United States, the more we have these kind of conversations, the more amazed I am at this amazing experiment called the United States and that the founders created. Because what you're really getting at is I don't think religions change much at all in this modern period or recent times. I think it's the politics and the way that people look at politics have changed. So it's interesting because as you're talking, the first thing I'm thinking of is a theocracy, right? We say in this country that we don't believe in systems like in Saudi Arabia or Iran that has a supreme leader, you know, some of them, or, you know. Well, but that's my point. But a lot of people that say that are the first Ones to say that this is a Christian nation and we should have, you know, be running this country from the Bible in terms of the laws.
So it's everyone.
It's that old. I'm not gonna get into it. But everyone can look up Matthew 7, and it talks about basically pointing fingers at others or throwing the stones when you live in glass houses. So one of the things, again, going back to the article, it says this is the danger of transforming mundane political debates into metaphysical questions. So I'll take the example of something like the word socialism.
Socialism is an economic theory which hasn't really worked well around the world in its purest form. And people can debate whether that makes sense or not and all that. But that's what it reminded me of this.
That's a mundane political debate. Socialism, capitalism, communism, all this stuff. I'm not saying it's a quarter or
[00:26:39] Speaker A: not particularly, because in our context, socialism, capitalism, like, we don't do either in their absolute form anyway. And so you're like, it's what? And. But it's a good point you're going into. As far as.
[00:26:50] Speaker B: That's my point. It's now taken a metaphysical kind of, you know, feeling for a lot of people. Like, if you just say the word socialist, so many people are just, you know, it's like a trigger for, you know, you might as well say the word, you know, beast or something or, you know, some. Some crazy thing like that. So it's. It's. And again, I don't say that in support of socialism. I'm just saying that I think I could have that debate with somebody without getting all worked up emotionally about it and say, you know, and have a. And keep it separate from, you know, it permeating every single thought that I have about a political debate. And what I was gonna say earlier, which made me. Reminded me of how politics is looking like religion more. That's why I don't really blame religion for any of this. I think we've kind of. And I go back to some of the stuff you alluded to earlier about the way that we're preyed upon by corporations that run media companies, honestly, that do have FMRI machines and did read Sigmund Freud, you don't have that kind of research on how to manipulate us.
[00:27:57] Speaker A: But I would say this. If religion hasn't changed to the point of religion hasn't changed, religion needs to change, in a sense, because for 10,000 years, the shaman, the religion was the one with control in many societal circumstances. They were the ones that not only set the terms for faith, but also set the terms for governance.
And so that's not necessarily the setup that we have here. And so again, I don't know because what we're talking about is an alternative that doesn't really exist. But what I'm saying is that at a certain point you would look to them. The politics part is messy, the politics part leads to these situations where religion can tarnish itself in the eyes of a lot of people, where religion ultimately might have a good message. But, but so many people look at the religion or look at the organized religion aspect of it as tied to these other governance type issues that they're waiting in and then therefore be turned away from religion not because of the matters of faith, so to speak, not because of the matters of community or meaning of life and so forth, but because the church, quote unquote or religious people take this position or that position. And so I'm saying yeah, the church hasn't changed or you know, religion hasn't changed. And I'm asking for whether maybe they should consider adjusting their role and so forth. Cause that aspect of humanity is not going anywhere. And right now it's kind of being weaponized in a way, in a sense that everything is getting mixed into one pot. And like you said, questions of economics are becoming ones where people are like have staken their self identity on and it's like your self identity shouldn't be anything honest. Like we can disagree, we can agree, like we can say hey, you and I talk well but, but you and I talk about socialism or capitalism and it's like well yeah, this part didn't work or this does work or this like and it's a discussion like that. It's not like oh well, you know, at this point, now you've insulted my honor, we need to.
[00:30:05] Speaker B: Yeah, no, but you're right.
[00:30:07] Speaker A: But I want to ask you this though.
[00:30:09] Speaker B: Let me just say this because as you said that it made me realize what it doesn't allow is for nuance.
And that's what traditionally, you know, if you were, let's say we lived 5,000 years ago, some hunter gatherer tribe somewhere in the middle of nowhere and we came upon some other tribe that had a different religion, we wouldn't be trying to sit there nuancing all that stuff out.
Somebody would just take a club to another guy's head and figure it out that way. Right? And I think that's what's happened with this. Just the example of let's say socialism versus capitalism.
[00:30:37] Speaker A: That's the direction, basically, that. Yeah. And so, well, how do you think things play out from here? And like, what I mean by that is the sense that. Now, you had said that you kind of think this is this disorder that we see or this kind of friction that we see right now is just due or is primarily. I would say. I'm not gonna put words in your mouth, but primarily due to just the changes that are undergoing in society as far as whether it be demographic changes, whether it be economic challenges, whether it would be innovations in media and communications and so forth. And that basically you need to come to a new balance.
So looking forward to. Do you think that kind of a new balance is one that we ultimately end up, is one that we could be proud of or we've talked about plenty of times. What we're in now is really more of an exception than the norm. Even when people talk about, oh, well, we had this time when everybody got their news from Walter Cronkite or three main news stations and they tried to be fair and not buy.
Yeah, but that was only like 40 or 50 years. And besides that, before that and after that, at this point, now everybody's getting their information from biased sources. When people used to get their information from the church, it was a biased source. When people used to get their information from partisan newspapers in the 1800s, that was biased sources. And now people are getting their information, by and large, from biased sources. So the exception seemed to be the 40 or 50 years where the news media tried to be objective and our society had set up rigid guardrails to make them do that, basically. And then those got taken apart and now we're back kind of to. We've regressed to the meat. So what do you see as far as looking forward? Do you think this is something where, you know, this is just the way we're just back to our normal humanity, or is there going to be a way to get question?
[00:32:27] Speaker B: I think we're too early to answer that yet because it can go either way. You know, we can either, you know, devolve from here and be the next Roman Empire that, you know, a thousand years from now, everyone's going to figure out what happened to the United States and this kind of our culture and all that. And like most empires, I'm sure the reality is that we will have imploded ourselves. Or this could be, like I said, tension and friction that leads to something greater in terms of our society and something that you and I might be happy with as an outcome. What I would say is this, though, going back real quick, because you said a word that made me visualize something, and you said the word shaman, and it made me visualize that guy who was the QAnon Shaman in the January 6th insurrection. No, but on a serious note, because it made me realize that he represents something. And I'm not into this QAnon stuff. I don't really know about him, but obviously I know about him from watching on the news and seeing. And what I'm saying is, a lot of people like me, I won't pick on you. I'll say, me, look at that and laugh, and would say, you know, these people are idiots and all this stuff.
But I think that's probably where we need to find a happy equilibrium a little bit if we want to keep this American experiment going, which is recognizing that that's also part of humanity.
And there's a lot of people that need a guy like him. And maybe not literally with him with the face paint and a bearskin thing, but I mean, the idea.
[00:33:59] Speaker A: Maybe literally.
[00:34:00] Speaker B: Yeah. Or maybe. But the idea of, again, like we said, heroes and villains, Shaman, all this. He's somebody's heroes.
And even though I'm using QAnon as an example, and I'm, you know, I would say probably most.
[00:34:12] Speaker A: Well, let me tell you this real quick, man. Let me tell you this, since we're here. The QAnon example is a good example, because QAnon, if you, like, really parse it out, that is like a religious movement, religious organization.
[00:34:21] Speaker B: There's Q, who no one really knows where he is, what the story is and all that. You got to have faith and just believe it. Right? I mean, if we never heard of this story of Jesus, just do this thought experiment. And I told you that I'm worshiping a religion of a guy who died after being nailed to a cross and basically having his eyes picked out by birds and all that. And three days later, he came back from the dead and did all this stuff. You know, someone might look at me like I'm nuts, but this is not. But when we say it in the context of Jesus Christ and religion, we've all been raised with that story, and we're all comfortable with it. So no one thinks you're nuts when you say that.
[00:34:58] Speaker A: Well, familiarity. Yeah, familiarity of the story doesn't make it more plausible. I mean, that was kind of what I was saying. Just as far as, like, the way. What QAnon, the way it's set up and what it asks you to do are both religious approaches. You Know, it's set up in a way. You don't know who the ultimate person is. It's a nameless, faceless person that you're following and they ask you to believe things that you. That they can't prove and that you can't see. I mean, like, that's, that's. So that's all the only point I was making.
[00:35:26] Speaker B: Yeah. And that's why I bring it up, really is because when you're asking, where do we go from here? That's why I bring it up and say, well, if we've identified that this is humanity. Right. That the founding fathers were the secularists who thought, you know, we could create this society that, you know, if we just have reason and take, you know, don't allow religion to become the law of the land. And we, we have all these.
[00:35:48] Speaker A: In our governance.
[00:35:48] Speaker B: Yeah, in our governance, we have all these political debates that'll solve it. Well, it didn't solve it. Right. And, and so I think it's. What I'm saying is that this is humans. This is what we are, who we are.
And so I think you're right that, like, I don't blame religion for where we are today, but I do think you're right in the sense that our religious institutions, in terms of institutions, not necessarily the Bible itself, but just the church, the synagogue, the mosque as an institution in today's society probably does need to adapt to answering the questions for humanity in a modern way. Because we don't need to be told why the sun rises anymore. Right. We don't need to. That basic stuff has already been.
We've accepted now as humans, a scientific answer for certain things, but there's still the answers of life and death and all that stuff. And so in a way that can be accepted by the new generations and all that. That's one area. But then the second thing is I think it is.
I didn't think this way before, but this article has helped me actually get to this point a little bit better because I consider myself more of the secularist type that says I like this society where they're not trying to tell people who to worship. We can all come in here worshiping who we want and how we want. But I do think the government probably has a role and a political side as a role in making sure that people feel that they have the ability to worship and to express themselves in their religion, whatever that means. So I do think that we, you know, through this entropy, I guess that there does need to be a new reset and kind of 2.0 on how we deal with each other in terms of politics and religion.
[00:37:31] Speaker A: No, I agree.
[00:37:32] Speaker B: What that answer is and all that, that's a whole nother show.
[00:37:34] Speaker A: No, I agree. Like that was the takeaway I had from this, was that the separation of church and state, as we call it, we need both, though we still need both. Like separation of church and state shouldn't be that the goal is to get rid of church, so to speak, because there is a core thing in our humanity that the religious aspect, the spiritual aspect needs to address.
And that is not something that everybody's just gonna do on their own.
Some people can.
That shouldn't be something that should be forced on everyone, hence the separation of those things. But we do need both for us to be well rounded individuals as a whole, as a whole group. And so, yeah, how that happens I don't know. But I think there needs to be a recognition. A lot of times people who aren't overly religious, particularly as far as organized religion, will really look at religion as the root of these problems. And perhaps the root of the problems might be our humanity and religion that's being used in ways that are, that aren't helpful for the greater good, so to speak.
And so, yeah, we don't want that. We don't want religion to be used as a cover for pedophilia or for war, obviously. But that doesn't necessarily mean that religion and spirituality in that sense doesn't have a place in our society. And so that's kind of the thought process. I think that as we set up these systems in our society, we have to keep in mind that yes, we do want to keep the religious aspect separate from the governance aspect. But that doesn't mean that we want to get rid of the religious aspect from society altogether because one, we won't be able to do it. And if we try to suppress it in some forms, it'll just pop up in other forms. And those other forms may not be better. They may actually make it harder for us on it to interact with each other, to live with each other, and to deal with each other on a day to day basis.
From that conversation, we wanted to put these two. We also wanted to discuss this discussion that's going on about trying to increase government investment into civics. Seeing this is happening a couple months after we had an insurrection, as we had a transition of power, where the people who lost the election or some people who lost the election, tried to forcibly occupy the seat of power to get their way. And that is Pretty much a breakdown in a democratic system, you know, that is, hey, if there's an alarm bell, that's it. And so people have talked about and there have been people ringing a bell on the degradation of civics education.
And so this could also be the reason we wanted to talk about this together is cause this could also be a reason why a lot of our political disputes are taking on more of a religious feel. There could be the push, so to speak, maybe I'll call it the pull, but from the lack of religious fulfillment that's being provided through traditional spiritual means. But there also could be a push or push pull, whatever you want to call it, where if we don't learn the way our system works and we don't learn to value the way that our system works, then we just look at it as just whatever or we assign our own values in terms of what's important and what's not. So I want to ask you though, do you think or to what extent do you think there's a correlation in the United States right now between the lack of a strong civics curriculum and our current struggles in self governments where we see people basically actively trying to take apart some of the systems that we have in place to allow for democracy and rule by the people operating?
[00:41:21] Speaker B: I think there's a huge correlation. I'm not going to say it's 100% responsible for our, I guess we could call it our civic demise over the last couple decades.
But I do think I remember telling someone in the middle of last decade, and I don't even know, might have been somewhere around the tail end of the Obama administration, maybe early Trump administration, but during that era.
And so that's why it's not even to pick on either of those two guys. But it's more just to say that as this was all coming to a head, this the kind of media and political fighting in our country that I said that this reflects, this is one of the things this does is reflect the lack of investment in public education in the last 40 years in this country.
And my reasoning for saying that was just as you alluded to in asking me the question, which is I feel like most Americans today don't really understand how their system of government works. I mean we've seen all these things. Even late night talk shows would put cameras in people's faces pre Covid going on the street asking people basic stuff like who's their senator, who's their congressman in their district, how many state capitals are there, all that kind people just don't know these things. Basic, basic information. And so I do think that the country making an effort to teach the youth about not only our system of government, but also just world history as well. I think we've talked about it. My mom grew up in Eastern Europe under Soviet Stalin, the Iron Curtain.
So when I grew up, she educated me about what that kind of communism, socialism was. She told me about standing in line for toilet paper and rations every week.
So when people in this country started talking about, oh, we're gonna have socialism and communism, like, I was too educated about that stuff to believe it. And I just felt like, yeah, well, that's not what I grew up hearing like that. You know, this. We still have a stock market. We still have private ownership of capital in this country.
This isn't, you know, whatever you're worried about isn't socialism or communism. It's just a different version of our capitalism in the United States. And so it's just a small example that I think with more education, the general population, I think, would have a better understanding. It doesn't mean that everybody's gonna be a PhD genius on history, but I do think that if we had a more focused lens on this from a young age, let's say middle school on up, really teaching kids about this stuff.
Put it this way, like you said in the opening here about the insurrection, people would understand what it means, the Electoral College, that electors certified the election. Even if they didn't like it, they would understand that storming the US Capitol on the 6th wasn't going to change anything, because that wasn't like the votes had already been cast. This was just a symbolic thing. So I think, you know, it's. But I'll put it this way, the last few years has been a great education in civics for me because I didn't know as much as I knew
[00:44:43] Speaker A: well, you know, you've seen things that didn't take the opportunity to learn.
[00:44:47] Speaker B: You know, that's what I mean. Like, it's taught us all. I think watching this in real time. I never watched the Electoral College count votes before, and it was streamed live from the Internet this year. You know, so it's just like, all right, maybe this is the way we get an education, through pain.
[00:45:03] Speaker A: I think that it is this problem. I think that people are just waking up to now. This has been a slow decline in terms of the removal of civics from public education, the scaling back on teaching. And I think part of that is because the issues are hard to teach, because in many of these Battles, if you want to learn about American history and so forth. There were people on both sides.
And we tend to look at, I said this when we talked about the Reconstruction documentary. We tend to look at these things in a very reductivist way. Like we look back as, like once the country went a certain direction that everybody got on board with that and that's not necessarily the case. Like there are people who would object to a certain way of teach about, and they do object to a certain way to teach about the Confederacy or slavery or Jim Crow and so forth. There are people right now that would object to the teaching of those that involve too many facts or too much information and so, and would rather it be papered over for various reasons. Some of those reasons could be at least not mean spirited and some could be mean spirited. But I think this is a matter of competing for influence in this way.
We actually, as people, it's not our natural state to live in a democracy, to live in a republic form of government, you know, where we have our representatives, but then we select them, you know, democratically. And so we need to be propagandized on the value of that. We need to be told over and over again that that's valuable, that if we don't protect that. These are the type of things that happen most of human history, you know, like this is. These are the type of conditions that they like. We don't value as a society, by and large, what benefits and pros and stuff that we have as far as living in the type of system of government that we have people from other countries do. A lot of times that's why you have immigrants coming a lot of times because that's like, hey, they don't want to live under a strong man, you know, like. And so if you don't want to live under a strong man, hey, America doesn't do that, by and large. I mean, so that's. Those are people who have experienced the other side of these things, value those things. So we as Americans need to actually be taught this stuff so that we can have assign some value to it.
But the people who are invested in partisanship would seem to be the obstacle here. Because if you propagandize the value of democracy in the American system of government, then you will you learn to value the system over political parties, over ideologies and so forth. And so if you actually do that, then you actually will be willing to hold people accountable when they do wrong or when they do things that are inconsistent with our system.
But if you Want people to be partisan. If you want people to be sold out on your side, no matter what you do, if you want fealty, then you don't actually want people to be invested in the American system as it is. You want them to be invested in you. So the partisans and the ideologies have never stopped selling themselves to people, whereas we did. We as Americans did stop selling democracy and the value of those things to people. So right now we have an imbalance where people are more invested in ideology and partisanship because they've been sold that over the past 30 years increasingly, whereas they've decreasingly been sold the idea of democracy. So that's actually the conflict that I see here. And so this is people just saying, hey, maybe we should put more money into selling people on the value of our American system so that they'll place more value in that as opposed to all these other things. And actually, and I'll say this, I'll let you jump back in, I actually think this is the cart over. We were talking, or excuse me, this is the horse we were talking about. What's the cart? What's the horse? In the previous topic, as far as religion and so forth, I think that people not valuing the system of government, the rule of law is the horse. That's what's in front here. And then everything else. Once people don't value that, then everything else can come in and replace that value with a value of partisanship, a value of tribalism, a value of any other factional thing that you can get people really fired up about and really play on their emotions with. So I think, actually, and this is part of the reason, I know we wanted to do this topic, these topics together, because I think there's a interplay here where we can't say that this is the sole reason we're in where we are as far as the lack of civics. We can't say that the politics taking on the effect of, or excuse me, the kind of the tactics of a religious field and so forth is the sole cause. But all of these things are all in the same pot and are leading us in a direction that is not necessarily healthy for the ongoing maintenance of our system.
[00:49:41] Speaker B: Yeah, no, and it definitely ties into the last topic in that way.
I think part of it also is, unfortunately it's cause. Kind of like in segueing from the last conversation about the kind of metaphysical nature of our debates and the diabolical nature of the way we deal with each other in politics now.
So the problem to Me going forward would be trusting the messenger half the country.
So let's say Obviously we're in 2021 now, so Democrats technically control Washington in a sense. Right. That the Congress and the White House.
So if they tried to make a change right now for some sort of national change to our education system or something like that, include civics.
Unfortunately, half the country, those that don't support Democrats would almost see it as, well, Democrats, now that they're in power, they're gonna try and indoctrinate our kids and do all this stuff and teach them all these socialist values.
And the same would have happened had it been under the Trump administration when the Republicans controlled everything. I'm sure if they. If Betsy DeVos at the time came out and said, you know, we're gonna come out with this national thing and do this, you know, all the Democrats wouldn't have trusted it and would have assumed that it's some sinister thing behind it. So I think that the sad part is for us today, because of the. What we just talked about for the first 30 minutes, in terms of the polarizing nature of our politics, having almost a religiosity feel to it, makes this a much harder time to try and implement something like this than maybe otherwise would have. So I think that's a danger we have, unfortunately.
And I think the other interesting thing for this is. And this is where I do think the United States is unique and why we are able to have these issues and then we find our way out of them over time, because the unique nature that we have between our government and our states in terms of central government.
And so, for example, we have no national standards for education, even though we have a department of education.
Each state decides through the school board, as well as the governor's house, kind of what. And the legislature, that state, what really gets taught there. So we've got hundreds of millions of kids, or 100 million kids, I don't know how many a lot of kids in this country. Right. And what I'm saying is, so.
[00:51:59] Speaker A: And the vast majority are in public schools.
[00:52:02] Speaker B: But that's. But all I'm saying is first you need to figure out how to disseminate this out, and you'd have to get agreements amongst all these different factions. So I think that's part of the issue, too.
[00:52:12] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, well, I think. I think that the changes can be made on a national level from the standpoint of, you know, public schools. While they are all are individually controlled by the states, federal government uses financial incentives to promote different things or to get states to do certain things. And so I think there's a mechanism in there, at least for the vast majority. Yeah, you're not going to be able to reach everyone in every school because there is just the ability for many schools to opt out or to do what they want to do or school systems and so forth. But I think if we can start addressing things from a large scale, doing what we can do, a lot of times if we show that it's helpful or that it works well, then other people will adapt it as well. So if you start with the public schools, but I do think you're onto something with the political challenges of doing something like this. So I always kind of look, I always raise one eyebrow when we equate that, oh, this side does it just like the other side, because I don't think that our politics right now are symmetrical. But regardless, it's hard to get buy in on anything right now. It's hard to get 100% buy on. And the sun is, the sun comes out in the daytime. It's hard to get buy in on anything. So I think that beyond the political challenges though, I think another big challenge as far as to try to get buy in across the country and things like this is the fact that people want their history and these things told in different ways. And I see that in terms of from regional differences and so forth as being a big impetus as far as what we can do from this standpoint. And that's not to say we can't do it or that we shouldn't do it. But I think what this article showed and the takeaway here that I had was just that there are people that have this in mind and are trying to promote a rethinking of this and an approach that will put valuing our system of government back in front of people in a way that it's not and that it hasn't been over the last generation or so. And that ultimately I don't see how you can have a functioning government without, excuse me, a functioning democratic government without the people who are supposed to be the stewards of that democratic government who have to. You can't give people freedom, people have to demand freedom. And so if the public by and large are ho hum on democracy, on freedom, like, oh yeah, hey, the military takes over, no big deal, if that's how the public feels, then it's gonna be virtually impossible to maintain a democratic system. And so I think that the fact that we had the insurrection may be helpful in this Sense that the people who want to try to propagate, and I'll use this word, propagandize, self propagandize ourselves as far as, hey, our system is something we like and it works well.
And that now they have a big shiny thing to point at, as you've always pointed, as you point out, oftentimes, sometimes you need these kind of events that get people attention in order to get some energy behind certain things. So I think it might be a good time now to bring this to.
To the people, so to speak, and say, hey, let's get more money in this. Let's get some organized structure in terms of how we're going to sell America to Americans, basically.
So I think it's a good thing. I think it's a good thing, ultimately. Did you have anything else before we wrap?
[00:55:36] Speaker B: Yeah, no. Just hearing you say it is. Hopefully we're not too late. That's my concern, because there's not on a serious note, because like I said about messengers, who's gonna sell that to who? That's the concern because all those people that stormed the Capitol, it needs to be a messenger that they trust as well on the message, because in their mind, they were the ones doing the patriotic thing and saving the country from stolen erosion. That's the sad part. That's my point, is that.
[00:56:06] Speaker A: That's why I started this, though, with the point that actually the partisans and the ideologues are the obstacle here because they know that if people value the system over the party or the ideology that they lose influence. That's a zero sum for them. Either people are gonna value the American system of government and the Constitution more, or they're gonna value their party or their ideology more. And so you're correct in that we hope that there are enough messengers left on either side or whatever that can convey this thought and get people on board with it.
[00:56:48] Speaker B: And that's the thing is that going back to the first part of our discussion here on today's show is there.
That's why it's dangerous that our politics has become like religion, because this is where. And that's why I said, even in the second part, it's too early to tell how we go from here.
Whether this is the demise of America and we've already hit a peak, or if this is just another cycle and we'll be 50, 100 years from now, we'll be hunky dory and still on top of the world type of thing.
[00:57:19] Speaker A: Or more accurately, we'll just be dealing with something else that seems like, oh, my God, what are we gonna do?
[00:57:25] Speaker B: No, but still, on a serious note, still the superpower of the world that we haven't toppled ourselves through this infighting. And. And I think that's why I say it's too early to tell that. But what we're talking about.
[00:57:36] Speaker A: But the American system, though, I mean, Tunde, the American system can survive without being the superpower of the world.
The American system was around before America was a superpower of the world. I think that we're not necessarily talking about that.
[00:57:48] Speaker B: That's a good point. But I would say this. Since 1790, we've probably been in the top 5% of the world. I mean, it's pretty amazing. That's what I mean.
[00:57:57] Speaker A: It's a power ranking. Your power ranking.
[00:57:59] Speaker B: No, but it's. It's amazing that we have been because. Because of things that made us that way, right? Like the bringing in immigrants, all that kind of stuff.
You know, if we stop doing that, then, you know, then our society will
[00:58:14] Speaker A: get old and we have a whole nother other set of problems. So. So, yeah, I mean, it's. It's an interesting discussion. We definitely appreciate everybody for joining us on it and, you know, kind of kicking these thoughts over around in. In. In your head. In our head and as we kick them around on the podcast. So, you know, until next time, I'm James Keys.
[00:58:32] Speaker B: I'm Tunder. Gwen. Lana.
[00:58:34] Speaker A: All right, subscribe, rate, review. Tell us what you think and we'll talk to you.
