#4 Part 2: What is power?

What happens when cultures collide and power dynamics shift, challenging our understanding of truth and knowledge? Join Pig and me as we unravel the intricacies of power in the modern world, examining relativism, Nietzsche's idea of creating our own values, and Foucault's perspective on power as a shapeshifter.

We dig deep into the power dynamics between individuals and the role of knowledge in shaping society's perception of truth. From Marxist thinking to symbolism in the Black Lives Matter movement, our discussion touches on the exploitation of marginalized groups and the power of seduction in politics. Uncover the hidden manipulations that may be at play, such as medications and diets, and how they can impact our lives.

As we explore the erosion of traditional authority structures, we consider the role of big pharma and social engineering in creating a mutually beneficial relationship. We also discuss the shift in parental decision-making power within the medical community and the implications of military strategy on power and accountability. Don't miss this thought-provoking conversation that will leave you questioning the very foundations of power in our ever-evolving world.

Twitter is @ThePanopticon84

Transcript

Speaker 1: Welcome to the Panops Con year 2023, may 6th. This is Nature's Gamble here with Pig. Pig is snorting up some food as we speak. That's what pigs do Today. 

Speaker 1: this podcast is going to be part two of What is Power. Last week we did part one. We never intended, or at least we didn't intend on having two parts of the What is Power. But we have more to say. We have more observations, more comments than what we originally thought. Who knows, perhaps we'll have a part three, because defining what power is is very, very hard, and I think people who are a lot smarter, a lot wiser than Pig and I have been trying to figure this out for quite some time, and Pig and I are going to try to do it a little bit ourselves. So we're going to be part two of What is Power. 

Speaker 1: I would highly recommend to our listeners out there, our fellow cellmates, to read On Power by Jules Van Aga. It is a life changer, at least a perspective changer, for me personally. I don't say that much about anything If it comes to books or people or what have you that have kind of really changed my perspective on life. It hasn't necessarily changed my behavior quite yet, but it's definitely changed my perspective and how I see the past, how I see the present and how I see the future. And perhaps I like it so much because it kind of aligns with what I believe and think already. It was just written much more intelligently and much more logically than my ramblings. So that again, just to remind myself and my fellow cellmates on what my perspective is with respect to life. that is Juvenal's perspective. So we're going to hand this over to Pig, that him kind of talk about what his thoughts are on Power, and then we'll just go right into it. 

Speaker 2: Pig. Well, the reason I was kind of asking you, I think we needed to do another episode on What is Power, because I mean you could do a whole series on this. It's kind of what we are doing, but just on the definition alone, especially when you bring in these deep philosophical concepts, abstract concepts like truth, i don't know beauty, truth, knowledge, all that I mean, like you said, they've been philosophers and thinkers have been discussing these, arguing about these and disagreeing and agreeing with each other over since civilization started. So I've kind of said let's have one more episode we touched on a lot last time one more episode in which we flesh out some of the things or address topics that we wanted to, that we didn't get a chance to last time. I mean, we talked about how relativism right, do you know what relativism is? 

Speaker 1: We dived into well the formal meaning. No, i don't have the formal meaning or interpretation of relative. I have my personal meaning. But go ahead, do you have it on hand? 

Speaker 2: Well, there's moral relativism, cultural relativism and with modernism, another ism. This became an issue Because beforehand I mean, the idea goes that before modern is like industrial age and the enlightenment and all of this. Before then cultures were pretty isolated in a way, like travel was limited so cultures could build. That's how different languages built in a particular area. People didn't leave that area for very much. Agricultural civilizations stayed put, so language grew and evolved and so did culture. And so in the world throughout history, these separate countries, separate areas, people would grow. The civilizations in those separate areas in the world would grow Their own set of values and their own cultural norms and morals. And with modernization what happened was travel became more easily done, distances were closed, cultures opened up to other cultures and caused clashes and morals and ways of thinking. We had to start dealing with each other. And so what came of that was this term called relativism, where let's just say, nation A has a set of values like this, such and such, nation B has this other set of values, that you can't mix the two, they're just the way it is, and that you have to in a way, if you look at someone, nation A, if you're nation B, and you look at how nation A sees the world, it adds to a sense of destabilization because you've grown up your whole life, for years and years, your culture has seen it this way. You're introduced to this other culture and they see it a different way. That makes you doubt what your thoughts are or what your stance in the world, or, on the other hand, it can make you solidify and kind of retreat to your values even stronger, but nevertheless it sets up a dialectic that there's and what happens as a result of that is what you see in the modern world is there's these loss of values or there's clash of values. What is dead type of thing. There's a new set of values now Or you have, like Nietzsche would say, you have to create your own values now that there's this splintering of our foundation because of modernization. Now we have to live by our own. The individual sets his own or her own sets of values. 

Speaker 2: So where this came into play for me was like truth, when you talk about that, it's a relativistic term. It relates on where your perspective is, what environment you were grown into. Knowledge, same way You're limited by your perspective of that. So when you say power is knowledge or is truth, then that means I don't know where I was kind of leading on this, but that how can you define power? if you're defining power as being truth or knowledge And you know that truth and knowledge are relative, based on your perspective or your perception, how can you really define, how can you come up with a clear, singular definition of power? That's just a complication, but then when I was talk, do you want to add any comments to that? 

Speaker 1: Well, i think, yeah, just to add some context to what you're saying now from what we were talking about last week. This was when you brought up for call and his, his hypothesis on the relationship between power and truth, and then we kind of drove it into power and knowledge If I'm not mistaken, maybe for a call, talk about knowledge specifically, because we were running into trouble with the idea of what truth is, and I think we both acknowledge that truth itself is abstract at the very least, and nebulous and relative to one's perspective. So I think we went into knowledge as a tool of power but not knowledge as power, and I think you may not agree with that, but I think we were discussing that. That's how I'm using it is knowledge is not power. 

Speaker 1: Knowledge is a means to power or more power. And so that's, I think, my addition to what you were just saying. 

Speaker 2: Yeah, when we you'll have to read Foucault I know you've read some of discipline and punish, but you'll have to read some of what I'm reading and watch some of those, listen to the podcast and watch some of the videos on him, because his definition of power is completely different from from, let's say, a Marxist view or from the elite theory where there's these hierarchical We were talking about that in the two plus two podcast at the end that that his, his view is completely different. Where it's all interpersonal, It's from person to person, every exchange between people is a power, the powers working through that Down to the micro level. And that this idea he looked at Marxist views where you know the proletariat against the, the bourgeoisie or what have you, that there's, that's that contention set up and that history is in the Marxist pushes to try to for the proletariat to overcome the power dynamics between them and their oppressors, which are the bourgeoisie and the aristocracy. He looks at that. Foucault looks at that as being like a nostalgia for an old system. That isn't really how power is set up. It's like a fault in his Marxist thinking. 

Speaker 2: In Marxist thinking, i think with Foucault it's more about like how do I power works less hierarchical and more horizontally from situation to situation, entity to entity And that anyways. That's that was that's interesting to me And you should. I hope you read some of his stuff so we can flesh it out, because I don't quite understand. 

Speaker 1: I've read some of it, but certainly not all of it, and even the sum that I have read I haven't fully digested. I would I would need to go back and read it over and over again, but from my brief, engagement and understanding is also power, is it's like a shapeshifter? It's. It's it not only works horizontal, but it can work vertically and the power dynamic can change, even between two people. So let's say you're a medical doctor, okay, and I am a golf pro. 

Speaker 1: If I come to you as a golf pro because I have back problems, when I am in your office for back problems, you are the one and this is again very basic, rudimentary explanation of how I understand it but you're the one in power. You have the power in that situation because you do have the knowledge, as we discussed, and then the certification and acknowledgement and the authority of that power a medical doctor to kind of review my back, look at my back, et cetera, et cetera. But as you're doing that, we strike up a relationship and turns out you like, you like golf, but you're just really shitty at it And I say, all right, next week, once you fix my back, come over to the club golf club and I'll teach you how to putt better. What have you? Well, the next week, the power dynamic has shifted. 

Speaker 1: Now I am the one in power And I think that's what I got out of my again brief engagement is yes, like you said, it doesn't solely come, it's not solely driven from top down or even top up, but it works. It's holistic, power is holistic, it's everywhere, it's ubiquitous And it is contingent on the relationship, both in time and space, if that makes sense. Time being. You're a doctor with some authority, space is your office And maybe I'm making it too complex now, but by my no, it's. 

Speaker 2: It's a moving, shape shifting thing, dependent on where you are as a person and the relationship between the two people And it's like you said, it's contingent on the knowledge of one, of what the of one actors knowledge versus the other ones ignorance, or that well he talks about. We can, maybe we shouldn't get into it, but that the whoever controls, whoever has the knowledge of the day, that matters most. And I think he says in our age, or at least the 20th century, it was like the technicians, the physicists, the scientists where they created something the atom bomb, right, that could kill everybody. So if they have that kind of power that their knowledge, expertise and their discipline they they work in is what's going to set the standard of what truth is for the rest of the culture. That to me seems like an elite type of understanding of power, like a hierarchical but. But he adds that there's other disciplines, like psychiatry or chemistry, things like that, where they also have a say in what is true. So it's more. It's not like a king where it's one person, one authority, it's multiple authorities at any time. But we'll get into that when I have. 

Speaker 2: I want you to read some of these essays from him that I've been in interviews that talk about it. Maybe you can help me understand it and I'll read them again. But I thought that's important for us to know is that there's different ways of viewing power. We know that that's obvious. But not all these thinkers are working. They don't conceive of power the same way. In fact he Foucault, i think is saying he's making a huge break with Western philosophy and how the philosophers have always talked about power, that his is the most original or the true take on how power operates. So that'll be fun to see the different ways these people talk about it. I'm not sure with juvenile, is he more elite theory, hierarchical? 

Speaker 1: No, i would think he is more. he is more well how he sees the essence of power, how he defines power, is more mindful of Foucault. How best to limit power is through the traditional hierarchy, more specifically monarchy, and how to disperse power is through kind of a single person, as opposed to where we're at now, that being the state where the power consolidates itself and grows and is managed and used in ways unimaginable to a king, the king of all, especially, who had some form of power. And so, by my mind, as these, this is a monarchy. 

Speaker 1: a king had limited resources, both in people and in money, and he had to go around begging the lords of his land for money and people if he wanted to go to war, let's say, whereas in a state you don't need to do that. You have garnered all the resources of the state to include the people and you can tax people and you can force people, coerce people to fight your war without any repercussions, because you're using the will of the people as a cover and as an excuse. And there's no, and its power lies within the state. It's consolidated within the state as opposed to within, a little bit with the king and a little bit with the lords as an example and a little bit with the aristocracy, and that with the growth of states comes this managerial class that Burnham talks to as well, and that's where the power starts to seep. in is to these experts that you're alluding to as well. 

Speaker 1: And so his bottom line is power is it grows and expands through through the state, through so-called democracy, whereas in a Marnaki was more dispersed. People didn't understand that they you know they got rid of Through reforms like the French Revolution and other things The King, because the King had to take on the entire burden. If you lost a war, if the King lost the war, the King Had to, by nature of the hierarchy, take the full responsibility of that loss. Or that, you know, the economy is bad, or people can't eat or drink or whatever, or starving. That all lied on the Shoulders of the King or the Queen, whereas in a large bureaucratic state such as this, there's no one to blame, there's no accountability. Power can just keep growing and growing and growing without any Consent from the people, from the multitude, and so the essence of power lies I think his definition lies closer to calls. How you harness that power is more of a hierarchical Approach. 

Speaker 2: So when we, when you know you said the next episode we'll talk of the elite theory, is Juvenal gonna be part of that or or should we have juvenile in his own sort of category Where we talk about him later? Specific, you know where we're gonna have Faco in his own episode, right, nietzsche, because they're unique thinkers, maybe yeah. 

Speaker 1: I think they're broader thinkers, then You know, the more theoretical thinkers than the actual Scientific based thinkers, such as the ones we will talk with respect to the elite theory, because they present evidence on why, basically the iron law of oligarchy, that there'll always be the ruled and always be Those who rule, and here's the evidence why, whereas Juvenile and others present evidence, but it's more in the abstract. I mean in historical, i mean So. 

Speaker 2: So I think, or well seems, go ahead I think it requires a separate discussion. 

Speaker 1: Just because of the nature of how he approaches. He's looking for the yeah the essence of power one, and then its relationship between Government and itself, and then people and itself. 

Speaker 2: I Spent it. Also, i think, since you're responding so much to him, i think he deserves his own time. You know what I mean. So Can we, can we move? so I thought a definition of concise, succinct definition of power, at least a working definition for us ignorant folk, you and I, they and them, would be beneficial, just to kind of have it in the back of our mind as We talked throughout the series. And I liked your definition where you said do you remember it? 

Speaker 1: Yeah, i have it written here The ability to oppose ones will, people, places and things. And so where I kind of formulated it is, i fancy myself as a, as somewhat of a military strategist, at least in my past life. But Perhaps that military strategist will be born again. But it was stemmed in Klaus witz, it's Basically his death. 

Speaker 1: You know, one of his maxims is war is just an extension of politics by any other means. And so how I analyzed that maxim is like what is politics? What's the definition of politics? and then, reading into the Machiavellians by John Burnham, he has a definition of politics which is the struggle for power. And So if politics is a struggle for power, then using Klaus witz definition of war, then war is just an extension or a means to gain more power. But then I would, i was thinking to myself well then, what is power? and you know, i actually Formulated this definition kind of I would say I'm I all, but definitely influenced by all the readings, and certainly by when I read Job and all. 

Speaker 1: He kind of reinforced it because he is Very similar definition of power. And so that helped me not only as a military strategist but just as a human being, in how I view the world and just to give give you and our fellow cellmates kind of some context on Where I came up with this not again me as just a solo individual, but influenced certainly And it It helps me. I never took the definition any further Other than what we've discussed, but it definitely helps And it's it's very clean, very yeah, and it's like you said, it's a working. 

Speaker 1: It's a working definition. It could change. 

Speaker 2: Yeah, to me it's the sort of cleanest, concise base kind of canvas to start off of. It's funny you mentioned Klausowitz because Foucault actually in this book called power, knowledge, i'm reading a chapter called truth and power and he He's it's an interview actually that's been transcribed And the interviewer says to Foucault, in the middle of the essay You have said about power as an object of research that one has to invert Klausowitz Formula so as to arrive at the idea that politics is the continuation of war by other means Does so? that's, that's crazy, right that you had just mentioned that. 

Speaker 1: And I'm reading Foucault last night and it mentions the same Maxim or maximum, whatever you call it and I think it lies in I think the inversion is Is a perfect way of putting it Is if you're a believer or you have the perspective that life is full with war. 

Speaker 1: You know we mentioned competition earlier or in another podcast, but Life is a constant battle and, uh, you know It. I think it falls in line perfectly with what the call was getting at and what juvenile is getting at as well, as Is it's it's everywhere, power is everywhere, and therefore the battle, the fight for power, is everywhere as well. It's never ending, it's always and it's everywhere all at the same time. I mean, if you, if no matter what echelon you're talking about, at the micro level, macro level and everything in between, is it's a constant fight, a constant battle of one Actor versus another actor, and And so I think it's a great way to put it is it's using an inversion of what Klausowitz was saying is I would tend to lean towards what folk, folk are was alluding to is it's Actually it's politics is a reflection of of war or a mechanism, a tool of war itself, as opposed to, and that politics and politics perfuses, permeates every moment of one's life, from Their engagement with themselves, with their engagement with their family, right on up. 

Speaker 2: Yeah, now I was listening, i was listening to a podcast, i was a catholic to catholic priests Who are kind of going through What I love about catholic I don't know if it's just Jesuits but catholic Catholic engagement with ideas they're. They're very willing, from what I understand, to, you know, dive deep into all types of thought, you know, from controversial on to to theolog, theological, you know, st Thomas Aquinas and whatnot. And they were talking about Foucault And they mentioned his background. That that's significant. 

Speaker 2: And from what I know is, his father apparently was very domineering, almost to the point of maniacally tyrannical, and they said that's significant in his formulation of his thought where someone who's kind of conditioned by their domineering authority figure, yeah, if it's at a certain level and he's intelligent enough, he's going to spend his whole life trying to battle that or understand it. 

Speaker 2: And but they were also saying so his theory that power is everywhere you, your, every waking minute of your life is a contention for power or is a dynamic of power relationship. It would make sense that he would. He would spend his life trying to grapple with that. You know That that he would to understand power because his, when he was young, his father, he had to deal with that and the trauma from that. But they they were kind of suggesting it was a negative, that it that his, his preoccupation with power And with his father figure, if you want to use like Freudian type of understanding or psych psychoanalysis, psychoanalysis That that was limiting to him, that it was in a way Narrowing his understanding of, of, of power Because he was preoccupied with it, if that makes sense. 

Speaker 1: Well, i think, i think it goes back to what we were talking about with respect to relativism. It's not only relative to the culture, but relative to the individual, on how they Have, uh, experienced this world. So you did you mention Thomas Aquinas? 

Speaker 1: Yeah so I mean, it's very easy to do that, you can do that and there's I would say There's a legitimate argument for that. Yes, his, his rearing, his childhood rearing, definitely affected how he saw the world, affects his worldview for calls. The negative part is is where the moral judgment comes in, because if you look at Thomas Aquinas, he was born into an elite Family with a very relatively powerful family, um, and therefore his Upringing skewed his view of the world as well. Now, it's where Thomas Aquinas thinks he can get into the moral judgment. This is where the religion comes in. 

Speaker 1: Is Folk called bad, me good Because I'm a religious person, or what have you? Um, but my online to get to? you know, to reinforce what I was just saying, is Each one of what we were born into, whether it be full call, a relatively commoner, versus Thomas Aquinas, who comes from an elite family? Both are going to be skewed based off of that and, once again, if you take the long view, or at least perhaps, um, maybe an elitist view, is anything that comes from the, the multitude, um, you know a child, you know power is everywhere Is to be questioned whether it's true or not, because then what you're really saying, if what you really have to acknowledge from Thomas Aquinas's perspective is I am part of the power structure, i am not the servant of the lord, i'm not um A lesser, or I'm not of the people as I Proclaim to be. Perhaps that's a stretch, but my, my major, my major point is that each one of our Uh backgrounds Affects how we see the world and probably will, especially our formative years, for the rest of our life but, um, i don't think necessarily the fact that he is preoccupied with power or that his relationship with his domineering father is a negative on what he's done, his theory, in fact, it might. 

Speaker 2: His impact, the impact his father made on him, might have almost made him a specialist, like sensitive to how it might have actually keyed him into the truth of that, like by making him aware of it, by triggering it. Do you know what I mean? Like his father being domineering and an authority figure that stressed him out constantly, gave him a secret knowledge to how power works at a young age and that that just then, his natural intellect being sharp and quick, he could build off that. I mean, it's almost like, i don't know, like Liza Minnelli born into a world of theater, she is exposed to it at a very young age. So she has. Maybe, as she grows up she's going to have a kind of an inclination for that. It's gonna, she's been conditioned in a way to to deal with it or explore it more. Her mind's open to it. That's just a thought, i don't know. We can talk about that more when we get into the Focom, but I do like how these, these podcasters in particular, made us aware of it, like because we haven't really talked about the histories of any of these thinkers and their upbringing, and I think it's something we should consider as we go forward, just to play off of the ideas of maybe, maybe there's, obviously there's a connection between someone's life and their ideas. You know it goes to what you're saying with relativism, and, and how we define our world is based on how our perception and how we were brought up. So I also wanted to do you have any more thoughts on that? 

Speaker 2: No, i also wanted to discuss the seducer, the seduct, the role of seduction in politics and power. I mainly think of Hitler in this, because I've watched this documentary on him where it kind of analyzes why he was effective in his gain to power, his ascension, and it breaks down Oh, he, one of the facets of his is the qualities of him as a figure, a political figure. Was his, that he was a seducer? He was a seducer, and not in the sexual sense necessarily, but maybe that too, that there's something about political or public figures, whether it be celebrities, actors, anyone who's lifted onto that pedestal of being special or separate, and that there's an element of seduction going on. 

Speaker 2: The Catholic Church is big on this, all churches, i would say theaters about. It's about so costumes, regalia, pageantry, makeup, spectacle all that is part of a seduction going on over the audience from the people putting on the production if you're talking about theater or from the political figure who's putting on a performance of sorts. There's a performance going on And with Hitler, specifically, we know how he would kind of practice his moves, how he would actually appear and his gestures, that there's a that he would practice that to try to come up with posing poses that would emphasize what he's saying, lift it up, make it, dress it up, because there's a value in that, and the value is that it has an effect almost like a hypnotic or mesmerizing effect on the audience, or it can. 

Speaker 1: So yeah, i think, i mean, i think potentially it applied to Hitler, but it applies to everyone as well. So, public relations manager everyone, whether you're a sports star or celebrity, even a politician. we have public relations managers in the military, you have public affairs And all that is tied into how you look, what you say, how you say it, where you say it to who you say it, it's all choreographed. 

Speaker 1: It's choreographed and or at least scripted in many ways, and preferably choreographed for sure, scripted on the way you talk, how you talk, who you talk to, what you say, etc. Etc. Because you want to present an image, a certain image, to a certain audience and also depend on who your audience is. So it's contingent on time and place as well. I don't think Hitler's charm or seduction would have worked, or Hitler would even been who he is, if Germany had won World War One and gained all the benefits from that. Germany was in a place, in a very, very bad place post World War One, economically, probably morally, moral, wise, all everything culturally, and Germany, or anything like the state Germany was in, almost needs a figure like that. 

Speaker 1: That's the doctor not like Hitler necessarily, but like a seductress to pull them, a hero to pull them out of the darkness, bring them into the light once again. And that there's extremes to that. Hitler was extreme, you could argue. Stalin was that as well. I mean, the song was a result of the Bolshevik revolution. Bolshevik revolution, from which the Tsar had led Russia into catastrophic economic predicament and so forth. So the culture, the country, the state is in darkness. Maybe the hero, and so I think this zeitgeist, the time and place is required for the production of a subduer such as Hitler. Trump you could already Trump is a subduer as well. 

Speaker 2: Yeah, and I think we need to address this fact of fashion style in politics like in our daily lives too. I mean people, how you dress, people who dress better, dress up, you have tailoring. I mean there's a power to that And because not only does it fit the body better, it makes it look more impressive and it kind of triggers things in our minds and deep psychology of something almost superhuman. And I think that people in power are aware of this, the church is aware of it. The Queen of England and them have all that regalia that they do Catholic Church. 

Speaker 2: The Nazis are definitely, i would say, one of the most stylish, if you're talking fashion just from a fashion perspective, definitely the most stylish political group out there. What do I mean by that? Is it looked good In a streamlined, it was like the German technology type engineering of the flag. Even. It's like marketing. Like you said, they advertise themselves in such a way as to have a hypnotic, maybe, effect on the people at that time And even now, like a lot of fashion, are designed in a way. Haircuts look very Nazi these last 10 years for males, especially militaristic, you know, the fade or whatever, the taper Anyways. So I like learning about how, with the Nazis in particular, but also Rome, you know, they modeled there a lot of their big regalia and pageantry over from the Romans or on the Romans, who were all about that, like the Eagles and the flags and the staffs. It's very sharp, streamlined advertising And I'm fascinated by that And I think it has an effect. 

Speaker 1: Now, how real quick, how that it's it goes back to as part of seduction is beauty, and you know, not of that particular person but of the environment that you're trying to create. So the fashion you mentioned with respect to the Nazis, i mean it was beautiful, pretty, the buildings, these large mass gatherings, it's a beautiful spectacle, beautiful piece of art, and it's awe inspiring and it's emotional and gains all those things that you were talking about and trying to influence people to buy your product in this case, Nazis And so time and place is important, but also the aesthetics is extremely important. And going to the Romans and the Greeks, they were very, you know, they had a certain image, body image that they appreciated. You know, the Greek style six pack with large chest muscles and so forth. That was very important And that was part whether it was intentional or just kind of the nature of their culture. Who was important for that society is to look, to look beautiful as well, not only appreciate beauty, but be beautiful. 

Speaker 2: Yeah, and it's about perfection, almost human perfection in human form. 

Speaker 1: Almost, almost, yeah, almost Godlike Yeah we're human, like we want to be like the. We want to be like the gods, we want to look like the gods And again, pull that also on a psychological level, pulls us out of our morass, and certainly on a society and cultural, societal and cultural level as well, is to look to aesthetics, physical beauty, for guidance as well. 

Speaker 2: Yeah, and health, strength, power. All of that conveyed by the leader With, you know, with Hitler, is the eyes. Were people talked about that? blue, almost Godlike eyes, that there's something Godlike about him, exactly. So we're image is huge in power, in conveying power, yeah, but saying now I think we might be overstating his, his ability to seduce, in that sense, like because half the country hated his ass you know what I mean Like they. There were tons of communists, more communists than Nazis, when he took power, so have a lot of what he was doing was not seduction, it was actually they were getting rid of people violently. 

Speaker 1: Yeah, what do? you know, i'm thinking more about him with his enemies, like he might have coerced, like well, you could call her in my definition, or how I view it with care and stick stick, coercion is it could be with a blunt force, you know, with a knife rifle. 

Speaker 2: Yeah, that makes sense. I was thinking of more of like persuasion, like a light persuasion or soft power. Yeah So. I don't know giving him, investing a figure like Hitler, who's so spectacle oriented and with this sort of Godlike gift of seduction. Maybe that's just kind of a maybe that's just a myth. You know that we're giving to someone like Hitler. 

Speaker 1: I don't think we're overstating necessarily we consensus. You don't have to have a consensus to change the world. I think he did enough, and the folks around him, to include the branding piece, the aesthetics, all that to change his country and change the world forever. I mean, we're still accusing people of being Nazis Hitler to this day, So his influence is definitely not overstated. 

Speaker 2: So and with with military dress? what is the preoccupation with dress in the military? 

Speaker 1: There's a lot of ways you can approach it from a historical approach or from a present approach. From a present approach is uniform uniformity which goes into, tied into discipline And on a larger scale, discipline at the individual, but even at the kind of small collective scale as well. But also you want a I say uniformity. You basically want a machine of not not of like 100 individuals, but of one unit. And this gets in the focus a little bit as well is the efficiency of uniformity. Is can be effective when it comes to war, but it can also become effective when it comes to society as well. So you want everyone to look alike on the surface, because it's supposed to be a reflection of what people are inside of themselves. Which an ideal world for the controller, for the masters. Everyone's thinking the same as well. 

Speaker 1: So everyone thinks the same and everyone dresses the same, very much like, you'd say, with Hitler and other other regimes out there. Now, from a practical sense, you know it should be looked at a certain way, because you want to be able to identify a friend from foe. So when you're out there actually fighting, you want that, at least in the old school way of fighting. Now you don't want to be distinguished, but that's a different story. So, and then also blending into environments, so you don't, are not recognized from the enemy or by the enemy, so you camouflage uniforms, etc. Etc. So there's many multi layered reasons why everyone should look the same. 

Speaker 2: But then at the flip on this, at the same time there's levels of dress, so depending on your status within that structure, the hierarchy of the military, i love how, like the leaders right, the most decorated, the most powerful, well, they have the most shit on them. They're wearing the most they let their. their designs are just that much nicer, special. They're special, not overly, at least in the US military, no, where the general has all the. 

Speaker 2: what do you call these epaulets or metals metals I guess You know there's a shitload there. and on the generals, and then your regular private or whatever you call them, just your basic soldier looks basic. You know what I mean? They're just in this flat sort of canvas type thing. It looks nice but and it's, it's well fitted and all of that tailored, but it's not special. You know, the generals look special. And then in with someone like a group like the Nazis who were overly concerned with dress, you had someone like at the very top gearing with a fucking scepter and a big ass fucking hat, you know, looking like a diva. I like that. I love that. I love that how the generals want to look like, want to look special and look powerful. 

Speaker 1: Yeah, but I think there was a time in the military that the general was trying to be more of a common folk and they wouldn't wear their, their metals in formal settings. They would be humble. They want to be the humble leader where they would only wear like one line of metals and so forth. And that was big in the military when I was in. That military is don't set yourself apart from the common folk, become the common folk. That just so happens to be the leader of the common folk. It was foe in many rays. 

Speaker 1: And then this the nature of rank and what each rank looks like is is residue from the old way of fighting when the nobles actually led and goes back into the monarchy talk we were talking about, when the Lords and the nobles actually led their soldiers at the request of the king, and so that's another historical perspective as well. 

Speaker 1: As we've helped we, you know the current military is hold held on to that in many respects. But it's all symbolic, it's not, it's not real anymore. You know the, the leaders, the generals, the officers came from the elite. You know, and I'm talking about the elite, like the nobles and so forth, you couldn't be an officer. The Baltitude are the ones that were, you know, the regular Joe, and so in many respects though we've talked about this in the past, you know a lot of these generals are from the northeast, went to nice schools and high elite schools. In many ways It's still the case and this is an attempt although not as powerful as the Lords, of course, because the people belonged to the Lords but it's an attempt to look, attempt by the elite to look like a common, a commoner. In many respects. In Hitler's case, it was a commoner trying to look like an elite, as an individual. 

Speaker 2: Yeah. 

Speaker 1: So, but I think it all goes back to, you know, the lead up to this conversation is spectacle in the art of spectacle and seduction. People are seduced by power and all that, all the symbol, symbols, symbolism of power, the beautiful body, the beautiful people, the eagles, the mass of humanity chanting the same slogan. That's very intoxicating and, if you're the enemy, very intimidating. Let's say, if you're another country that can't garner this kind of mass persuasion, you're like see, if they're like that during civil kind of civil events, what are they going to be like at war? you know? I mean, it shows unification. Back to the uniform that we're all. 

Speaker 1: The entire country, whether it's real or perceived, is behind this and we're going to kick your ass if you're not organized, if you're not unified. We're going to kick your ass because look at us, we can bring in a hundred thousand and Putin has done it a few times, or at least once, once this war on Ukraine started. He fills up these, these stadiums, and his message. Of course, whatever he's saying in the speech is important, but the surroundings, the aesthetics, what that shows, what that message is, the, the elite here in the United States and the west of the western world, is important too. 

Speaker 2: Yeah, and with like so we distrust exaggerated fashion and spectacle in politics. So you see, i think you see, but we want and we want. We want, like a hot tour. We want the, the president's wife, to wear beautiful hot couture clothes with the. You know the current fashion gods dressing her, and we'll talk about it, we'll comment about it, but for the most part I think we want our politicians to be dressed down in a way. I mean you know they want to. It goes into the that they're part of us, that they're one of us. You know Obama drinking a beer with whoever the hell he drank a beer with that one time. It's like, oh, he's just a regular Joe talking over beer with a fella to solve, resolve a conflict. Yeah, they watch the same shows. We watch They reading the same shit we're reading, wearing the same thing. You know a huge military pageantry all the time, like the Nazis did. We would. We would not like that, right, i don't know. 

Speaker 1: I guess it depends on, again, the time and place. But you know, going back to what you were talking about is, I mean, basically we have two cultures. You have the elite culture our presidents come from the elite and you have the common culture, which is us, and they put this dog and pony show on. And well, let me back up. And with these two separate cultures comes two different types of aesthetics. They think it's beautiful. We might not think it's beautiful to you. 

Speaker 1: You're talking about all these nice clothes and stuff, but they have to be careful with that as an elite, because you don't want to look too elite. You want, you want to appeal, and this, i guess comes with the illusion of democracy. You want to appeal to the people And with that requires you eat the same thing that they eat where you sit down and have a beer or you have. You know Trump, even Trump's, you know his favorite is Burger King or what have you. You had President Clinton playing the saxophone on the Arseneal Hall show. 

Speaker 1: It's them dipping their toes into our culture, showing how cool they are And, again, trying to influence people, influence the common folk. And I don't think that's so much the case anymore, because I think the elite has said fuck it, we don't need the people anymore. And therefore I'm not going to debase myself by going on the Arseneal Hall show or what have you. In fact, i'm going to do the just the opposite and show how power really works. And I'm going to go eat at the laundry I'm going to just call it laundry mat, just for jokes as Gavin Newsom did during COVID or Pelosi did you know getting your hair? you know her hair? did Newsom again going to the French restaurant and things like that is. this is how the elite really work, really should work, and I'm done with appealing to to the masses. 

Speaker 2: Yeah, i think you know image in politics and power is has always been important and they're always manipulating how they look, how you know, when they go to a Native American event to exploit it. 

Speaker 2: I'll take Clinton as an example. He demanded that the leaders of the Native American community that we're going into wear the feathers. You know, wear the regalia, because I don't know if they think people are dumb or something, but they where they want to make sure people know these are Native Americans. You know, or they're playing off our myths about Native Americans or misconceptions or prejudices our history. You know that in the Native Americans look like fucking Geronimo with feathers, and there's no two ways about it, or or they're just. You know. I don't know what's going on there, but it's a manipulation that that they're using images to propel a story and to say it's like when Nancy Pelosi and that other guy, sherman, schumann, schumberg or whatever, wore those dashikis when they were with the African people whoever they were And they were, you know, sitting on their knees and kneeling and stuff, as a display that there's, that they're, i don't know, humbling themselves. 

Speaker 2: You know there's some there's that's all orchestrated to have an effect and to to not mystify but to, as a spectacle, to say something and says something, because I think a lot of people are influenced by that. You know that they don't maybe see that there's a deeper level to things, that surface oriented that people are, are less concerned or less aware that there's something behind the surface. Rather, that surface says it all And that's enough for a lot of people. If you look like a student, you're gonna be a student. If you look like a president, you're gonna, you're a president. If you look like, you know, if you look like a Native American, you're a Native American. Does that make any sense? 

Speaker 1: Yeah, i think. I think they acknowledged the course of symbolism without context, especially during that time, highly motive time. And if you're just walking down the street and looking at a TV through the window and you just see Pelosi with the little way what you call it the scarf, kneeling as a black person, you're saying she's with me. That's exactly what Pelosi and the rest were saying, because I'm with you. and then it also tells, communicates to the whites or what have you, whoever's anti BLM that I am not with you. And I think that was a time that, really, that you know was a shift in the elites allegiance as well. I mean, i think it was 2016 and Trump's election had a huge part to do with that too But in that particular case, it's a gesture, a symbolic gesture, that the elite but a hollow one right. 

Speaker 1: Well, not to, not to the. this was a gesture by the elite to the Black Lives Matter crew to say that way That we are with you. 

Speaker 2: And I don't think it's necessarily. How do they really feel that? 

Speaker 1: way Like feel their cause. No, i think they look at it as a way to manipulate the marginalized against their political enemies, in this case, anyone who voted for Trump. 

Speaker 2: So it's exploitation Yes. 

Speaker 1: I mean, that's a way of putting it, i guess, but it goes back a little bit with respect to Foucault. 

Speaker 1: That's also a relationship, because if the BLM crew rejected that gesture then it would be hollow. But I think they BLM crew sees an opportunity here as well that we can gain certain privileges. This is an opportunity to gain certain privileges we didn't have in the past. Now that the elite recognizing us as a viable partner to get rid of our enemies which in this case, i believe, is anyone who voted for Trump this was an opportunity for the elite to form a new alliance And that is with marginalized, specifically in this case, black Americans. 

Speaker 2: But what's interesting to further on, that is to when BLM, george Floyd happened and BLM came up, not only did the politicians follow the line, but the corporations followed suit, almost like quickly. Oh, we got to declare our allegiance, put on BLM Facebook pages, amazon Home Pages, netflix they all put it on there quickly too. Now, that could have been. I don't know why they did. I mean, we could talk about why they did that. Was it just too kind of as a way to say hey, i'm with you, i'm not going to fight you on this one, or are they? they're one in the same entity, the politicians, which is what I think the politicians are the corporations. 

Speaker 1: Yeah, I take that as well. It's a kind of a horizontal relationship. They're both elite, They're both part of the regime. The corporate leaders and the political leaders are one of the same. I mean they go back and forth You're a politician, you get out of the politics business, you become a CEO or a consultant of either a think tank or some corporation. So it's, they're the same class. What I was amazed is how quickly they came out with this messaging. It didn't seem like they were caught by surprise by this. 

Speaker 1: But then days there were, like you said, these messages that were being put out by all these various corporations. 

Speaker 2: Yes, and you know the public. It's interesting how they reacted too, because even with myself on my was it Facebook or I can't remember what maybe my work page or something like that I was considering, oh shit, i should probably put some BLM support image up there on my homepage, because at the time I did feel, you know, there was some, i don't know, i was like almost seduced subconsciously doing it, and so well, we talked about Hitler week, his power of seduction, but the regime has seduction as well. 

Speaker 1: So we talked about Hitler and the Nazi flag and the power of a thousand or a hundred thousand people in the same stadium. What applies today kind of within the virtual social media realm as well. you see everyone else doing it. it's almost you're almost compelled to do yourself. It's very emotional, it's fun, it's it's very exciting to be a part of a movement, a mass movement. 

Speaker 2: And if you believe in the narrative that you know black people are being killed left and right constantly by the police, then of course you're going to do it. You're going to put up your support Or at least you know I think most people are doing it just to appear that they support that. They believe it, whether they believe it or not. It's more about appearing, like you do, to your friends and your family who, especially in the gay community I hate the word community, sorry, i shouldn't say that with a lot of gay people it's a they want to show their support to, to minorities if you're, whether you're white or Latino or whatever you know they there's a big kind of you're expected to support BLR Other marginalized yeah. 

Speaker 1: People who've been victimized by the man. 

Speaker 2: Yeah, and that's what some, like some gay people, come to, to the black communities out there saying, hey, we're like you, we've also been marginalized and treated unfairly, prejudice with prejudice and violence. So how come you don't support us? You know we, we we support you. Well, you know you, might. They might be talking to Christian, black Christians or you know. So it's an appeal, like the fact that they're both marginalized or happened in the past. They want to. People want to use that as a sort of unifying commonality, like with the flag you've talked about. It's become a cluttered mess because they're trying to put in everybody who's marginalized. But those marginalized groups don't get along necessarily. They've got competing interests or competing values that conflict with each other sometimes. So one thing I wanted to talk about real quickly is the conception of God's power, a God's power, just to put it out there. I mean there, you know, the idea that what makes God powerful, or a God powerful, is omniscience, omnipotence and omnipresence. Right, what do those three mean? 

Speaker 1: Drew, i'm testing you down, i was going to ask, i was going to ask you omnipresence, omnipotence, from what I gather, i mean it's like being everywhere all at the same time, at the same time and same place, always and forever. 

Speaker 2: And what's omnipotence mean. 

Speaker 1: Like I said, those three it's the same thing. You brought these different. 

Speaker 2: Well, omnipotence is all powerful, Omniscience is all knowing. It goes back to that dynamic of that relationship between power and knowledge, right? He knows everything. so you? 

Speaker 2: can't get by on him, you know you're not, nothing's going to get by him or her And omnipresence is everywhere. You pick who does. You can't escape. So I don't know. I just thought that'd be important to put out there, just to kind of use it as a foil. For when we talk about the regime or entities of power, Is that a component in what makes them powerful? When you're not talking about a God, you're talking about the elite, let's say Are they everywhere? Are they all knowing And are they all powerful? 

Speaker 1: Well, i think, do they have to be all those three or can it be just a perception that they are? I mean, because that's what we used to describe God. He is all powerful everywhere And the rule, the ultimate and absolute rule, interpreted through the Bible, the Koran or the Torah or other kind of ancient texts, was supposed to be. It may see it as the word of God. That definitely can be replaced. Our version of God and kind of you two got to this is if God is dead, if that old version of the three O's that you've described, what replaces it? 

Speaker 1: There was talking nihilism, but it can also be an ideology, or it can be a state, a state actor, in this case, the government, the regime, where it doesn't have to be true necessarily. It's just that people have to believe it And if they believe it, they alter their behavior, much like the religion of old. I believe there's a God. Therefore, that God says do not commit adultery, i'm not going to commit adultery, in this case, believe in trans rights or something to that case, while I'm not believing it. Or don't say certain things, self-censor on the internet, no matter what it's about, because God sees everything. In this case, the state sees everything. So I think the same rules, the same thoughts that we put on God and therefore God put on us, can be applied to the state It's just a matter of believing it And if you don't believe it, then, like we were talking about earlier, are you willing to pay the consequences for that? 

Speaker 1: Just like there were heretics quote unquote heretics or nonbelievers during the heyday of Christianity who paid that price for it, so in many ways, what we're saying today is an ideology, a regime. Ideology is a religion, and if you don't believe in it and if you outwardly display that resistance to it, then there will be and can be consequences. 

Speaker 2: I think, with my tendency is to believe that those who want power and those groups who want power who are combined in a similar effort corporations, whatnot want total control, they want to. That's the nature of the beast is to dominate, monopolize and by any means, do you know what I mean? And knowledge you know, like knowing through these companies of. I mean that's why a lot of these companies, like Google, make so much money because they sell the knowledge of what we're doing And that's beneficial to companies as to know what we're thinking, down to the minute level, of minute to minute. You know what I mean. That data becomes so much important and that's knowledge, right, and if you know, if you can know more and more, the more you know, the better, as a, if your interest is in dominating or controlling and to maximizing your profits. So I my tendencies think that is what's going on. 

Speaker 2: There is a, there is a God like power out there, a group of people, whoever they are, who are attempting to know everything about us and are probably knowing everything about us Now, with the omniscience, yeah, i mean all powerful, all powerful that I don't know if we can apply that to what's going on now. That maybe goes into what you're saying. If we think it, if we think they're powerful enough to rule everything, then that's a good enough really. Yeah, i don't know, i was just flirting with that idea to see if we can, come, you know, use that, that definition of God's power, to apply it to our authority figures or the elite. The last thing is there anything else you wanted to talk about that you felt we didn't address last time? 

Speaker 1: No, I think, I think that's it. 

Speaker 2: The last thing I want to bring up is the power over the body of the subject, let's say the public, the people, is. Conspiracy theories go off on this, like they talk about diseases as biological weapons, chemtrails as sort of saturating our air and having this chemical process go on without us really knowing it. That's making us either more docile or changing our DNA. They've mentioned the COVID vaccine. You know vaccines in general. Hormones are big, especially now with the trans movement, but you know even before what we eat. Maybe some people think that's having like it's creating some subconscious process in our physical makeup, that it's having an impact on us in a negative way. 

Speaker 2: Drugs, you know, the psych drugs that a lot of people are on Adderall, that that's a manipulation, that's a power play going on there. I want to, throughout the series, kind of for myself, keep that in the back of my mind is, you know, it doesn't have to be something as dramatic or fantastical as chemtrails, but you know, maybe on a more realistic level, medicines, specifically psych medicines, or diet, things like that. So I don't know. I was just wanting to explore that more throughout this series because I mean there's over manipulations, but to me those are more like subconscious, hidden sort of ways of controlling people. 

Speaker 1: And the conspiracy doesn't necessarily have to be a collective, organized, deliberate, from a kind of a secret society, necessarily. either It can be basic as human greed or even corporate greed when you talk about big pharma or these medications. Their job, whenever manufacturers this medication, is to sell their wares, in this case drugs, and sell them to as many people as they possibly can. That's their job. 

Speaker 1: I don't think there's any ideological or even religious or even conspiratorial reasons behind that, necessarily other than they want to make as much money as they possibly can, and if that means getting a bunch of people on OxyContin or whatever drugs is possible, then so be it, whether they need it in reality or not. 

Speaker 2: So it's less of a social engineering sort of power. It's not a matter of control necessarily. It can be both. 

Speaker 1: It could be both. I mean you can have those folks who are trying to control or social engineer at the same time. They use these, you know, use big pharma. So it's a win-win for both. They say I'm in it just for social engineering. Yeah, i would like to make a little money out of it, but I'm more so into it for social engineering. 

Speaker 1: They link up with big pharma as an example. Who wants to make money? You want to make money out of this, i want to get power out of this, so it's a win-win for both of us That type of thing. So let's figure out a way to spread OxyContin around. 

Speaker 2: When you get your money, I get my social engineering type of thing, as an example. 

Speaker 1: It's a relationship, And so if yeah, I think that's forming an alliance with people or organizations that will get me to where I want to be, at the same time getting you you know. if you're in it for just making money, it's you where you want to be. 

Speaker 2: I think, and with COVID, it really showed us how powerful the medical community is, at least the research community, how much authority they have. Do you know what I mean? Because, especially now, with biological weapons being a huge issue and, well, pandemics, it shows you how much we're going to rely on them to decide what to do with the laws in our lives. you know, because I feel the medical professionals have become almost and this is not new at all, this is just I'm reiterating some platitude I've heard before that rings true to me, which is that they become the priests. you know, in our new religion which is what is our new religion, i don't know capitalism life they become sort of the pervade the well because they manage life and death. So that is very important to us, because that's all we have now. 

Speaker 2: We don't have God, we don't have the priests. really, you know, for the culture as a whole, who used to manage life and death, they were the ones who kind of could speak to the transcendent afterlife and for God and all of that. Now it's the doctors, physicians. they manage everything in terms of life and death. So I'm just I guess I'm thinking it from a co-perspective is like whoever, whatever field or discipline manages death has the most authority. So I don't know, i don't know where I'm just kind of going off on that. 

Speaker 1: I think, life and death. Who can manage? I mean, it used to be the family, specifically the father, in the patriarchal society And I'm talking ancient times, but even relative modern times, before the state involved itself in every single thing, it was the father who was the authority to figure on all things religion, medicine, who my daughter's going to marry, all that. And we've replaced ourselves along the way, at least in the United States, with the state. The state makes those decisions And once we gave the state that power, it expanded itself and basically cut out the father. There's no reason for a father when you have the state. 

Speaker 2: Well, because the father's, not he's fallible. now, he doesn't know all and all be all. He's not an expert, unless he's a fucking doctor or whatever. But his power is limited And we know that you know, we know not. He doesn't know what he's talking about. If it's about cancer and how to treat it, or you know. 

Speaker 1: Or if it's a state is valuable just as much as the father. I mean, we can look at what happened just with COVID right Disaster on the medical. They had their 15 minutes of pain, but they ruined their reputation for a very, very long time And not for everybody. 

Speaker 1: Well, not, i mean that applies to the father as well. I mean a lot of, maybe you know a lot of people within the US society still look to the father for that guidance, but long term wise, it's been a slow degradation. Religion used to be a family thing. Romans believe that to be the case as well, and with everything you know, basically their father was the sole authority on all things, and you know, the father ran into competition whether that's industrialization, lesser civilization, the growth of civilization, what have you. And that competition became the managerial class And then after that, the kind of expert class, whether it be expert in medicine or expert in war fighting whether it became expert in law, et cetera, et cetera. 

Speaker 1: That was either given up or taken away, or a combination of the two. The only thing like religion-wise I can think of as close to that still is Islam. The Middle East, probably parts of Africa and even parts of Latin America are very patriarchal based. It's a slow erosion, though, and, much like Nietzsche, once that old system is degraded, something has to replace it, in our case the thing was the state, It's the state and then everything within that state, the regime, to include the medical professionals, the military professionals. 

Speaker 1: It's all self-preservation. You brought up a good point. During the pandemic, the hero was transferred from soldiers, Marines, military folks, from them to doctors, nurses. You guys were getting the discounts and the recognition and you became the new soldier. So it feels good also to be recognized. It also is an opportunity where you're very influential. When you're in a pandemic, the medical community becomes very influential. So I think the daddy becomes the state when the real daddy, or at least the biological daddy, has become extinguished. I think that's what we've been experiencing for quite some time, but certainly what we're experiencing now Yeah. 

Speaker 2: And in the 50s and 60s the counterculture movement or the up-and-coming youth, was almost compelled to look at anyone older than 30 as being someone you don't trust. They don't know what's going on. Really. They're boomers. Well, now it's boomers. But the boomers at the time were coming up in the 50s and 60s with models like James Dean and Rebel Without a Cause and East of Eden. 

Speaker 2: This contention between the father and the son, which you can say was always there, it's just natural in the family. But it was on a public level in those movies where the father was oppressive and didn't understand what you're going through. He's controlled by the past, ways that are outdated. And then with the hippies and the 60s, it's like your parents are part of that old, their values are old And we're onto the new progressive values And it sets up that separation between generations which I think is expedient for the way, the new regime, you could say. And then the youth culture became important as a capitalistic tool because they could sell and market to kids and set up a whole new market. But what effect does that have on the integrity of the family? I don't know, rock and roll was part of that. But, yeah, control and fragmentation of the family and the dissolution of it, like the absolving of it of those bonds, are huge, and I think you see it in our culture at least. 

Speaker 1: I think that's where power does it so brilliantly is It exploits those natural tensions between the father and son, father and daughter, old versus the young, because the old is trying to maintain its power while the young is trying to gain a foothold and power, and there's a equilibrium there that I think the regime disrupts, or at least power disrupts. You can say that with respect to racial differences. There's a natural kind of friction there between different races, whether you're in the United States or around the world, and regime and power are able to exploit those frictions and rip that structure apart, that equilibrium at least apart, and cause chaos and then reestablish an equilibrium based off of new rules, though And I guess the question is to say are they doing that to set new values into the younger generation that better fit their goal? 

Speaker 1: Yeah, i think the introduction of new values is part of that split. It's a weapon of progressive progressivism or whatever you want to call it. Even a new religion or new culture is a way of disrupting that equilibrium that has been developing over years, hundreds, thousands of years, whatever that equilibrium is. In this case, the family. Father, mother have kids. When we're in agricultural society, help tend to the farm or what have you. We need you to help protect and secure the family from the outsiders. Because we were at a point of a large community. If we were in a smaller community, we looked to our neighbors and so forth for that kind of stuff. Now we look many of us look towards the state for our security now to protect us. 

Speaker 2: Yeah, or like with public figures as our guides, rather than our uncle or our father. we're not going to go to them to advise. We're going to go whose opinion and whose advice we value in this simulated realm which is the public sphere of celebrity social influencers, gurus who are celebrity, rupaul. 

Speaker 1: Exactly. And so then we run into a point. You're absolutely right. This is undermined, the father's truth, or at least the parent's truth, and now it's a matter of all right. Who, as a child, who do you choose to believe? In many cases, the TikTok influencer, it's the YouTube person, it's the fashionista, it's a celebrity, it's what have you? You're just much like we replaced our kings. You're just replacing your king. You were getting rid of the monarch. In this case, it was your dad, and you've replaced your dad with Joe Schmoe influencer, and I think the only difference in reality is your father actually looked out for the best for you. 

Speaker 2: I was thinking the same thing. 

Speaker 1: The influencer doesn't give a shit about you other than you subscribing and making them more money. So of course there's always exceptions to the rule, but that's the. That's an example of the fracturing of that power structure. 

Speaker 2: Yeah, and with when we bring Orwell into it, big brother right is a sort of metaphor for, we could say, for these political or public figures who we've now transferred our allegiance to or our respect and reverence for, onto this imitation family figure that we go to for authority, for advice, have all the appearances of just being like us, being a regular person whose history we know, we're familiar with them. It's a passive thing, it's like they hold all the power in that thing, whereas with the father figure you actually know, you've lived with it, it's a first of all. It's more authentic because it's not a far official. 

Speaker 2: The history of RuPaul might be all artificial, i don't know. You know it might be just a good story, whereas my father we know the truth behind it, we know the authenticity and that there's, i think, value there. And also I think we're onto something here, because it's the way that power is maintained with the state is to have to minimize the family's importance with each other. You know what I mean, because what would happen if that power was transferred back into the family? I mean one thing is with the US is that it's a nuclear family was big in the 50s and now also extended family was the first to go. Anyways, go ahead, and what you were going to say. 

Speaker 1: No, that's what I have to say. 

Speaker 1: I mean, it's the nuclear family and the family itself is a competition for power, and it goes back to the attempt of power to consolidate and grow, and by doing that you have to get rid of any competition that will disperse you in this case, the father. 

Speaker 1: So it was also the church that was a competing power. So if the government and I think we talked about this last week if the government told us to do something, we could go to the church for a check on that, and that still happens in many cases Or our local elder or our local person that we respected, but now their power is consumed. All that And it's eating up the church, it's eating up pretty much every balance of power except for the family, and they're trying to do that, for example, hormone therapy and trans stuff, and this is part of it is they're trying to give the power to the kid, but more so the state itself, and not allow the parents any form of approval or consent, and so they're doing that and other things, and so that's I don't know necessarily if it's a deliberate way by the regime to do that, but it's certainly a deliberate way by power itself to do that. 

Speaker 2: Well, and it might be the right way, like these experts might be right. 

Speaker 1: Well it might. It's the right way if you're a believer in consolidation of power, for sure, and that includes your subset within that power, in this case the medical community, let's say, because then all decisions, or at least decisions pertaining to the body and child, is really left up to not only, not solely, the child, it's the medical community, whether it be the psychologist, even if it's a panel, a psychologist, a medical doctor, etc. They have to. Someone has to make the decision to perform hormone therapy or surgery on the six year old. The six year old can't do it by him or herself, so the doctor has to say yes, if let's say they have subverted the parents, and there's a law that parents don't need to be involved in decision making process, so someone has to, and so this goes back to the replacement of parents by the regime. It doesn't necessarily have to be the political regime, it can be the medical sub power regime. Within that. Does that make sense? I mean a six year old has to approve the six year old's decision. 

Speaker 1: give consent to perform surgery, And if it's not the parents, it's got to be somebody or something else. If it's an individual doctor or a committee of doctors, someone's replacing what the father and mother used to do. It's not the six year old. That's for sure. 

Speaker 2: Well, but they can't like force you to take blood. if you are a what do you call that? Jehovah's Witness? You know you have every right to refuse medical care. So where is this coming from? where a six year old can, without the parents consent? 

Speaker 1: You'd have to do the research on it. But there's laws that are starting to emerge, or at least kind of like plan parenthood You can get an abortion without your parents consent And to that respect, that there's a TAMS or there's, you know, laws that are being tabled for for this type of where you can basically the parents I think it's in California. I'd have to go back and look certain states. 

Speaker 1: I think Washington is proposing laws for that that it doesn't require parents consent for a child to perform hormonal therapy or even sex changes from my understanding, Yeah. 

Speaker 2: Nevertheless, i think your point is taken that you know these panels of experts. What maybe we're aligned with FICO is they're becoming the authority figures. They have been for a number of years now. They because they're the expert on the proper way to manage your health, the proper way to live. They've done the research, they've got credentials, they've got power in the, in these groups right, the community of the physicians associations, the psychiatric what's that called the APA, American Psychiatric Associates that they have. They have the knowledge and the credentials and the power given to them and earned by them, you could say, in their studies. 

Speaker 2: You know to make these types of authority statements and these decisions that we give value to. We we for the most, a lot of us do anyways. We respect that And so we respect their authority not not everybody, but you know what I mean. Like when you go to get your house built you're not going to, you might not just where am I going? You're, you're going to try to find credentialed people to do it. You respect that authority and their credentials, right? Can we apply that to the medical community? 

Speaker 1: I think we can. Yes, i think we. What we've done is all that used to lie on the family building your own house and again going back. But also there's a progression here of giving up our sovereignty and and also, along the way, our expertise. And I guess you could say we gave up our expertise before we gave up our sovereignty, because if you don't know how to build a house, you've given up your sovereignty to the house builders. 

Speaker 1: Same with the medical side. The sovereign when it came to medical started with the father generally patriarchy And then if you looked for outside of your family, it was the local shaman who was versed in various herbal remedies Okay, this is before pharmaceutical and all that kind of stuff But the decision was to go to the to the shaman was first laid on the father. Decision of anyone in your family was laid on that father, not a panel of experts. You know a panel of experts that we gave expertise on. We have to somewhere along the line, either as individuals or a collective or emergent behavior. We gave up that sovereignty to the medical community And it grew itself just like any other organization Once it became a professional organization, and there was many steps along the way to get there. 

Speaker 1: That's going to do what it wants to do to expand and what it needs to do to expand. It kind of goes back to the relationship between Pfizer and the politician. It's mutually beneficial for both the politician and Pfizer. That applies to the medical associations and even the home builders associations. Not any Tom Dick or Harry can go build a home now, because you have to. You know you have to go through all these requirements And that's a way for I think and it's under the guise of safety and reliability and all that kind of stuff And in the road to hell was paged with good intentions. It's like, okay, yes, you want someone that's certified in home building, right, you don't want some your local neighbor to build your house right. 

Speaker 1: Here's all the certificates we've had. We've passed all these tests, et cetera, et cetera, and that might be the way we've given up our sovereignty in many ways, as we were manipulated into doing it, we were hustled into doing it. Houses still fall, houses are still bathed with crappy, shitty ways, and I think that applies to the medical community as well. 

Speaker 2: Oh my. 

Speaker 1: God, I see it. 

Speaker 2: Now, now you know I'll take my chances with the medical community. But there are. It's become so bureaucratic and legal, trapped up in all these legal issues. And well, at the end of the day, too, they're human, these doctors. They make mistakes, they have huge workloads, same with the nurses. And the corporations behind are always about the bottom line, making more and more money each year. So they shave off. 

Speaker 2: You know it's become corporatized now and maybe has always been, but that has negative impacts on the health care that's being given Because, at the end of the day, well, and also insurance companies, they're deciding too, pressuring the doctors to be able to do things or not to the decisions they make, that kind of care that they're going to, the investment they're going to put in this patient. You know that's scary because if money's behind the decision and corporate values trump the individual's health, like concerns about if it's, if it's come down to money and the human is a dollar sign, well, the probability, the numbers behind what's going to happen with this human if we do this or don't do this, well, we're going to go with the one where we make more money. So that's not necessarily beneficial to the human under this case, you know whatever case given case. 

Speaker 1: And during COVID, i think certain doctors were being the very least canceled and some license or fire when you know you will not prescribe ivermectin or else XYZ. 

Speaker 1: Basically, your career is over, even if the ivermectin is better for that particular patient. So it goes back to you know what's the intent? basically what used to be the decisions that were made by the father are being made by not only doctors, but those that control doctors as well, whether it be insurance. Then who's controlling insurance, etc. Etc. And this gets into the the you know the law, the iron law, oligarchy, and so forth. It works its way back up And so you know, we open this up with full calls. It's not a hierarchy, but it can be both. It can be both the triple O's that you were talking about and a hierarchy that folks like you know, john Burnham and others are getting at. Two things can be true at once, even if they appear to be contradictory. 

Speaker 2: I mean, i was just having a realization. Maybe I am a Marxist, it could. Maybe I'm a communist, like in in in in theory or whatever, because you know I'm from the working class. There's a huge push against the working class now. A lot of people who voted for Trump were working class. 

Speaker 2: There's this and we know the corporations, capitalism has been abusive towards working class, i mean towards everybody. It's all about money And you know, big plain corporations have cut costs on maintenance and they've been just, you know, knowingly dealing with the fact that there might be a huge plane wreck where they have to make all these settlements, but at the end of the day, those settlements might are cheaper than having to do maintenance every week or what have you. So there's a? yeah, I don't know. I just got there because I'm thinking if everything is, if the authority, if the people in power are all about money, they're using the experts who we revere and put faith in as a way to maximize that they can manipulate those experts too. Like I don't know where I was going. I'm just kind of brainstorming here. 

Speaker 1: Well, i mean, i think that's part of the credentialing piece is those credentialing generally comes from the government or there's a strong relationship between those larger credentialing organizations and the government, whether it be through funding or political clout or what have you, and it goes back to that relationship is okay, we'll give you those credentials, but we need this in return. When I say, don't prescribe, i've remeft them. You better make sure your doctors don't prescribe that for my political reasons. It has nothing to do with health, it has to do with medical reasons. Military is very similar. It's a relationship going back to Foucault as well. A relationship of power is. We haven't won a war since 1945, but yet the people who've been the leaders and the decision makers in the most recent wars are still in power and are still advising what we think the folks are in power, the political class. In any sane world that wouldn't happen. There's got to be something else going on there that has to do with the protected. 

Speaker 2: And the financial leaders too. Remember. One huge disillusionment I had in 2008 was when Bush's financial cabinet had a lot to do and Clinton's and Reagan's They're all the same people out of them Greenspan, Ben Bernanke, all these people, Timothy Geithner Well, the financial collapse happened in 2008, 2007, 2008. Obama kept all of them in, practically. I mean you would think, okay, it's time to get a new cabinet of financial experts. We got to get new ones in here because they fucked up. That didn't happen And a lot of the banking CEOs stayed in place. They didn't get almost forced out or whatever as a way to be penalized for their unrestrained greed. That sent a huge signal to me that this fucking something's up here As the authority figures. They're not accountable for anything. Yeah. 

Speaker 1: And it tells me that they don't, that, going into the accountability, they don't fear the people, which, in the ideal world at least, how we're set up as a democracy the accountability, the judge is the people, and if you screw up you're going to be voted out of office and all the bureaucracy with you. Well, that's not reality. Or else people will say I'm with the generals And so it's a relationship mutually preserving, a relationship between, let's say, the general, general A and the politician. What provides you cover for the disaster in Afghanistan and Iraq As one. We told you to go there in the first place for our own political ends, going back to Klauswitz. But we'll provide you cover and allow you to kind of expand your small piece of the power as a general A. We'll provide you cover. But also you're going to do what we tell you to do. And if that means we're going to start instituting this diversity, inclusion, equality, commissars type of ideology, or we're going to introduce a new ideology into the army, you're going to do it and you're going to do it with pride, and you're going to be the first one to publicly accept this, which certain generals did. 

Speaker 1: And so it's a relationship, a true leader who was kind of ideology based. So I'm not going to do what I'm told because I don't believe in It personally, but it's a contradictory to the constitution. I'm going to resign. Or, as honorable people did in the past, i lost this war and I'm going to resign Now. It doesn't work that way because, one, there's no accountability, like you're saying, and two, they've become consumed by greed and the power. Most of these generals go off and consult different countries. Why these countries would want this general to consult on strategies beyond me. Maybe they're just as insiders into more technological stuff where they can actually make money. But to have a general you as a general advise me on strategy would be the last thing I would do as another country. 

Speaker 2: Well, and it also suggests that the failure was maybe a planned failure, like a planned collapse, like it was intentional. 

Speaker 1: Control demolition. 

Speaker 2: That it was some benefit to them because they kept their power and perhaps it increased their power, like they were actually successful because they stayed in power, they stayed in their position and they were rewarded for it, and at what level, i mean, and for what reason I don't know, but we can get into that later. 

Speaker 1: Anything else No, that's it. 

Speaker 2: Good discussion. Good, I think we're good on the what is power Yep, I think we established that early in this podcast. 

Speaker 1: What we're going to be using as a working definition that can change with the more knowledge and information we retrieve. 

Speaker 2: So this is pig signing off with Nature's Gamble. Thank you.