The Panopticon
On power, politics, culture and art.
Two cellmates. Prisoners of the cave. Students of shadows. Observers of light. Wander to the outside.
The Panopticon
#10 Scottish Journeys: Unearthing Rebellion, Power, and Misperceptions in History
From the mysterious, ancient castles of Scotland to the lively streets of London, we've journeyed across breathtaking landscapes, tasted the unique flavor of Scottish culture, and reflected on our own identities. Imagine, walking through the ruins of a castle, the wind blowing off the North Sea, the smell of salt and moss in the air. What if that could give you a glimpse into the veiled secrets of Scottish history, their saga of rebellion, and the stark contrasts in societal norms and dress code?
As we traveled, tasted, and experienced, we found ourselves diving into the deep pool of philosophical and political narratives of rebellion. Remember Frankenstein and the Island of Dr Moreau? We found a fascinating parallel between these classic tales and the enduring theme of modern rebellions. You might ask, "What does Shakespeare's Macbeth have to do with rebellion?" Well, we peeled back the layers to reveal a propagandistic narrative, ripe for critical analysis and discussion.
We turned our critical eye towards the portrayal of history in popular culture, and it left us pondering. Is whitewashing in media creating a fantastical representation of our shared history? What effect does this fantasy-like depiction have on our understanding and perception of the past? As we closed our journey, we realized how our reflections have morphed into an insightful discussion on rebellion, power regimes, and the consequences of challenging the status quo. And it starts with a trip to Scotland.
Twitter is @ThePanopticon84
신기 to the Panopticon, august 18th 2023. I am. He wanders here with Dum Dum. Today, we will talk about the art of rebellion, macbeth and William Wallace a Scottish tale. You may be wondering why a Scottish tale? Well, dum Dum and I have just gotten back from a lengthy trip to the wonderful, amazing and beautiful country of Scotland, so we felt it wise and relevant to talk about our trip, but also talk about it within the context of rebellion, which goes along nicely with our, with our series here, dum Dum.
Speaker 2:Before we dive in anything to say, no, it was a great trip for sure, had a lot of fun, a lot of fighting with the family, but that's sort of normal when you get a bunch of beasts together in close quarters and small cars that drive clearly on the weird, you know, wrong side of the road. Get them all together and there's bound to be some fighting. You managed to stay out of it about a lot of the heat, didn't you?
Speaker 1:yeah, I mean a target's been on my back for most of my life.
Speaker 2:Now a lot of that is to my own doing, but I tried to keep low and stay out of it this one time, mm-hmm yeah, so we, we started off where we start off London, not even stayed there for a day, went up to Edinburgh for about four days or so beautiful city, sort of gothic, creepy, cold, rainy, cloudy, all that good stuff and then went up to St Andrews for a little bit, did that thing, the golf course. Went up to Inverness I almost got laid and by a hot ass giant Scott up there.
Speaker 1:Then we went and you didn't like him later or raped and I don't want to downplay rape, but that was laid. It sounds like a kind of a consensual relationship. He was, just like you said, one of them giants who kind of laid all over you for the most part right, we were at a pub and this what would just typical Scott, would you imagine?
Speaker 2:cartoonish, almost six foot six, like my dream, really. You know kind of rough, grumble, grumbley type. Just I thought he was trying to pick my pocket. Honestly, he was all hands all over me, he was drunk, talking his nonsense speech you know, real friendly but suspiciously. But then I kind of he kind of disarmed me a little bit after, after a while in my hole was disarmed.
Speaker 2:Yeah, he was like touching all those metaphorical buttons you know to unlock, unlock that hole he could have had it, but real nice guy though in the end, yeah, real nice, he had two friends with them, okay, so that Inverness was went to a couple castles there where Locknesses went on down yonder. To where'd we go? Sky, I love sky, yes, and poetry did some hiking there. I got sick and that's where a lot of the fighting stemmed from, because, you know, for various reasons we don't have to get into, but I still made some fairy trips over to remote islands and then we went to one of my favorite places, open after that little seaside port town in West Scotland and in the Hebrides by those islands. And then you guys went up to some of those islands up there, one of which Macbeth, the real figure, was buried supposedly, and then on down back to Edinburgh, on then London for a couple days.
Speaker 1:Smack dab of gay pride, your favorite, smack dab in the gay pride gay pride haunted us friendly, very friendly, though our taxi driver tried to get as close to the hotel as possible, right in the middle of the parade, so I give them kudos for that. But he let us out right in the middle of the street where the parade was what was essentially, and so we became part of the parade for a few short moments and then did you feel compelled to like show your pride for, as a family of a gay?
Speaker 1:person no, I was more worried about how far I was gonna have to carry the luggage and but again very friendly people. So got to the. It was only half a block. Yeah, everyone was pretty nice, got over away and shit like that probably shocked why we were there, or just so drunk they could.
Speaker 2:Scott, scottish people, yeah, scottish people are surprisingly very, very friendly. I for some reason I didn't think that going into it I thought they'd be a little cold, little distant European in a way you know sort of been you know worldly like over Americans, that type of thing. But they were, on the opposite, in Scotland, very friendly, very welcoming. I mean for the. You know right, I guess in the smaller so much Edinburgh they just kind of ignore you like any other big see.
Speaker 1:I found the folks in England, specifically London, friendly as well for the most part yeah, the train rides were very nice and the people are very fucking friendly.
Speaker 2:Compared to the US service people, well, you know like airline attendants in the US are, I would say, the equivalent of just almost a disgruntled worker. You know, like ready to pop, pop off at anybody sort of weather, beaten, beaten down, aggressive, irritable and whereas the you know Scots and those British service people on the train specifically very accommodating, they pretty much all but gave me a hand job.
Speaker 1:You know they were throwing beers at us, like, and in the US if you ask for another beer or vodka or whatever, they give you the side eye a little bit like yeah they start getting worried, they are beaten down because they've been dealing I don't know if that's a reflection of the culture they've had to deal with, that being the American culture, because we've had an opportunity to travel the world on, for example, korean Airlines and a couple of Mexican Airlines, and the airlines are, first of all, silent, very orderly, and the the flight attendants are extremely professional, spring, extremely nice.
Speaker 1:I mean it's, it's what you would expect of a airline, but I don't know if that is again their niceness and their professionalism. Is that a reflection of the people that they deal with? You know, orderly, kindness, mature, acting, for the most part, my experiences on Mexican Airlines and Korean Airlines and even Chinese Japanese Airlines very nice, very orderly, very kind of respectful people. So therefore, the flight attendants return in kind. I mean, america is literally, I think, still the wild, wild west. We're just like you know, we're very uncivilized, it seems are we?
Speaker 2:I think we're very dynamic. We know that we have a very varied culture. You go up to Scotland, they all look like, you know, for the most part they all look like central from central casting of Lord of the Rings. Or you know slash, you know any fucking movie you've seen from the days like very white, pasty, blue eyed elven, you know elvish, they've got a, they've got that quality to them. There they all look pretty similar. I would say that's general speaking, then generally speaking. But you know, I mean they're all very I would say more so homogeneous.
Speaker 2:The US, that's totally diverse and with that diversity comes a bunch of conflict and we're just. And top on top of that, our political climate, our cultural shift, inflation, we're just, we're we're we're on heightened irritability, I think right now. And these service people, I mean we get it a little bit in the hospital, but usually in the hospital people are pretty well behaved for the most part because they're at a point of weakness, you know, and in and scared and whatnot. But in these restaurants, the flight attendants I mean COVID on top of that, these people are, yeah, you might be right, it might be the public's wearing down on these people and of course they don't get paid very much. You know, like they used to, they don't get those benefits like they used to. On these planes they're just beaten down, you know, chipped away, and we're we are. I just do you think it's part of our in like individuality, sense of entitlement, our disrespect for others?
Speaker 1:or well, I think it's the. The honeymoon from our victory in World War two has come to an end and we're at a point of friction where we had, you know, to the victor goes as a spoils where the United States was for the most part the lone superpower. Now, yes, there was the Soviet Union and China and so forth, but really the US ruled the world and all the privileges that came with that have now deteriorated into into the rest of the world. And having traveled before throughout the world, you could see that America was exceptional in the fact that it had a perspective, in a worldview and living in a bubble that the rest of the world was not privy to. And I think that bubble has popped and once you see the world as it is, you take the red pill, you name it. That can be very stressful and very angst, and on top of that, part of the results of the bubble bursting is inflation, home prices, jobs, lack thereof, or the economy in general, the political climate, etc. Etc.
Speaker 2:I think you're right. I think our golden age, if you want to call it that, post-world War, up till maybe the 90s, 2000s, even maybe right before the crash of 2008 and on, america, has always been kind of. I think Americans have been looked at as being kind of naive. We smile like we're fucking idiots. We're kind of privileged, in a way, from all that success of post-World War. We have an innocence in that way. This kind of goes into what you're saying. We've lived in this sort of bubble and now it's popped.
Speaker 2:You could say in the 70s. That happened too for some people, as evident by all the movies that came out showing how cynical we were and sick of it all. Vietnam War maybe not to this level, though, or maybe we're exaggerating it, I don't know. But yeah, I think overall we've reached a sort of disillusionment. What comes with that is disappointment. We've been idealistic, I think, fed through the media, through lies, to believe in the dream, to believe that we're special, each one of us, all that bullshit Europeans. It seems like they got that shit kicked out of them a long time ago. They have a sense of kind of experience about them, if you know what I mean, like a realism that I think Americans aren't quite ready to, generally speaking, aren't quite used to viewing the world with a realistic lens, a skeptical you know, cynical lens. What do you think about that?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I remember when I was in England a few years ago for a few months, I asked an Englishman what his thoughts of the United States were and he said you know, many people in England look at the United States as like the younger brother, but as the bigger, stronger, younger brother, kind of like the bull in the China shop, that he's bigger, he's stronger, but he's not, he's basically dumb as rocks.
Speaker 1:He didn't say the Englishman didn't say dumb as rocks, but he alluded to that like he didn't have the intellectual curiosity and nuance and so forth, as like the older brother or the parents, the older brother being or the parents being England, old England and Europe and so forth, that we were just bigger, stronger, the buffoonish and was able to conquer the world that has no intellectual curiosity or nuance whatsoever.
Speaker 1:I mean, fashion is is an example. I mean we walk around with our cargo shorts and fucking ripped T shirts and pajamas, you know on airplanes and so you know you're very casual as opposed to in Asia and even in Europe, it's much more semi formal, if you will. You're wearing slacks, you're wearing nice shoes, you're wearing a shirt, maybe not in a suit, but you're presenting yourself different as, as I've wandered the world. You can see, you can spot an American from 100 yards away. Even if you're in a a predominantly, let's say, white country Scotland, england or you're in a place with a lot of expats with, like Mexico or Asia, you can spot the difference between a European and an American, let's say, if you're in Mexico or what, from a, from a mile away. Haircut has to do with it, but the aesthetics piece I think is a reflection of, of of that as well.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the weight alone, pure tonnage of human, of Americans, where we're very large compared to others, we eat a lot.
Speaker 2:You know, we're loud, sort of very, I would say, disrespectful, is how maybe it might come across in terms of disrespecting other people's, not only physical space, but you know, here, like we're loud, we fight on planes and things like that with our family members. We don't respect other people's. What's the word? Oral, oral, like what they, what they can hear, you know, close, yeah, we're very class kind of not, we don't identify with the class based society, which is, like you know, we're kind of anti class in a way, even though all of us want to be rich, we, we pretend like we, for the most part, don't believe in that whole system. You have to look like this to be. You mean, in fact, like I've heard Hollywood, all those people dress like bums and they're multi billionaires. You know, look at Mark Zuckerberg and stuff in the back in the day, we're in a hoodie, now he's in a suit, of course, and you're talking generally, like Americans tend to look sloppy and unprofessional.
Speaker 1:Well, definitely, definitely the uncivilized, anti historical or at least modern civilization where you were at the very least, even if you were informal or casual, you still wore slacks, you still wore a collared shirt, short sleeve or long, even if you're going out for a cup of coffee or something like that, even if it's going to the you know airport and flying on a plane you know very uncomfortable for nine hours or so, things of that nature. And the idea of shorts being kind of uncivilized is something new to me, or at least before my travels. Is the idea of wearing shorts for a man in some places are as looked at as feminine, one or two very uncivilized, which you go back to pre, so quote, unquote, civilization. You know the natives and indigenous people. Some didn't wear clothes at all or somewhere, just a little flap over the junk and things of that nature. And that would probably be the point of a modern, civilized person. Well, that's the point. You're basically a barbarian. You're acting and dressing like one.
Speaker 2:Yeah, like this, like the Scottish Kilt is a good example of that and it's something that they kind of held on to culturally. I think, is like a almost like a point of pride, like that type of address. But they've got very formal kilt to. You know, in fact I would venture to say most of them only wear kind of formal kilt. They don't wear a rag to kill around. Maybe they do. I didn't see anybody wear a kilt there, did you?
Speaker 1:Other than the bagpipe folks. No, not in just kind of normal routine activities. I did not see a kilt out there.
Speaker 2:It's almost like a like, if, if, the okay, because you know, charles went up there right after we were there, king Charles and Queen Camilla pucker bowls. She went up. They went up there to do like their fancy gatherings after a king is coordinated, or his coordination in Edinburgh, right, and he was shown images of wearing a kilt kilt, sort of respect to the culture, but it's very formal. It's almost like if President Clinton back in the day went to a Native American rally or whatever area and put on you know a feather headdress or you know, with the, the lady who's out now, what's her name? She was the Democratic House of Republic. Fuck, she was the head of the House of Republic. I've been in the house for a long time. Forgive me, pelosi, that's that woman's name. They put on the dashiki or whatever it was. It's a, it's like a sign of like. We're going to respect you. Nobody really wears that a kilt as much, or, if at all, in daily wear. I'm not saying that political game, I think it's very political. Those types of dress that are really outdated and obsolete for the most part, like the kill, you know.
Speaker 2:Like you said, though, it's a sign of barb, of a barber, a vulgar barbarian type culture and to this is of England's and in France and Italy's elevated class sort of aristocratic type dress Americans I think are part of. Scotland is, as I learned, has had a very contentious relationship with England. I didn't really know that Before kind of going there and studying a little bit about it. And you know they fight. That's what this whole podcast is about. Yeah, a lot of it is how Scotland was a rebel, a barbarian. You know, even with Rome, rome looked at once they got, they conquered England right when they got to the Highlands in Scotland they were like fuck, these people are first of all the lands hard to traverse and to to fight, but these people are fucking barbarian. They paint their faces, some of them blue paint. You know, even even Rome had a tough time with rebellious folks. But the Americans yeah, I see that kind of link Americans haven't had really had a sort of okay, what's the equivalent of the kilt in America? Is it the shorts?
Speaker 1:I would. I would think the gene would be the shorts or the genes. I would have to study the history of the, the, the kilt, a little more. I don't know if that was a warrior Initially, some sort of warrior dress, but for sure was it just kind of an everyday thing. And so I would say something like the shorts, something of the genes, with some more but with more symbolism behind it, and so it was a uniform because of the, the, the patterns on the actual kilt represented a clan.
Speaker 1:So in many ways it was a uniform, started off as a uniform for, for various clans and that. That way you could identify, perhaps during battle, who was on your side and who was not. The shorts might be a very special comparison, but definitely the represent well, it's like the representation of barbarism and rebellion and things like that. For sure I mean United States is a rebel started off as rebels as well as Scotland. Now Scotland, for various reasons and other other reasons, eventually succumbed to England, where we we didn't at least not on the surface and geographic wise, but we were able to repulse the English as rebels, much like the Scottish did initially.
Speaker 2:And you can even take it down to Texas. It's like these areas in the world that have kind of a holdout in terms of attitude. You know they might have been incorporated in the greater country or nation or empire but they still kind of have a hard sense of individuality as a separate, almost culture like Texas. You know those old diehards wearing cowboy hats Cowboy hats are a huge, I think, statement. It's like we're this, I am this renegade sort of cowboy, tough motherfucker who's not going to be pushed around. You know you got the sheriffs wearing cowboy hats in Texas, the constables, all that stuff. You don't see that anywhere else, usually BYOMI or something.
Speaker 2:Even in the US there's those separate kind of cultures, subcultures. You know you got, I remember, people coming from Illinois back in the day when we lived in Texas, thinking everyone wore cowboy hats. You know, ride horses and shit and that's kind of how we think of generally Americans think of like, let's go, when we go to Scotland everyone's going to be wearing a kilt. When we go to I don't know where else Japan they're going to be wearing. There's gages everywhere. I don't know, we're not that stupid, but you know what I mean. It's kind of that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you have images of certain cultures based off of you know what Hollywood used to give us, what novels used to give us and what more. So I would say Hollywood, through movies and so forth, basically characterize different cultures through that medium movies. You know, I didn't know about the commode you know, how people and what people looked like and how they dressed. You know you would have National Geographic and other nature like shows, but for the most part movies is how people formed images and impressions of different cultures.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and what's interesting too is you're like Americans. Yeah, they might be looked at as naive, the dumb brother who's all brute force, but we've taken over, I want to say, the culture of the world, at least the Western world, through the media, through Hollywood, through our cultural output, mainstream movies, music, I mean you pretty much go anywhere now in a lot of these Western countries. It's all the same thing. Not only is, you know, everything gentrified for the most part in a lot of these big cities, but everyone's listening to the same music, everyone's watching the same movies from the same outlets. Everyone's got Netflix, hulu. You know, it's like you know. It's like you know. You know it's very what am I trying to say? Like we've seeped in their culture that way and kind of taken over their minds in a way.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think. I think also food, specifically fast food, like McDonald's and Burger King and KFC and things of that nature. The question for me is, how organic is that versus how deliberate? There's different ways of fighting wars in order to gain control over the world. There's bullets and tanks, but there's also McDonald's and rock and roll, soft power that many, that many call it, and you know, some have argued this new kind of LGBTQ pride thing is kind of the new culture that America is kind of pushing out.
Speaker 1:I'm not sure that's the case. I'm thinking perhaps this is still a legacy of England in Europe, but that's a whole different side topic. How so? I mean, it's a whole different side topic. I think that liberalism in itself is, is it's not necessarily LGBTQTP or whatever. That's kind of a result of liberalism rooted in France and England with John Locke and the others. That is again a whole different podcast we could get into, but it's an interesting one for me because you know, america gets identified as kind of the leading force despite its nature in the world in the past and still somewhat today. On things like pride, let's just say, well, if you look back in history, you might not, you know, it might not be as clean cut as you would expect, england still has a large role in the world as an example, not only militarily, not only power wise, but culturally, and I think our elite, a lot of our elite, has looked up to England and Europe and wanted to be more like them in many ways. So I think that's a fascinating conversation, yeah.
Speaker 2:Well, especially back, you know, in the 1800s Henry James wrote novels about in the late 1800s, about Americans who were fortunate enough to have the money to go back to the Europe. You know, make that passage, spend time there, that they were naive and they were in a lot of ways generally almost trying to prove something because you know, americans had money but those old aristocratic Europeans were uber rich. You know, they were like from long lines of wealth, centuries of wealth, and then culture, I think culturally too, like class wise, the Americans had a sense of like inferiority, maybe because they knew where they came from. Still, you know, they knew they weren't, they weren't European, but they, there was still that sense of maybe I want to we're just as good as them. If not, you know, we still there's, like you said, england and France is still the standard to try to live up to in terms of class or wealth. And we're all about wealth in the US and yeah should. Well, yeah, we'll get into that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, I think I think subsequent, subsequent podcasts.
Speaker 1:You know, according to, you know what mainstream history, if you will, establishment history is a lot of. Our founding fathers never wanted to break from England in the first place. They just wanted representation. They want to be treated like any other Englishman. And they didn't get that and so they rebelled.
Speaker 1:The history of Scottish rebellion, which is, I think, our segue into our topic here, I think is very, is very similar. I am not an expert in the Scottish rebellion, by any matter, you know means, but I think rebellion in itself is true across the board. And why people rebel? I mean they want to control their own space, they want to control the space around them and when outsiders come in and take that or want to take that, or you're a once a part of a certain group and that certain group is starting to take that away from you, they're, you know, like in the American Revolution. Again, we were Englishmen, but then we we went our separate ways. Basically, you want to own your space. You want to, you know, control your space at the very least. And when that doesn't happen, when that's intruded upon, people rebel. It's a very simplistic explanation, but I think it's a true basic explanation.
Speaker 1:But there are consequences because oftentimes the person or the entity, the actor you're rebelling against is bigger, batter and stronger than you are. So there are consequences to that. So William Wallace, who we'll talk about, is a perfect example. He had some initial success at rebellion, at least on the battlefield. He ended up getting betrayed or caught by the English and basically killed. There was some initial success off of that. You know at least rebellion rich. What is it? Richard DeLinehart or some, you know some Scottish King coming, but that was the beginning of the assimilation of Scotland and with England, and hence Charles, King Charles, wearing a, a kilt. So there were consequences.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and before we, hey, before we get into that, can I? I just want to kind of see what you are perspective on this is like in talking about peoples or countries or nations, you know, like the Scottish or the French, the Irish and all that. In my part of my naive view of history of these types of people is that they've lived for a very long time in a, in a almost an isolation or untouched by outside people of different races, of different cultures and so forth. You know, part of me thinks, okay, that's how very various dialects developed is because there wasn't, there wasn't very languages, there wasn't very much interacting in between them and other cultures, and that's how their individual cultures developed. You know, wearing kilt, or you know drinking coffee, or wearing a certain braid in your hair and that sort of thing.
Speaker 2:But I was reading some books on what was it. I think it was Scotland, I can't remember. But saying how, even back in William Wallace's time, you know, back in the whatever it was 1200s, 1100s, the Scottish were kind of mixing with the French to try to go against England. Right, there was all these alliances that were being made at different times and sometimes those alliances would switch, and even within the clans themselves in Scotland. They would be aligned for one minute and then the next minute they would kind of go with the English.
Speaker 2:Remember that episode with the McDonald's and the Campbell's in Glencoe. The McDonald's and the Campbell's were two separate clans, I guess, of Scots and the, I guess McDonald's invited a bunch of the Campbell's over in the Glencoe area of Scotland to have feasts and sort of almost like a treaty type thing, and the whole time the Campbell's were planning with the I think the English king at the time, to massacre the McDonald's on that night and they did so and didn't kill them all, but they killed a large number of them while the McDonald's were sleeping. After all, the drunken parting was done. But yeah, I. Just what do you think about that, that view that? I mean you've always said that humans are by very nature conflict oriented, struggling for power, and that includes space, and that I mean, has there ever been a time where there's very isolated cultures that don't have any war with other outside peoples? And you know just what are your thoughts about all that?
Speaker 1:No, I think I mean the rise of Wallace himself against the English was part of the reason why the English one reason that we were English got involved was because Scotland was on the verge of civil war. The king, I think is the king Alexander died, and then various factions, clans and so forth were fighting over the power, and some of the nobility asked England to come in, and this is again very simplistic explanation Asked England to come in to arbitrate. England ended up basically taking over Scotland, or attempt to capture at least the nobility, some of the nobility, significant nobility within Scotland, and treat them as a vassal state. And so it's much more complex, you know, than we are explaining. And then people assume. And so, as you stated, the clans were fighting in Scotland for hundreds of years at least, between each other.
Speaker 1:Mcdonald's are one of the ones, one of the major clans, that began to win out over Scotland. And so, you know, my belief is that it is humans or the nature, it is human nature, with a law of nature, that people, animals, various entities within mother nature are always competing with one another, fighting with one another to expand itself, one to maintain itself, whatever that it is, and to expand itself.
Speaker 2:And so but you don't always have. I think the differences is like in terms of cultures, you know, not just human beings, but cultures or peoples. Is that you've got some? What do you want to call it? I guess cultures click over into an empire type mentality, of a conquering type mentality. I'm just thinking of, like Rome, you know, and England's a big one Dutch, the European Western nations, I mean they, and I don't know if that's just a kind of end result of some sort of prosperity, or is there something in the actual land itself that provides that richness to be able to then start going off? On the other, is there a need that's not being met in that certain area that they have to go start looking? Is it greed? You know what is it? I think it's Because you have other cultures, like Scotland, who didn't do that. Maybe, I think they did.
Speaker 1:They just didn't have the, I guess, capacity. I mean, if it was Scotland who won out and expanded its empire over, let's say, england, we'd be talking about England or Scotland as the rulers, as opposed to England. It's just a matter that England, in that case, won out.
Speaker 2:But is all this a response to some origin type people who started it all like lit the fuse and that all these other? Because England was not one of the biggest powers back in the early medieval times? Right, it was Spain or Italy, france, you know what came before that. Is there an origin to all this that got people? England became powerful because, almost in a response to the oppression from the Spaniards and France and all of them you know what I mean Almost like it triggers, like you're saying with the Scottish, they're being pressed by England constantly. It almost triggers this warlike spirit or something.
Speaker 1:Well, my thoughts are the origin is man himself. I think that it's seated in all man. Do you have exceptions of a kind of peaceful culture or even peaceful people as individuals? Yes, but I think the very nature of man himself is a warlike, is a war figure, a war person, and I think you simply have winners and losers. You don't have peaceful people and warlike people. Now you may have people who are more brutal in their war, who don't show any mercy versus those who win and then assimilate and show mercy. I think there's various levels of how you execute expansion and how you treat those you are victorious over. But the nature of war itself, I think, is, and the origin of war itself is in man, and you can even, you can even dig deeper and say it's in nature itself and it predates man. War is a way of describing violence between various actors for supremacy and expansion. You know lions, tigers.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because even in a different and even kind of going back to the human level the family you've got wars within family, people vying for power. You know some blessed one family members blessed with a higher intellect, so that gives them advantage. Someone else is beautiful, someone else is funny, has a personality manipulative. You know all these different kind of dynamics going on in a family itself and you take that to a broader microcosm of humans in general.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, you could say that there's this contentious at the psychological level, where man is at war with himself.
Speaker 1:First and foremost. You know you have the angel on one shoulder, the devil on another, who are opposed to one another, the yin and the yang. If you want to take an Asian influence and then you expand it out to the macro or sociological level, I think that is the same war in many ways. You just have multiplied from one person to multiple persons and then from multiple persons, well, you have the family, then you have the clan, then you have the tribe and then you have eventually the nation. Where you have that, that war on how you see the world as well. So I think it's, you know, within humanity. It starts with the individual itself, but even I think it predates this idea of conflict and, to expanding things, predates humanity itself. And then, at the micro and the macro level, you can look down into cells fighting each other for supremacy and then look out into the stars, you see universes fighting each other or clashing with each other for supremacy. It doesn't go away, I don't think.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but is that our base nature? Is something? Is there a higher standard we should live to, that's more of a higher consciousness, so to speak. Or is that just all human mumbo jumbo that we've come up with to pacify each other? You know peace, Because with the, you know nuclear weapons. Now that's been going on for over half a century is like we're going to kill each other, we're going to blow, we're going to make ourselves extinct if we don't come up with some higher values to live according. To. Yeah, Any other thoughts on that?
Speaker 1:No, to answer your question, I think it is a base characteristic of human beings is violence, and more so the will and desire the will to power, if you want to use Nietzsche's, but the desire to expand oneself, to control oneself, but also to control others in this space around you and others as well. Where that comes from, I'm not quite sure that that is when you have to kind of get into metaphysics and so forth. But I also think there is a characteristic in human beings to show empathy, sympathy and mercy as well, and it's that trying to maintain that that middle road is, as Aristotle states, is the best, is the best road is the middle road and so. But you're always fighting because both sides of the extremes are trying to pull you as a human, but also as a society, to one side or the other.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and you know, a lot of times, people with an agenda, what have you tried to appeal to? Your sense of self preservation? You know your selfish, your your this or that appeal to your sense of like. With climate change, for example, we're going to extinct ourselves, make ourselves extinct. It's you're included in this, so you need to start making choices that will change that. Or with nuclear weapons, you know these captains of industry, a lot of people. I can't remember if it was Alex de Tocqueville, I don't remember the context either. Anyways, they would appeal to these captains of industries who control everything try to get their culture in, you know, try not to oppress them. Try to incorporate them in some way. Make them better, because it'll make it easier for you, something to that effect. But what we're also doing is, you could say, creating AI is almost a just as dangerous as nuclear weapons or climate change. It's just as much as a threat. Some people think you know we're making ourselves um useless.
Speaker 1:Well, I think, I think AI is interesting because you had mentioned nuclear weapons, and nuclear weapons are designed to destroy things. Ai is more than that, because it can be designed to destroy things but also be designed as the replacement for those things that it destroys, those things being us as humans. You know you do a nuclear bomb, it destroys everything there's, and then you have to figure out a way to replace what has been destroyed. Well, ai is interesting because, again, it can be designed to kill humanity or, and it's also can be designed to replace humanity. At the same time, you've also, you've basically created your replacement, your destroyer, and your replacement. You've become a. You've become God in many respects, but much like um.
Speaker 1:You see in history, those things that have been created have turned on its God in many ways. I mean, christianity has done that. You can argue, many of argue that culture today has turned on God. Nietzsche argued that and so forth. So what is it? What is the replacement? It's, in this case, ai, or or you can take the kind of um, the sort of the sort of survival of the fittest um evolution perspective, where you know if you believe that we came from monkeys and if that is true, or maybe AI and we replaced monkeys um in the chain of supremacy. Well, ai is the natural um natural conclusion, or the natural next step from humanity.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and it goes. Uh, a lot of science fiction literature deals with this, like Frankenstein, for example. Is this in a nutshell um, the scientist creates this monster out of the magic of science and uh, basically, is horrified by what he creates because of the, the very sublime nature of it and uh, the monsters, like responses to, forever, haunt and terrorize and try to destroy his master, his God, so to speak. You know, island of Dr Moreau is the same thing. This doctor or scientist creates all these human animal hybrids and creates this law, and once the animals get wise about it, they kill him. And because they realize there's no law, really, because once the master's dead, we can come up with our own, our own, uh, law.
Speaker 2:You know, I think there's always been this weariness or skepticism of science and technology. Work can do that, that there's maybe this danger to it of this very nature of being, um, uh, destroyed by it. You know, yeah, we still go on and still feverishly create newer, faster, better, uh, more powerful technology. That's in our nature too. I think we humans have a self-destructive bent.
Speaker 1:Would you agree? I mean, perhaps unconsciously, yes, or perhaps even consciously, perhaps there is that drive to martyrdom, death wish, yeah, that death wish, that drive to martyrdom, um, that drive to suffering. As you know, william Wallace must have it known, or at least must have thought about the precarious situation he was in and the likelihood of him losing in the long run. And he either, obviously he didn't heed those. If he did have those thoughts and worries and calculations, he decided to move forward with it, with rebellion as as an example, and he paid the consequences. Now it's made him a martyr, but it's also done much more than you have to ask what a martyr is. He's a symbol of the of rebellion itself.
Speaker 1:So, as long as William Wallace's name is known, as long as he has a statue, as long as he has a history that you can read about, it's the essence of rebellion, or what you were kind of alluded to, that death wish with a purpose that remains alive no matter where you're at, no matter who you are as an individual, and that can be both a good reminder and a bad reminder for the regime itself.
Speaker 1:If it has any intellectual backbone the regime, any regime it can look at William Wallace as a reminder, a stark reminder, that rebellion is always present, or at least the potentiality of rebellion is always present, but also as a comfort from a regime perspective that the likelihood of rebellion winning out is is slim, so that battle between rebellion and submission is is always there too From a regime perspective. You know oftentimes you know initially I was looking at it from a rebels perspective what's the cost benefit analysis? Now, if the cost is death? But you don't care, you know that death wish is is strong in you, then you are. You are carrying the torch of freedom and liberty and so forth. But you also act as a reminder on behalf of the regime that oftentimes you have to give up the ultimate sacrifice for that. And in the end.
Speaker 2:It didn't work. It didn't work. Say that again From the regime's perspective. You is, where's so? Where's the death wish come from the regime's perspective? Because from what I think is like empires, the more they try to conquer and take over these people, the more rebels they're going to create, you know, within those areas. And so that's the death wish I think from, or the death instinct from the end empires stance, whether or not they know it or not, you know. I think that's why a lot of these literature, works of literature, have come out throughout the years, because there's an anxiety there on the part of the empire that's aware of this, you know, or in some way aware of the rebels that they're creating as they expand their power and their empire and they're struggling with that. That's that country we want, all these nations and what they can provide for us, but there's a cost there and it's a potentially a cost of our empire, like they could destroy us if they're, if it gets out of hand.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I wasn't looking at, I wasn't looking at the regime's death wish. I was looking at more as the regime using William Wallace as an example to all future rebels out there, that, yes, we recognize there is a rebellious spirit in everyone. Yes, we recognize that the nature of how we conquer people and occupy people breeds more rebels, but it forces you to, it forces any potential rebels to think about, think about the consequences. Wallace won a battle, or a couple of battles, a few battles, but he also was betrayed and he was drawn and quartered. So Trump is a modern example of this. Now, this is not a he has.
Speaker 1:Trump has not won any military battles and I'm not claiming that he's a warrior, but he can be a. He can still be a rebel and example of what happens to rebels. You get indicted like three or four times, you get peached twice, first time in the American history. Good chance you're going to go to jail and then also anyone who's supported him in his immediate circle are going to have the same price to pay. And so this strain of rebellion from William Wallace to now and how the regime deals with rebellion is the same.
Speaker 1:And so, as a rebel, I would say you would have to, or a potential rebel, or those who are thinking of rebellion. You have to think of the consequences and the efficiency of any individual rebellion for sure. Now, william Wallace had an army, so he had a better chance than anyone now here in America or Europe or elsewhere, you're not going to rebel on a political level. You're not going to rebel by voting in so and so. You're not going to rebel by protests or certainly no individual violence. You're not going to win, unless you have some sort of, again, death wish. But then you argue are you a martyr for a cause or are you just stupid and insane?
Speaker 2:Yeah, and if you look at like some of the folks in January 6th as sort of an equivalent of a rebel people, well, you draw attention to yourself. The FBI is going to start investigating you. They're going to put pressure on you. Let's look at this guy's past. Let's see what's going on. It's the same with people at a hospital, for example, if you speak up to the director that's coming in and you can make complaints and things like that, they're going to start combing through your past record of you're at where. Oh, you've got five absences here, or oh, we noticed you're from the Philippines. You don't quite have all your paperwork. You know what I mean. They can really add pressure, make it hard for you to make it hard on you.
Speaker 2:And I think they're not going to kill you like back of the day. Maybe they will if you get powerful enough, but they're going to squelch your, that voice. They're going to squelch that voice. So I guess we're talking about rebellion now as a topic, because the Panopticon is this podcast is about power and all the different surrounding subjects of that surround power. Rebellion is one because we're talking about regimes, empires and the subjects that are existing within those regimes and powers that are subject to the abuses of power and to the machinations of those the law and so to speak which infringe in many ways on an individual's power, and we talk about the conflicts that take place in that space between the individual or an individual group culture within the greater empire. Now we can slip into Macbeth here. What we were when we watched the film Macbeth and I've seen I think I've seen versions of the play before. We watched the one with Denzel Washington and what's her name? Mcdormand, francis McDormand, corey Hawkins and all these folks. Brendan Gleason was in it, I think he's an Irish actor and it was directed by Joel and Ethan Cohn, or one of the two, and we.
Speaker 2:The play itself is written by Shakespeare, of course, and we took it as almost like Shakespeare was a propaganda voice for the Elizabethan court and for England at the time. So you're going to write this play called Macbeth to try to tell the public if you try to rebel against the king, or if you do Fratricide or whatever it's called, try to overthrow the king, you're going to have it's almost like a death wish You're going to be destroyed, you're going to be killed. It's not going to work out for you, so just don't do it. It's like you're talking about Because what traditionally a lot of people look at it as Macbeth is and even all of Shakespeare's plays that they almost are divorced from any any sort of propagandistic bent to them. We kind of elevated Shakespeare into this canon of being, you know, universal to all mankind and that there's some almost humanitarian type bent to it, without really paying attention really I'll speak for myself to the propagandistic nature of it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'd definitely that he's speaking on behalf of the king For sure, with Macbeth, I think, and he act. He also adds a psychological layer to it and a spiritual layer to it, with the omens and visions and the psychological breakdown of Macbeth himself when you.
Speaker 2:Like there's some weakness about him, right and from the get-go. The very fact that he wants to, wants power, is a sign of weakness in his psychology. Like the wife points to him. Like, although he doesn't want to do it initially and his wife, Lady Macbeth, says oh, you're not a real man.
Speaker 2:Right, there's a sense of inferiority that Macbeth has and the wife's pointing that out oh, you're not a good lover, you don't have a big dick, you're not a real man. These are what real men do as they fight for power, and that sort of sense of emasculation pushes him over the edge. But also the fact that he can't really handle it once he does it psychologically is almost a message right, saying there's some illness going on there and his desire to do this.
Speaker 1:You will have a psychological breakdown that gods are against you. Even if you do attain power, you're accursed in some way. And so if you're gonna try this, this act against the king, then this is what's gonna happen. But there's no talk about how that king came to power. You know it's to me it's definitely pro-king Any rebels. Anyone who thinks about going against the king will have a psychological torture and eventually a spiritual torture and then a physical torture.
Speaker 2:Well, also it shows. Maybe it's pointing also to Scotland in general at the time. Look how volatile these people are. They're just constantly overthrowing each other and they're barbaric. They're fighting constantly. There's no stability, you know For sure. It's made up of all these individuals who are at war with each other.
Speaker 1:I think so absolutely. I mean, I think this is definitely a story about the reality of Scotland and its rebellious nature and kind of the result. It's almost as if it's stating that Scotland is forever cursed and any attempt to gain power is doomed. I think there's a reason he had this particular story in Scotland about Scotland.
Speaker 2:Well, I'm curious also to find out the history of witchcraft and sort of these alternative religions, that we learned a little bit about Celtic religions and the mythology all behind that, that there's a greater sense of mysticism, it seems like there versus England, and that it's almost demonizing that too. It's like all these alternative sort of witchy religions and beliefs are gonna corrupt you. And in fact, king James which I think this play was written under King James, if I'm not mistaken, which is right after Elizabeth, I, king James came out with books and attacks of attacking these demonology type religions that are anti-Christian and listing all the different types of perverse beliefs and all the corruption that there lies in and the evil behind it, and so, yeah, I think Macbeth might be also attacking that in a propaganda type way.
Speaker 1:Yeah, my simplistic view is again it goes back to what we were talking about with Willie Maulus Is any attempt at rebellion or attainment to the throne is gonna be met with doom. So I think Macbeth is definitely. If I was a regime guy, everyone should be reading Macbeth and it should be taught in schools in a way. Again, if you look at Trump, could he be a modern day Macbeth? He didn't literally kill the king, but he became king, replaced the king for a short period of time, but again, once again, he's cursed to destiny and we'll see what happens to him. But I think, whether intentional or not, it definitely should be used as a pro regime whatever regime you're talking about, wherever, as a tool for the regime, and I would definitely have it in my schools if I was a regime school.
Speaker 2:Well, I mean, I'm sure we have the equivalent of it today. I just can't think of a movie offhand I'm just thinking of, like maybe there's movies out there where an individual gets sort of taken in by a cult group or a terrorist group, let's say, and tries to commit a terrorist attack or kill the president or something like that, and show the disastrous results of it. You know, I don't know. I mean what? Now? What do you think of the movie that we watched itself? I mean, maybe it is. There's political and propagandistic elements to the movie that we watched, which was the 2021 version.
Speaker 1:Yeah, with Denzel Washington, so I had to-.
Speaker 2:Right a black Scottish king from 1200.
Speaker 1:I.
Speaker 2:AD.
Speaker 1:I mean I had to suspend my thoughts on Macbeth itself because it was supposed to be. It was taking place in Scotland and how many. So it wasn't realistic. So Macbeth itself is at least the themes are realistic, but the setting with the black Macbeth, it was not realistic. So I had to kind of put that to the side.
Speaker 2:The cast. The only thing that wasn't sort of Scottish or maybe even appropriate for the play was the casting of black actors. Now there was one moment when the Corey Hawkins actor he plays the guy who's run away right, he's like the king's son, I think, who Macbeth kills. He kills the king and his, the king's son, has to run away. And well, the Macbeth has to go kill his kids. Because the witches say something like hey, if you have any rebels out there that have kids, you got to kill them or else they'll be king. So he goes off and send his soldiers to Macduff is his name, corey Hawkins' character sends him off to his family's house and you even kind of comment is like the family's all black little children out there running around in the fields and you were like is this gone with the wind?
Speaker 2:All of a sudden it had that southern vibe to it of the antebellum or prebellum or whatever you call it. That did kind of jar me and took me out of the play or the movie experience and the story, and that's why I think these sort of casting choices are, on the one hand, okay, I can get into it. You know, that's sort of a minor thing in a way that jarring I had by that scene, but I can still suspend my disbelief and get into it. I thought Denzel Washington did great and he made the words speak to me in a clear way and make sense of it, because Shakespeare's hard to understand and he brought a human element to it, that despite his race or whatever. And but how did you experience that scene in particular?
Speaker 1:I think there was. Well, first of all, by having a black Macbeth and then some of the major characters as black, there was added symbolism by the director that wasn't originally obviously part of the Shakespearean symbolism, and so then I have to ask myself, why? What was he? What was the director, whoever made these decisions trying to say to the audience? You could look at it from a black perspective and saying, okay, is this director saying the blacks are the new Macbeth and telling me, as a black person, don't think about rebelling, we're giving you, you have, some power. We're giving you some power that you haven't had in the past by making you a protective class or a nobility, semi-nobility, but if you think that you can take over the regime, well, you better think twice about that. That's one way of taking it. Now, the scene that you were talking about I mean, he was like the only like American accented character, the black guy that killed the family. Right, he spoke American, English, American accent.
Speaker 2:I think Denzel Washington did too, if I'm not mistaken.
Speaker 1:Well, I mean.
Speaker 2:I don't know. No, he did. He had an American accent.
Speaker 1:I don't know something like that.
Speaker 2:I just think like audiences don't maybe care as much. I mean it's. I think the directors, on the one hand, are playing in line with the trend since Hamilton and maybe, yeah, really, since Hamilton in 2016. We're gonna cast characters with whatever race, because we're beyond race now, we're beyond the history. Anyone can pretend to be anyone now, except whites can't pretend to be black or Asian or whatever. Everyone gets a chance to play, so to speak, these great characters and Thomas Jefferson can be black. Now, there's an irony there too. But so I think these directors like Colin and they're just following the trend in Hollywood and the message is we're following in line with the rest of Hollywood, so don't cancel us. Maybe that's the underlying message. It's not any message to the public. Or the message to the public is hey, look what we're doing, we're casting a black Macbeth, but it's a greater message is from the creators to the fellow creators and to the regime. You could say it's like we're following in line with you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, that could be it. That'd be part of it. I mean, it could be many things. And again, who are they trying to talk to and what message are they trying to send to those people?
Speaker 2:Well, I mean, do you? Because I don't think audiences. First of all, who's watching this movie? Most people don't like Shakespeare, so it's maybe a upper to middle class people watching it. You know people who have a sense of like oh, we're educated, I like Macbeth, I like Shakespeare. Or maybe people like me who actually enjoy Shakespeare and the message that if you're black, don't rebel too hard or don't try to ascend to too much power. I don't know if I believe that with this in particular, there more I think, in awe of the fact that that Denzel Washington gets to be Macbeth. You know, he's a great actor. This is cool.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean.
Speaker 2:But maybe there's some deep subconscious thing going on.
Speaker 1:I think it could be a combination of things. Maybe the, perhaps the director didn't, that wasn't the intent. Maybe he was just trying to meet the ESG goals and say you have to have a certain amount of minorities in your films from now on if you wanna get funded, or what have you. But not only did we meet the quota, we've put the main star, the main character, as black. But how one interprets that? I think there is audience out there that could interpret how I interpreted it, at least as part of it Dation Well what if it's actually speaking to the white people?
Speaker 2:the white audiences anxieties about the threat of black power and it's almost antagonizing it, or it's like irritating it, that anxiety. Well, if you look, I know showing an example of a black guy who tries to rebel.
Speaker 1:But he fails in the end. He, I mean, it doesn't work out for him.
Speaker 2:So maybe it's yeah, maybe it's then, maybe it's yeah, maybe it's hmm, maybe it's kind of saying you know, it's okay, these blacks aren't going to get out of hand, we got them covered, I don't know. So another there's this play called Othello, and it was filmed. Lawrence Olivier starred in it in 1965. Maggie Smith was Desdemona. Anyways, it's a black character. Right, it's a moor. Othello's a moor and he's a soldier. He's like a general, and Olivier puts on blackface for it and it's a pretty good movie. It's very over the top, which I love, and the fact that it's blackface. I obviously don't give a shit, but many people do, and this was a movie that I showed back in the days when I was teaching 2010, 11. I showed this movie to my students and you know one of the topics was yeah, what do you think about them casting a white actor, him putting on, you know, brown makeup, and we talked about that and all you know the different. Why couldn't they get a black actor to do it? Like whatever black Sidney Portier or something, and? But a professor actually I want to read this real quick A professor recently, in 2020.
Speaker 2:In 2021, music professor Bright Sheng stepped down from teaching at University of Michigan undergraduate musical composition class, where he says he had intended to show how Giuseppe Verdi adapted William Shakespeare's play Othello into his opera Othello. After a controversy over his showing the movie allegedly without giving students a warning that it contained blackface, the World Socialist website called the matter a right wing racialist attack on Sheng, adding that Lawrence LeVier's blackface, far from being racist, was actually a deliberate rejection of earlier semi-racist approaches that had portrayed Othello as light-skinned, and of commentators appalled at the thought of the white maiden, desdemona falling head over heels in love with the black man. But you know, even back when I was showing it, a lot of students were like, I would say, for the most part they didn't give a shit, they didn't even probably pay attention to the movie, but they thought it was stupid. You know, many of them thought why couldn't they put a black actor in? I mean, why can't we put a white character as a black man? I mean, we know why.
Speaker 2:Right, Blackface is a huge topic now. Sensitivity, what do you feel about that?
Speaker 1:About blackface.
Speaker 2:Well about. You know, you have to warn students now. That predates my. I mean that that when I was teaching, we didn't have trigger warnings. It was just starting, but now professors are getting fired over shit like that Without warning students. This guy has blackface on you. Have to do that now.
Speaker 1:I think I mean it's a regime requirement. I think the last generation fell for that kind of stuff. But I have hope in the younger generation, maybe here in about 10 years, that they, at the very least they find this silly and stupid and stuff like that. You know, we fell for it a little bit, certainly I think the parent, our parents did, and then, you know, the generation after us kind of took that victim mentality and I guess the also the white shame mentality from the past. But I think that's where enough I mean it still has to take place from regime apparatus, like if you're a teacher in a university you have to, you know, give a trigger warning. You've got to give a trigger warning to everything now. But I think as the new generation rises they see the stupidity of it all. But I mean that's still a while away and the regime and its ideology of the last 20, 30 years, certainly since the 60s, is still in control of the instruments of power.
Speaker 2:I think a lot of people now don't care, though, about these castings of different races into characters that are from different races. Do you know what I mean Of different races? Like Macbeth with Denzel Washington, there's a show called Bridgerton and you've got black Victorian queens and shit like that. You know it's, and I don't think audiences care that much.
Speaker 1:A younger audience, I don't think they, the younger audiences, even watch this, Like you stated. I mean who watches?
Speaker 2:Well, not this one, but not this one, but Bridgerton Hamilton, all these other shows. They just don't care, Like it's more about the characters. They're not invested in the history like us older folks who are like sticklers to it, you know, to the reality of it, Like they're just, they don't, it doesn't bother them, I think generally.
Speaker 1:Um, I, I've never even heard of this show that you've talking about, with Victorian blacks and so forth. It's, I think, the people who think it's ridiculous, like myself. If I were to see that I would probably just not watch it in the first place Because it's because it becomes fanatic, it's like it's. It's not a historical fiction even. It's just like fantasy.
Speaker 1:And it because there's a certain, certain parameter that, even like in historical fiction, that you shouldn't cross, or if you do cross, it becomes. It becomes some sort of fantasy. You might as well start talking about dwarves and elves and shit like that, because you've you've crossed the line. I mean, it's like a white man portraying an African king back in back in the day. It just now. You might as well be talking about Lord of the Rings stuff. For me. Now there are people who have, who are to me. They're people who are dumb, who watch these type of shows and can't um, or maybe just are able to kind of blend fantasy into, you know, historical.
Speaker 2:I think they just don't care about history as much. They like fantasy. Like you're saying, the trend is really big in Broadway and a lot of these you know shows that I watch here and where I live they're kind of. There's this theater that is kind of a launching off point for the Broadway shows. The Outsiders is one I watched recently and you know how the Outsiders was all white, pretty much because they're Tulsa right Back in the 50s.
Speaker 2:Well, suddenly the gangs got a Polynesian member. They've got a woman who's black, they've got Puerto Rican. You know, it's like that's not Tulsa in the 1950s. They say sissy in the show. They say sissy, they don't say faggot. You know, we know back in the 50s the white hoods or greasers, they say faggot, they say the N word, they say they don't hang around with other races. It's so.
Speaker 2:It is a fantasy, like you're saying. It's trying to. I think in a way it neuters the show or it takes the balls out of it and creates more of a fantasy level. It's like a, like you said, it's very whitewashed. In a way it's like immature, almost an immature perspective about our culture and our history by doing things like that. That's what I think it's like feeding. There was also a show called Limpika where it's a. There's a section about the Russian Revolution and there were Russians who were black and it's singing about it's our time now. They were singing. They were like members of the people, the communists. It's very bizarre. But you know, if you're a stickler to history or you want that type of representation, yeah, it's going to annoy you, but it doesn't have to. You know, you can pay attention, you can live the fantasy and experience that and just enjoy the music and whatnot. But I just wonder how much better it would be if it, if it does have a sense of realism to it. Anyways, any last thoughts on that.
Speaker 1:Nope.
Speaker 2:Any last thoughts or any other thoughts on William Wallace no.
Speaker 1:I think I mean the overarching theme that I wanted to address is and I think it has some modern applicability to it is first of all, if you're thinking about rebelling, you better think twice. And then after that, you better have an army, because even William Wallace had an army, caesar had an army, because you hear a lot of talk about civil war and so forth, and not only did William Wallace have an army, he had support within the regime at the time. Other nobility that could help and resource and Marshall personnel to help him. Same with Caesar is, in order for have a civil war, you have to, in my opinion, have to have two factions within the regime fighting each other for supremacy, because they have a different vision of the future. And right now in the United States, and I would say even in Europe, the regime is one. I don't see any, any frictions. That doesn't mean there isn't, but I don't see it. And so when you think about rebellion, think about it twice. Two, you better have an army. Three, you have it, you better be in some sort of an alliance. And four, more times than not. Now, that doesn't mean don't do it, but just understand, understand the repercussions and the risks to it.
Speaker 1:So that drives to the next question, which we can talk about in a different podcast, is what is to be done. If you feel like you are a subject, or you feel like the government that you once trusted and thought represented you does not anymore, what is there to be done? I think that would be a fascinating podcast. Part two to this is what is to be done. So that's my or in the same applies to to Macbeth. It's the same line at different, with different perspectives.
Speaker 1:I think Shakespeare took a psychological approach and even a mystical approach to those that rebel. What can happen? Even the gods are against you, even the destiny is against you and your own mind is against you because you start feeling guilty, shame for striving, or that is, a slave mentality or morality that he addresses is an attempt at from Shakespeare's part to remind you that you're a slave, the Scottish in particular, but anyone who wants to rebel, that you should feel guilty and bad for wanting power, and I think I don't know how successful he was at it who I don't see. I don't know how people react to to Macbeth other than you and I.
Speaker 2:Well, well, and this is a that's a trend that goes from, you know, carries on past Shakespeare in British literature, at least on up to. I'm reading this book right here, called the club. It's by Leo Demrash, johnson, boswell and the friends who shaped an age. It's about these intellectual kind of elite who are mainly from the middle class but kind of rose to the elite through their ingenuity and genius and all that celebrity and they talk about. You know, these be, these guys became, like what's the word? Kind of elite, members of the literati right and the culture of England. They say the same thing pretty much with Shakespeare, at least with this big Beth, because at the time it's 17, like late 1700s.
Speaker 2:So the French revolution starting to go on, the American revolution. They're very skeptical of revolutions and rebellions because the very same thing is what are you gonna replace the king with America? You're gonna create a tyrant. France, you know, and that did happen. Macbeth is a tyrant. When he succeeds by ascending to the throne through violence, he becomes a tyrant. The French revolution and the what do they call that regime? I forgot what they called it, but they became tyrants. It's almost like that's a trend in the upper class of British thinking, political thinking of the time, is like to be skeptical of revolutions.
Speaker 1:Well, yeah, because they saw that it's gonna lead to. Yeah, they saw what happened in France, presumably, and what happened to the king and nobility there, and that kind of stuff can spread quickly and then it could be their heads next. And I think what we see today, in the age of populism, is a threat. They do, they'll, it does see us or populists, I should say as a threat, and the repercussions of that threat spreading is that at the very least, they're removal of power.
Speaker 2:And so. But we should see it as a threat too. We should see revolt and rebellion within the government as a threat, because oftentimes history's shown that when there is something like that, it's gonna get worse.
Speaker 1:There's gonna be anarchy and chaos, kind of a warlord type of scenario potentially, that you're gonna have to choose sides because the side's gonna be chosen for you if you don't and there might not be. It might not be a regime versus the people battle, it could be elements within the regime against each other, elements within the people against each other. I mean anarchy, basically, is what it's called. But I guess it goes back to the question as well is what's the best form of government? Because would you rather live under oppressive democracy or tyrannical oligarchy or a one tyrant? And so all the way back to who was a Plato and Aristotle, on what the best forms of governments are democracy, oligarchy versus monarchy and I think a consistent theme has been ruled by one person and that might be the most efficient. It's definitely one of the most popular one in history. Democracy is a rare thing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and well, with Plato, it was the kings, right, like a group of people who were philosopher kings. Yeah, there were like moments Greece had a quote unquote democracy, which was really just in a league group of men who viewed each other the same way, but he has equals, but all had slaves and whatnot. So the elite, okay. So this revolution that took place from 2016 till now, right, cultural revolution that happened. Sex offenders, like in the public eye, matt Lauer and all of them kept in spacey. They were kind of the stone was lifted, the rock was lifted and all those worms came out and bugs, they were all routed. Who else Rosanne? All the people who? There was like a revolt, there was a rebellion and, it seems, culturally, there was a change, a toppling, and I guess the people now would say that, yeah, that's patriarchy being toppled by whatever socialism or whatever, but that's almost like a false rebellion, I would say, because the people in power are still the people in power Exactly.
Speaker 1:So that was the question. It was like all right, who's the rebellion, who's the counter revolution? You could argue both ways. You could argue that Trump was, is led, a revolution and the elite, the regime, with everything else that came afterwards, enduring, was a counter revolution. But you could also argue that Trump was a counter revolution to the revolution winning out in government from the 1960s and even before. So I think you're right. You have to look at the results. Who's still who was in power before and who's in power afterwards? It's still the same oligarchy. So it's not even a revolution. It's not a civil war. It's not a revolution. It is the regime expanding its powers even more. That's what it truly is. It's all these rights and liberties that we had before, or at least the regime pretended to give us before. They're not even pretending anymore. This is a war, not of left versus right. This is a war of not from the bottom to the top. This is a war from the top against the parts of the bottom.
Speaker 1:You could argue there is a. I think there was a relationship, a client, master relationship, between kind of the white, middle-class Protestant and the elite. That had been successful at least in the 20th century, during World War I and World War II and probably before, but that gradually began to splinter as the elite started going one way and the white middle class went another as far as culture, norms, mores and the vision of America, and at some point in time, I think, the elite severed. This goes back in some of the books we'll talk about the kind of revolts of the elite and the revolts of the populist books that we'll talk about later. And the elite had to find a new client, a new protected class, and I think they went to the LGBTQTB Alliance there and formed a new alliance with them, and so any and so basically co-opted that, and now our, I believe, trying to divide us against LGBTQT and LGBTQBT, against us anyone outside Again, the classic divide and conquer strategy from an elite perspective.
Speaker 1:The thing is for the white middle-class person is they're now an outsider. They used to be an insider. I'm talking about, at the middle-class and poverty level, that the elite blessed them and now they've found a new lover and we've talked about this a little bit before. They realized in 2016 that their former clients have now rebelled against them and they just switched sides from one kind of client to another, or was it on purpose? Is Trump some sort of tool to expand their power, the elite's power, even more?
Speaker 1:And again, many things can be true, and so it could be many things that the elite are doing for many reasons. I think what I've been hearing and just like seeing is like what is to be done? What is to be done, what is to be done? And you hear a lot of people say, oh, civil war or fucking you know fight. Or some people say, hey, you have to accept it and kind of live a parallel structure, much like the Czechoslovakian strategy of can't remember his name, but developing parallel structures and cultures and so forth within the regime. Others have stated just wait.
Speaker 2:Yeah exactly.
Speaker 1:Others have stated just wait and let the regime fracture amongst itself and you'll get the calling. You know things like that and it's a tough question. You know it's a tough question to answer as a subject who is now out of fate.
Speaker 2:Well, what Well. What would William Wallace do?
Speaker 1:Well, I mean first of all William Wallace again, was a lower nobility, I believe he had an army.
Speaker 1:He had alliances with folks within the regime nobility, and so and we saw the results he went to war with England. He won some battles, which was good for William Wallace, but eventually, you know, the power, the larger power, went out. So that's what Wallace did. And again, I don't. There is no William Wallace's around. So the next question is all right, what about a monarchy? What about a Caesar? What about some one person that can save America? In theory it sounds good, but it better be your Caesar and not your enemy's Caesar. You know, if this person in charge is kind of sympathetic to you and has your best interest in mind and sees you as a valuable resource, you call him your Caesar or your king. But if he's on the opposite end, will you call him a tyrant and a dictator and all that? It's a matter of perspective.
Speaker 2:The cap to his ass who.
Speaker 1:Caesar.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1:He look what happened to him too. So you know Caesar had an army. Caesar crossed Rubicon. Caesar won out temporarily became emperor, but the regime had its revenge.
Speaker 2:Yet his descendants? Yes, but there was what?
Speaker 1:30 years of civil strife after that. So, going back to what you were saying, it doesn't. I think there was I think it was like roughly 30 years of war between Augustus and the various factions and shit. But it goes back to what you were saying is revolution and violence and so forth doesn't behoove us either.
Speaker 1:You know the common folks. Even they're oppressed. It only gets worse because the natural inclination of the regime was either perceived threat or real threat is to stomp down even harder, and even when the regime, when and if the regime loses and falls, like you said, what replaces that? Initially, it's going to be chaos for sure, until some sort of individual rises to the top and wins out and becomes, you know, dictator, king, emperor, whatever you want to call that person.
Speaker 2:But then it's descends in the Roman Empire at least, it descended into decadence. Brutality, even worse, you know, even worse. Corruption with the descendants of Caesar, all those emperors, Kaleighi, Lab, Nero, all those folks.
Speaker 1:Well, yeah, you have the good good, let's quote, unquote good emperors I don't know who even there was.
Speaker 1:there was times where yeah you had great emperors like Marcus Aurelius, you know, who had the best interests and brought stability and riches to the kingdom, to the empire. But then his successor, his own son, commodus, supposedly was a fucking nightmare. And so that's the problem. When you go to dictatorships or emperors or kings, it's one day one reign it might be beautiful, the next it might be disastrous. But you could argue that with things so-called democracy as well.
Speaker 1:I know for sure Aristotle thought democracy was the worst kind, the worst form of government. He preferred Oligarchy or King or some sort of King. So the form of government, I think, is less important than the intent of the government, the leanings of the government and what the purpose of those who are power are there for. You know, it kind of goes back to what we were talking about the nature of man. You have good and bad. You have man fighting with himself. Well, you have forms of government that do the same. You'll have one day a good king and the next day a bad king. One day a good democracy, next day a bad democracy. One day a good oligarchy, next a bad oligarchy.
Speaker 1:But it also is perspective. You know there's a manie out there who think Biden is a good president. Others think he's the most, you know, the stupidest one of all time. You had folks who voted in Senator Federman the guy who had a stroke, who could barely talk, you know thinks they voted him in regardless. So it's like how do you define good? What do you define as good? And I think what it comes down to is what can that person do for you as an individual and as a group of people or constituency? I think they knew that he, federman, was incompetent or at least couldn't articulate that he had a stroke. They didn't care because they knew in the end he's still going to get them what they want or what they think they want, whatever that is.
Speaker 2:When you're ableist, if you attack him. Yeah, you know he's another victim, he's just as equal as us, you know.
Speaker 1:All right, Anything else for the arts of rebellion. Mcbeth and William Wallace, a Scottish tale.
Speaker 2:No, I mean you all, you intelligence agents listening, please, and AI out there sorting through our podcast to find threats. Please direct your attention to our sister podcast, the Panopticon two plus two equals five, in which we discuss current events, current things in just bullshit for a while.
Speaker 1:All right, well, once again, thanks for joining us. It's been a while. It's been a few weeks, a couple months since we did our last podcast. We've been wandering the world, and with that I am. He wanders with Dum Dum. Till next time, thank you.
