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Episode 83: Toxic Masculinity with Michelle Rapp (Pt2)
102 Plays5 years ago
Welcome back to the Goblin Lore Podcast as we are once again joined by Michelle Rapp (aka KilnFiendPotter). Michelle was the first guest of the Goblin Lore Podcast way back in episodes 8 and 9 when she discussed the Color Pie and Art with us! We welcomed her back as we were struck by the discussion in this article she wrote for Card Kingdom. In Part 1 we discussed her cats, the before times (pre-COVID), and Jace the Mindsculptor and now in Part 2 we pick up that discussion with looking at a more recent character Lukka (from Ikoria) as well as talking about the Real World Implications of Toxic Masculinity.
Again we would like to state that Black Lives Matter (with a link to where you can offer support both monetary and not).
We also are proud to have partnered with Grinding Coffee Co a black, LGBT+ affiliated and owned, coffee business that is aimed at providing coffee to gamers. You can read more about their mission here. You can use our partner code for discounted coffee!
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As promised, we plan to keep these Mental Health Links available moving forward too. For general Mental Health the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) has great resources for people struggling with mental health concerns as well as their families. We also want to draw attention to this article on stigma from NAMI's site.
If you’re thinking about suicide or just need someone to talk to right now, you can get support from any of the resources below.
- National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 1-800-273-TALK (8255)
- Veteran's can Press 1 at anytime to be taken to the Veteran's Line
- Crisis Text Line: Text HOME to 741-741
- International suicide hotlines: A comprehensive resource list for people outside the US.
- IMAlive: Click Chat Now to access a live online network of volunteers through instant messaging.
- TrevorLifeline, TrevorChat, and TrevorText (LGBTQ+ crisis support): 1-866-488-7386, or text “Trevor” to 1-202-304-1200
- Trans Lifeline (US): (877) 565-8860
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You can find the hosts on Twitter: Hobbes Q. at @HobbesQ, and Alex Newman at @Mel_Chronicler. Send questions, comments, thoughts, hopes, and dreams to @GoblinLorePod on Twitter or GoblinLorePodcast@gmail.com.
Opening and closing music by Wintergatan (@wintergatan). Logo art by Steven Raffael (@SteveRaffle).
Goblin Lore is proud to be presented by Hipsters of the Coast, and a part of their growing Vorthos content – as well as Magic content of all kinds
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Transcript
Episode Intro: Michelle Rapp on Toxic Masculinity
00:00:30
Speaker
Hello Podwalkers, and welcome back to another episode of the Godland Lord podcast. Today's episode is a continuation of our last episode with Michelle Rapp, who can be found on Twitter at Kiln Fiend Potter, talking about toxic masculinity. Part one really focused on kind of the lore of Jace, his history as both a character that was used in marketing, as well as the storyline.
00:00:53
Speaker
We left off with Jace having been stranded on Ixalan, talking about how he may have become a better representation at that point of healthy masculinity, and then looking at kind of how the storyline has gone in the last year, especially for us for those community, into War of the Spark, where there was another shift backwards in our mind with the way Jace is handled. We don't know where Jace is going to be going moving forward, and this is something that we are paying attention to and interested in.
Discussion on Toxic Masculinity in Storytelling
00:01:21
Speaker
today we're gonna kind of move forward with talking about another character and more recent magic lore and then also to finally kind of talk about really what is toxic masculinity maybe some suggestions on ways that we might combat this especially for someone like myself who is a male who probably grew up with these representations and kind of grew up with this mindset
00:01:46
Speaker
And before we also get back into the show today, I also want to talk about a new partnership that the Goblin Lord podcast has. We are now partnered with the grinding coffee company, which is a black owned LGBT coffee company that has been sponsoring streamers and gamers.
00:02:04
Speaker
Applied for and have been accepted in so if you go to our Twitter page You can actually at the goblin lore pod you can find a discount code to order coffee and I can say that as somebody who does love coffee and is a big supporter of coffee in all of its forms and as goblins and we've talked about this in the show before with Ravnica and how goblins are probably involved very heavily in the coffee trade and
00:02:29
Speaker
I have already had their Mexican chocolate and we ordered an African blend and I can say that is great coffee. The company is very responsible. They've been communicative and their mission is great and I do recommend you go check them out. So moving forward, we'll be kind of giving them a little plug because they are, you know, kind of in some ways, you know, somebody who's willing to kind of let us get their message out there. The Grinding Coffee Company and they can be found on Twitter also.
00:02:57
Speaker
So for now, just sit back and we're going to jump right into part two. But yeah, it's been a real challenge as of orthos to sort of try to piece together what is going on and to try to reframe my expectations about what character development should be and how it has evolved. So Jace's
00:03:24
Speaker
for a while was a really wonderful example of healthy masculinity. It is difficult to say if that perspective has continued, but until recently, yeah, he was awesome. I mean, we have had almost a full year without any real Gatewatch folk, just from storyline standpoint. It's been over a year since War of the Spark.
00:03:53
Speaker
And I know it's Spark, I think it's supposed to end that whole chapter, so I'm not entirely surprised. Yeah, I think that's good, hopefully. It has given them a break to tell some other stories, fit some other things in there, and maybe figure out what they want to do with these characters that are going to be coming back continuously, trying to build character arcs where they can develop and not have that arc end in a sheer cliff and then start over every scene with Jace a little bit.
00:04:24
Speaker
Well, and when we were getting ready for the episode, you two mentioned another character that kind of fits into the overall real world topic of masculinity that we want to talk about today. Oh, Luca. Yeah. So I think it'd be good to hit on Luca too, because I do think it's very relevant to this. Luca, to be clear, is the best example of toxic masculinity embodied within a planeswalker that we have seen
00:04:54
Speaker
in a really long time. He is essentially what I would consider to be the Gaston. And it's interesting because it's such a conscious decision on the story part, which is so interesting because for a long time, I think people still don't realize that Luca is the bad guy in Ikoria.
00:05:23
Speaker
So the story which is written by Django Wexler, I think, oh gosh, what was the story called, I can't remember.
Character Analysis: Luca and Jorina
00:05:36
Speaker
A Lair of Behemoths. It was, yeah, Lair of Behemoths, which is really quite good. Sundered Bomb, that's right, yes.
00:05:48
Speaker
Oh, the Sundered Bond. Oh, Larry Behemoths. Yeah, Sundered Bond. I'm so sorry. I should know these things. The thing about Luca, though, is that he was always... It's interesting because as a mono-red character, we don't often see this aspect of mono-red embodied in a planeswalker, right? When we've looked at mono-red planeswalkers in the past, we've looked at, you know, Jaya Ballard,
00:06:15
Speaker
Chandra the ready's kind of villainous and that sort of like I'm gonna take all your stuff and I'm very greedy Excuse me. Do you know what cast you're on right now? I'm sorry He's also really cool, but it's a very different aspect of red We get tibolt. I mean that's one of the other kind of red that we'd have Yeah, red is this cheat. Yeah, and that kids like red is mischievous. Yeah red it's
00:06:44
Speaker
What defines Luca throughout this entire story is his need, his primal need for things to be the way they were. And it's almost like nostalgia taken to its worst place in a sense that even though he becomes bonded to this beautiful, gorgeous cat, cat with wings, this flying cat tire,
00:07:14
Speaker
And he has ventured outside the walls of Dravid. He continues to keep this hope alive that no matter what happened, he can still return to the way things were. Whereas his fiancée, it's not to Nora.
00:07:39
Speaker
There is an element here that is the, the, the, the make a Korea great again. I mean, when we talk about Luca, yeah, it's this knowledge from a time that was good for a specific subset of people. And it's, it's definitely what, what is so interesting about this particular, sorry, I'm just going to pause for a second because it's going to drive me crazy that I can't remember his,
00:08:08
Speaker
his fiancee's name. It's not Genora, but I always think it's Genora. Jareena. Oh, Kudrow. Jareena. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, sorry. Jareena, thank you. No, that's great, because I understand that I hate that sensation.
00:08:26
Speaker
So the thing is like, it is kind of like make Johnneth great again, which is what General Kudrow wanted, right? But General Kudrow, he is set up to be, you know that meme, which is like, this is like the TV villain, but this is the real villain, like General Kudrow's portrait is like the TV villain, like the written villain is supposed to be General Kudrow, but the real villain is Luca. And it's very intriguing because as a white, black, aligned individual,
00:08:55
Speaker
General Kudrow believes in the structure and order of Jonathan because he believes that this is almost like this very pure, unemotional, pragmatic way of looking at things. That the structure must stand and he must protect the people within at all costs.
00:09:14
Speaker
Whereas Luca's sort of understanding of what his life was on drag is incredibly emotional. It's all about life was good, or at least life was understandable, and I want things to be the way they were because they were good for me. Not necessarily good for everyone in the broader long-term view that, say, Kudrow was looking at, but he always sees things in relation to himself, which is what makes his fiancée Jorina's
00:09:44
Speaker
evolution and character growth. Very interesting because unlike him, she is able to reconcile her feelings about what's going on while also understanding and being pragmatic about the changes that need to be made in order for all of humanity to survive. And it's of course like this wonderful subversion with the novel when you think like Lucas of course the usual suspect protagonist
00:10:14
Speaker
But instead, we have this incredible black woman who becomes the future of humanity on a court, at least where drama is concerned, which is always exciting. Well, I mean, it's plain on the idea that the male character might be the, like you said, that that is set up to be the protagonist. Yeah. But what it makes Luca particularly
00:10:41
Speaker
interesting and I think a very good example of toxic masculinity is that he is vehemently, I guess, almost fanatically stuck to this idea of the way things were and how it must be this way no matter what happens, no matter what the cost is, and he sees himself
00:11:11
Speaker
as being emblematic of what that time was. And if anyone wants to disrupt that vision, he will destroy them.
00:11:20
Speaker
a lot of ways what I found interesting about him that is kind of toxic and I I like seeing characters with this being shown sort of negatively he has kind of the Thanos thing or there's some heroes who do this where they have the plan in their in their eyes they are the only one who can do the thing so they're gonna make it happen over everyone else no matter what anyone else says and yeah there there are properties that have heroes who do that and it's not a terribly
00:11:49
Speaker
heroic set up. So I like seeing those storylines where they kind of, they're taking that convention and then showing it from a different light and saying, this is probably not something to aspire to. I mean, a perfect rebuttal to that was She-Ra. I'm sorry, spoilers for She-Ra. If you haven't seen season, the latest season, which is amazing. But when
00:12:13
Speaker
Adora goes and tries to feel safe herself. She says, like, I'm the only one who can do this. I'm the only one who can make this happen. And Mara shows up and tells her, what do you want? And eventually with Katja's help, like she is able to get the feel safe safely, but that was a team effort. That wasn't just her by herself. She was able to adapt and allow her true self to come through and
00:12:39
Speaker
basically say, you know, it's okay to let people you love help you, which in this case with Lucas, like, no, I must do this by myself, like I'm mad.
Toxic Masculinity in Geek Culture
00:12:51
Speaker
So we, you kind of we've now hit on this term, toxic masculinity and around masculinity. Let's talk about it. Let's talk about kind of what we're meaning when we're saying that and kind of how
00:13:03
Speaker
that may have played out in a couple of different avenues when it came to Jace's early use and then something like Luca. So what do we kind of, when we say toxic masculinity, what does that really mean? I think that toxic masculinity at its root comes out of a desire or fear in a lot of cis
00:13:34
Speaker
men, who persist privileged men, who believe that the only way that society can be preserved is for men to take on a dominant position in a certain codified set of behaviors. Those behaviors include being physically strong,
00:13:59
Speaker
they also being intellectually capable. You must also be financially solvent and extremely rich. All emotion must be channeled through rage or protection pride or something. It's a very narrow band of emotion that you're allowed to express.
00:14:23
Speaker
So essentially you must live your life as a very attractive, strong statue man who can only be either angry or protect you. So kind of like a golem, but like not great.
00:14:43
Speaker
Well, and I would say too that when we're talking about maybe we talked about this a little bit at the top of the show with kind of the geekdom element to it. But there is this kind of idea that there may be some elements that of gatekeeping and kind of the intellectual prowess that has appealed to people that maybe are drawn to the hobbies that we're talking about and that we're playing in. And they may not have kind of that
00:15:13
Speaker
alpha male in terms of the physical prowess, but they believe that that can then be made up for by confidence, intelligence, being smarter, knowing topics that even if they have less training in it, their opinion still is very important, in part just because of being male, even though they may not acknowledge that.
00:15:37
Speaker
I think that's right, exactly correct. And a lot of toxic masculinity is defined by exclusion. It's as much defined by exclusion as it is by who is being let in. I think the Big Bang Theory is actually a very good example of this sort of geeky toxic masculinity in a sense that
00:15:59
Speaker
women can't possibly be nerdy, or if they're nerdy, then they have to take on inherently masculine traits in order to fit in as it were. And it's kind of this strange... It's strange. It's just strange, I guess, for me, because in a way, these places, like game stores and video games or all these really wonderful nerdy pursuits,
00:16:29
Speaker
were always perceived and marketed as like a release or a safer space than what you can get out there. However, you know, if this is the only way for men to, or geeky men to claim dominance, this means that they cannot allow other marginalized genders and other folks to come in because that would dilute the inherent culture of male
00:16:59
Speaker
superiority, I suppose, that has suffused this space. And I would say that, you know, that this may have been kind of that image of Jayce. And he was marketed as kind of, as we've said, the average magic player, especially magic players who may be identified with the blue part of the color pie, which I would say that
00:17:24
Speaker
That blue to me really does kind of personify a lot of just power. And when you're learning to play a game, even if you don't fully feel blue aligned, you're probably playing blue. You're probably either having to choose to play blue or choose to play something that could beat blue, especially at the time when planeswalkers weren't the new thing and people were learning the game.
00:17:46
Speaker
Well, and you look at Jason's early image too, I mean, he has, he's very intelligent, which fits a lot of the people who are kind of in that group, the geekdom people who wanted to try to, you know,
00:17:59
Speaker
make this their their their men's club because they can't go in to do this you know the cigar smoking in the place where these people are so they have to have the game stores their version of the exclusionary space but also like there's a lot to jace below the surface he doesn't he doesn't give you a lot of information about himself out front and a lot of those folk are similar
00:18:21
Speaker
not terribly social. And I think a lot of people who aren't terribly social kind of have that image of themselves. They don't present a lot out. And I think Jace fits that as well. And I think that race reflected in Jace's earlier, early use of his power, right? Like, you don't, you don't negotiate for what you want. You just take it. You're men, just take what you want. The entitlement.
00:18:45
Speaker
The entitlement. Yeah, you just, you just, you grab the information by a tear, you sling it over your shoulder, and you drag things into your library case. Like, this is what you do. And that's why it was so revelatory to see Chase asking permission, getting consent before going into someone's mind. Because when you do that, it inherently humanizes the person you're speaking to. It shows respect.
00:19:16
Speaker
It shows a sense of empathy and compassion, which are a part of Blue and something that people don't like to talk about as much, which is sad because I'm a Blue Mage. But it takes Jace from being someone who
00:19:34
Speaker
in I guess like you know your telepathic version of a chat at a club like just take the women like yeah just take the information to you know someone who actually is a human being and sees that the people is human right well and there is elements to him that is really stuck in kind of that vanity piece where he does alter his image to look younger he is kind of about that you know we talk about those relationships maybe
00:20:01
Speaker
were kind of, you know, he like accuses Liliana of using him for sex. There's an inherent awkwardness to him that is kind of, well, I would say, you know, when we talk about this idea of privilege, it is that being confronted with that idea that a lot of toxic masculinity, I think, shows up when people are actually confronted with this idea that
00:20:30
Speaker
you know, thinking that being a male is, this is a very, it's kind of difficult to say because we, so when I put a call out for this today, or when I put a call out about this episode, we kind of had a response right away that this, that the idea of toxic masculinity does not exist. And if it were to exist, it would only be because of toxic femininity. And the idea is that feminism is
00:20:57
Speaker
trying to take away masculinity inherently. It's trying to take away this perceived imbalance and from the perspective of I think a lot of men who haven't ever had to confront this about themselves and that you know I especially think of this in the maybe the nerdier community. I know that when I was younger I probably would have fallen into elements of this with you know I was
00:21:24
Speaker
a runner, I was a thin, not virulent, in some ways masculine male. My intelligence may have been the thing that I saw as being kind of my defining characteristic. And I also would not have thought that I had privilege or I had anything with being a male because I was bullied by other bigger men. And so to me, how could I possibly have that? Now,
00:21:51
Speaker
You know, a lot of times that led people to seek out the geeky, nerdy communities. And now they're even being kind of seen in this, it's being presented to them and they're having to actually confront this idea in their communities. Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's challenging the power of fantasy because that's ultimately what Jace is or Jace was for a long time. And I think Luca is a direct critique and rebuttal of that.
00:22:20
Speaker
The problem that a lot of people have when you confront them about toxic masculinity is that you're basically pointing out that the power of fantasy is an effective fantasy. That if you actually do a lot of research, this sort of thing never really truly existed. And it is a, and I think that's a wonderful way of looking at Luca as well. Like if you look at him, he always had assumptions about
00:22:48
Speaker
Jirida and what she wanted in life. And it turns out she wants something very, very different. And so his inability to handle that, to handle the way that Drannith has moved on, the way the bonders, the way to their animals and are able to also help Drannith, that's just not something that he can accept because he believes in something that never was actually there.
00:23:13
Speaker
And that can be really groundbreaking for a lot of people. And that can be really mentally disturbing as well. So it's the main reason why he, like, Luca sparked because he could not accept the fact that his reality, that reality could not fit, was not matching what was in his head. Yeah. He was confronted with it and that is what happened. He sparked because of cognitive dissonance.
00:23:41
Speaker
You're joking about it, but you did. It's a topic I want to talk about. I hadn't put that together. I'm glad you were talking about Luke because I read the story shortly after it came out. But yeah, now that's how he sparked.
00:24:02
Speaker
Who knows what on earth is going to happen to him across the multiverse? He's going to show up on, I don't know, Tarkir and be like, what? Bring on the dragons. It's like, oh, OK. And then he gets his butt beat, and he's like, no. Every time he planes walks, it's just in response to a different cognitive distortion. Oh no, I made a short statement.
00:24:36
Speaker
Well, I got the opportunity and I'm sad that I did not have the recording going to get Michelle's just very visceral reaction because we're talking about this image of Jace and maybe what the players kind of had in mind for Jace versus even what Wizards are intended or who knows what
Marketing and Toxic Masculinity
00:24:59
Speaker
was going on.
00:24:59
Speaker
Uh, but, uh, at Barbarians Red One, who is somebody that does listen to the cast, had sent me an image that he, it was on, I know that it was on Reddit. He had told me that the, the post that he had seen it from recently was in like 2018 on Free Magic, which is kind of the worst place to go to the internet. But when this event actually happened, I remembered it. When he sent me this image, I was transported back and I don't remember the exact year.
00:25:29
Speaker
there was an image taken at GPs of basically a flyer that was in bathrooms, male bathrooms, I am guessing, that basically says, I am Jace, the mind sculptor of picking up women. I'll teach you to get your Liliana.
00:25:48
Speaker
No. It's got some pictures of cosplayers and I'm like I don't actually I was trying to like figure out if I knew who they were but it's got a picture of Liliana and Jace planeswalkers cosplayers. We were assuming that they are not aware that their image was going to be used this way. I'm pretty certain that they were not. No. No. So for people who don't know there is this concept of the pickup artist which was basically
00:26:14
Speaker
is toxic masculinity. It's that this is what women really want. They want an alpha male. They may not tell you that they want an alpha male, but you have to learn to get around that by any means necessary to seduce women
00:26:31
Speaker
It's as easy as untap upkeep draw. And just to go back to something you said, Michelle, it's like they're a golem or something. And it's like they're looking for the specific programming that they can use to effectively pick up women. You had never seen this, which I am. I'm actually excited that you had never seen it.
00:26:56
Speaker
I had never seen this before. I just, the immediate thing I can think of is like, oh my God, this is like, this would work for me like a bowerbirds, you know, like, you know, 10 easy ways to decorate your little twinkage in order to make it more appealing to lady bowerbirds. Yeah. Or like a pair of paradise, like, let me teach you the latest head bob in order to get them, get them mating on. You know, like, I just,
00:27:24
Speaker
I can see how that would work for a non-human maybe, but like humans though.
00:27:33
Speaker
But I mean, this is based in that whole idea of the pickup artists that are dating, quote unquote, dating coaches who are trying to teach you everything from like way, I mean, I see this stuff in here because I had seen it on the internet before this, but it's the subtle insult compliment to tear a woman down while you're also seeming to give them an compliment.
00:28:00
Speaker
to like lower their basically because this would let you get women that maybe you wouldn't normally be able to get in terms of- It is the gamification of starting a relationship. Yes. It is the gamification of relationship, not even relationship beliefs, like the gamification that clearly objectifies women and reduces them to nothing more than a- Gold medal at the end of the challenge run.
00:28:29
Speaker
I like I could just imagine like somebody creating like a 16-bit game where you like you maneuver a character and you like bring them over to like, ooh, that profile is like a Pokemon or something like that where you're like, ooh, you go over and you know, that woman is a level 10 and you're level six, but if you keep nagging her, her confidence levels will go down and then you can throw the Pokeball or whatever. Right? Well, I mean, what's funny is whoever made this
00:28:57
Speaker
was offering this two-day training for only $115 a day. Only, only $115 a day. What? But they were marketing this to Magic players thinking that this was an effective idea, an effective group of people to go after with this. And they invoked Jace.
00:29:25
Speaker
I mean, that just says so much about Chase and it's like a dark reflection, but that dark reflection has to pick up an aspect of the original object, right? So somewhere along the line, people see Chase as like the ultimate, the alpha male who got around like being a Chad and still got the girl.
00:29:52
Speaker
He's the alpha male for this community. He's the alpha male for this community. Yeah, he is the ultimate power fantasy. $115 an hour. What am I doing with my life? Why am I even doing this podcast? I could just like pick up artists. Wait, we don't have to pay you? Awesome. Let's see if I can cancel that on my credit card.
00:30:23
Speaker
But yeah, no, it definitely shows and emphasizes the darker side of this character and really throws into relief the rehabilitation and the excellent story work that was done during Ixalan to really bring about a much healthier, happier chase.
00:30:44
Speaker
And it's just a shame that there's been no story since then, because we would learn to love to see what happened after he learns to be vulnerable and to embrace the idea that masculinity can involve emotions. And yeah, and you can cry and people will still think you're cool. And consent is hot. Consent is great. And treating all the people around you like real people, even if you don't need something from them.
00:31:12
Speaker
Yeah. I wish we had more story afterwards, but I guess we'll have to wait and see what kind of is going to be able to come out. Oh my God. Covering my face. It's kind of, it's the shame that there's never been another Cranko because it would have been nice to see what he was doing on Ravnica, but we never got any more about him. Oh well.
00:31:39
Speaker
Oh, well, we go back to Ravnica all the time. We'll be fine. Yes, we'll be totally fine. Well, Michelle, I really want to thank you, man. We've been talking for, jeez, like going on an hour and a half because you are very easy to talk to and always have such great insights. So I really want to thank you for coming back on. You know, it was this is a topic that I think
00:32:09
Speaker
Alex and I have kind of been talking about confronting our areas of privilege a little bit more and I can say for a fact that This is kind of an area that I probably well, I'm not probably this is an area that I did Have to learn the challenge. I mean, I would say not the emotion piece. I've always been a very emotional person but that idea of
00:32:32
Speaker
intelligence matters more than other stuff that my opinion should be given weight just because I want to have a debate with somebody no matter what. These are things that I, you know, I had to have a journey. I'm 40 years old. And I think about the younger parts of our community that maybe are experiencing this confrontation to their worldview and their power fantasies.
Personal Reflections on Masculinity
00:33:01
Speaker
And I, yeah, sorry. Yeah. Well, no, it was thinking like, how do we help people to go from here, you know, that may be coming up against us for the first time. And I know that the reaction or the gut response to start with is to push back against it. I think a lot of. Oh, gosh. So there are.
00:33:28
Speaker
many different ways of going about this. Backing up just a little bit, like I hear you with regards to the intelligence being like the defining, the one defining trait that you feel like validates your existence and sort of, you know, elevates it in some way. In a sense, because like in my career when I was at startups,
00:33:54
Speaker
really showing that I was intelligent, I felt it was the only way I could be taken seriously in a group of men, which was very annoying. With regards to challenging that, I think a lot of the ways we can try to combat this idea is through critical thinking.
00:34:16
Speaker
Um, if you, I don't know, my personal challenge is always like, if you think that you're as smart as you think you are, then hopefully you shouldn't be afraid to walk down that road of, I guess, intellectually picking apart this concept.
00:34:37
Speaker
Because at the end of the day, you want to get rid of cognitive distance in your head. This is the only way that a lot of people can manage to exist, honestly. So lean into that, I guess, discomfort. And I think this goes for a lot of things too, especially when you're doing ally work. Lean into that discomfort. If you think that someone is calling you out
00:35:07
Speaker
If someone's calling you up for something, examine that logic, examine that reasoning, and do it while taking that person at least somewhat seriously. Do it with the understanding that this other person is a person and not just some random person on the internet yelling at you. Even though I do get trolls who yell at me sometimes, I do a quick exercise in my head to go down that road and see, is there something here that I missed?
00:35:36
Speaker
Part of being a good blue mage, I think part of being just a generally good person is a constant re-examination of your values and your philosophies and being open and willing to change in order to become a better person and a better version of yourself. If you're not doing that, then how intelligent can you really be?
00:36:04
Speaker
And it's not even just how well you scored on the SAT or what college you went to or university or how many degrees you have. It really becomes a question of how good of a person are you and is there a way to constantly learn and be better? So I think as long as you centralize that desire, lean into that discomfort, approach things with an open mind,
00:36:33
Speaker
you should hopefully be able to at least take one step forward. And there's a lot of other people out there who will help you. Yeah. And I will say that there are and I mean I think that that's one of the things to recognize especially in the age of kind of quick hits and social media that we have is that
00:36:54
Speaker
Your initial reaction of feeling uncomfortable is because that cognitive dissonance is being activated, and we don't like to feel those things. Like the theory of even racial identity when it comes to being white is really that idea that the first stage is guilt and shame. And a lot of times, reactions to guilt and shame become defensiveness and become pushing back because it does not feel good to feel that uncomfortable.
00:37:24
Speaker
If you're open and willing to kind of explore these things and don't just respond with that defensiveness or own it, if you do it, you realize that you did something that was defensive, recognizing that, taking that time if you need to step away and to discover this is something that is possible to do. It's not that this can't be changed. These views can't.
00:37:50
Speaker
And those tools of introspection can be useful for a lot of things. I found myself working on my social anxiety is where I first started to really develop those tools of introspection. And it's been very helpful in a lot of other arenas like this for me. Oh, sorry. Please go ahead. Self-awareness and self-reflection are some of the most powerful tools that... Oh, sorry, my cat sneezed.
00:38:21
Speaker
Those tools are essential, I think, in becoming a better human. And I hope that if you take away anything from listening to all of this, all you listeners out there, the worst sides of blue can be cured, or not cured, but at least ameliorated and mitigated by the best sides of blue. And empathy,
00:38:47
Speaker
and compassion, I think, are part of that. So if you just nestle that inside your mind and in your heart, hopefully you can move forward.
00:39:17
Speaker
If you want to support your friendly neighborhood gospel, the cast can be found at patreon.com slash goblinworkpod. Opening and closing music by Vindergarten, who can be found on twitter at Vindergarten, or online at vindergarten.bandcamp.com. Logo art by Steven Raphael, who can be found on twitter at steveraffle.
00:39:39
Speaker
Goblin lore is proud to be presented by hipsters of the coast as part of their growing vorthos content as well as magic content of all kinds. Check them out on twitter at hipsters MTG or online at hipstersofthecoast.com. Thank you all for listening and remember goblins like snowflakes are only dangerous in numbers.