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Don't Buy a Pig in a Poke
72 Plays1 year ago
In this episode, Patrick and Andrew are joined by Lafayette Lee, blogger and contributing editor at im1776.com to discuss how to see through deceptions in the modern world, trusting your instincts, building local networks, and focusing on your own small sphere of influence.
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Transcript
Introduction to the Podcast and Hosts
00:00:00
Speaker
and the brave new world begins when all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for his sins as surely as water will wet us as surely as fire will burn the gods of the coffee book headings with terror and
00:00:29
Speaker
Hello, everybody, and thank you for joining us for another episode of the Copybook Headings podcast. If you're a new listener, just joining us for the first time. This show is inspired by the poem by Rudyard Kipling called The Gods of the Copybook Headings. And every week we take an old proverb, saying, or maxim, and we break it down to see what we can learn from it, see if there's any ancient wisdom that's still relevant today. I'm your host, Patrick Payne, and with me, as always, is my co-host, Andrew Stevens.
Introducing Lafayette Lee and His Work
00:00:54
Speaker
Andrew, how are you, man? Hey, I'm doing great. How are you?
00:00:57
Speaker
Doing awesome. We've got I think a really good really good episode this this week We've got a we've got a special guest This this is our first time having someone on who's who goes by a pseudonym Is the an anonymous? An anonymous friend, but when you hear a little bit about I think you guys are gonna really enjoy This this conversation. So without further ado, mr. Lafayette Lee, how you doing, man? I
00:01:25
Speaker
I'm doing great. I appreciate you having me on. Yeah, man. Real excited to have you. Really grateful that you were able to jump on the podcast. I've read your blog before and follow you on Twitter, or X now. I'm familiar a little bit with the work that you do. Would you mind, for those who aren't familiar with you, tell us a little bit about yourself.
00:01:52
Speaker
Yeah, so I go by Lafayette Lee, that's not my real name. But yeah, I'm just a synonymous author on X.
Exploring American Themes in Writing
00:02:02
Speaker
Yeah, I just, my background is I live in a small town in a Southern state and with my family and I like to write. And so that's not what I do for a job or anything, but I like to write and that's kind of what brought me to X. And so obviously I go on there
00:02:22
Speaker
and run my mouth on Twitter, but I also like to, I write for a sub stack and then I'm also a contributing editor to IM 1776. And so that's usually how people know me, but I'm a very ordinary guy, just have a lot of things to say, I guess. Yeah, that's kind of where I've known you from and I've appreciated some of the topics that you've written on. Can you tell us a little bit more about kind of what sort of stuff you write about and that sort of thing?
00:02:51
Speaker
Yeah, so the things that I'm most passionate about are, I think that there's something very special about America. And I know that people might roll their eyes when you say that it sounds like a bumper sticker, but there really is. I see this place as special and blessed and providential in a way. I think that we have a very unique destiny as Americans.
00:03:18
Speaker
but also this, you know, this place is special. And so it's something that I do, I like to write about themes that kind of explore what it is, what it is to be an American, why we're here, what our destiny is. I think there's a lot more to this place than we realize. And unfortunately, the discourse kind of, I think emphasizes the wrong things. That's why I think it's worth exploring is because
00:03:47
Speaker
It is so special and so unique and we have such a unique place in history as well that I think it's worth to push back on some of the discourse on who we are and where we're going.
00:04:03
Speaker
Yeah, well said. Part of the reason you write a lot about history and a lot about this country and some politics and how they relate to some events that have happened in the past, and that's kind of why I thought you'd be a really good fit to join us on the podcast because that's kind of the type of things that we talk about all the time is these old sayings, these old proverbs and what we can learn from them.
00:04:26
Speaker
So you picked the proverb for this week, which I love it when our guests do that when they bring their own. Sometimes we'll suggest one for them. But yeah, this is the one that Lee had selected. Lee, you want to tell us what it is?
Proverb Analysis: 'Never Buy a Pig in a Poke'
00:04:40
Speaker
Yeah, so the proverb that I chose that I think has got some extra relevance today is, it goes, never buy a pig in a poke.
00:04:52
Speaker
sometimes people say like I will never buy a pig in a poke or they'll just use pig in a poke and what that really means it's got this fascinating history I mean there's this whole thing into it but earliest time that that that saying or idiom was used was back in the 1500s and it was because when you used to go buy a pig you would buy him in a sack and so sometimes like you would go to the market and you'd pick up a pig but you'd pick it up in a sack now
00:05:20
Speaker
What the saying is really what it's telling us is that you need to take a good look, make sure you know what you're buying. So some people will still use this today. I've heard it in the wild as well. But it's just, you never fully buy something until you know what it is. And I think that there's a little more richness than what might come off at first glance. We live in a time where things can be
00:05:49
Speaker
illusions that can be deceptive we are being inundated with marketing with other messages and Promises that are not often kept and so, you know when you encourage someone not to buy a pig in a poke Or never buy a pig in a poke you're telling them in to my understanding is you're telling them to make sure they know what that thing is before they buy it, you know before they embrace it or commit to it and I think that
00:06:19
Speaker
you know, fast-paced life that we live in today, slowing it down and getting a good understanding of what something is before you embrace it is really important. Yeah, man, that's a great one. I want to kind of throw it over to Andrew. Andrew, did you find anything on this one or what do you think about it? Yeah, like Lee was saying, this one goes back to the 1500s. And I think this,
00:06:45
Speaker
John Haywood, I think we've come across him a few times, his collection of proverbs. And it's nice. I will never buy the pig in the poke. There's many a foul pig and a fair cloak. So that's second bits. It's a nice addition and I think goes well into what Lee was saying about a little more depth of this one and the idea of the
00:07:13
Speaker
the nice wrapping on the bad investment here. Yeah, I like that second part of it.
00:07:23
Speaker
So with this proverb, it feels like, I mean, obviously on its surface, what it's kind of talking about is, you know, something like one of the ones we've done before, Andrew, like, you know, let the buyer beware. That seems like kind of surface level, but like kind of Lee was saying, it may go deeper than that. And I feel like in today with
00:07:46
Speaker
with social media and 24-hour news and all this stuff, there's a lot of pigs and pokes being sold, right? And it could be extremely hard to really know what you're getting and if you're able to take information at face value. That's kind of where my mind went with it. Yeah, something that's kind of interesting about this saying too is that, so I mentioned that when you go to a market, you pick up
00:08:14
Speaker
a pig or food or whatever, and it'd be marked in bags, you know, to transport around. It's always good to get a good look at what you're buying, right? So that's pretty obvious. But there, you know, what would often happen is you and this is just like today, you might buy something in the in the bag or the sack, you know, whatever it is, the poke, it would it would have it would be fancy, nice, and it would it would it would convince you to buy it. I mean, that's just good business practice, right? And
00:08:44
Speaker
But later on, it became associated with more of a con. And so this is where we also get the saying, let the cat out of the bag, because it's implied that if you're going to go and buy a pig, let's say, but somebody's throwing a cat in there, that once you let the cat out of the bag, you're kind of revealing the con.
Modern Society's Illusions and Truth
00:09:06
Speaker
So there's more context here as you go through time and as the saying evolves to kind of fit the audience and the time.
00:09:14
Speaker
I still think though that the relevance to us is still present. I really do believe that today we are dealing with more illusions. I mean, it's so much different than going down to the market. I mean, we're inundated with these things today with deceptive marketing or people that are not fully authentic. And so it's important for us to really understand, but it can be difficult to discern in this day and age.
00:09:44
Speaker
Yeah, that's, that's great. That brought to mind what's been in the news a lot lately and, and what people are talking about with, with AI images and video and voice, um, you know, and people saying, well, pretty soon, if not now, if not already, pretty soon, you're not going to be able to trust something you see, like a video you see on the internet. Um, and that's, uh, that's our, that's the pig in the poke now, right? That's the,
00:10:14
Speaker
Can you, can you buy it? Can you believe your, your own eyes with something like that? Well, and you know, I think, uh, I think it's interesting cause we, we live in a time when everything's so visual. So it's, you know, it's visual, it's going to, maybe we'll hear it, you know, our senses, but there's, I tend to think that we've all been blessed with deeper intuitions, uh, that have always come in handy at different times.
00:10:44
Speaker
And in this day and age, in the modern era, those things are denigrated often and they kind of get tamped down and we discredit them. You know, we tend to like cling to our reason, you know, our rational faculties to tell us the truth or what we see with our own eyes. But I do think that there's other intuitions that we have and that in this day and age should come in handy. You know, I think that there's kind of a
00:11:14
Speaker
There's kind of this, I believe in the gut instinct. I really do. I think that there's a lot more there than meets the eye. And I tend to tell people, because it can be difficult to sift through information, for example, or know who to trust. Or let's say you see a video online, right? This is all this medium. It is a big illusion a lot of the time. But we still have these little signals that we receive. And I believe that something like your gut instinct
00:11:44
Speaker
says a lot more. You know, women tend to have, you know, people don't like to admit it, but it's true. Women and men are different and women have certain intuitions that I think are very important. And so I tend to trust those things and I actually believe that we should trust those a lot more than we do.
00:12:03
Speaker
Yeah, I think that's right on. And I mean, people will kind of make a lot of doom and gloom and fear about the AI coming and everything. But I'm kind of the opinion that people are fairly smart and clever, at least a lot of people are. And if you, I mean, if you talk to a
00:12:23
Speaker
a young person today, an 18-year-old, they're so much more savvy on the internet than like your parents' generation, just because they grew up understanding it. And because it reminds me of like, you know, you'll see a video and be like, did you see what happened in Minnesota last year? And there's a bunch of people like riding. And then it wasn't a video from Minnesota last year, it was a video from like,
00:12:43
Speaker
you know, I don't know some other part of the country or other part of the world from seven years ago, you know, like people have been doing that forever. And it's sometimes hard to tell because it's like the you know, the city's kind of look the same or people rioting or doing something crazy all kind of looks the same. And so you could be like, wow, this is this is what's going on. So I think there's going to be more deception. I really do. But I think I think people who are, Lee, like you said, who trust their gut and their intuition and try to pay attention, I think can prepare themselves
00:13:11
Speaker
to kind of see through that.
Skepticism and Trust in the Digital Age
00:13:14
Speaker
What do you guys think? What ways can we kind of prepare ourselves to be able to see through some of these deceptions that are here now and potentially coming in the future? Any of you guys have any thoughts on that? Yeah, I really do. I agree with you. I'm a little more optimistic about this. I mean, I fear AI. I'm not going to lie. I fear some of these things. That's normal, I guess.
00:13:40
Speaker
I'm a little more optimistic because I do believe, I believe we're a lot more complex than what we tend to believe about ourselves. I mean, we do have these faculties that we've had to use for a long, long time. They're the earliest parts of our being, really, and the most basic. And so like these intuitions gut instincts, we have different words for it.
00:14:09
Speaker
You know what? I think a good example of this is most people will latch onto something like the pandemic and they'll say Well, everybody just kind of fell in line and they didn't question and everybody was clinging to a consensus But and that's all true and it was pretty embarrassing I think most people don't want to talk about it because everybody knows it was very embarrassing What we did it was kind of beneath our character as Americans, I think
00:14:36
Speaker
But there were also a lot of people that did not buy into this. And there were a lot of people that tried to find ways to navigate this weird landscape we were all trying to traverse at the same time. And there was a lot of people that were relying on things like their gut instinct or being skeptical and taking a second glance. And every time that we have an embarrassing moment like this or we learn a hard lesson, whether it's the global war on terror or it's a pandemic or whatever,
00:15:06
Speaker
Um, you know, there's, it has, it has a long lasting effect that we can't always appreciate in the moment. I, I don't know. I mean, do you really think that we could pull off another COVID-19 type pandemic in the same way again? Obviously some people are going to go with them, right? I don't either. And I don't believe that. And you know, it, we, we change and we adapt to these, this environment, right? The internet's really,
00:15:33
Speaker
changed a lot of things. You're right. Like this is the thing people fail to understand is yes, it does rev up the engine. People see videos. They get outraged. You know, we had riots throughout 2020 because of a video. Right. But at the same time, like we've all been duped and we've all been deceived at different times. It's causing a lot of people to be more skeptical. It's also causing people to learn how to adapt to an environment that cannot be trusted. We can't really trust a consensus. I think that's another thing we've learned.
00:16:03
Speaker
So where I'm going with that is that just because there have been negative consequences to AI or to videos or the internet, what it is is it transforms the society we live in, not only by changing things for the worse like that, but it also, people adapt to these and they try to, with an internet video, they might be more skeptical
00:16:32
Speaker
Um, they also might tune it out. I mean, there's different things like this that you can't trust. This is why it's so difficult to control people. And so I am, I agree with you. I'm a little more optimistic about this than, than a lot of other people. Um, I think the hardest position, so we always look at it like, you know, we're at the ground level here, normal ordinary people. We look at us like we're always getting dumped on and we're losing, but try, you know, think about what it would be like to manage this, you know,
00:17:01
Speaker
they're the bad guys, you know, they're the ones putting the lockdowns in or whatever else it is, but they're also trying to manage a really difficult situation. I don't think that they can succeed at doing this. And it's because of these things that we're talking about. Sorry, that was a big old long monologue. No, that's great. Yeah, I, I was thinking,
00:17:26
Speaker
Yeah, as people become more skeptical of what they can trust, it's kind of common stages of having the curtain drawn back, right? For so many years, people relied on information from far away, first newspaper, then radio, TV, but that was all pretty tightly controlled as far as what narratives were delivered. And then people,
00:17:55
Speaker
with more access to mass media, people kind of became skeptical of that model. And now I think people are finally being skeptical of our current model where there's just a ton of information out there and people don't know what to believe. And I saw, I want to know how this, what you think Lee and how this relates to something I saw you say the other day about kind of like shrinking that circle of concern, you know, is that
00:18:24
Speaker
What you think is going forward, you know, people, you can't really trust what to believe about something on the other side of the world anymore. So people are just going to kind of give up on caring about it and focusing more local, more person to person.
Focusing on Local Concerns and Influence
00:18:38
Speaker
Is that what you see kind of as a remedy or at least a reality going forward?
00:18:44
Speaker
I do I, you know, I was I was kind of griping about geopolitical issues. And it's something I've always been passionate about, you know, I've always been interested in what's happening in the rest of the world and nationally, but at the same time, you know, the last few years for me as someone who's always been very tuned into that is even though I can keep my eye on it. It's all it's done for me is it's reminded me that my real the area that I really need to worry about is
00:19:14
Speaker
really within a fairly small radius. It's my sphere of influence. It's the only place I can really affect meaningful changes or can protect things that truly do matter to me. And I mean, it sounds so basic and it really just, people will think it's self-evident, but I don't think a lot of, I don't think as many people as should truly internalize that. And the internet can fool you into
00:19:43
Speaker
kind of giving your time and attention away to things that you have no control over. And I'm not one to judge. I mean, I do it all the time. But I do believe that this is one of those silver linings to the changes that we're undergoing is I don't think we realize like how in the mid century, you know, 20th century is like we mobilize the whole nation to fight wars and to do other things and, you know, remake the economy. And these things
00:20:09
Speaker
I'm not gonna have a dog in the fight here, but just to remark that we have this, we did some impressive things as a nation, but it required a very rock solid consensus. It required people being in lockstep with one another, a very different environment than we live in. We're in a breakdown. We have decentralization of information. This will have long lasting effects on how we operate as people. It was in the past,
00:20:38
Speaker
you know, if you're a farmer in Iowa, and, you know, a professor who's working within a government bureaucracy or whatever, if he like endorses a policy or if he states his opinion in the paper, like, you're never gonna have your opinion in the paper, right?
00:20:56
Speaker
You have no control over these policies. You're going to be on the receiving end of that. And that was just expected. That's how things are. And people who went to college at that time and were experts were revered. They were respected. And anybody who didn't respect them wasn't really paid attention to anyway. They wouldn't have really been even considered. But now look at this.
00:21:17
Speaker
changing landscape we're living in now like we're on a podcast who knows how many people listen to this I don't know but like but they're going to be people that are going to be listening to this that might not have listened to the national news at all today right we're having a conversation that's very unique to this
00:21:34
Speaker
This medium, you know, this medium that we're in, but it's it has far reaching effects at the same time. So, you know, point being is, is like we this is a major change. Things are are shrinking in a lot of ways for us. And I would love to see Americans embrace that because it's kind of a we're returning to the mean here. This is how it always was, you know.
00:21:56
Speaker
is me and my community, that's where my interests were. That's where my people are. That's where my loyalties lie. That's where my responsibilities, my obligations are all right here. It took a massive change in society for people to start thinking about what was going on in China and other places. It's not bad, right? I think that's important. We still are living in a global empire here, but at the same time, I think a lot of normal people were fooled into believing that
00:22:26
Speaker
being tuned into those things made a difference, a difference that, you know, was exaggerated. And I think that like, you know, cable news and all that has really, you know, that's a good example of that. Well, that's breaking down and it's breaking down for a reason. It's just really unsustainable. It doesn't solve the problems people want to have solved. So my big, you know, my big pitch to people is like, we really do need to
00:22:48
Speaker
keep our concerns within a certain radius, like true concerns. You can be interested in what's happening abroad, but like, where is your sphere of influence? It might be broader than mine. Maybe you have a bigger circle because you have more influence or whatever, but at the end of the day, like we have real obligations to real people and they tend to be closer to us. And that I think will be a good development through these changes.
00:23:13
Speaker
Yeah, I think so too. I love that idea about the Saphira of influence, paying attention to what really matters and then kind of moving out from there, paying attention to what really matters first rather. But you mentioned like a silver lining. I was thinking that same thing because
00:23:30
Speaker
You mentioned we've all been duped. We've all been fooled by something on the internet before. I think that's happened. I've reposted somebody like, man, can you believe this? And then it was fake. But after that's happened a couple of times, the silver lining is it makes you pump the brakes and calm down. I think it makes you less of an excitable person when you're like, all right, this happened, but did it happen? I just watched this thing happen, but is that real at all? Or is this just totally fake? So you're like, OK, I'm going to hold off a little bit
00:23:59
Speaker
you know, refrain on from from judging on this, this thing having this crazy reaction until I know a little bit more. And so yeah, I mean, I that's just for me in my personal life, I've noticed that so I can definitely see the silver lining of of these things being crazy and all of this information overload dumping on us.
00:24:20
Speaker
And I really do hope it causes kind of more of a revolution towards people being skeptical of things that they see. Understanding that a lot of it's just kind of a game or some kind of agenda that's being pushed by someone that's more rich and powerful than you are, and a turn to focus in on
00:24:43
Speaker
families, friends, communities, that sort of thing. I know you've talked a lot about that and written about that, Lee, so yeah, I hope that that's where we're headed. You know, I think we are, and I get a lot of guff from this, so like, I know this is controversial to a lot of people online.
00:25:01
Speaker
I think there's always going to be an interest in people who have influence, like a platform on Twitter or wherever, to emphasize the need for a broader platform and the difference they're making.
00:25:20
Speaker
We all do it. I mean, it's it's nice when people like our stuff and when they follow us and they listen to what we say. But I always try to remind people like I'm just a normal ordinary guy just like you, you know, I'm just like anybody else. I'm not special really in any other way. I just have a platform and
00:25:39
Speaker
It's good and there's there's influence and reach. Yes, that's true But anybody who gets to a certain size on that down their platform So like when I when I started hitting more followers, I really started to think about this Because at the end of the day, I was realizing like I have a message that's being you know broadcast and people like it sometimes sometimes they don't whatever and there's growth but at the end of the day like
00:26:05
Speaker
The kind of influence that I have, there's really different degrees of influence that we have on people. And the problem is always action. Where does the action fit in here? And people will always say this. So you'll make an opinion and they'll say, well, what can we do about it? And I think people will get to a point, and I think a lot of people already have.
00:26:27
Speaker
And that's probably why we have this bad stigma with influencers. Yes, they still command a lot of attention, but there's also a lot of us who roll our eyes when the influencers roll out, just like we would like a cable news host, right? There's really nothing there for me. There's no action involved. There's nothing that really changes the things I care about. And so where I'm going with this is that I think there will be a maturing
00:26:57
Speaker
in some of these places. And I think it's already happened. And I think what it is, is I think it's, people always worry like, oh, you know, I think that yes, the online influence on our lives has been good and bad. Bad gets emphasized a lot. I do believe that there's a lot of negative things that come along with it.
00:27:16
Speaker
But we adapt, right? Human beings change, just like you brought up with the video when you realize you've been duped. Okay? Your behavior and the way you see things changes. So people that are using platforms to influence action and the action isn't happening, or they're realizing that, you know, the things that really matter to them are, are not actually, like they're not being resolved. The problems are not being solved in this way. This is, it's limitations.
00:27:45
Speaker
I actually believe people will return to reexamining certain things that they, you know, in their immediate sphere that are very important. We're always important, but this online experience that we've all gone through and we've hit maturing through, I think that, I think people are going to actually return to a lot of those things. I think it's a normal, natural thing. And it's not because, and it's not because like they're becoming necessarily disillusioned, but it's that you realize that like,
00:28:14
Speaker
It's an illusion. So you're not, you know, you think you're solving problems. You think you're making progress or you're doing other things. Like we're, we're human beings. We want to solve problems in our, in our immediate sphere. And these things, these online activities don't always scratch the itch. So what are we going to do about it? And I think it, I think there will be a maturity there. And I think it will have people kind of return to re-examining the things that are more important. I really believe we've already kind of seen this.
00:28:43
Speaker
In some ways, you know, I, um, my, my kids are homeschooled. We have this really interesting, like little network of people, and we all have a very similar trajectory, very influenced by us living in an analog world and then being kind of thrown into this digital world. And then as things break down, we start returning back to this.
00:29:06
Speaker
uh, refocusing and kind of reorienting ourselves in this immediate sphere of ours where we're educating our kids a little differently. We're spending time with them a little differently. We're looking at our communities a little differently, like very differently than many of us grew up, right? Um, I think we're going to see a lot more of this and I actually think that this, it won't solve all the problems, right?
Adaptation and Evolution in Society
00:29:28
Speaker
But it will start solving certain problems that were neglected. And so this is an evolutionary process. And there is always going to be a good and a bad with it. But nothing lasts forever in the state that it is. It's always changing. And I think we have to, when people start to despair, it's because they're not appreciating that evolutionary quality, that we live in an organic world. I mean, these things change. We change. We don't even realize that.
00:29:57
Speaker
So I think that's always a good way to not start getting too disillusioned and feeling depressed about the way things are. I think these are good changes. They're radical changes. It's going to revolutionize the way that we do things and it's going to continue to do that. I think the best thing we can do is kind of learn how to ride that and to still, you know, keep a stiff upper lip and find the good.
00:30:23
Speaker
I think I've already noticed that what you mentioned about that kind of change. I've noticed that myself with people paying more attention and being more willing to engage in inductive reasoning as opposed to purely deductive reasoning, embracing some, like you mentioned, intuition, maybe embracing more of the spiritual. I mean, it was crazy. I was just listening to an episode of
00:30:49
Speaker
of Joe Rogan and Joe was an atheist his whole life and he had some other guy on who was like another kind of a Gen X or former liberal, right? Who was an atheist his whole life and both of them are like, no, I think religion is important. Like, dang, man, like, how did that happen? These guys did a 180 just by looking at society and seeing what's going on.
00:31:08
Speaker
And yeah, I think they're seeing it. They're noticing that you can't know all the facts in a world where information is so bizarre and so fake half the time. And you have to lean on something a little deeper.
00:31:23
Speaker
Yeah, I love that. That spiritual dimension is really interesting to me. The spiritual has always been important to human beings. And I think it was quite the conceit for us. We hit this period of history where we thought that we could just discard that or bury it and that we could just do without it.
00:31:46
Speaker
I mean, it's so obvious that people are craving that today and they're searching for it because it's part of who we are. It's always been part of who we are. And our reason doesn't really quite do it for us. It doesn't deliver on the promises that
00:32:08
Speaker
Many of us grew up, I mean, I think we're probably all around the same age. So it's like we grew up in a time when like, you know, it's politically, you know, the religious right is like, I mean, they're kind of getting beat back on their heels, like they kind of hit this moment where they had quite a bit of influence for a little bit.
00:32:24
Speaker
but they kind of got clobbered and we saw this like gradual retreat. And now we're like living in this very nihilistic time and people are miserable. Like where was this, where was the delivery of the promise, you know, that the new atheists were like peddling around when we were younger that everybody would like, you know, embrace technology and they would finally like discard their religious beliefs. And then they would finally, you know,
00:32:50
Speaker
Start being rational again and then you know, these problems would be solve everybody be happy and like we could just meditate and solve our problems that way or whatever I mean, that's not all what has happened and and that's where I think like I think we have to be a little flexible, you know as people and this is kind of why I have such a extra grind with ideology I think it's very dangerous because uh a lot of the things that we A lot of the things that we kind of cling to ideologically are really products of time and history in place
00:33:19
Speaker
Um, you know, and I don't mean to pick on libertarians. I'm using that as an example because I really like libertarians, uh, but You know that that was kind of a flash in the pan really if you think about it in the broad like look at how many, you know Hundreds of years centuries of history here in the united states. Um That thing was a it doesn't mean it's bad, but it was a flash in the pan. It was very much a product of a time
00:33:42
Speaker
And I think people are starting to go, ah, maybe this isn't enough. There are problems that we need to solve. And for some reason, my ideology can't quite reach there. It's not sufficient. And what that means is it means we're going to change. Things are going to start to change. I think we have a tendency to look at, and this is why ideology can be really dangerous, is that we think holding to this
00:34:10
Speaker
ideological position is if we're just at the more uncompromising we are on that, the more disciplined we are with our ideological position or whatever it is, our beliefs, that if we can just cling a little tighter, that it will solve the problems. If we just maintain the ideological purity, everything will be fixed. And this is where it just doesn't work. It's a product of time and place and history.
00:34:41
Speaker
Now on the religious aspect though, this is where I think that's kind of the answer to the problem is a lot of people are trying to solve spiritual problems with ideology and it just does not work. But the things that people really need to sustain them that human beings have always had to sustain them are these spiritual and religious beliefs. And I hope, I believe we are rediscovering that and I think
00:35:08
Speaker
Even people who claim to be religious and spiritual, we were putting a lot of the burden on secular things, on politics, on technology.
00:35:20
Speaker
And I think that this moment of it's uncomfortable, I think we're starting to re-examine how important religion and spirituality is and how the burden really can just be outsourced to other things. We actually do need to dig into this. We need to explore it. We need to understand it.
00:35:45
Speaker
Yeah, that resonates with me. I studied political science in school. That was my major. And I went pretty deep into the ideology. I kept thinking if there's just a perfect ideology that would lead you in the right direction and have the answers for these difficult questions, then I want to find it. I mean, I took a deep dive into libertarianism. I read all the great libertarian thinkers, Rothbard and Hoppe and all those guys. And I went deep down the rabbit hole and
00:36:11
Speaker
And yeah, I came to the same conclusion, man, that ideology won't get you there. When people ask what my belief systems are politically or ideology, I tell them I really just don't really have one. I support things that are good and beautiful, and I suppose things that are ugly and destructive. I mean, that's kind of where it comes down to, and that's true politically and physically and spiritually as well.
00:36:36
Speaker
Yeah, you know, I think that that's, you know, ideology can be something, it can cut corners, right? Like ideology helps us cut corners and solve problems. Like that's really what it comes down to. So it can be good and it can be bad depending on the situation. But I think we put too much, almost like religious significance into it really. Yes. And that's where it becomes like very dangerous and not useful. And that's why I, you know, I think, you know, this is me just kind of riffing here, but
00:37:03
Speaker
I think this is like, this is the role politics should play, you know, classically, this is like what politics should be, is really, we should be able to solve problems. And, you know, we have limited amount of resources space, we have different interests, we're competing, we need to be able to have an arena where we can sort these things out.
00:37:22
Speaker
people who understand, right? And be able to solve problems in that way. And recognizing that there's not a utopia we're striving for, like we're not gonna get to a perfect place and someone's gonna be left a little less happy than the other when we make compromises and so on, when we make political decisions, right? But it's that ability to even engage in that sphere is really important. I mean, this is kind of like,
00:37:51
Speaker
My, my thought on this is that one of the reasons why it's been so difficult why we've latched on to ideologies because we've lost the political as ordinary people. It's interesting that the further you go up the chain, the less ideological people get, you know, when you go to the donor class of people that are
00:38:08
Speaker
pulling strings on political parties. How ideological do you really think they are? It's funny. No, they don't relate to both parties. Right. And you hear people say, there's truth to these little things that people say. I don't like the uppity progressive way of looking at things that normal folks say to explain what's going on.
00:38:28
Speaker
you know, it's not sophisticated to say uniparty, you know, it's like that lowbrow thing that dummies say down. But you know, there's so much truth to that. What does that tell you is like, what it really means is that like, the people that the donor class, let's say, that is, got a lot more political influence.
00:38:47
Speaker
That they are that they their interests are very much The same as a class right there as a group of people so that they could donate to republicans or democrats they could donate to either major political party and probably Take care of what they care about. They probably donate to both, right? Like you mentioned so but like as you go down It's funny that like the more that you go down to the base level You're finding a lot of people in the middle and at the bottom are very ideological You don't see that at the top
00:39:15
Speaker
You have to you know, and so why don't we ask ourselves like why that is And that you know it and the ideology like I said has like a spiritual dimension to it for people um, I think that this that my theory on this is just that Ordinary people have been pushed out of the political realm like the real political realm where they actually have a stake They have a seat at the table and they can solve problems, right?
00:39:40
Speaker
They have some influence in different places and this is why I say ordinary people like me should re-engage at the local places in their sphere of influence because they actually can sit at the table and engage in the political. But notice what gets people just worked up and talking, what dominates our attention are really areas where we have no seat at the table at all, right?
00:40:07
Speaker
And we have an ideological perception of this, that the people that have the most influence don't. I think that this just speaks to the fact that we really do need to re-engage the political as ordinary people. And that really just starts locally. I don't know how else you do it, you know? Maybe there are people who have a little bit more, you know, they can ascend the ladder or whatever and go ahead, you know, Godspeed, go do that. But people like me,
00:40:35
Speaker
I want to engage in the political, but the tendency that we're always tempted to give our time and our resources and our attention to things that we have really no input in, no real control. It gives us the illusion of it, but we don't have that.
00:40:53
Speaker
So we're just left screaming into the void as far less ideological people are the ones solving those problems and engaging in that political dimension. You've talked about how this is playing out in your own life to some degree with homeschooling, for example.
Building Community and Resilience
00:41:14
Speaker
Are there other things that you find you're doing, your family's doing, or that you're
00:41:21
Speaker
toying around with doing on the local level, like food co-ops or local politics. Are you interested in any of that kind of stuff? Yeah, definitely. I'm no local bigwig or anything. I live in a community that's very small. So I know all the people on my street, and they know me. And what I've been really investing most of my time in at the local level is
00:41:50
Speaker
I I think it's really important to know your neighbors It sounds so simple. Like I'm gonna sound like a grandpa over here, but this is I really believe this is important I think it's really important to keep those touch points alive So like I'm a military guy and so like I love talking about like, you know guns and emergency preparedness and all that and that's great, right? you know preppers and all that kind of stuff that's I think that's fun and it's interesting but food storage or whatever but
00:42:18
Speaker
At the end of the day, the most the most important thing that we always seem to forget is that to survive. And this doesn't just have to be an emergency situations to survive and thrive. We need people. We do not. We're not an island and we don't live. You know, it's romantic to think that we're going to go live in a cabin in the woods. I also indulge in that as well. But at the end of the day, we don't do that. Like that's not actually smart. Like we need people. So where you are.
00:42:48
Speaker
How many people do you know? Do you know people who could come and help you in a pinch? Do you know if you have people in your life close to you that you could rely on, that have an obligation to you in some ways? If you don't, I think it's really important to invest your time and energy into that. And it does not have to be having a political rally in your house. I think the, I mean, here locally, we have a porch and we do pie on the porch on the street or the neighborhood. And so like everybody
00:43:17
Speaker
you know, alternates between different homes. But down here, we all have porches. So like, we'll have people that will do pie on the porch on theirs, and then the next month, we'll do one. And, and it, and you know, if we talk politics, we talk politics, but most of the time, we're just talking about what's going on in the community. And we're forging bonds with one another. I mean, that's what we do. We're human beings. And it's a good thing. That right there is really important. That's how you forge
00:43:45
Speaker
ties with people that you are not blood related to, but that share your interests, that share your, you know, it's important. And so like things like that, we do locally on politics. Yeah, we, I live in a community that is very, very conservative, but we do have, you know, we have a very vocal, small, progressive element as every community does. And some of them are all right. But for the most part, like,
00:44:14
Speaker
on the local politics level, I am involved, but I'm not necessarily involved with, uh, you know, sexy, uh, you know, I'm not like a mayor or anything like that, but I'm involved in things that better my community, that make it more, that make it more beautiful and more resilient and that bring people together. And that is not something that you can just go on like Twitter and talk about and people care about. But I think that if people really thought about that, these are the kinds of things that
00:44:41
Speaker
Like I have a little bit of influence in my community and it's an influence that helps my community be better, more resilient, more real, have more character. These kinds of things matter. And so I do take those things very seriously. And I think more people should do that. I think people would find that instead of like shooting for an elected office, everybody's always like, I'm going to run for the House. I'm going to run for the Senate. And that's great.
00:45:10
Speaker
But you're going to be like an emissary to Washington. And that's like a whole nother thing. If you, if you really want to like be involved in your community and like help protect it and make it better and solve problems. Like most people care about getting your sewer upgraded. Most people care about piles being filled, but like those little things actually do matter, right? They really do matter to people and to making things function better. I think that more people should get the experience of, of embracing that first and understanding how things work.
00:45:38
Speaker
and how to communicate with people and having those connections to those around you. And then if at some point you have bigger ambitions, you have a good foundation. You know who you're serving. You're an actual person who represents your community. So those are things that I'm involved in. It's nothing like very sexy would never be in a newspaper, but it brings me a lot of happiness and satisfaction. And I do think that I can have a small positive effect on my community.
00:46:07
Speaker
Yeah, I think that's awesome. Typically, kind of towards when we're wrapping up the episodes here, we talk about, in the poem that this is based on, Kipling talks about the gods of the copybook headings, which is like these old sayings, these old proverbs. He also talks about the gods of the marketplace, which is like the antithesis, right? The opinions of men that sway back and forth. So we always kind of like to ask, what do you think of the gods of the marketplace on this one? Do you think society kind of believes
00:46:37
Speaker
in this truism of being skeptical, not buying the pig in the poke, or do you think it's not so much valued?
Belief in Ordinary People's Extraordinary Potential
00:46:46
Speaker
That's a good question. I think you're always going to have people that they're going to be easily deceived, or they're going to buy the fancy poke or whatever. But I do have a lot of faith in just ordinary people.
00:47:07
Speaker
I really do. I believe that ordinary people do extraordinary things all the time. And I think that I think that people that are are more in tune are more. Maybe it's like a level of humility, a piety in some ways. I do think, though, that there are a lot of those people. That's the backbone of America always has been. Those are the people who do the fighting and dying. These are the people that brave the frontier. These are the people that
00:47:33
Speaker
I mean, I was, I think I was talking about this recently, but if you look in the West, maybe a lot of your listeners out West or whatnot, you know, you could go up and down the Wasatch Front and you can see the landscape. Those were carved by human hands. I don't think people realize this. Those canals, thousands of miles of canals were dug by human hands. People that did not actually, were never trained in this, but they went out and did it. These are regular, ordinary people. That, it's all around us.
00:48:02
Speaker
It's it's an amazing thing. We are surrounded by evidence that of ordinary people doing extraordinary things And I do believe that I do really believe in that I think that that backbone exists and it will always be there and all we need to do is we just need to We need to embrace it and we just need to have a little bit more confidence in it But no to answer your question. I I do
00:48:28
Speaker
I think the gods of the marketplace are always going to be there. But I think a lot of people have been let down by those false idols. And I think that as time progresses, I think there is going to be a lot more introspection. I know I've had introspection over the last four years. But I think that is going to do us well. And so yeah, I would encourage everybody to go easy on yourself a little bit and focus on yourself and focus on that sphere of influence.
00:48:58
Speaker
That's how us ordinary people make big differences in the world. Well said, man. Well, hey, this is about the time where we usually wrap up, uh, Andrew, any, any last words or questions for, for Lee? Yeah. Last one. Um, I think this ties in with, with what you just said, Lee, I, I, I, I like the way this one's formulated, um, in this 1500s version when he says, I will never buy the pig in the poke. Usually our proverbs are.
00:49:27
Speaker
are admonitions, they're commands, so to speak. Don't buy the pig and the poke, but I will never. I like that. It's aspirational. It's a declaration. And I think it's a good way to approach the world that you won't do it. And so you're speaking for yourself.
00:49:56
Speaker
And yeah, I really liked this one. I think it's given us a lot to think about. Well, no, I really appreciate the conversation. I just, I love talking. So as you can tell, I'm sorry if I spoke of everybody, but I do appreciate being able to come on. And I do like that too. I think, I mean, man, we just.
00:50:16
Speaker
I think we need to commit. We're in this time of flux. People don't know what to do, but commit to the basics, the things that we know. At the very least, we don't always know what's true, but we can strive to be better at discerning things. And at the very least, if we can't speak truth, we can just refuse to lie. That alone is a powerful thing.
00:50:44
Speaker
I appreciate you allowing me to come on and run my gums here. I hope I said something that might be a little bit useful to somebody out there. My parting advice was I will never buy that pig in a poke. I think that you could take that to the bank.
00:51:05
Speaker
Excellent. Well, hey, man, where can people find you? Can you tell us people where they can find you online and promote anything you're working on? Yeah. So I'm on a, I do a sub stack. You can find me at Lafayettelee.com. I have like a domain for it. But I'm also contributing editor to IM 1776. So if you ever want to find any of the writings over there, we have some stuff on there. If you're interested in like, you know,
00:51:35
Speaker
American centric stuff we just had a conversation about American ethnogenesis me and martyr made That I think a lot of folks that are kind of interested in that sort of thing might enjoy So yeah, and if you find me on Twitter, feel free to shoot me a DM and and say hi, so I'm very open
00:51:50
Speaker
Well, hey, man, thanks so much for coming again. We really, really appreciate this. It's been an awesome conversation. And thanks so much for listening, everybody. If you're not subscribed to the show, please go ahead and subscribe on whatever podcast app that you choose. And we will see you guys all next week. Thanks, Lee. And thanks, Andrew. There are only four things to see. Bye. Since social progress began, the dog returns to his vomit, and the sow returns to her mom.
00:52:18
Speaker
and the burned fool's bandaged finger goes wobbling back to the path. And that after this is accomplished and the brave new world begins, when all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for his sin, as surely as water will wet us, as surely as fire will burn, the gods of the copy won't hit us, with terrors of water.