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Ecotopia by Ernest Callenbach Book Club
160 Plays1 year ago
Our first solarpunk book is an environmental utopia with detailed explanations for how things work and why they were organized that way. The main character is a journalist traveling to Ecotopia for the first time in 20 years to report back on how they’re doing. Hosts Caroline and Carly talk about how shifting priorities on a societal level may change interpersonal relationships, how intelligence is valued in a non-hierarchical society and the role of violence in society.
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Ecotopia | A Psalm for the Wild-Built
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Transcript
Introduction and Announcements
00:00:00
Speaker
Hello, listeners, and welcome to season two of the Book Club Podcast. We now have a substack. Subscribe at bookclubpod.substack.com to be the first to know about new seasons and to read our post about books and podcasts we listen to in between seasons. Spoiler
Philosophy of 'Ecotopia'
00:00:20
Speaker
warning, we will be spoiling Ecotopia by Ernest Callenbach.
00:00:30
Speaker
When I have a job to do, I like to get it over with. What's wrong with a little efficiency? A little goes a long way, Will, Lorna said. Our point of view is that if something's worth doing, it ought to be done in a way that's enjoyable. Otherwise, it can't really be worth doing. Then how does anything get done? I asked exasperatedly. You don't mean to tell me washing dishes is exactly fun. It is the way we do it, said Burt. Almost anything can be if you keep your eye on the process and not on the goal.
Impact of 'Ecotopia' on Personal and Professional Life
00:01:00
Speaker
Today we're discussing Ecotopia by Ernest Callenbach. I'm Caroline, and I absolutely adore solar punk and environmental utopias like Ecotopia, which was kind of the first in its genre, because it pushes my imagination in such a free and hopeful direction. And so this book and the others that we'll cover in the series are really about hope for me.
00:01:24
Speaker
I'm Carly, and I had never heard of this book, although after reading it, I realized it kind of has directed my whole career in political activism and then breaking away from political activism. So I've been asking people who I work with, if they've heard of it,
00:01:44
Speaker
And no one has, even though ideals that are the foundation for my daily job are aligned with this book. And so it was kind of a surreal experience for me. We will definitely be coming back to that. So the book is set in 1999, which is 25 years in the future from 1974 when it was written.
00:02:07
Speaker
and consists
Ecotopian Society and Culture
00:02:08
Speaker
of diary entries and reports from a journalist named Will Weston, who was the first American mainstream media reporter to visit Ecotopia, a small country consisting of what were formerly the states of Oregon, Washington, and part of California that broke away from the United States in 1980.
00:02:27
Speaker
Those states seceded from the rest of the United States 20 years ago because they wanted to rid their society of pollution and the ecologically damaging effects of American culture. They revolutionized their whole culture and society so that it is a stable state economy, by which they mean there is no waste and no pollution. All resources are used entirely
00:02:48
Speaker
or they aren't created or used at all. Any manufactured item must be easily repairable by ordinary citizens as part of that general anti-waste ethos. Additionally, the government has been heavily decentralized, and many of these changes are voluntary and not mandated by law. The society is extremely secure. There is care for the elderly, the ill, and estate-provided income, which provides an austere but livable floor on income.
00:03:15
Speaker
Since the secession, contact between ecotopia and the rest of America has been almost non-existent. The narrator is the first journalist in 20 years to travel from America to ecotopia because the governments are considering relaxing their strict no-contact policies.
War Games and Aggression Management
00:03:30
Speaker
The narrator, Will, details his findings about ecotopian societies in both a private diary and a series of articles that are intended to be published at home in his paper in New York City. This book is very detailed. He talks about everything from how
00:03:47
Speaker
You know, cups are made to eyeglasses, to medicine in the society. And that's part of what I love about it. It has so many details. But here are just a few of them, which include that if someone in Ecotopia wants to build something requiring a large amount of wood, such as a house, that person is required to spend several months volunteering with the tree nurseries so that they can appreciate the source of the wood and the gravity of using that much wood. They call it forest service, I think.
00:04:15
Speaker
There are also no commercial dyes. All textiles are sold in their natural states. So towels, sheets, clothing, those come in whatever color the natural fibers are. And if you want something dyed, you have to dye it yourself using naturally available dyes.
00:04:31
Speaker
There are additionally a whole lot of social changes caused by the lack of competitiveness and the overall security. For example, he notices that children don't call each other stupid. They don't they don't bully each other over intelligence because intelligence just doesn't matter as much in this society in terms of your your rank in your prospects of security. Also in other types of relationships like both family relationships and romantic relationships, there's no sense of scarcity or financial dependence
00:05:01
Speaker
driving the relationship. So those are all removed. People like each other and spend time together or they don't, but because no one's financial well-being is dependent on anyone else, there's a genuineness to the social relationships.
00:05:17
Speaker
Ecotopians host regular war games in which almost all men participate. These games are not really games at all, as some 50 or so men die a year in the games. They consist more or less of a pitched battle between two sides with spears.
00:05:32
Speaker
William is told that the war games are necessary as an outlet for man's natural aggression and that the 50 or so deaths per year are far less than deaths that would occur if the men didn't have that outlet. For example, in road rage incidents and barroom balls,
00:05:48
Speaker
So the narrator progresses through these revelations, apparently spending some weeks or months in Ecotopia. He arrives cynical but increasingly falls in love with Ecotopia and with an Ecotopian named Marissa. When the time comes for him to leave, after his journalistic goals are met, he agonizes over what to do but does not consciously consider staying. Then three Ecotopians kidnap him and take him to resort in the countryside.
00:06:16
Speaker
They don't harm him. They let him contact anyone in Ecotopia that he wants, but they do forcibly remove him to the resort and they won't let him leave. And thanks to this intervention, he has the realization that he wants to stay in Ecotopia and chooses to do so.
00:06:31
Speaker
The
Community and Relationships in Ecotopia
00:06:32
Speaker
book ends with Will sending his private diary and his articles back to his newspaper to be published altogether or not at all. So I think for me, the question that stood out most with this book is how would relationships be changed in a society where people feel absolutely secure as far as their basic needs go?
00:06:51
Speaker
Yeah, this is really interesting. And I think it's most stark in that final climax of the book where his time in Ecotopia is coming to an end. He's planning to go back home to New York, to his girlfriend and his ex-wife and kids and his job in New York City. And he gets kidnapped and taken to a spa. Let's talk about that. It is a kidnapping, right? They don't use violence. They don't hit him or grab him in any way. But he makes it clear he
00:07:17
Speaker
doesn't want to go with them and he does try to escape and they just find him and gently grab him and bring him back. Right? But that is still violent, right? Yeah. I mean, it's, it's definitely against his will. And I think he's convinced to go along with them when his friend Burt is like, has talked to one of the guys who's kidnapping him. So he's kidnapped by two men and a woman. And one of the guys is talking to Burt.
00:07:41
Speaker
And Burt's like, look, we know where you're going. We think it will be good for you. You should probably just go. But they don't tell him exactly what's happening. And so he finds out later what's really happening is that his friends have a scene in him that he's having a bad reaction to having to go back to New York. He's like angry and separating himself and feeling frustrated. And they see that in him and they find their own friends to take him to the spa where he can sit and think
00:08:08
Speaker
and consider and come to his own conclusion that he doesn't want to go back home. He wants to stay in ecotopia. And then when he does come to that conclusion, they all celebrate and have a party. I was like, that would be like, it's really an attractive idea, right? That some like you decide to stay and people are like, yeah, and they throw a big party for you. Is the being kidnapped to give you time to think about a life decision? Is that also attractive?
00:08:33
Speaker
No, although being taken to a spa is pretty good as far as kidnappings go. And they are very good with him. But it occurs to me like, you know, I like the idea of having a family unit or a social group that's large enough, but that I could trust completely with my well-being, right? Like the crux of the thing is he is struggling with something he is not aware of. He is not even aware of his own mixed feelings and he needs the time and space to reflect.
00:09:02
Speaker
And it sounds, I mean, it is utopian, the idea of having people around you who love you, sincerely want the best for you, and are attuned to your mental and emotional well-being. But a whole lot has to happen to create that situation, right? Like, there's no one, I mean, I have a lot of friends and family I love and trust very much.
00:09:24
Speaker
But I don't know that I trust them to be so well attuned to my mental and emotional well-being to allow them to kidnap me or have other people kidnap me for something that they think I need to work out. I mean, you would need a strong community, like you said, you would need them to really all know each other to be able to plan this and talk about it. But you would also need a very different form of society, right? One where
00:09:50
Speaker
your absence for some period of time, days or a week or two, would not just torpedo your life, which is, I don't know about you, but that's how my life feels with both work and other obligations and stuff. Like even if I wanted to choose it, I don't have time to
Critique of Individualism and Patriarchy
00:10:06
Speaker
go off and just dedicate myself to making a hard, the right decision on a hard decision, right?
00:10:13
Speaker
Did it bother you that it was against his will? It did, but it's one of those things where I think context is important, right? Like I can conceive of a society in which your group and I think Colin Bock makes the case for this pretty thoroughly in the book.
00:10:32
Speaker
that your belonging to a family group is different than what we have in our society where we are, I mean, United States, we're very individualistic. And so in that context, I don't know if it's the same moral question, right? I agree. It seems like very different.
00:10:53
Speaker
question. I was surprised by it because up until this point in the book, it had mostly been a pretty neutral description of ecotopian society. I mean, we get the beginnings of his falling in love with Marissa and things like that, but it was not a very personal story. It was mostly a description of this society. And then there's this curveball that he has a decision to make. He can't make it. It would be irrevocable if he went back to the United States because the borders are completely closed. There's no communication.
00:11:23
Speaker
Uh, so it's, you know, it's a big decision that he's about to make completely unthinking. So in that context, yeah, I think it makes sense. It's interesting. Last night I was having a conversation with my husband about how some couples have vetoes, you know, for lack of a better, better work. Like if the other one's really making a bad decision, big or small, they can say, well, you know, I'm going to use my veto or whatever. And we talked about that and I kind of.
00:11:50
Speaker
wanted him to have a veto and he was like, no, I would never use it. Like your decisions are yours, right? Which is very, is the opposite of what we have here. I liked the idea of a veto because it communicates how strongly someone else feels about something, which sometimes is the more important issue.
00:12:06
Speaker
Right. You can't always articulate why you don't want to do something or do want to do something. And I think it took me well into my 30s to trust my gut in that way. And so I cling to that very strongly. If someone won't let me trust my gut and it demands a rationalization, it makes me want to just completely get out of the relationship.
00:12:32
Speaker
I took me so long to trust my gut and now that I do, I'm so grateful for it. If I am with someone who won't let me do that, it feels very treacherous and disrespectful. Well, here the issue was that he didn't know what his gut was telling him, right? He was unhappy, he was manifesting in various ways that he couldn't consciously say to himself or to anyone else, hey, I'm agonizing over whether or not to leave because that was such a
00:13:02
Speaker
I guess such a scary new idea, right? So what they did for him was give him space to do that, but they also showed him how much they cared, right? Like, yes, they kidnapped him and took him to a spa in the country, which is not terrible, but they stayed with him day and night for days or a couple of weeks. It was unclear how long.
00:13:20
Speaker
because they were so dedicated to him making a conscious decision. It wasn't even clear that they were pressuring him which decision to make. They just wanted him to make a decision and not just get carried along and go back to the United States, because that's what he had planned on doing originally.
00:13:35
Speaker
Like I think the first night that he was with his kidnappers, he was explaining like why he needs to go back. And one of them says, yes, we know the reasons we've heard you explain the reasons we want to know how you feel about it. And so they explicitly tell him, what are your feelings? And you know, I've been through that process myself of like, not being able to articulate feelings. And so I felt very real to me of like, no, no, you're arguing.
00:14:00
Speaker
But you're not testing your own feelings. You're not checking in with yourself on that emotional level. They saw that he was incapable of doing something for himself. And so they took control of him. And that's risky. That's really risky if you wanted to apply that kind of morality on a societal level, because people will take advantage of that trust. Yeah, absolutely. Another factor about it that it also showed him how much they cared about him.
00:14:30
Speaker
what one of the kidnappers related to Marissa, his girlfriend? I think Marissa's brother arranged it. Okay. And the brother and Will had kind of had some conflict, didn't seem to get along. The crux of which was that the brother was afraid Marissa was going to get hurt. Marissa cared. And so the brother who did not like Will, right, doesn't like this guy, still arranged this opportunity.
00:14:55
Speaker
odd to call kidnapping an opportunity, but it was here, right? Yes. And when that conflict with the brother happened, Marissa explains it to Will. Will doesn't quite understand what's happening, but what he writes down is that Marissa says he is concerned for me, but he doesn't understand that I like to take risks and I need to be able to take risks.
00:15:14
Speaker
So in that way, that's kind of a problem too. She knew what she was getting into when she got involved with Will. She knew that he was most likely going to leave and go back to New York. And if she attached herself to him, she would experience heartbreak. And so I think this goes back to the opening quote. Pursuing activity only to experience pleasure,
00:15:35
Speaker
I don't think it's essentially healthy. And she knew that suffering could come with her her relationship and she chose to do it anyway because she said she likes to take risks. I think I feel worse about that than I do about Will being kidnapped because Marissa knows herself. She went in fully conscious of what was going on. Will was not fully conscious of what was happening internally, but Marissa was and still her brother interfered and manipulated a situation.
00:16:04
Speaker
Yeah. Is manipulate too strong a word? I think it's a little too strong for the way Will was treated in the ultimate outcome. As we've agreed, it ended up all being motivated by good things and for the good. It is an oddly patriarchal motivation and series of actions coming from Marissa's brother for the society that allegedly has moved past that. Right.
00:16:27
Speaker
Right. And she says that about her brother. She's like, oh, it's it's a he has these reactions that I think are carry over from back when men controlled women. Yeah.
00:16:38
Speaker
Yeah, so all is not well in ecotopia, which makes sense. It's only been 20
Innovation and Belief Systems in Ecotopia
00:16:43
Speaker
years. But I also want to be clear. This was the only thing that I saw that gave me real pause. Or this is the only thing that, to me, suggested not everyone in ecotopia had been fully, deeply, and personally revolutionized from the bottom up. There's still things either in human nature or just historical leftovers that people are dealing with, working and working.
00:17:09
Speaker
Yes. Well, I also think Marissa might be an extreme example of an ecotopian because Will is explaining how houses that aren't built of wood are essentially 3D printed out of their plant-based plastics. And Marissa hates these 3D printed homes. She's like,
00:17:28
Speaker
There's no soul. I don't know if that's what she says, but that's how I'm remembering. She's like slapping it. She's like, there's no texture to it. And she hates it. But it's a really cool innovation on how to build housing and how to build modular housing that you can shape and change according to your family's needs.
00:17:47
Speaker
And it's made of this recyclable plastic. Really cool innovation. And Marissa, she hates it. Her job is to harvest wood and grow lumber. And so she doesn't want to live in a plastic tube.
00:18:05
Speaker
I mean, that's a difference of opinion, right? It is. But I think it's interesting that there's a range of beliefs and lifestyles within ecotopia, which makes the story more convincing for me. That's true. And you're right. She is even within ecotopia, presented very respectfully. But like you say, in contrast to people who are clearly fine with their version of plastics, she wants nothing to do with them.
00:18:34
Speaker
Um,
Emotional and Social Dynamics
00:18:35
Speaker
so I think, you know, we've talked a bit about family and romantic relationship, but I think you see the difference in relationships on the sort of what would be transactional. Like when he first enters ecotopia and is talking to the customs agent hassles him a bit and is like, look at me in the eyes, talk to me. I'm a person, I'm not a machine. And he's like, what?
00:18:55
Speaker
what the hell is going on which i think was really interesting and i think you see that throughout like there's a point where where he has to write an article about the war games and burt says to him yeah let me read it and let me talk to you about it and explain it and then he doesn't have time to do that when he sends his article to be published and burt gets very angry with him
00:19:14
Speaker
And I think it's this expectation of very intense one-on-one connection for every single interaction you have with a person. And I think that that feels very demanding, could get very tiring quickly.
00:19:30
Speaker
I mean, I agree in general, but I think the examples here cover a little more ground than that. So like with the customs agent, for example, I think it's implied or stated that Will is just kind of in a hurry. He's treating this guy like a functionary, you know, kind of like a machine. And that is rude in Ecotopean society, right? You do interactions are not
00:19:50
Speaker
optimized for speed and minimum involvement like they are in the United States today and back then. And when this book was written. And so that seems to be more like a cultural artifact. That's what's considered rude in that society. It didn't feel like the border patrol or whoever it was, the border agent,
00:20:11
Speaker
was asking for something real emotional, unless you consider, hey, take your time, make eye contact, let's have some chitchat to be an emotional demand. But I don't think it necessarily is. I think it could, depending on your state of mind, your mood. If you have a chronic pain issue and you're at the pharmacy trying to get your drugs, is it fair to demand that you
00:20:36
Speaker
makes chitchat with the pharmacist, you're in pain. You need your pain, really. You know what I mean? Every little situation, or if you're just stressed out, or if, I think those very minute interactions can change a lot depending on what other stresses you're dealing with in your life. And to be demanding that every single time you interact with another person, you have to be sociable in a way. That feels like asking too much.
00:21:04
Speaker
So I certainly have plenty of days and moods where that is asking too much, right? But I always wonder if that's because I just don't have the skills. If I had a lifetime of the sort of high sociability that everyone in this society has, surely it would be a lot easier to do that, right? And so to what extent is it just a reflection of
00:21:26
Speaker
you know, American society making those things higher cost by making them rare. And then the other part of it is they have a much less stressful life, right? They're not having to optimize every second of their day so that they can, oh, I don't know, for example, build the right number of hours per day. And also fit in, you know, all their networking and get their house cleaned and blah, blah, blah, right? So if you don't have that background level of stress and hurry,
00:21:54
Speaker
Well, then yeah, it would probably be easy and maybe even pleasant.
00:21:59
Speaker
Yeah, I think that's a really good point. The baseline is one of the first legal reforms was to have a 20-hour work week. So yes, I think it seems right to me that that would change your base level of stress if you only had to work 20 hours. And there's a lot more autonomy and leeway at work beyond just having only 20 hours to work. I still want to go back to the first question, which is,
00:22:28
Speaker
in any society with the same people like me, and it sounds like you, who find it sometimes stressful to deal with others, would that be true in other societies? If we were brought up differently, certainly we agree the background level of stress would change it. Or is that like a weird artifact of the society we live in? How natural is that?
00:22:45
Speaker
Well, I will say I don't think that you would see such widespread cultural change in just 20 years. I mean, I feel like I inherited some things from my family. I don't know a lot about like generational trauma, but I feel it's somewhat related to that.
00:23:04
Speaker
Like my grandparents are German and there are certain things that other Germans do and I find evidence of this online. Like the most recent one was I saw a post, someone was like, Oh, I see a picture of neatly folded grocery bags within other grocery bags. This person must be German. And I was like, I do that.
00:23:23
Speaker
And I don't know if that's a coincidence, but it's such a weird little detail. I think that it's
Generational and Cultural Change
00:23:29
Speaker
possible that we inherit a lot more from our ancestors. And so I don't know that this change could happen in 20 years. And I was thinking that and thinking that this is a fair criticism of the book until he reveals kind of later that there are people who do prefer solitary lifestyle and they disappear and hike and camp for long periods of time.
00:23:49
Speaker
I was like, oh, those are my people. I had that same thought. I was like, ah, there they are. Right. It's kind of nice that there is space for the loner types. Again, that tells me that Marissa maybe is more, she's like the extreme ichotopean because she is so embedded with her family. She's like, yeah, and there are still people who aren't quite that intense about it.
00:24:15
Speaker
I do think a question that we're going to have in all these books, which are really about cultural change, is how quickly could this happen? Those interpersonal things I feel would take longer than some of the economic changes. Yeah, maybe, maybe not. I really don't know. I think the economic changes and that security could resolve so many emotional issues, frankly.
00:24:38
Speaker
in various people, myself included that they would then be able to do these other, you know, that it would change people interpersonally, but I don't know. I don't know. I mean, we hang on to our emotional patterns, right? Like that's, well, we hang on to our emotional patterns in circumstances which bring them out, which if the society is changing, you just don't have the same
00:25:01
Speaker
you know, those patterns can't come to life in the same way, right? I mean, with the example you gave about grocery bags, you know, what if there are no more grocery bags, right? Then that doesn't come up and that fades into the past. No, I kind of see what you're saying, but I think our emotional patterns come out, especially if there was a lot of pain. Like it's that whole concept that you're, that if you're in constantly in dysfunctional relationships, it's because you're repeating patterns, trying to resolve
00:25:30
Speaker
what happened in the past. And so you can react to a current partner in a way that is not quite meeting reality because you are trying to resolve some emotional conflict that happened in your past with your new partner. And unless
Childhood and Play in Ecotopia
00:25:44
Speaker
you have conscientious effort to work through those, I don't think they just go away. Because even though the current moment is a different situation, you still react with that emotional baggage.
00:25:58
Speaker
And yeah, again, I think it's these folks grew up in the United States. They were children in the United States in the United States system. And so I don't think it would all just disappear. I guess I incline more to thinking that healing for maybe most of the people most of the time really just has to do with time, letting time pass and feeling happy and secure.
00:26:22
Speaker
in other ways in your life. And then that gives you enough time to heal. But I mean, I hear what you're saying. There's also plenty of evidence of people repeating patterns. Uh, even when, according to what I just said, they shouldn't be. Yeah. I mean, if you're, but if, if you're in a culture where people are like looking at you and be like, wait, what's going on with you right now?
00:26:44
Speaker
I mean it's
Romantic and Parenting Norms
00:26:45
Speaker
kind of interesting the way that the story is framed because our narrator Will keeps trying to hit on women and and he gets sexually frustrated and he keeps failing for a long time and at one point a woman says to him if you just want to have sex just say so and then gets annoyed that he
00:27:03
Speaker
For some reason, he's not genuine in the same way and he can't quite see it. And I don't know what's really going on, because again, it's told from his perspective. I think that's really clever writing. But it's also fascinating that he's missing something that's very subtle in the way he wants to interact with women that he wants to sleep with. And then once he overcomes that, it seems like every woman is throwing herself at him in the story.
00:27:27
Speaker
Yeah, you're right. We don't get a full description, but it's like he's trying to play some game that they aren't. Right? I mean, they say, do you want to sleep together or not? Like, be clear. And he doesn't want to be that level of honest and transparent, at least for a while.
00:27:43
Speaker
Do we want to talk more about that? Because there's a real relationship with Marissa and then he has sex with a lot of different women where it's not a relationship. And there's a very clear separation between sex and relationship in this story that was honestly confusing for me. Really? Why?
00:28:00
Speaker
Well, I wanted more of an exploration of how that is possible. So in echotopia, women have the decision-making power. They have access to birth control and they have final say in parenting. It seems like a form of polyamory is very common, but if a woman has a child, she chooses the father and she's the final parent.
00:28:26
Speaker
Well, she has exclusive control over the kid for those first two years of the kid's life. And then I thought parenthood was more shared. Okay. Which to me seems like an important distinction because it's not saying anything like women are better parents or like it's in their nature or something. It's like, okay, there's a two year period where maybe, you know, mother and child are biologically connected. So the mom should have that power.
00:28:50
Speaker
I thought it was a reaction to maybe no one else knows who the father is, or maybe even the mother herself doesn't know who the father is if she's sleeping with multiple men. And so she's the one who definitely is the parent and has the say. Yes, that's true. And he makes a big point. And again, this book was written in the early 70s about these women don't rely on any men for financial support. They're not stuck through marriage or some other means in a relationship
00:29:18
Speaker
that is no longer good. You know, if it's not good, they just get up and leave because they're financially secure.
00:29:24
Speaker
And
Gender Roles and Autonomy
00:29:25
Speaker
so they end up having a lot of power because, you know, like if a man wants a child, needs to be nice to the woman or she'll just leave. Is that similar to the way social changes have happened in real life? Because women do have more control over when they get pregnant and have more financial independence. But we still see a lot of the same. It doesn't change the fact that a lot of people want monogamy.
00:29:52
Speaker
You know, like it doesn't mean and we're finding that too. I feel like there's a vision of sexual liberation here that has been disproven in the year since the book was published. I don't know if I would go that far that it's been disproved. I mean, I think many male, female romantic relationships are much more equal than they once would have been. I think his description of things does not account for jealousy and in particular
00:30:19
Speaker
I think many men feel a horror at the idea of parenting a child who they are not 100% sure is biologically theirs. You could argue whether that's cultural or natural. I think it's cultural. I mean, that doesn't make any sense to me. If you raise a kid from the time it's an infant till it's adult,
00:30:37
Speaker
it's yours right you are the parent whatever the biology is and he doesn't mention that like he doesn't mention that jealousy that potential anger that possessiveness which i don't know historically has been quite prominent right well he he has that jealousy like at his first war games
00:30:56
Speaker
He sees Marissa go, she's very like worked up and energized and she goes and finds one of the winning warriors and goes off with him in the woods and he's very jealous. And then also, when he is injured, when he plays in the war games later,
00:31:14
Speaker
Marissa comes to visit him in the hospital and like evaluates his nurse because apparently every time you go to the hospital, your nurse becomes sexually available to you as part of the healing process. And she does show some signs of jealousy about the nurse. And so there is jealousy, but it doesn't stop anyone from having sex, even if they're in a relationship with someone. Like it's just like, no one even talks about it. Like the jealousy seems pretty minor.
00:31:43
Speaker
Right. It's like kind of an uncomfortable feeling and we move on. But the jealousy is there, which I thought was really interesting. It's there and then no, but no one comments on it and no one talks. Well, at least will doesn't have any explicit conversations. Like in polyamory, you have to talk about all of it. You have to talk about is, do you have a primary? What level of sharing are you going to do with your primary about your other partners? You know, testing, no one's getting tested for STDs. That, that bothered me.
00:32:09
Speaker
But yes, sex nurse. Let's talk about that. Yeah. Let's talk a little bit about sex in general in this novel. There's a lot of it. Very, I thought, disproportionate to the rest of the book, which is so much about the details of how the society would function. I think there's definitely some wish fulfillment in that aspect.
00:32:33
Speaker
Uh, you know, he just goes on and on about these women are so liberated. And he also goes out of his way to say, you know, they're not pretty like American women because they don't wear makeup and high heels, but they're, you know, they're pretty in their own way. Cause they look you directly in the eye and tell you what they want. She's like, okay, nobody cares. Yeah. And when he describes Marissa, when he first meets her, he's like, it's kind of like, despite her being a competent leader, cause she is in charge at the, at the lumber tree. I don't know what you would call it, but, um, nursery, whatever it is.
00:33:02
Speaker
He's like, despite her being a leader, she was hot, basically. Yeah, yes. Book was written in the 70s. Yeah, I'm willing to dismiss that as like a product of the time and not get too upset about it. Yeah, that's how I felt about it. It was kind of an eye roll. Maybe he felt that was necessary to make the rest of it more appealing to wider audience. I don't know. But the sex nurse thing. So when you go to the hospital, you're assigned a nurse of the sex that you would be attracted to.
00:33:33
Speaker
and that individual waits on you hand and foot and is with you the entire time you're in the hospital. So if you're there four days, they're there four days, they sleep there, they don't go home, it's not shift work, and they bathe you and maybe other activities to help you feel sufficiently relaxed. And then at the end of it, when you leave the hospital, they leave too, and they get to go take a break, commensurate with how long you've been in the hospital, because they've been there with you the whole time.
00:33:58
Speaker
So the overall emphasis on personalized care, that was fine minus the sex, right?
00:34:07
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, I mean, there was some commentary too about not needing as many drugs because or like the nurse would give massages and that would relieve his pain. And I'm like, I mean, sure, in some cases, maybe a massage is enough, but I for certain other problems, I don't think that's enough. I don't think personalized attention has can heal everything.
00:34:32
Speaker
But it did make sense to me that the nurse, after having giving, again, going back to that personal one-on-one connection and that emotional giving, would then be free to go on vacation for two or three months. That makes a lot of sense to me that they're accommodating the need that you do need to go recover from that. Not like our current customer service jobs where you could get yelled at.
00:34:58
Speaker
abused or whatever. Right. Exactly. Right. Moving past that, but still talking about how relationships are different. What did you think of these descriptions of what he calls street dramas, which is essentially where maybe a couple would be having an argument, maybe two employees, one would be bad at another for not doing the job right. And everyone would not only watch, but they would like join in and intervene and say, well, what did he do to you? And
00:35:26
Speaker
Well, why didn't you ask for help or whatever it might be? And they'll have like an impromptu group therapy session, but not quite that gentle. I mean, sometimes these bystanders will say, well, no, you did that wrong. You should apologize. Like they'll just get right in each other's business, right? Yeah. Yeah. I'm having a hard time making that connection to the like high
Horizontal Problem-Solving and Decentralization
00:35:46
Speaker
level societal organization. Like why would this high level organization lead to that? Well, I can think of two things. It kind of goes with the general.
00:35:54
Speaker
decentralization emphasis on horizontal problem solving, you know, with your neighbor as peers. So there's that. But then I also think that
00:36:04
Speaker
confrontation and open emotionality would be much less threatening in a society that has this level of emotional security and therefore less violence, right? Like right now, when I see people yelling on a street, I am afraid some violence is gonna break out. They don't have that fear, right? Because violence is more rare. And so they both let their natural curiosity take over and go and get involved. But then also they have a society where that's encouraged and people are
00:36:31
Speaker
more comfortable with the idea of your peers, the people around you will help you work through a problem. Yeah, I think what's missing in our current society is the willingness to be wrong. Like if someone wants to get involved with someone else's little disagreement, it more often seems to come from someone wanting to be in charge and be in control.
00:36:51
Speaker
And so if you want to engage in those conversations, you have to accept that maybe your point will not be the final say. And how do you develop that willingness to engage and not be the so-called winner of the argument on a societal level? I mean, I think a lot of it would go back to security again. I mean, I guess
Egalitarian Values and Cooperative Criticism
00:37:14
Speaker
we've already kind of, you know, I've already kind of differed on this, but I think a lot of those
00:37:18
Speaker
mentally self-protective mechanisms would drop away if people were physically and materially secure. I think it's also related to what he says about intelligence, right? So we mentioned this early on, but he notices that the way children play with each other is different. It's more elaborate, more group focused. They find these big projects and focus on them together for days, weeks, months at a time.
00:37:43
Speaker
but he specifically notices none of them call each other stupid. Like they have their arguments, they have their disagreement. Children are not angels, even in ecotopia, but they never call each other stupid. Whereas, you know, his take on it is that intelligence is not such a big deal in ecotopia because it's not going to decide whether or not, you know, you're going to have security in your old age, right? Or you can get, whether or not you can get healthcare or
00:38:08
Speaker
whether or not you can achieve your dreams or have a meaningful job right it's just you know good for you if you're smarter than everyone else and so it's not a weapon people use against each other yeah well yeah i mean i have a i have a lot of thoughts about how our hierarchical public school system creates a hierarchical society and and you know having been adjacent to homeschooling and unschooling movements
00:38:30
Speaker
that makes a lot of sense to me, which people should look that up if they're curious. Yeah, I mean, that does make a lot of sense that if you don't have a status to uphold how much of your ego and egotistical reactions to things goes away. Yeah, I mean, I think American society really struggles with
00:38:54
Speaker
the concept of intelligence and equating it with worth, because we do. But intelligence, to some extent, is not that malleable, right? There's some amount of natural gift. But even if it was totally malleable, you'd still end up with a spectrum where some people had more than others. And they're not worth more, but they are very much treated that way.
00:39:16
Speaker
And we're okay with that because I don't know, like intelligence isn't merit at all, but we treat it that way. So I thought that was interesting that he put his finger directly on intelligence. This kind of gets to something I want to talk about regarding shame. Like if we're evaluating what makes a good society, if we look, I think one of the clues is what are people shamed for and what do people feel ashamed of? And
00:39:41
Speaker
There's a situation with a chef. So Will goes to a diner to get breakfast and another customer complains that his eggs are overdone. And he goes and complains directly to the chef, one of these public interactions and a bunch of other customers and the other workers in the diner get involved. And the chef was overwhelmed. She had too many orders she couldn't handle. And she felt ashamed that she couldn't handle the work that was in front of her.
00:40:09
Speaker
And then everyone else was like, no, no, that's not what you need to be ashamed of. This is my interpretation. They were like, you should have asked for help. Like there's nothing, there's no reason to be ashamed of asking for help. I thought that was a really interesting situation. And it was a little more pointed than that, right? Like the whole diner sort of erupts into this like fact finding mission of why are these eggs are cold.
00:40:33
Speaker
You know, they go back, they interrogate the cook, they ask some of the other employees like, you know, why aren't you helping her? Why didn't you pick this up? Like it's not necessarily done with kid gloves where we're just talking about people's feelings. They identify the problem, which is she had too many orders and then they tell her what she did wrong.
00:40:50
Speaker
And what she did wrong was that she should have asked for help. And the point here is not that they're mean about it, but also that this did not become like a therapy session where the only point was people's feelings. You know, this was like, they were solving a problem. Yeah. And she was okay with it. And she was like, you know what? You're right. I'll do better in the future. Um, it's called cooperative criticism in ecotopia. Yes. That's right. And so people on the street will just engage in this.
00:41:16
Speaker
How would you feel about that? I think I would love it. I love clear and explicit conversation. And I am not afraid to defend my actions if I feel like I need to. And I'm not afraid to admit that I was wrong if I was wrong. I love it. Yeah, it sounds pretty appealing, right? I tend to be a little more comfortable with confrontation than I probably should be, frankly, in many ways.
00:41:41
Speaker
but this sounds good right like let's find the problem let's solve it but i'm also trying to imagine what it would be like to live with that would it be kind of nerve-wracking right you would certainly have no sense of privacy in public settings like someone might jump in and get all in your business um someone might you know notice you're doing something wrong from across the room and
00:42:00
Speaker
come over and tell you about it, right? Yeah. And I think that
Individualism vs. Cooperation
00:42:03
Speaker
goes back to, can you trust their motives, right? Like in this culture, people, there's no question that the motives are to solve the problem and not to aggrandize oneself. Right. No one is trying to make themselves feel better by making out someone else feels, which is a
00:42:21
Speaker
Unfortunately, a very common thread, I think, in societies that are hierarchical and particularly around intelligence. Well, and they're also not trying to sell, sell you anything. Like they're not trying to sell you coaching classes or like.
00:42:37
Speaker
Or nutrition, like, oh, you did that because you, your, your nutrition isn't great. So I'm going to sell you a nutrition class or a nutrition supplement or therapy or a religion or, you know, like they're not going to try and sell you something. Is there any religion in here? I mean, Marissa worships trees. Right. Is there any, uh, like.
00:43:02
Speaker
institutional religion that you noticed? I think the whole thing has a very religious tint. Like, so many different people talk to Will about him not being human enough. And I think religion tells us what it means to be human. And that's part of their whole society, is like, we are trying to be human in this way that we have defined it, which is in line with the environment. And I think this all goes into it. This openness with each other, this care for each other,
00:43:29
Speaker
It is a very spiritually a whole society and they care about spiritual well-being. I think that's true. They also criticize Will very harshly when he doesn't get their beliefs or doesn't or questions their ways of doing things. When are they harsh on him for questioning?
00:43:47
Speaker
I mean, I'm thinking of Burt when he's like, you had to go and write that article about the war games. Burt gets very angry with him. And I have offered my help to you, and you didn't accept my help, and this is very American of you. Or Marissa gets mad whenever he lapses into inattention or American business like this and calls him detached and inhuman. He gets criticized from a lot of different people about acting inhuman or being detached. That's true.
00:44:14
Speaker
With Burt, so Burt is a fellow journalist. Will has been, has spent every day hanging out at what is like the journalist's clubhouse, basically. And then at some point even starts living there because they have beds like a hotel. And so he knows Burt pretty well by this point. And Burt has been generous with his time and connections, introducing him to people, stuff like that. And Burt says, hey, you're writing this article about the war games, which are
00:44:42
Speaker
a sensitive topic in this society, and we're very sensitive to how the outside world might think of this. So could you come talk to me and maybe some of my other colleagues before you publish your story? We just want to make sure you really understand it. And Will is offended by that, right? Because he's like, well, I'm an individual. I have my own judgment as a journalist. I don't need you telling me what to do, right? That's his reaction. And so he doesn't.
00:45:09
Speaker
And then Bert comes to him and is hurt like as a friend in this because Bert feels like, hey, you know, like we've offered a lot. We've been generous. I wasn't trying to tell you what to do, but you should have respected the relationship by having a conversation, which is all we were asking. Right.
00:45:25
Speaker
Is that a fair description? I remember him being angry that Will didn't accept the help that Burt was offering and that offering cooperation is extremely valuable to Burt, but Will doesn't see that it's a very valuable gift he has been offered. And that's what I remember being the real source of Burt's anger about it.
00:45:47
Speaker
Not that it was, I didn't remember. It was because he published something that was misunderstanding a sense of the topic. It was that he rejected Burt's offer for help. Oh, I think that's true. Yes. I think we're in agreement. He was, it was really about the friendship. Will interpreted it as, Oh, you're trying to, uh, you know, impinge upon my journalistic objectivity and screw you basically. It was more a friend saying, Hey, I've done all this for you. And I asked for this.
00:46:17
Speaker
And you know, I keep reaching out my hand and you keep knocking away basically. So I feel like saying that is a bit more transactional than what, what ecotopians do saying like, I offered you this and I accepted you and therefore you should have accepted this. Like that feels more transactional than, than what an ecotopian would do. Okay. So.
00:46:34
Speaker
Why is why is Burt hurt then? I think that's one of the times he calls Will inhuman, like having to be by himself because because Will is also criticized. He doesn't have a relationship with his girlfriend back in New York City, but he describes like having been that nuclear family unit, like seeking that nuclear family unit. And Burt has talked to him before about how lonely that is and how it seems unnatural to Burt and the Ecotopians.
00:47:00
Speaker
And it was part of this individual accomplishment. Like, nothing in Ecotopia is done as an individual accomplishment. It's all cooperative. And so Burt was mad that Will doesn't see how inhuman he is, which is... I have problems with that a lot. Like, the Ecotopians have this very nuanced and thorough description of what it means to be human, and I reject
00:47:26
Speaker
anything that's like trying to define what is human. Like I think I think it's very dangerous territory. When you are part of a group that's trying to tell you that your natural instincts are wrong because you're not human, you're not behaving like a human. I think that's very dangerous. But that's, that's what I remember from that interaction with Bert in the book. They do use that language of inhuman versus truly human a lot.
00:47:51
Speaker
I do want to push back. You said that there are no individual, you didn't say no individual successes. You said it's all cooperative, but there are individual artists who achieve things and have their works known for just themselves. So it is a cooperative and very social society, but you can still be your own person. Yeah. I'm not remembering that part with the artist as much. It's just that Burt was like, you had to go off on your own and write this article. Right.
00:48:18
Speaker
So we should talk about the war games. That was the other thing in addition to the sex nurse that I just really kind of rolled my eyes. So the premise is
War Games and Gendered Violence Perceptions
00:48:29
Speaker
that men, and it is specifically men, are naturally violent. And therefore there must be an outlet for that violence. It has to be real violence. And so that's what the war games are. Various groups.
00:48:43
Speaker
And it's unclear, it seems to be kind of geographically based, but it happens all over the country, not at the same time at different times, but, you know, at ritual times. Like a neighborhood will go to war with another neighborhood and they will get, you know, actual weapons, I think spears and charge against each other and try to hurt each other. And then once the first blood is spilled, they kind of pull back, you know, that's it. There's no second rush.
00:49:11
Speaker
Everyone, whatever man is injured, the men are injured. They're treated as conquering heroes. Flowers are thrown at them and beautiful women come up and kiss them on the cheek and stuff like that. And so they get to feel like heroes and that lets the violent urge out. And even though some ecotopians die in these events every year, that's worth it because they get that violent urge out.
00:49:35
Speaker
and actually more people would die if these men weren't allowed to sell. I buy it actually. Really? Yeah, I mean something that has bothered me a lot in thinking about innovating and trying to create new kinds of community and new kinds of society
00:49:51
Speaker
is that all of our examples from the past involve a lot of death and violence. And it makes me wonder if that's avoidable. And I'm starting to lean, maybe it's not avoidable, like the act of creating something new and the act of building society requires that type of sacrifice.
00:50:12
Speaker
what are you saying that sounds different than saying that violence is natural to young men is it no i don't i think it's the same that that it's part of being human in a way that you need a violent or or i remember reading the ileat in college and a friend of mine
00:50:29
Speaker
a young man was just so taken by. And I didn't really connect with the Iliad when we first read it. But he was just like, he had never experienced reading about war in that way. And that was very, he was very taken with that. And I was like, it felt like something very masculine, that men needed some kind of relationship. And excuse me if I'm a little graphic here. It seemed to me that men needed to have a relationship with blood and bleeding that women didn't need for obvious reasons.
00:50:57
Speaker
The obvious reason being that many women already have that and they're fine. Thank you. They don't want any more. No, I think that we, we face our bleeding and our mortality in a way that's different. I'm not sure. I don't want to be too prescriptive. I don't want to like, not trying to be like body normative here or whatever, but there are.
00:51:20
Speaker
many women and some other individuals out there who have a much more ongoing experience with blood. Specifically your own blood, bleeding in your own blood and being close to that experience, that just bodily fluids in general. And we in modern society have a very sanitized existence. And so I was wondering if that's what he was tapping into when he read the Iliad, like he had this, I remember thinking that that's what he had an attraction to.
00:51:49
Speaker
We have football. All kinds of sports are explained as a way to have war without having war. And the way that people want to attach to a team and feel that visceral reaction when their team wins or loses, and they feel part of that, that seems to track. And they don't have other sports in ecotopia.
00:52:10
Speaker
And when the person that will interviews is not named explains that they specifically don't have clear teams and they don't do training. And I think that was to kind of avoid the polarization of you are attached to a certain team. You as a spectator are attached to a certain team. It's it's more flexible and malleable who fights on which side and when the fights happen because they want to avoid that kind of dividing their people. Right. Yeah. I think in the late Roman Empire,
00:52:40
Speaker
There were teams, reds and blues that became associated with different gladiator teams. And it started as that, but it went on for decades. And because they often rioted and were violent in response to the outcome of the gladiatorial fights, or no, the chariot races, it was the chariot races. Those became political factions. So yes, the ecotopians are correct. Want to make sure there's not an ongoing
00:53:06
Speaker
faction of any kind that starts in sports. I think the question here is more narrowly about violence and less about groupthink or, you know, what happens when you're part of a crowd? Because I think that's the specific claim. Men are violent by nature. They need this outlet. I'm a little more skeptical of that, both from personal experience. I find myself to also be more martial in nature. I loved the Iliad.
00:53:35
Speaker
I find that I seek out fights in my own life for better or for worse. I'm a trial lawyer for a reason. I've done some dumb shit just in the interest of protecting what I thought was my honor, et cetera, et cetera.
00:53:50
Speaker
So I don't find that to be a particularly gendered thing. But then also, I think it is somewhat cultural. You mentioned how safe and secure and sanitized modern life is. I think men love the complement of it being assumed that they are violent or they have the potential for violence.
00:54:12
Speaker
Right. So I think this is just kind of some ego stroking, you know, I guess I put myself in a catch 22 because I would never believe a man when he told me, Oh, you know, I have naturally violent tendencies or all men do or something. Cause it just sounds like very self gratifying. Like, Oh, you think that's cool because in this society, it's never going to be tested. Right. Like you say that to me and then we have an argument and words about it and you never have to show it in any way that matters. Right. So I'm very skeptical of claims by men.
00:54:41
Speaker
that men are naturally, all of them are naturally martial and violent. Sure, no, I accept that. It's not all men, it's not just men. I see that. So yes, I'm with you on saying that this doesn't have to be a purely male activity, but I do think that the violence, and I think that the challenge of having something at stake, you could be injured, you could be killed,
00:55:07
Speaker
I think that's attractive and would not be eradicated in any kind of ideal society. There's
Physical Challenges and Personal Growth
00:55:13
Speaker
a drive in some people, maybe a lot of people, that they want to participate in something where you feel that adrenaline, right? You're pushing your body to the physical limit.
00:55:24
Speaker
And there's no, I think that there's no physical challenge more than facing off another person with your level of strategy and strength. You know what I mean? Like I've heard that described about wrestling. It's that it's the most intense exercise because you are grappling with someone so similar to yourself and can can share your weaknesses and your strengths and exploit your weaknesses.
00:55:51
Speaker
So is it just for men? Yeah, I'm with you on that. But I do think that this nature seems true to me. And I think, too, I always associate it with the hunting. So I remember being at a paleo conference, which paleo is not just a diet, but the paleo conference made it clear to me that there was a lot more going on. And I remember hearing a woman speak about her first time hunting.
00:56:19
Speaker
and the rush and the adrenaline and facing the fact that she had killed another living thing, but it was for her own nutrition and being connected with that life and death cycle. It was very powerful for her. And so I feel like it's connected to this violence thing and it's connected to why they hunt a lot in ecotopia. So, I mean, I agree people want, meaning they want to feel connected. I think certain types
00:56:48
Speaker
of violence ritualized or on behalf of what you feel like or your people can accomplish that, I just remain skeptical that that is the only way to accomplish it to the point where you have to have something like the war games. But I think maybe it sounds like we might at the moment have to agree to disagree on that one. I also suspect this will come up again as we go through this season because what to do
00:57:15
Speaker
about violence in a utopian society is a fundamental question, right? Sure. That seems like the start of a genre theme. So you
Solar Punk Themes and Societal Transformation
00:57:23
Speaker
want to talk more about genre themes? Yes, absolutely. So this is our first solar punk book, which is a term that as far as I know, did not exist when this book was published.
00:57:34
Speaker
Instead, it refers to itself as utopian. So I think of solar punk as, yes, utopian, but with an emphasis on the environment, that's the solar part. And then because of that, also an emphasis on human society would change to be more
00:57:51
Speaker
in tune with the environment to be less consumption oriented etc. So this is an emerging genre and that's different from our last series. So we did haunted house stories last time which everyone has seen or read or you know come across a haunted house story.
00:58:07
Speaker
So we knew about the genre before we started, really. And this, we're kind of discovering it as we go along. Here are my thoughts at the beginning. So to me, these stories are about hope and imagination and specifically how those two things feed each other. If you can imagine new societies
00:58:26
Speaker
you can start to hope for them too. And because you have hope, you can also start to imagine new things. And I'm not saying these societies are how it should be. I don't intend this as prescriptive. It's about imagining what would change, about personal and social transformation.
00:58:41
Speaker
I think another question that we touched on today, and we'll come back again, is how quickly do societies change and how permanent is it? What makes a society change? Other themes that kind of go with the solar part of it, well actually also the punk part, are making craftsmanship, egalitarian societies, creativity, renewable energy. I think we're going to see all of these come up again and again.
00:59:07
Speaker
And I think the questions we're going to be grappling with are what makes a good society? How is violence
Defining a Good Society
00:59:13
Speaker
managed either when that violence is internal or against external aggressor? What does it mean to be human? You know, what is the essence?
00:59:22
Speaker
of humanness. And as Carly points out, is that a question that's worth asking? Maybe it's not. What happens in a good society? What happens to the misfits, the poor, the sick, the people who disagree with the society? How are they treated? What behaviors or feelings are shamed? Because any society has shame. So let's focus on that. What does that say? So those are my thoughts for how the solar punk genre will develop.
00:59:50
Speaker
Yeah, I think that's a really good framing for our season going forward. So appreciate that. Um, yeah, I mean, there were some things we didn't talk about in this book. Maybe we will include those notes in our sub stack. Uh, so I hope people will subscribe. And so for final thoughts, I have, I have so many, so I'll just boil it down to, I'm glad I didn't read this book when I was in high school because I had already been very taken with a lot of utopian ideas.
01:00:15
Speaker
And that sort of, as I went through life learning and working in the political arena, like sort of coalesced into a lot of what's in ecotopia. And if I had had ecotopia to begin with, I would have been completely insufferable.
01:00:32
Speaker
So that's an interesting idea. The ideas are too good. You needed to slowly build up to them. Is that kind of what you're saying? Yeah, in a humble way. Instead of saying, hey, it's all written here. Just read the book and you'll get it. I had to learn slowly which ideas I thought were good and which weren't. And it has led me to a very egotopian way of thinking.
01:00:54
Speaker
Okay. So for me, this book is great for all the detail it provides about day to day life, right? Like, if
Inherent vs. Societal Traits
01:01:02
Speaker
you want to build a house, you got to go do forest service. If you want to go visit your friends, you got a bike over there. It provides so many concrete details about the day to day that I can fully imagine myself in this world. And then that leads me to a series of questions that I find very helpful, which is, how would I be different?
01:01:22
Speaker
in a world like this or just in any world different than the one and the lifestyle that I have now, what parts of me are really just determined by the structure that I live in. And if I had the freedom to do so, I would leave them behind. So that's a freeing thought to just imagine how I'd be different because then eventually, even in my own life, I can
01:01:43
Speaker
maybe choose to leave some habits or behaviors or way of thinking behind even before this huge cultural shift occurs. That's interesting. I want to come back to that in later books too, to talk about personal change versus societal change. We should discuss that.
01:01:59
Speaker
Yep, that's definitely going to be a theme. Listeners, what did you think of Egotopia? Have you read any books by Ernest Kalambach? What do you think about solar punk and environmental utopias? Let us know by recording a voice memo and emailing opening question at gmail.com. You can also complete the feedback form on our website at bookclubpod.com. We will read your responses and play your voice memos on our feedback episode at the end of the season.
01:02:25
Speaker
Our next book discussion will be A Psalm for the Wild Built by Becky Chambers. Read it with us. We'll release that episode next. You can get your copy by using the affiliate link in our show notes. Book Club Podcast is produced by Caroline Gorman and Carly Jackson, audio editing by Alex Marcus. Thanks for listening.