FearTalk 31 & 32 with R. Michael Fisher

Transcript of FearTalk 31: Cara Judea Alhadeff & R. Michael Fisher

Jan 26/2025

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well good morning everyone this is fear Talk number 31 with uh Dr R Michael Fischer and Cara is with us this
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morning and I’ll let her pronounce her name and she will therefore offer us all
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kinds of intriguing ideas about her identity and she may not even use her
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she may find other ways to include that identity and transcend it I look forward
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to everything that our guest today is going to bring because number one I am speaking to an artist
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philosopher theorist critical thinker and I have many other labels I will
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throw it on the table with our guests but let me just say a little bit to our
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viewers who are maybe tuning into to fear talks for the first time that what is this all about it’s about having
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conversations that are hard to have let’s put it that way often um people can express fear can maybe talk about
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other people’s fear or their fears but the conversation is usually very thin
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and I’m looking for a very rich and thick layered conversation that goes
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down and down and up and up and sideways in all directions really
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multi-dimensional on the concept of fear and as an artist and philosopher car I’m
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sure will add some interesting perspectives to her work the work
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I’m going to suggest Our Guest today again we’re not interested necessarily in having
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arguments debates that may come up we may get passionate but ultimately hope
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so Michael ultimately we have to have passionate dialogue and whatever that
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means but it’s a digging it’s a digging and it’s a turning so I always see that we’re doing it together and I think
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that’s you know the difference like not just using each other but we’re actually really working in with each other to
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pursue you know the wherever we’re going call them truths call them the higher
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values the lower values that need to be integrated and I want to just say and
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introduce you in a totally different way than reading your website which I have
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not fully done reading your work which I have not fully done watching all your
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art videos which I’ve not fully done and so I have I have to admit there is so
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much incredible work that car has brought to into the world and birthed that I will just throw up some
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things that may be provocative uh in my understanding of who we have in front of us today I see
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Cara as an I I say an artist philosopher probably moving along in the
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neom materialist posthumanist worlds a worker of endarkenment
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rather than just Enlightenment a person a person who
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dwells in and works with the ruins and works with a reiling or
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decivilizing combination a birther or a doua of the Apocalypse
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2.0.3 point0 4.0 I don’t
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know and I offer a trigger warning for any conversation with Cara I offer that
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to all beings not that they may need it but I think a lot of humans will need a
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trigger warning for today which I’ve never offered in any of my fear talks um since the beginning really interesting
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you are the first to get a trigger warning and I because it’s because thank
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you it’s because I think there is so much challenging IM of imaginaries in
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your work there’s this demand for an existential aesthetic Reckoning I would
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say in the effective capacity to handle
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the the collapse is the word that comes to me
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and someone who doesn’t need to recover in your work I don’t see you on a need
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to recover as much as to keep collapsing keep keep joining keep collapsing keep
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digesting you know embodying and so on so ingesting on that introduction Cara over
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to you introduce yourself little respond you know you don’t need to give a fantas
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I’ll put a link at the bottom to all your work with all this this this those juicy details okay fantastic
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um in darkening gorgeousness I love it Michael so uh we
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us uh I’ll start with the the pronouns I’ve I’ve chosen um or that have chosen
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me I am Dr K Judea alad and I’m in a community space
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currently uh in my partner’s maker space and our Collective radical Art In Action
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space so there are a variety of artists here including um Spinderella who just walked
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in a a silk artist from the ceiling so we we do have literally
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multidirectional uh physical very much embodied activities going on right now
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during our conversation um and the idea of embodying the
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pluriverse as an extraordinarily uncomfortable
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Zone um I want to highlight as as you shared
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with this this multidirectional and non-directional the idea of the formlessness um and and to highlight
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the precarity of referring for example of formless or
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directionless or multi-directional that there’s there’s still a normative
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assumption with Direction with form
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um uh even my nonprofit radical Art In
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Action the idea of radical there’s a reference
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to a uh a normaly that is what I find so
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suffocating and again collapse um we are
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collapsing from these converging hegemonies of normaly um um and then how
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do we in the midst of that understanding or that Revelation
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that apocalypse right to reveal that that apocalyptic um
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Consciousness how do we understand that collapse not as a collapse necessarily because then again that’s referring to
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as if there was something to collapse from that was a palatable appropriate space yeah
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go and something that was so great supposedly right that which wasn’t going
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to collapse right it’s it’s like that you can just hear it is a parody isn’t
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it um wonderful and even just as you’re mentioning that I’m thinking of p
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andell’s uh six characters in search of an author that kind of brecan space
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between um seeing our reality as it is is
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um and and embodying so fully a plur verse
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that doesn’t use a a a central point as and
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as it is got it um what if we were in a space individual
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communal space of experiencing the normaly of our everyday the everydayness
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not the nor y but the everydayness of our quotidian as a space
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of such profound plurality multiplicity where directionless
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couldn’t exist because there is no direction to begin with where formlessness couldn’t exist because
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there is no form to begin with necessarily and this isn’t
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postmodern just explos explosiveness into not aism in that
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by by any means yeah and for example in my first book uh viscus expectations
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Justice vulnerability the obscene um and maybe you can put that somewhere in here
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that information um I speak about uh n oh we’ve got a
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couple of huskys oh and multiple oh lots of dogs I see okay welcome we’ve got Alaskan M yeah
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yeah yeah we have multiple this is this is an interspecies moment also got you as well as
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being multi multidirectional um but I speak about
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nii’s sense of joy that our interpretation
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of the the the the beyond the elsewhere homie Baba’s
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elsewhere rather than being a place of overwhelm and and
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uh like with the Occupy Movement where it was it was criticized it was conceived of being as being um to too
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many fronts rather than a United faction
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um when in when in fact it was it was a place of Joy um here come the there it’s
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it’s a beautiful site I I’ll I’ll share the multiple worlds
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um and that reminds me of rabbi Arthur was uh wasow who speaks about sacrifice
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and that sacrifice is not a place of deprivation but a place of Joy so that
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just reminded me when you said nihilism um how we
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Define again Comfort Joy uh uh
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appropriateness um viability clarity
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these are all such precarious territories
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because we have so internalized so profoundly internalized
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the Norms these unbelievably and I say unbelievable because I I am in a
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constant state of shock um and I know I am tremendously naive um but
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unbelievably um diminishing normalcies
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uh in my family’s language Latino so I’m spartic and Arab Jewish um so Spanish
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Jewish spartic and and Arab Jewish and uh and I also do a lot of uh historical
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work and collaborative work with mrai Jews other Jews of color uh and in my
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family’s language Latino my maternal and paternal family’s language there’s a proverb uh the camel does not see his
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own hump and to me that expresses modernity and as
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bio okaf you and I met um he would Express white modernity how that world
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of entrenchment that is a
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joyful confrontation when I see collapse when I hear collapse when I sense
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collapse when I wake up in collapse when I parent collapse that’s the
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joy uh of moving beyond again Baba’s
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elsewhere homie Babas elsewhere moving beyond these taken for granted
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Norms that are stripping us of our beauty of our multiplicity of our exquisite
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awkwardness of our vulnerability what’s the motivation for the stripping what is my motivation our
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motivation what’s what’s the motivation of the generic and then you can go into your own but let let’s take that as a
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let’s just call it a generic discourse right a grand narrative that’s doing this stripping that’s stripping okay I
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was thinking about me stripping the stripping but you’re speaking about the original stripping start we’ll start
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yeah what do especially Rel related to fear if you can touch in their Terror
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yeah absolutely so um in darkening was a beautiful word that you used um
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Lilith has been visiting me in in all kinds of U manifestations recently and
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she is the goddess of of Darkness of night um I just wrote a piece about her
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and uh the Quaker uh abolitionist
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Hunchback dwarf uh Benjamin leay um Exquisite connections that I’m
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finding between the two and a phrase I found recently about
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Lilith in relation to fear is that she represents what tyrants
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fear in that she is aware of
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her imprisonment uh she is aware of her
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complicity she is aware of
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her participation in her in her own she she is aware of her Stockholm
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syndrome um and that awareness of course if it
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leads to action is what can strip the stripping
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in a communal in a community in a public in a space of the commons
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context yeah so tyrant’s
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fear a shifting of the normalcies
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because God forbid we should feel our bodies God forbid we should feel Joy in
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the expansion of
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our sense of unity our sense of interconnectedness how do you relate to the ecstatic when
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did that come into your work or has it or have you done philosophizing around that or
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Etc um seems to me that we’re on that direction of whether it’s Joy right whether we’re
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talking about Joy but and then you go drop into the body and wom boom and I right okay we got to talk about the
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ecstatic yeah two two two points I’d love to to share one is nandi uh
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shiva’s vehicle uh a white bull um
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nandi felt such as in his human form his original human form as a devote of Shiva
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he felt such Exquisite again Exquisite is coming up a
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lot this morning um which I’m grateful for um he felt such Devotion to Shiva he
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couldn’t contain it in his human form so he
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basically quum entanglements he exploded imploded into transformed became a white
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bull so that’s that’s one point I’d like to to highlight and and Veer around and
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weave back into uh what that meant that his human form couldn’t contain his
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ecstasy um the other is uh I’m writing a new book now um
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Vernon press contact me after my presentation with the association for
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the study of literature and the environment that conferen a couple of a year ago on reclaiming the commons um
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and asked me to write a book about my presentation um
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and the book is entitled unlearning what we think we know radical art and action and I’m
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bringing that up in this context because the way I am creating the scaffolding of
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that material of the book and I’ll share a little bit about that because I think I think you
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would get excited um is to to be in ecstatic movement to be
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in places of ecstatic dance communal spaces and individual just my own body
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uh spaces of ecstatic dance so I’m working with movement to create the the
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idea generation from the book and from that place exploring what does it mean to be
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in a society again speaking about these tyrannies and
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and fear that shapes absolutely every breath we take the the Mind Body
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division so I’m gotcha delving into this material
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through my body this cerebral material through my body through an understanding an embryological an AR rigan for example
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um understanding of Embry logically what it meant for
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our brain and gut to be in the uterus to
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be or in in in utero to be one being one one two
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physically yes yes that that cosmological internal yes yes yes yes
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yes fascinating I took biology too and I remember that how Exquisite is that and how we
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get to this place of numbing numbing our bodies right and I
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love that I’m having this conversation with Amanda over here who is just with
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her silks hanging and and if if she’ll Allow Me Maybe we can I can show a bit
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because that is um s such such a such powerful embodiment
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um how have we through our
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civilizing quote unquote our our barbarism of stripping our
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potential um how have we accepted this yeah and and and and we submit with
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every gesture and and so I’d love as as we if
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I say fear-based you can’t you can’t operate that infrastructure I suppose of that
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stripping is one way to say it you you cannot operate that infrastructure of
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stripping if you will say stripping some kind of
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pluriverse that is existence Body Mind joint that is
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existence in a way it you have to have something strong enough you know it’s
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kind of like a really dark Medicine of the not so good kind of the pathological
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kind that’s being imploded in into the system that I can only say and
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hypnotherapists say this fear is a great way to put people
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inance then you can deliver message after message after message from any
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kind of authoritarian body including the news a media source that you put
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Authority into to go to for information and every every input of information
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while you’re in that trance so if there’s any induction right into the fear State into this highly concentrated
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state of alertness but unfortunately it’s bypassing a lot of this kind of
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capacity for critical thinking and it’s going into the lower brain stemming and so you get basically this fear
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operational architecture and it allows you to strip a lot because people think they’re going to survive the message is
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take this in and it will make you survive whereas we’re you and I are saying well actually no it’s going to
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make you collapse and the worse and collapse something like that I mean go
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ahead become become zombies I think you know rather than I you it’s it’s funny I
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have a 13-year-old son Zazu who loves what he would call Apocalyptic Zombie
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genre literature and for me that’s a contradiction in terms uh zombie apocalypse I know it’s
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used right right to to amplify one another but I I I really believe that is
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a I feel in my in my stomach in my in my
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whole body in my mind in my my feet in my everything
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I feel that it is a contradiction in terms because a if if we are committed with
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every breath to the apocalypse to the Revelation to this Shining
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not light but to shining
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awareness into these entrenched fears about which you’re you’re
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sharing then we we can’t be zombies we can’t be numb we can’t
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be implicit um year years ago when I was
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teaching performance in pedagogy critical pedagogy at UC Santa Cruz I had my
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students write a journal A Daily Journal of gratitude in conjunction with a Daily
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Journal of internalized Fascism and I wanted that interplay
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of again joy
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and what does it mean to be continually self-aware continually asking
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questions without finding paralysis with wi
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without um coming into an impass of
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um of horror that we
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are continually engaged
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in Charming healing um long-term
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destruction of of everything around us how can we and this goes back to the
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sacrifice um conversation with Rabbi wascow and nalism as as Joy nii you how
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can we confront the fear how can we be in the
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fear embody the fear that is now intergeneration Al in
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ourselves in our Consciousness how can we be in that
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space without paralysis and for me it’s a question of
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community it’s a question of and movement and movement YES Movement so
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and my son’s name Zazu means movement I didn’t know that I didn’t know that yes yeah yeah a variety of movements um in
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Hebrew it’s some variation of the motivation to go okay uh um and then I
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was thinking about it as a photographer and video artist the dialogue between Stillness and movement thinking about the law of
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impermanence thinking about of course social movements Tony Morrison spoke
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about that she said we we don’t need another heroic writer we
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need uh a persistent writer’s Movement we need to be in Rel to one
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another and with all my parenting you know I
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none of that’s going to work unless I’m working with others unless my child is working with others unless we are I
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would say in continual fear questioning from a place of
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curiosity vulnerability um deep sensuousness
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uh amazement like uh Rabbi
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hessel’s waking in in every more waking
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in radical amazement every morning how do we practice that and that it’s a practice
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and think the these are not about seeking solutions by any means but planting seeds and how do those
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seeds uh how can we plant them individually and collectively
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simultaneously and how can those seeds lead to infrastructural transformation a
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re storytelling that that redefines
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collapse right uh as an artist philosopher and all the things that you are I an Eco
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particular philosop as I see it seems that you’ve chosen or it has chosen you
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that your son Zazu has become a medium of movement and it’s fascinating to me
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that your home is a medium of movement on Wheels that’s true I have I’m
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starting to go now you’re riding a lot of movement my dear um yeah can you speak about as an
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artist as a philosopher but all of what do I see as a definitely a prophetic um
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tradition um can you talk about that parenting child becoming part of your
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art medium I mean I’m putting blunt but I actually see it that way the way I watch and see from what you’re doing
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yeah yeah it’s a it’s extraordinarily difficult uh number one
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because I am essentially without community in that realm yeah um in the
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realm of parenting uh um there’s so many things I I I’m
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I’m sifting through so many so many Explorations I’d like to move in
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with you around this one is yeah years ago when I was
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living in Soul in South Korea um I did a project called The Offspring project a
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photography project where I was photographing the children of Korean
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artists in their studio with their artwork um and I did this because I I
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was at a the Pana retreat in yede years before that um and I had a a
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moment um where I the the gratitude for my own parents um my father is an art
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historian and my mother is a visual artist installation interdisciplinary uh visual artist
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um both um professors so I I grew up in a very specific kind of
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um saturated art environment where questions were a part of that process um
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and fear was not really at all in in in in that right
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sense in in that context um but the Gratitude I felt was so enormous
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I wanted to do a project about children literally in their right um parents
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Studios but and it was also conflicted for me as a child because I did I was in competition I felt with my father’s art
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historical practice in my mother’s uh Studio practice you bet you bet um so
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you know there was the conflict between the parent child internally for me and so I was exploring that through my
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photographs um but I hadn’t thought that that is what I’m doing to a de degree with Zazu of
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course the title of uh my crosscultural environmental justice book Zazu dreams
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between the Scarab and the dung beetle a cautionary Fable for the anthropac era
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um and this has been since he was six now he’s 13 um and the updated Edition
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just came out with bandana shiva’s forward um
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congrats by the way that’s enous enormous yeah kud it’s been such a
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pleasure with with her um and the original addition was uh endorsed by um
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Nome Chomsky uh Bill McKibben Paul Hawkin Eve ensler Arun Gandhi mahat
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mandi’s grandson David or Thomas uh Hartman James Z wines I James
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son um Henry jiru you know I I really had um a phenomenal yeah cast there and
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a lot of those endorsers are going to be part of the animation adaptation um so
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Zazu is still very much and he just did some uh beatboxing and voiceover for the
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trailer um we we’re having a um multi- genre music soundtrack um
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Middle Eastern music with hipop and uh a variety of music that the the the the
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work addresses um but for him
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as as an art element
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um in motion I’m thinking of
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let’s see I’m I’m trying to formulate this um Trin are you familiar with Trin
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triny mana’s work um video artist she’s a phenomenal uh you know fantastic has
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introduced me to her a bit oh great okay okay fantastic so um one of her
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beautiful phrases is stillness culminates into movement
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um and this play this dialogue call and
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response um that is not about Duality but about multiplicity and
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simultaneity where ambiguity is not a lack of clarity but a multiplicity of
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clarities nice nice yeah um and that’s what I try and instill in my parenting
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and in let’s say using Zazu as integral
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to my pedagogical political ecological ethical modeling practice out there in
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the world out here in the world um out Us in the
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world um and I’m thinking as as you’re asking
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me this question I’m I’m thinking about the bridge between
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my compulsive curiosity around objects and supply chain
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Consciousness yeah um how
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we what if we took nothing for
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granted that it was part of our cellular evolutionary makeup to be in intimacy
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with every object around us so that the stories the objects
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told were implicit in our use of them
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and I’m thinking about that in relation to my child that his
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story as a black spartic boy growing up in a converted
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school bus in Eco villages in various places across the US um that his story
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implicit in his cells
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it’s so it’s so much for me in parallel that
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imperative of knowing his story is in parallel with knowing the story
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of of this this water bottle um we we just
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returned um my husband wild and I just returned from a very peculiar artist
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Colony um in the sultan SE Bombay B Beach um in on on the border of
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California and and Mexico um and it’s
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supposedly the home and I’d like to go back to home in a little bit since you mentioned home and movement the home of
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the largest lithium deposit under that sea so it’s it’s a
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extraordinarily um complicated convoluted um
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conflicting histories um of that area um and in that I’m bringing that up
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now because the stories in that geography are are so integral to me
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standing here now in Colorado in a very cold Warehouse um with my body shivering as
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it is with surrounded by beautiful um trees that would have been cut down um
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that that would have been um cut down for firewood because they were dead um or turned to Wood ships but are now
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being transformed into Sumptuous luscious Furniture um into pleasure and
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Beauty again the Ecstasy so what I’m what I’m attempting
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to do is build a constellation
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of such a pro found respect for objects where there isn’t a division between
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human and object human and Wildlife um e where these
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ecosystems were in such intimacy that these ecosystems of
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Storytelling if we embodied that I don’t see how fear could exist in the power
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structures that it currently does and even and even the definition of
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fear the meaning of fear the imaginaries of fear would would just imaginaries pluralize right this is the difficulty
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it it’s such a that’s my study it’s just shown how it’s just monosized itself so
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exactly we think that’s fear and then we have to relate to fear and it’s like right I think years it’s not about not
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being terrorized there’s things to be terrorized but it’s not unhealth terrorizing it’s actually ecstatic it’s
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it’s it’s it’s integral as you said integrating the truths yes the the
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the this is our otherwise what’s the point this is our our uh the the
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fullness what does it mean to be fully alive and if we didn’t have as you said
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the terror the simultaneity of the horror and the beauty yep then we would be
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zombies then we would be in a state of TR true
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paralysis but what if we could take on these multiplicities take on the understanding
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of not and again it’s not a cerebral understanding but that embryological
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connection of gut brain understanding of interconnectedness then fear wouldn’t
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have the power that it does singular in its Singularity that it currently does
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now that
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operationally if our embodied
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State reflected our potential uh what Stephen Hawking paraphrasing uh
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everything we need to know is already within us just waiting to be
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realized and that realization of course is never final it’s like Elizabeth Gross
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um her un I’ll say
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apocalypsis um her unpeeling revealing of U lesbian orgasm the continual
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non-arrival and that’s the seed the seed that is planted
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again the solution implies some sort of finality some sort of comfort some sort of yeah some sort of as you said repair
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yeah um rather [Music] than the
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juiciness um for example I have under my 12 layers here of my six uh six Woolen
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sweaters Etc down I have a tattoo of a Pimon um on my arm then with
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a my son’s umbilical cord Anda
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yeah for me say again placental art placental art yes yes yes yes and but
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but the Pimon that that going back to nandi the white bull where you can’t
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contain yourself because the container is fear but if we lived in a place
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of of euphoria and and this isn’t um for
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example one of my most just joyous um
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extraordinarily satisfying educational experiences was at the institute for social ecology Murray
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Bin’s um uh in Vermont maray Bin’s fabulousness years ago
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1991 and we spoke extensively about the tyranny of structurelessness and this isn’t that so
41:27
this goes back to very beginning what I was speaking about in terms of postmodernism and and really
41:35
inhabiting inhabiting the impossible
41:44
inhabiting what we see
41:50
as the refusal to submit to the inevitable again Mo modernity
41:58
white supremacy equality as assimilation and then how do we do
42:06
that in our parenting how do we do that going to the bathroom how do we do that
42:12
making every decision you know I’ll just say quickly say in terms of going to the bathroom one example um in
42:20
Judaism there are blessings for everything wow really everything
42:25
including going to the bathroom thank you where there’s a Contin and this again referring to my students at UC
42:31
Santa Cruz um the Gratitude it’s the blessing it’s the
42:39
acknowledgment again Hawkings everything we need to know is it’s already within us just waiting to be
42:47
realized we have we we are we don’t need that kind of fear that
42:54
kind of fear something that is
43:01
not us and I’m not talking about anything authentic or essential anything like that I hear you but what what does
43:07
it mean to be alive well probably because you’re talking about something aesthetic is
43:13
what occurs to me that’s why it’s not essentialist that’s why it’s not oh yes
43:18
fixed it’s actually in an aesthetic modality in the aesthetic modality is not interested in any of those
43:25
stabilities I mean if it is it’s only so everything’s you know transitory and in
43:31
that sense if if it isn’t interested it it may be that it’s inhering to the Art Market for sure and modification which
43:38
is absolutely rooted in fear yeah so I I I’m really fascinated with you know the
43:44
way of course this is what Barbara and I are so interested in is the power of the Aesthetics to lead the ethical and to
43:50
lead the political yes and this is brocker Brock eder’s philosophy of The
43:56
Matrix it it’s like that is her that is her core and she said that will help get
44:02
us at least on some kind of recalibration and I really hear that
44:07
much you’re doing and you know centralizing the word movement was just one of many words we could have for a
44:14
while but it seems really core and it it right down to your relationship with
44:19
your child as a movement medium in that sense and a medium of movement because
44:27
what more is going to bring that up for an adult than to be in an encounter with
44:33
a child with child it is like an amazing encounter not of the
44:40
static and such a phenomenal struggle when
44:49
we’re when we’re in society totally and
44:54
how how can from a place of compassion from a place
45:00
of multiple perspectives how can I
45:07
create not Comfort necessarily
45:13
but a place where he can stand solidly on both feet in these conflicting worlds
45:21
he he he wrote a piece actually last year called a foot in Two Worlds um or a foot in both worlds
45:27
I think the title fluctuates um speaking about the modern convenience world and then the Barefoot World basically Mom
45:34
and Dad 12 yeah yeah and what does it mean to want to
45:42
belong what
45:47
is when we think about how the civil rights movement and queer
45:54
rights for example converge in the late
46:00
60s and began to move
46:07
from acceptable Conformity you know like again equality
46:12
is assimilation to know that we we are not trying to become
46:19
you yeah we we are we and we are
46:25
us multiple we multiple uses
46:31
right and with a child who was straddling all of these conflicting multiple conflicting
46:38
Worlds how do I create a space where his hips won’t
46:44
snap as his mother
46:50
and it’s it’s deafening it’s suffocating it’s um
46:59
uh extremely disheartening um and it’s
47:07
imperative so what do I do with that constant
47:13
pull y as as both someone who who who can’t just let it go um when people say
47:21
compromise as if living in this Society of fearmongering
47:28
um is not compromising not only every second but every every space between
47:34
every second yeah it’s it’s inherently
47:40
yeah so where is the equilibrium differing how does the equilibrium different differ from compromise how
47:48
does acceptance differ from resignation as a
47:55
parent as a
48:04
movement and how can we foresee a a future
48:12
present that embodies these contradictions that thrives on the
48:20
contradictions and that doesn’t just leave us in in a continual state of uh
48:32
um despair yeah a mesmerized despair I would put it mesmerized despair yeah and
48:39
again Community you know I mean it’s it’s it’s cliche and it’s as hard work it’s as
48:47
hard of work as raising a child so get get let’s get on to that right now yeah yeah been in and out of a few conscious
48:54
communities and I know youve you’ve too for a long time um where are you at
49:00
with what we call conscious communities are you are where are you at with yeah yeah
49:08
well um so the last one we left um we
49:13
were there for two years in our in our bus um okay and it was a
49:18
community uh in Eco Village um in the
49:23
United States that in in so many ways lived with
49:29
Integrity the humanure we all pooped in buckets we all had our human
49:35
infrastructure um the the housing to degree I mean so
49:41
some a lot of the infrastructure
49:47
reflected the uh suppose the mission statement I’ll
49:53
say it that way sure sure sure um but raising children in many ways did but in many
50:00
ways because of their lack of Consciousness around and and Consciousness and action based
50:06
Consciousness around racial equity and cultural
50:14
diversity was desperately lacking and after two years we
50:21
left um there were a few stints in small
50:26
Mountain towns we came back to Colorado again the
50:32
Aesthetics surrounding ourselves by such gorgeousness and at the same
50:37
time White H homogeneous communities okay so again
50:43
these conflicts okay always all right um but we found ourselves in a small town
50:50
very small town no stop lights um lots of churches
50:57
uh it’s a a town that has I think really incredible potential
51:05
for movement making because there is such friction because there are such
51:11
differences culturally in the sense of uh generations of
51:18
beef ranchers beef cattle ranchers coal miners Evangelical
51:26
Christians fundamentalist Christians in conjunction with hippie
51:32
Homesteader [Music] um we growing our own food um weaving
51:43
our own clothing uh making all of our own Furniture
51:49
um so there are these extremes and that friction is beautiful and that friction
51:55
can potentially come together in some I would have thought phenomenal
52:02
ways for example in terms of raising our children yet it’s
52:08
not um my experience of course I’m just speaking from my
52:15
experience and so again I have been very very disappointed
52:20
and I can’t raise my son here as I need to y and
52:28
that is shattering um and I am in such a state
52:34
of confusion my my glorious Mentor aan gar yoga
52:41
teacher uh Judith Lasser with whom I worked and taught um
52:47
for many decades um would speak about confusion as a state of
52:53
grace and I’m also up to here with Grace
52:58
um so that is our current state gotcha well thanks for sharing that thanks for sh
53:05
Community you know we we’ve got so much we could dive into but let’s just say in this next 10 minutes uh let’s just
53:11
refocus ourselves a bit and gather anything that wants to be still brought
53:17
out um anything if you want to challenge me or push me on and so on or be curious
53:23
of yeah let’s I’m curious um about your position as
53:32
voice as speaking realities that do quote unquote
53:40
make people uncomfortable yes um and how that’s manifested in your parenting
53:47
practice um and self-respect
53:57
[Music] well yeah you know sometimes if I if I’m pushed into a corner and somebody asked
54:03
me how did you survive um 35 years on this project that you devoted your life to called in search of fearlessness
54:10
project and it’s not a business oh okay that’s really stupid you know right from
54:18
buiness meaning you’re not income generating is that is that what that means okay right yeah it’s no copyright
54:25
no trademark know it’s it’s a project for Humanity that’s where it came from a
54:30
vision it’s a prophetic Vision exactly and you jump on it and I’m very innocent and naive and jump on it that is
54:38
something I often will say and I’m saying it again to it is all this whole
54:43
journey I mean all the wonderful complexity of it and my philosophical theoretical thinking and all the things
54:50
I can play with ideas it really is a very very potent yeah but I’m not going
54:56
to give up self-respect I’m just not going to give it up and the only way I really know how
55:03
to do that because I there’s many ways but the one that really keeps coming through is and I said it to somebody the
55:09
other day I said I don’t care if Donald Trump’s president I don’t care and I was
55:14
just kind of playing and I said because I’m gonna be creative you know and I leaned into this
55:21
person and I just said I am going phal this is like a Messiah Warrior I am
55:28
going to be creative it’s a spear it is my spear that doesn’t mean it’s an
55:35
answer it doesn’t mean it’s a solution as you well know right and but it is so
55:41
fundamental to that’s the Deep affective emotional embodied autobiographic
55:49
Michael Fisher in this world this planet but then I am so aware that is just such
55:57
a small part of my battle it feels like it’s the whole battle at times which which part is the
56:05
well you know the other parts of the battle come through I call it you know
56:12
the multiple realities the alternative realities the non-consensual reality the plur
56:17
veres once you begin to travel in some way even in just sensing a connection to
56:26
that that battle against you know getting my self-esteem and my
56:31
integrity that’s just oh that’s okay that’s cool but it’s just not it it’s so
56:38
minor yes that’s a huge huge shift and I think in the conscious Community I’ve
56:43
been a part of that is just not there what is there in even the Eco type
56:49
conscious communities you’d think it have a lot of spread for and you know capacity for existential diversity
56:57
cultural diversity EOD diversity what still happens is a psychological
57:04
imaginary it’s the Western white psychological imaginary that it’s about
57:09
my self-esteem right and that is the camel does not see his his own hump and when
57:16
you don’t see that and you’re not able to get witness on even some witness on that and they might have bits of it
57:22
because there spiritual practices in those communities they do have some witness capacity but it seems the
57:28
imaginary itself has not moved
57:34
creatively and people do not have the aesthetic
57:39
vocabulary iate it yeah yeah so and then
57:45
I’m curious about the individual moving then into the collective in that in that
57:51
context and the aesthetic vocabulary y directing that movement
58:01
right uh in the piece on Lilith and the uh Quaker
58:07
abolitionist um I I wrote about spiritual bypassing I
58:13
was while I was writing this I was in during I was in a a Buddhist uh silent
58:18
Retreat okay um and I had a lot of questions about that of course um and so
58:25
I’m where for you does movement Collective movement a social movement or
58:32
movements where does this where does this lead us beyond
58:43
our solm you know beyond just the bubble the E Eco Villages are
58:52
uh you know Infamous for being yeah bubbles y um no matter how how
58:59
self-aware they are as uh micro units where does the macro
59:05
come in this the dialogue between the micro and the macro between the local and the
59:11
global and and I you know in in your in your world I mean I can’t give you examples
59:18
that it actually does I’m a little bit like you I’m incredibly disappointed yeah you know 35 Plus years
59:27
on this journey of pretty conscious effort and yeah it’s my partner I have
59:34
an a partner you have a good a partner you can work with we have a lot of support for that um My Two children are
59:41
in their 40s yes and and they do not really want to have any part of where I come from
59:49
and they were born and raised in a conscious Community right and they’re
59:54
going dad I want to be a lawyer because I want to have my finances together not like you right the other one is very
1:00:01
working class so one’s a lawyer downtown Toronto you know the big offices but I
1:00:07
totally know she’s that’s not her she’s just playing that out because it feels like it’s better than fearing being
1:00:14
insecure not having Financial stability uhuh and the whole idea that that comes
1:00:20
up a lot in terms of living in a bus um as you can imagine um if you would also share with your viewers we have a a film
1:00:28
about the love bus um creative uh waste uh Beauty and waste
1:00:35
it’s called um um and the love bus and I I uh share a little bit in that
1:00:43
documentary um and I’d like to share a little bit now about the kind of
1:00:48
discrimination um and the assumptions that go
1:00:54
in to my relationship ships with others even in the Eco villages with hippie
1:01:00
dippy you know even there um because
1:01:05
suburb [Music] Suburban middle class Consciousness is
1:01:11
so woven into people’s Consciousness
1:01:16
as the way to be um as as you’re supposed to turn on the faucet and warm
1:01:22
water comes out as if that is
1:01:30
symbol of being on this planet correctly you know
1:01:37
um and I find that of course extremely offensive and misinformed
1:01:43
um when every aspect of our home
1:01:49
is in is imbued with Beauty with that aesthetic vocabulary and that’s how I
1:01:56
raised Zazu in terms of our homeschooling process with the the the building of of the home that supply
1:02:03
chain Consciousness was was implied in
1:02:08
in how he lived his education the word education to draw out again with
1:02:15
Hawkings everything we know is already within
1:02:20
us so it’s the collective seed planting that and but then then again even with
1:02:27
our own children as you’re saying and then do we
1:02:34
die knowing we did the best we could I I despise that phrase do
1:02:39
you I really do okay I really I always have it’s funny that even as a as a
1:02:45
child I have not appreciated that phrase um because it feel for some reason it
1:02:50
feels like a cop out to me um but
1:02:58
the word friendship actually just came into my mind interesting interesting interesting
1:03:06
interesting intimacy comes up for me a lot absolutely intimacy and again that
1:03:11
goes into the stories of curiosity when I was I grew up in Texas
1:03:19
oh for a little bit um uh 7 89 10 um um
1:03:28
and one reason I had so many awful violent problems not just because I was
1:03:35
Jewish um not just because I was a third of the size of my classmates um but
1:03:43
because I was very outspoken even as a you know nine-year-old um and the teachers did
1:03:51
did not like me asking questions yeah and
1:03:56
and what does it mean to ask a question out of again
1:04:04
Joy not out of trying to prove
1:04:11
something trying to prove someone or something is
1:04:16
correct yeah but out of again that ecstasy that
1:04:22
you asked about before that that that potential euphoria
1:04:27
well you know we’re just touching on pedagogy uh we could be talking about everything down to where I work once you
1:04:33
know I’ve been for four years in a daycare Community right work with the staff
1:04:40
daycare private daycare I’m I work as the HR person I’ve been an artist in residency as well in this daycare that’s
1:04:47
how I started so it was a very interesting journey of putting myself into the community and I thought well
1:04:52
this would at least begin because we just moved here it was a way to get involved in being in the community which
1:04:59
is important looking for friendship looking for invitation and I just you know so many
1:05:06
times said even though in a sense they’re wonderful people who work there the 25 staff and the director who is
1:05:14
willing to put up with me which is pretty amazing for four years that’s like I’m with you Michael I’m sending
1:05:19
you a hug that is unheard of yeah I I was looking for a little more of those and I’m working with all women
1:05:26
in and and it was just at one point I had to say that I’m in a staff meeting and I I think there’s some message here
1:05:33
that I was able to say it without any any Touch of hatred even
1:05:42
though it was a hurting Edge for me because I’ve done a lot of healing I was
1:05:47
able to say to them in stab me at one point I just want to give some feedback after being there for about a year I
1:05:52
just said is it not the friendliest place that I that I would like it to be
1:05:58
just try saying that from an outsider to the inside and you’re saying
1:06:04
and you’re daycare workers for kids it just goes against everything that they
1:06:11
could imagine but I said it and in the long run it actually was okay so if I
1:06:17
had to leave a message I received it was surprising because I had a commitment in some way I wasn’t going to abandon them
1:06:25
like I typically I go in I don’t like it this isn’t working and I’m usually out
1:06:31
but I’m 73 years now I’m 73 I’ve really got nothing to gain or Nothing to Lose
1:06:38
I’m not on I’m not on a career jump here it’s like I’m just trying to be useful a
1:06:44
little bit in the world in relation to and it really made a difference that they tolerated accepted and I’ve done
1:06:52
some good there that I feel proud of although I’m leaving this I told them I’m leaving I’m ready to move on and
1:06:59
here’s what I said I said to them I’m only interested right now and this time
1:07:04
in my life you can sort of do this when you’re 73 I’m at this time in my life I’m only interested in being with people
1:07:11
who want to transform and that they want to talk about post November 5th election
1:07:17
2025 in America I actually said that to the staff and they listened and they
1:07:23
just went okay I felt so good saying that
1:07:30
I because I said what I wanted to really say I don’t want to be there’s the
1:07:36
self-respect who don’t want to talk about that right now yeah there’s lots of people you can talk to you’re
1:07:43
reminding me that the word cabala means to
1:07:49
receive and what does it mean to be in a mutual reciprocity state
1:07:56
that isn’t transactional yeah but that’s transformational right nice
1:08:03
and that can bring us closer to to ourselves and one another simultaneously
1:08:10
that’s that intimacy right it’s it’s intimacy plus plus plus multiply multiply multiply Alchemy yeah Alchemy
1:08:17
is nice I love it thanks so much for today we have it’s enjoyable what was what was good for you today
1:08:25
was good for me um let me see my chili toes yeah here so much was good for me
1:08:33
I’m going to yeah I didn’t I didn’t uh hang over any of the the the sculptures um let me see
1:08:41
what was good Michael I really enjoy your
1:08:46
Rhythm and I
1:08:51
uh I feel like you’re a kindred spirit uh
1:08:59
um some of your phrasing helped clarify my own
1:09:06
meanderings my own um and these meanderings
1:09:11
are essential for my existence um so I’m very
1:09:18
grateful for that and I’m I’m I’m excited for our
1:09:23
friendship look forward to it look forward to it all um cheers to the
1:09:29
aesthetic uh I love talking to you because I knew I knew it’s some way I
1:09:34
mean I started off with the phrase I didn’t share it in my open they Dance with the Devil you know
1:09:40
and and the devil has the word evil in it and we never got to that topic today
1:09:46
but at some point there may be a second conversation what is that relationship
1:09:51
of the aesthetic and its play with evil which you can see if you’re talking evil you’re talking Terror fear in other
1:09:58
forms you’re talking Lilith imaginaries and then now you bring up Lilith and so we’ve got all these multiplicities right
1:10:05
um so yes um interesting territory uh I wish you worked at our daycare center by the way just
1:10:11
toal oh well I don’t know that I I would love to put you in front of
1:10:19
children oh well you know um I I would be happy to come as a as a visiting artist or visi
1:10:26
visiting something um so yeah keep keep that in mind I I um you know be because
1:10:35
I do move from a place of such
1:10:40
interdisciplinarity um and and the the weaving of the layers are so um integral
1:10:49
to my to my pedagogical yeah process and and just my the intimacy process
1:10:56
um I would yeah I would be happy to brainstorm with you in that context
1:11:01
too glad to do this today for sure so see you again and go ahead and I’d love
1:11:06
to hear just um if if in one sentence what what was most pleasurable for you yeah or most I would definitely say um
1:11:14
having someone to to dive into aesthetic vocabulary uh critical literacy that is
1:11:20
an advanced level um regardless if you like that term or not it to me is just such a a a longing for me to have that
1:11:29
vocabulary exchange it’s so rare and it just tells me about our society how it
1:11:35
does not allow nurture developmental you know advance in
1:11:42
Aesthetics bottom line for me that’s just one and that’s connected with pedagogy so closely go ahead and just
1:11:49
what you’re saying our society doesn’t nourish that yet
1:11:56
now yeah thank you it’s all around us I mean just you know I mean looking I mean
1:12:02
it’s it’s everywhere so we have to just remind ourselves yeah this is you with
1:12:07
your you know the teacher is not the teacher in the classroom the teacher is everything that would that’s how I kind
1:12:14
of introduce you here is a teacher who thinks the teacher is everything I love
1:12:19
I love it thank you thank you thank you Michael enjoy give give Barbara a big
1:12:25
hello and hug for me byebye

Transcript of FearTalk 32: Cara Judea Alhadeff & R. Michael Fisher

0:03
well good day Dr Michael fiser here with Dr Cara Judea alah hadf we are here to
0:09
explore another version this our second version of really a fear talk that will
0:16
look at various issues so we talked about childhood we talked about alternative Eco Villages we’ve talked
0:23
about the world of Supply chains and consciousness of Supply change and the
0:28
role of the artist in this that and lots of good things always interesting talking with you cara how are you
0:36
today I am reved off Michael all right
0:42
surprise it’s already been very full anything particular reved up well uh would you like me to jump
0:50
in yeah okay um so I was just
0:56
attending uh Jewish Jewish women’s archive a nonprofit as far as I know um
1:05
they are hosting a series on what
1:10
they’re calling Global ethnicity and race in Jewish communities
1:17
and I am finding the tokenism
1:23
uh challenging and the
1:30
redundancy of whitewashing within the Jewish
1:36
Community uh exhausting and that converging for
1:41
example with a late night evening activity I had last night around local
1:47
finances and local economies in relation to corporate
1:55
capitalism and the aisc of
2:00
ways of being in relation that are so radically different that we it is so
2:06
difficult for people to begin to even imagine and the convergence of these two
2:13
public
2:19
challenging interactions um I’m just aware of my
2:24
body having a reaction to many many reactions to so I’m I’m in a I’m in a
2:30
somatic uh let’s just say disorientation right now as as we’re coming in which is
2:37
fine it’s familiar and um absolutely relevant I’m sure to to what we will be
2:42
discussing yeah you know in the last talk Cara thanks for entering there and
2:48
please k sorry yes yes thanks for entering with you know cutting right through with being somatically real so
2:56
to speak and located in the place that you’re in could you even
3:02
just give us a sense of the place that you’re in as you sit before us and how it’s probably related to everything you
3:08
just mentioned to in some way it is it is it is absolutely my my students at UC
3:13
Santa Cruz would um or some of them would not be appreciating the
3:19
connections um espec especially with the Jewish the sapharic Arab Jewish references and and and really um feeling
3:27
suspicious of those connections but yes I I feel the fact that I’m in our
3:33
family’s School Bus converted school bus
3:38
um this is part of the new nonprofit my new nonprofit radical art and action did
3:44
I mention that did we speak we did speak about that okay so radical Arden action um this element uh focuses on Creative
3:52
affordable housing um obviously site specific
3:58
because it you know I was going to say it can only be done in certain environments but as a
4:03
matter of fact for example Joanna Macy’s um um primary assistant her
4:10
daughter asked my husband wild who can who was obviously Central to this
4:17
conversion to convert a bus for them to live in in the middle of Oakland
4:24
so uh that’s obviously an example of super duper Urban environment and here
4:33
we are on the top of a Mesa surrounded by the Rockies at the edge of the Rockies surrounded by their Mesa um in
4:41
in Colorado so it there’s often an
4:46
implication of and we can get into these
4:52
complexities and contortions of privilege entitlement um yet our home which has
5:01
housed two adults and a teenage boy and
5:07
very large dog um for about seven years um in very hot climates wet climates
5:14
cold climates because we lived in the rainforest on the east coast in North
5:19
Carolina um and now for several years in Colorado where
5:24
it’s frequently um below zero um this this winter
5:31
so it’s a it’s a space of I would say generosity of Refuge both for the
5:36
objects that create this space and certainly for our own bodies and psyches
5:44
and I’m happy to go into some of those details but but that’s where I am right now and this Eco art um again the
5:51
Aesthetics as we were speaking about aesthetic vocabulary as a guide for
5:59
social political interventions um this space very much
6:05
is building on that kind of aesthetic commitment and Solace um okay and and just along those
6:13
lines I want to mention it’s the 100th year anniversary of surrealism in a European context
6:21
and Solace just reminded me of that um the idea of Beauty in in a space
6:31
of non-n normaly in a space
6:37
of folded edges as bio would say frothing edges um as I as
6:45
I as I live as I work as I parent in this bus um in our home I’m I’m very
6:54
aware of the necessity of beauty as uh as
7:00
integral to what it means to to really be a functioning full person I mean in my language that
7:07
doesn’t sound like a romantic um beauty or you know a classical sense of beauty
7:15
that some people might gather it feels like it’s it’s very much contextualized
7:20
with the social political economic conditions right like I I love that
7:26
intersection that art doesn’t have to be some somehow transcending that even though it has
7:33
capabilities to help us move Beyond uh I think in identification and
7:38
pleasure and joy and all the ways we experience it but yeah I think that’s what I like about your work you know it
7:45
yeah um you take art and Aesthetics in philosophy just for example into those
7:51
those contexts so you’re riled up and last time you said something about uh
7:56
and I live in shock all the time could you know we’re talking about fear
8:02
talk and I’m going how do you do that of obviously Beauty Sanctuary your place of
8:08
residency all those things um but it really is fascinating to me because you
8:14
know are you still really shocked by the things like for example this conference you’re listening to and your
8:20
whitewashing going on within the Jewish Community are you shocked by that I mean or is it just an expression is there
8:27
something else deeper there do you want to tweet that out a little bit he let’s see what’s
8:35
shock I would say it’s shock because I feel a
8:41
rawness in my nervous system okay because I feel
8:46
the the Frid again edges as a space of
8:53
fertility so the shock does not lead to impotence right the shock
9:00
leads to a certain
9:05
uh let’s see I just had the image of an octopus when I would imagine because
9:12
I’ve never touched an octopus um I have an octopus on my body um but uh wrapped
9:20
around my body tattooed around my body uh but what I would imagine because of
9:25
its the depth of its empathy um and how it
9:32
transforms based on its context it’s it’s right its actual structure its
9:39
cellular relationality um is so tremendously
9:45
vibrant I would I would call it shock and if I could weave this back just into
9:52
the beauty issue and what you were speaking about a a traditional or a conventional sense of of beauty
10:00
I am shocked I am dumbfounded I am
10:10
um uh in a state of perverted radical amazement I’ll say um referring to Rabbi
10:19
hush’s right joyous radical amazement um when beauty is defined through Mass
10:29
production through a familiar lens that is easily
10:36
digestible um thinking about did we talk about Paul Taylor’s dance company for
10:42
example um so thinking about for example in dance TR um very
10:49
popular dance companies where the body an arm is an
10:55
arm um an arm relating to a leg is an arm relating to a
11:02
leg there isn’t the risk of
11:08
transmutation and when Beauty for example in a home if a home is defined
11:14
as beautiful because it is considered
11:20
safe um in the familiar yet most likely
11:25
it is off gassing um because the products perhaps are new perhaps made in China um
11:35
the the the radon the the the the paints that are off gassing and certainly the
11:41
way they were produced uh all of these levels that they’re they’re considered safe in a in
11:48
a realm that is extraordinarily misinformed um rather than a space of
11:56
knowledge a space of in intimacy where we know where the last screw came from
12:04
where we know of course the mind the metal mind from that screw has its own
12:11
infrastructures of Storytelling that need to be acknowledged and recognized and nothing is pure I’m not looking for
12:16
Purity I’m not looking for any sort of again safety
12:23
um but I do find that shocking and predictable and it’s that it’s that for
12:29
example um I found out yesterday that the science nature
12:35
backpacking uh it’s only a two week trip with the High Mountain Institute in lville Colorado they can’t
12:43
proceed because as far as I know Zazu my son okay we’re the only ones who have
12:50
signed up same thing in our community for the backpacking trip for
12:55
teenagers um I think it’s 12 to 16 no one is signing up except except for my son and this these
13:05
are outdoor these are phenomenal outdoor education programs for teenagers
13:11
for for young people and people the the the the um
13:17
nature connection the outdoor education uh nonprofit in our community
13:23
separate from the one I just mentioned um had to cancel their backpacking trips because
13:30
their interest is simply not there because people don’t feel safe sending their kids
13:36
backpacking okay okay because they’re attached to I’m assuming a sense of Beauty in their homes and
13:43
familiarity that involves these things you know this yes that
13:52
involves uh hyper production capitalist
14:00
um Cradle of ease since in
14:05
utero and so in that yes I am shocked I am
14:13
horrified yet it’s unbelievably
14:18
obvious and my first response is go out there
14:23
and just start talking to as many parents as possible see if I can encourage the parents the kids to
14:32
consider doing something that I do feel could
14:38
have a radical re-rooting yeah of what needs to happen
14:46
among millions of other actions that need to take place individually and collectively but to get our kids
14:54
outside in in a state of intellectual simultaneous
14:59
intellectual physical physiological spiritual
15:06
relational experience yeah that’s great so does your son shock
15:12
you at all sometimes in their values oh of course in SAU yeah I mean again it’s
15:19
shock and absolutely predictable I mean they we have horrendous arguments um which I may
15:27
have mentioned about video games um how I haven’t heard the details
15:33
I haven’t heard the details so if you feel that’s fine great yeah well this this all relates to what I write about
15:40
with petroleum parenting uh with apocalyptic parenting
15:45
as an antidote to petroleum parenting okay y um and I’m not
15:50
sure where we trespassed we didn’t go very far we didn’t go very far in it
15:57
these Realms um but yes I am teetering um one of my
16:06
photography titles from the 90s was uh my precarious everything is almost and I
16:15
feel that is also my parenting that’s that’s in my art practice as a photographer as a video artist as a
16:22
writer as a pedagogical committed being
16:30
that it is it is as one of my mother’s titles for one of her paintings is scaling the edge of the Abyss I that
16:37
that is uh that certainly is is parenting for me
16:43
and I did have some questions for you about parenting too with with your kids because you mentioned yeah what felt
16:49
like a at least a a class distinction um and maybe a a a
16:55
sociopolitical distinction too but we yeah can reenter that uh as we as we
17:03
unfold well it’s good I mean we can circle around a lot of things but I I am
17:08
I am interested in part of the simple question is is are we scaring our kids and I I’m actually
17:15
talking about us yeah it’d be easy to talk about are we scaring our kids right
17:20
and there’s people writing books about that and some people say yes we are some people say no we’re not um but I I’m
17:26
actually interested yeah because we started this in the conversation with us is that you know here we are so-called very alternative types um Progressive
17:35
and all those labels yes tragically so and and the side of um is really interesting to our
17:42
viewers is you know how are we scaring our our kids and I want to just maybe talk about class as it appeared in the
17:51
relationship with my children which was again having to go as a boomer having
17:56
you know a Gen X Gen Y kind of Gen X bordered children um I had them later in
18:02
life and one of the things I would say was actually quite a division between my children and I in
18:10
when I say division it’s it’s it’s an inserted
18:16
ideology of the way to live and in other words dad why aren’t you
18:22
normal Dad can’t you just be normal and so this is coming yeah myth
18:29
of normal or which one you got Empire of normality okay I haven’t seen that one thank you neurodiversity and
18:36
capitalism and of course you know to be here that’s tough as a parent you know
18:41
it’s tough as a parent you’re handling that I was pretty cool about it and one
18:47
of the things I’ve in retroflect is that I realized I think my children have it
18:53
pretty damn good now we were poor we I had no Capital Security growing up with
19:02
my wife at that time and then is that what poverty is I I’m so curious what is poverty yeah what is poverty I mean just
19:10
in the frame of you know yeah no secure paycheck no secure land that I can say I
19:18
have a place to live even we’re renting and we could be out on a three-month notice from a landlord uh I’ve live that
19:27
way our land I live that way and I still live that way to this day I’m still a
19:32
renter and not that it’s the answer but I choose not to buy and purchase property or seek to do so um maybe I
19:40
would with a collective but I don’t do it on my own and so all of those things
19:45
LED my children and through a divorce early when they’re five and three um
19:52
their mother who was took the vow of poverty as an ex none and was very
19:58
spiritual into this by the time she had to be a single mom then it was once
20:04
security really big time and then my children are getting double messages dad’s really relaxed he’s cool mom is
20:11
freaking out she doesn’t have much enough money to get through the month and then we’re living in really rough
20:17
places so when they’re in their 20s and 30s they here’s the statement that I have to deal with I’m sure at some point
20:23
you can conceive of it or maybe you’ve heard of it yes is Dad um you know it’s
20:29
cool what you’re doing okay fine but I want to let you know is that you put us
20:35
at risk on more than one RIS at risk for
20:42
dangers of living in bad neighborhoods were SEC not secured um Invaders In The
20:49
Doors kicking indoors um because their mother lives in poverty and does not
20:56
have the financials and don’t have the financials to give to her or them and so
21:02
Dad why are you being an artist doing all those creative things why don’t you get a job so that you can give the full
21:08
payment and that would help us be more less at risk so that’s about fear it’s
21:15
like they would argue I put them in an unnecessary amount of fear because of my
21:21
creative Innovative I think authentic and yet I’m looking at them
21:29
even in their tough times when they feel at risk I’m going you still have it
21:34
really good it’s not wonderful it’s not ideal but in my mind I didn’t actually
21:42
say that I would never say that it just like that would be so hard to say to them or their mother you actually have
21:48
it really pretty good now so you see that’s what happens with more knowledge more context I’m looking at the through
21:54
a critical lens of the world capitalist critical critique of capital ISM Etc and
22:00
class I Come From A Working Poor family situation I grew up in that so I have
22:06
all this resiliency and and familiarity within the Aesthetics of the
22:12
poor working class and my daughters don’t like they actually live it but the
22:19
imaginary that’s influencing them from their friends from from the need to
22:24
secure and we just went like this
22:29
and I’ve never recovered it we may at some point be able to have
22:35
those father but that takes a lot of capability and when they’re still
22:40
raw yes even in their 40s they’re still raw that you didn’t really take care of
22:46
us in many ways and and it’s hard for them to forgive and I’m not even saying that’s
22:52
the problem right like I’m actually trying to say it’s a much bigger problem getting right right you’re you’re you’re
22:58
talking about this is a class problem so go ahead G yeah yeah yeah I mean you’re
23:04
speaking about something much more yeah pervasive
23:11
and when you said the Aesthetics of poverty um or the poor I’d like to do
23:17
actually do you want to address that um that phrase and then yeah we can we can
23:23
go into this a little well I mean one one of the simple what does that mean yeah many things of course but I think
23:30
one of the ones I come to very quickly is I’m very interested in the research behind U the anthropology of
23:38
dirt Andy Mary Douglas’s work way back 50s and 60s yes the object security
23:47
danger um all those ideas around dirt protection from illness disease and the
23:53
marginal and how they all tie into that and it becomes called part of a Culture of Fear
23:59
and how it still is operating today with all the cleansing the cleansing and cleaning and you can just hear all those
24:06
metaphors tying into this violent vicious epistemically
24:11
vicious way we cleanse the world yes and this is what my daughters would say
24:18
ultimately when they say they’re at risk they’re at risk in too dirty of a world
24:24
right that’s and that goes back to right the idea of safety yeah and what is supposedly safe is actually
24:31
killing us yeah it’s there what is what is safe so often
24:38
represents chemically literally the elementally the toxins that are
24:46
destroying our cellular structure but also our our Humanity in so many ways
24:55
and when we yeah when we look at uh purity of blood in my family’s
25:01
background as a spartic Jew and the expulsion of the Jews from
25:06
Spain and that was based on our contaminated blood that was that was
25:12
based on uh um I mean Jews have always been seen
25:18
as contaminants social contaminants um feeding off parasitically feeding off the host
25:25
of the norm and
25:30
and there’s a book that I pulled out here uh voluntary Simplicity
25:36
um here um be and this yeah this is interesting
25:42
because it’s not talking about capitalism per se it’s talking
25:49
about equilibrium um
25:55
and when for example when I was this was also in Oakland recently um at
26:01
an Eco art matters class it was it was a class for artists um at Laney College in
26:09
in Oakland um and one of the um students got very upset with me
26:16
um because they were saying that they live in um a food
26:21
desert um and that I had the the privilege of living in a bus um
26:29
and that I was taking my own entitlement as a supposedly white person um
26:37
light-skinned obviously I’m light-skinned um that’s a whole other conversation in terms of passing um but
26:45
that I was not acknowledging the complexities of
26:50
poverty and access however when we’re dealing with a white
26:56
supremacist entrenched economy and equality is rooted in those
27:06
Norms our replication of what you’re saying of the
27:12
cleansing of the stripping down of Multiplicity the stripping down of many
27:18
ways of being in relation to economic uh Vitality we’re we’re we’re just we’re
27:25
perpetuating that cycle of Have and Have Not we’re perpetuating these binaries of
27:32
wealth and poverty we’re perpetuating the illusion
27:38
that wealth is safety that access
27:46
to hospitals access to education quote
27:51
unquote compulsory education um access to running water
27:59
access to a flush toilet is safety and all of those worlds are
28:08
so again offis skated there’s there’s there’s so many veils of
28:15
misinformation not just wrapped around them but weaving but but but um actually
28:22
constructing the the mechanism of Oppression of these interlocking oppressions and that that how can we
28:31
collectively begin to uproot those
28:36
illusions of safety those illusions of cleanliness in a world where when I
28:44
wrote Zazu dreams between the Scarab and the dunk Beetle a cautionary Fable for the anthropos era when I wrote that um
28:51
the original uh Edition came out in 2017 the
28:57
hand sanitizer business was I think something
29:03
900 million something like that I think 93 million dollars annually
29:10
preo I mean as we can imagine what and and I don’t know those numbers anymore
29:16
but in terms of of these illnesses that we Define as
29:24
health that’s right when the hospitals are cathedrals of illness I’m forgetting
29:31
I I I cite uh the
29:37
um MacArthur Award winner who who who who
29:43
classified that in my in my text on um women on violence and resistance uh an
29:49
anthology out of the University of Tunis and in Tunisia uh where I focus on
29:56
gender uh uh far pharmaceutical G gender justice
30:04
in in the pharmaceutical or Injustice in the pharmaceutical industry
30:09
um but as a parent and trying to raise our
30:15
children with values that are counter to this cleansing
30:22
tyranny it’s extraordinary and I feel I feel so deeply for for you in
30:29
your challenge with your 40-year-old kids and I wonder you know what is Zazu
30:37
he’s 13 now um I I took him I don’t know if I mentioned last time in my attempt
30:45
to invite multiplicity and invite connectivity um I took him to a voodoo
30:52
community in um weah in Benin West Africa when he
30:58
was 11 did I mention this in our last conversation no um and I lost friends
31:07
because they said it was unsafe right that I physically and emotionally
31:13
jeopardized my young child um someone even threatened to take me to CPS yes to Child Protection
31:20
Services and I have a lot to say about that when when Zazu I’ll just say
31:26
briefly he was in a ski accident when he was five and because I refused certain
31:31
things and with the emergency room a CPS did did I mention this before no no okay
31:38
a CPS worker came to my home and questioned me as a fit mother
31:46
yeah Child Protection Services CPS just for anybody yeah and that is all about
31:52
cleanliness yeah and that’s all about the anthropology of dirt and not
31:58
understanding anything about our microbiomes yeah yeah yeah about the complexity of our physiologies and our
32:08
histories of bodily Integrity let alone Community Integrity
32:16
yep so what I ended up doing in my research was I just was looking for all
32:21
the different threads of what because you know 1990s late 1990s there were
32:27
sociology just coming out and talking about culture of fear and I thought oh that’s an interesting construct you know we’re not just talking about fear as an
32:33
emotion per se as individualized now we’re talking about a culture Fe I thought this was like a huge jump in
32:40
conscious I’m very excited right I’m very excited that oh wow we’re finally gonna get this awareness that our
32:46
culture and the culture what it’s doing and of course that’s a very troubled word in all one but just in the certain
32:53
sense of it is not itself you know neutral at all I mean it is saying it is
33:01
a culture of fear or a culture of Terror as some chomski come came out and and they
33:09
were studying some of the you know Latin American regimes and terrorism and they
33:14
used the culture of fear actually that concept came out of uh the studies of the Latin America the South cone during
33:22
the dictatorships in the 60s and 70s and research quote Culture of Fear was at
33:29
the base of what happened to the population what happened on the outside what happened on the internal side of
33:35
the oppression and how it stabilized a culture of fear or terrorism yes so and
33:41
I’ve been thinking so much about P now have you in terms of what’s going on in
33:47
in contemporary in in our world yeah he’s been visiting a lot
33:52
unfortunately yeah and I just want to say in terms of the idea of neutrality um in in VIs
33:58
expectations oh yeah this uh my first philosophy art book uh
34:04
justice vulnerability the obscene one of the chapters uh is on the illusion uh yeah
34:12
the illusion of neutrality in in 21st century democracy um and I’ll just say the the subheadings all related um
34:20
mediocrity morality and the sanctity of normaly the first chap self ship self-censorship
34:30
toxic mimicry internalized Fascism and phallic norms and then uh internalized apar
34:39
tiddes and the last one in chap this is chapter one uh inter institutionalized
34:44
anti-intellectualism so for me
34:50
this cleansing in relation to the object absolutely and the object of our bodies
34:56
the grotesque the primality the carnality of our bodies absolutely bound
35:02
with institutionalized anti-intellectualism with fear of of thinking of asking questions know the
35:08
foundation of of the tal mode and question to see ourselves reflected and even back to what I find
35:15
in narcissism in ancient narcissism um is this idea that you know the body is
35:21
just the vehicle we really are spirit and you know the body is always secondary and just we can get out of
35:29
that and get Beyond and we’ll we’ll go into a transcendentalism there and so on
35:34
so deep deep right in the cosmological imaginaries that I talk
35:40
about what about in your work did you have you ever honed in on studying fear I mean you obviously are constantly
35:47
implicit it’s always there implicit do you ever feel like oh I should maybe look at fear and anxiety more or what
35:55
just I’m just curious as a researcher and an artist uh how you entangled with
36:01
fear um let’s see fear and anxiety so I I had a a funny experience um last year
36:09
with with Zazu we watched uh inside out too the the it’s an animation it’s
36:16
Disney and I had a huge Epiphany um I
36:22
was delighted um and horrified again that was perfect example of being um both and
36:32
simultaneously um the anxiety character their their characters represent
36:39
different hormonal relationships um and the anxiety
36:46
character 100% mirror of me I was I embarrassed Zazu to no end screeching
36:55
with delight as we we watched we were public space
37:00
um and yeah and I hadn’t realized how much
37:08
fear um is wrapped up in the hormonal experience
37:14
of anxiety and what it means as a woman I’m I’ll be 54 in April Zazu and I share
37:20
our birthday he’ll be 14 I’ll be 54 um coming
37:26
up as a in a as in my menopausal State how much
37:32
those hormones of anxiety are are integral to
37:41
my sociopolitical to my uh language of
37:48
Aesthetics basically um rather than something to sublimate
37:54
rather than something to individualize and to
37:59
render um separate from all of these
38:06
unbelievably uh entangled Worlds how can we take on anxiety and I
38:14
used to teach stress reduction workshops as an i Eno yoga teacher for years in San Francisco and I
38:20
thought I know stress so well this is I can I can I can teach this um and then
38:27
were they were beautiful exchanges with my students for many many years and I didn’t
38:35
necessarily explicitly politicize it then but now I think more than ever I am
38:41
in my photographs and in my writing speaking about parenting um identifying as a
38:47
vulnerability facilitator for example okay that for me is very much rooted in
38:52
a commitment to examining fear from
38:58
multiple simultaneous perspectives yeah you said in your last
39:04
conversation and I I just want to maybe tweak it a bit with you is As I
39:10
understood you said something to the effect that if we lived in a plur verse
39:15
as much as possible if we could really make these identity shifts out of a lot of these honies we’re talking about
39:22
today that you said there would be this almost impossibility that fear
39:30
could ever become a primary motivator it would have no chance to
39:37
stick to adhere that right right contagion effect
39:42
Etc yeah because we are we’re in some sense I’m just trying to understand it I
39:49
think I I got it and I went yeah yeah for sure if you’re disidentifying and have a fluid identification exactly
39:56
right rotate you can move back you can go back to it it’s not like dissing one
40:01
or the other and that um complicated identification process would
40:09
prevent this stickiness of the fear because you get into one perspective you feel then you have to defend it and of
40:16
course if you hold on to it you can bet you’re going to meet a whole bunch of people who don’t agree with
40:22
you and could actually take out your life because you don’t agree with them and that’s happened historically we are
40:28
traumatized by that if I am the other that is the object right that is the
40:34
object automatically because you’ve chosen that perspective so is that is
40:39
that somewhat similar to where you were going absolutely yes embodying embodying the grotesque
40:47
embodying the monster within um when I I collaborated with Julia Crista in in
40:54
Berlin how many years
40:59
ago 16 I think 16 years ago um with my photographs projected behind
41:07
her as she spoke about um Teresa Davila
41:12
um who was spartic and and and and none
41:18
both so again she was straddling all kinds of of political um
41:24
indecencies um grotesque
41:30
and when we when I say embody it’s such an
41:37
overused word like indigenous and sustainability uh like trauma um
41:45
but when we can take into
41:50
ourselves into our cellular memory Transforming Our
42:00
ancestral linkages phys
42:07
physiologically um yeah quantumly the capacity for finding
42:15
unpredictable affinities um the capacity for promiscuous Crossings okay the
42:22
capacity for empathy
42:27
again going back to empathy the the capacity to
42:34
find a sense of intimacy with what is deemed
42:41
trash um what is deemed unproductive um
42:49
Superfluous uh you just described the you’ve just described the placenta there by the way the placenta
42:57
it’s all of those things trash you get rid of it ah the placenta you know it’s right here yeah you told me in the last
43:04
video I saw your yes the placenta oh I love that a
43:09
placental yes okay tell me a little bit more about your your placental well I’m
43:16
I’m surrounded by some radical spiritual feminists for years and years and decades and married one anyway um very
43:24
they’re very into the placenta and the placenta work and placenta yeah placental thinking and
43:30
Consciousness and there and there’s a connection between disposability yeah
43:35
and and that that very surface which you know they’re talking about the mother’s body to to the to the new body and and
43:42
they they grow off the same base you know each promiscuous Crossing and so we
43:48
don’t we don’t respect that cross or they’re neither one nor the other right
43:55
NTI in Sanskrit right so as soon as you get the individual then finally releases
44:00
from comes out the womb we just get rid of that placenta yank it out garbage can
44:08
and that’s not historically or culturally the way women have dealt with the placenta right this is very
44:14
medicalized Western Material M so on so yes well a couple things about that um I
44:22
I in zazu’s placenta there was actually a second uh placenta embedded in in that
44:29
and that was a strange story which we can explore at another time but we uh
44:35
ended up eating raw that mini placenta that was embedded um
44:42
and then we dehydrated and at the and at the other um but in uh and in terms in
44:50
viscous expectations um I explore the cord banking Cord Blood
44:57
banking industry which is a horrendously
45:03
profitable industry that right after the baby is born uh the cord blood is taken
45:12
from what would go into the neonate and stored and it’s extraordinarily
45:18
expensive it’s uh it’s depleting beyond belief for the new
45:27
being’s body um so there’s all and it has to do with st stem cell research and so that’s
45:33
a whole industry and so I linked that to uh illusions of
45:40
self-reliance Independence um these perversities that are the Bedrock of of
45:46
our epidemic of individualism um and and what that means
45:52
in terms of motherhood and again of course this is all part of petroleum parenting and medicalized
45:58
births uh and digital visual digital technologies
46:04
that are replacing our intuitive uh intimacies with our
46:11
unborn yeah beings within us and not just babies but also our creative
46:18
potential um our potential for radical resistance Collective radical resistance
46:24
in all of these Realms I think are are deeply bound together they they breathe
46:31
life into each other when we give them the opportunity through vulnerability again
46:36
through through those those coexisting plur verse yeah yeah I want to just tell
46:44
a very brief story I think might might be connected to few of these things um
46:49
so the daycare center was an artist I brought in a dump truck load of gravel I think I mentioned to you and dumped it
46:56
on the the grounds and the parking lot and I was going to work with the teachers and
47:01
the kids for six months with a pile of gravel this is commercial gr and it’s it is the rock that’s blown up from the
47:08
mountains here um I had I had all kinds of symbolic reasons yeah I got from the
47:13
local quy yeah so yeah and of course it looks like the growel that everybody’s putting on their driveways and that was
47:19
on the driveway of the the parking lot of the daycare center and people are driving on top of it and I wanted to put
47:27
it into a sanctuary space right to actually take those same stones and
47:32
create something that could be sculpted could be worked with it was a play Space it was a gallery it was a pop-up Studio
47:40
fundamentally love it I love it so six months of that and of course everybody’s okay I don’t know if we’re gonna keep
47:46
the kids interested in that so well or the adults I’m curious or the ad have
47:52
their staff um and of course the community because I was actually outside of the fence of the daycare where I dump
47:58
had it dumped so I’m right in this community uh and it’s definitely a
48:03
Working Poor type community and had lots of Street Walkers and lots of drug
48:09
problems and all kinds of things that U we have in the inner city and so all of
48:15
that was an interesting place of risk for me and what I was constantly trying to do is to get the staff and the kids
48:22
to come out and play with me the story of these rocks side of the
48:28
fence yes the container of security was so symbolic I didn’t even realize a lot
48:34
of these things until I got in there and started realizing what was going on I was just kind of working with a material
48:40
that will last six months and not deteriorate I could but then you became attuned to your own oh yeah your own
48:47
sensitivity the journey and the journey of what I had to face and my own concern about putting myself in that in those
48:54
spaces and then what am I doing trying to draw the children into those spaces
48:59
it’s dirty rocks are dirty they were covered with dust and they’re collecting
49:05
dust they’re collecting pollution from the environment I was going to say the lead from the are pissing on them you
49:12
know on the pile because it was a pile and so dogs people animals and I’m still
49:19
trying to you know colletive I was trying to just bring but the I want to tell you the key Focus was one of the
49:27
activities is we had we did a ritual I had was working with a pedagogist from
49:32
the University here and we did a ritual where we got the kids coming out 12 or so kids and Ne three to five year olds
49:39
and the teachers coming young y very young daycare so preschool and the got
49:46
them coming through the gate and we do a little ritual the bell and everything was won’t go into all the details but it
49:52
was very artistic and then kind of marching them down to the playground and and I was going to introduce myself and
49:59
I had a little costume on and I was waiting for them and they’re all attentive in this as well we’re gonna
50:05
allow you to just go onto the the pile of stones and I had flattened it by that time it was pretty thick but I flatten
50:11
and I says you’re going to be able to make your own place where you can create art and we call that an art
50:18
studio and so there’s a bunch of art studios but you’re going to be able to make your own and then you can play and
50:25
make and create there that that was basically the curriculum just with a rock yeah and so
50:32
it’s because the rocks are all there right and you got some boys you got some girls you got so three fiveyear what a
50:40
fascinating experience to watch not only for the staff the three staff that are with them and then to watch the children
50:47
and here’s what I experienced which I think is most important because we talked about anxiety I watched half of
50:54
the class be able to sort FL there was you know two or three boys that totally
50:59
into it man they’re drilling down I’m putting a flag of Alaska here this is my
51:05
property and they’re digging tunnels and joining yeah yeah then several three or
51:12
four five six kind of sitting there playing in their space made their little
51:17
Studio but didn’t really you know totally into it and then there was six a
51:23
third of them crying
51:29
as they sat or are holding on to the teacher’s hand the
51:34
adult and could not free themselves from their anxiety of sitting in the mid they
51:41
might sort of touch a little and do a little and then get on them they start
51:46
to vibrate they’re they’re literally in an anxious State and I kept trying to
51:53
suggest and hold a space I would connect with them hold the space try to work with it as best I could but my takeaway
52:01
car car was that we don’t give children enough
52:07
opportunities to be in a mediated anxious place right that should
52:14
be about CL uhuh art making art play but it
52:22
actually is not it’s about connecting with your environment and for our new children and these were
52:29
covid babies these are covid little kids for the most part right that phrase is
52:36
isn’t it horrible to even say it hate it I hate it but when you’re in daycare we
52:41
notice a difference and the staff are telling us and all of a sudden they’re
52:46
anxious about being just in the elemental environment so how do you well
52:53
that certainly goes back go ahead yeah I mean that goes back to what I was saying about the the these
52:59
teenagers and pre-teens and elementary school kids and
53:06
toddlers yeah just not not and where their parents aren’t signing them up
53:12
yeah for potential programs that that could
53:18
disrupt these mechanisms of absolute disassociation from our own
53:26
bodies the world around us when when sex ed
53:34
becomes whether or not you’re taking a shower or using deodorant and having nothing to do with
53:40
masturbation or any kind of sensory yeah
53:46
experience mindfulness you know when they’re eating their little boxed
53:52
raisins being with the raisin that that inter being
54:00
n and that’s I can’t accept that as a
54:06
parent obviously I for for my child to be in environments where that is the
54:14
norm yeah which is one reason why he’s going to a school so far away where the norm is
54:23
intimacy the norm is relationality it is those Elemental yeah aspects because otherwise
54:31
we are just breeding anxiety so embedded in the illusion of
54:38
safety so nested in the illusion of neutrality
54:44
yeah and we are our
54:50
complicity and and lack of of willingness to think
54:56
Beyond these strictures is um is is
55:02
deafening which is why I’m speaking to you because hopefully our conversations will ignite some
55:09
possibility of people either recognizing the Realms that they feel
55:17
empowered within and then amplifying them yeah or using their sense of
55:25
disempowerment
55:30
again working actively with the sense of vulnerability if people sense this isn’t
55:38
right something about this doesn’t watching my child behave respond for
55:45
whatever reason you know there may be multiple reasons why those six children had those responses sure however knowing
55:53
society as it is knowing racial capital settler colonialism as it is it makes
56:01
sense and it’s not acceptable aside from particularities
56:06
that need to be addressed as specifics to those individuals or in conjunction
56:12
yeah you know another example just at the daycare was and I asked you at the end of the last video I says I’d really
56:17
like you to yeah be a work at our place or visit our place I was you know half
56:23
joking half real and one of the things I noticed being there four years as in the HR person as well there um is that I
56:31
said to the director the other day I said one of the things I’ve noticed we used to have really cool people with
56:38
tattoos that used to work here and no longer no longer do it it was symbolic
56:45
conscious it would be people like you who they would come out and they
56:50
would just do activities with the kids they dressed not nice normal middle
56:56
class they were more on that hippie side organic side um you know play a little
57:04
bit different music on the field and I I said in four years we’ve become very
57:10
effective very efficient as an organization efficiency we have less problems we have less problems with
57:17
staff It’s amazing And yet I has been stripped and I’m part of it because you
57:23
know you don’t want those conflicts you don’t want the STA against the admin well at one level it’s
57:29
just a pain in the butt because we don’t have the time and people are tired and now we’ve got conflict and then those
57:35
smoothly Co cogged wheels or smoothly turning Wheels that’s what I watched I watched how easy that Erasure and it was
57:43
symbolic but and how that’s influencing the children and and I just went what’s happening the children are not getting exposure
57:50
anymore well so I’m wondering in ter human beings it
57:57
when being the person who is the person who raises their hand and asks those
58:03
questions that everyone in my community I think not everyone but enough people roll their eyes here she goes again
58:10
situation yeah I hear you constantly every week hear you yeah
58:18
um what is it mean to be in a place of
58:24
anxiety of fear recognition of
58:31
squeakiness of this is not seamless this is about
58:36
friction being alive is about
58:42
friction how do we do that in a way that doesn’t just generate more anxiety for
58:47
example I’m um working on a project now with a democra it’s it’s a call for
58:53
democracy uh Grant with with uh the Pearlman Center for the Arts in
58:59
in uh New York in the uh World Trade Center um and I am putting together a
59:10
proposal of supply chain so going back to our first conversation supply chain Consciousness representing it in the
59:18
most mundane everyday uh reproducible kind of uh um
59:26
environment someone wakes up in the morning um how do they wake up is is
59:32
their smartphone not not their not their flip phone um is their
59:38
smartphone uh Buzz vibrating using tungsten from a
59:44
mine in the Congo um what are they wearing are they
59:49
W are they wearing synthetic fibers dealing with the whole F fast fashion
59:54
tyrannies compared to um the their local fiber shed so dealing with Biore regions
1:00:01
in relation to taking for granted consumer corporatized Norms of
1:00:08
inhabiting our space of of um of being
1:00:15
embodied not just efficient but actually being in those uncomfortable spaces and
1:00:22
and so my two main challenges are how do I communicate these issues that don’t
1:00:29
one generate uh more anxiety and leave people feeling more disempowered and
1:00:34
more fearful and two how not to be a moral moralistic just
1:00:42
ranting yeah as you know with the criticism self-righteous um The Virtue s
1:00:48
toomy is call it the the virtues list the vert yeah well H it’s so gross I
1:00:55
know I mean that that is grotesque bodily functions are not grotesque the virtues list that is
1:01:03
grotesque that is dangerous very that that it it’s that needs to be redefined
1:01:10
in in terms of safety so that’s a question I have for example
1:01:15
with child rearing and as as as Educators just as people living on this planet how to address those
1:01:24
two worlds in a in a in a in a world that is deeply
1:01:31
anti-intellectual deeply body phobic deeply phobic of the
1:01:37
unfamiliar death phobic and death phobic yeah yeah my God
1:01:47
change and how do we generate a sense of empowerment Community Collective
1:01:54
risk-taking that isn’t oh well you can do that because you’re privileged because you’re
1:01:59
entitled uh yeah because you’re educated yeah you know so no great questions
1:02:07
that’s the first thing I want to say go ahead yeah yeah I mean that’s so if if you’re
1:02:12
viewers for example my work is deeply deeply collaborative and um and I do work with people from all kinds of um
1:02:21
perspectives and realities um and if I’m assuming if
1:02:27
people are watching were on similar Pages already however um I would love
1:02:33
suggestions about how to deal with those extraordinary challenges again with parenting with being in communities with
1:02:39
other parents who find me very distasteful you know because I am
1:02:46
rocking the boat and as far as I’m concerned there isn’t even water in the
1:02:52
riverbed any longer so I I I don’t even know why we’re concerned about rocking
1:02:58
the boat you know it’s like the the the focal point for the tension and the
1:03:03
focal point for the conflict aversion you know fearing the
1:03:10
tension yeah um is so I find so misplaced oddly misplaced and again I am
1:03:17
shocked yeah it’s 2025 it is and how are we in our last conversation just for uh
1:03:24
viewers we have to go I have to go here anyway um R and I did talk about um some
1:03:30
revisioning recalibrating of the idea of collapse was was one of the focuses
1:03:37
which is very similar and re understanding again the apocalypse the apocalypse the
1:03:44
apocalyptic um as extraordinary yep as enjoy in
1:03:50
a um very interested Community yeah
1:03:55
community so yeah um let’s just maybe wrap up with a a few bits here car and
1:04:05
um we didn’t get to evil it’s two we didn’t get to evil it’s
1:04:11
getting erased maybe a third one somewhere down the line but um maybe it’s not important
1:04:19
either let me just say I think this whole thing has been about evil it’s been about the banality of evil it’s
1:04:25
been I mean Hannah erant is right here with us this is the the safety the
1:04:33
neutrality me being told I need to compromise when yes of course we all
1:04:39
need to be in a state of flux however when living in this world in the world
1:04:44
of normaly in the Empire of normality is
1:04:50
inherently a a violent compromise and and to compromise but yes evil I
1:04:57
think that’s what we’ve been we’ve been speaking about and I I guess I’ll just uh piggy
1:05:05
back on that a little is that um evil comes up for me in my life in very real
1:05:10
relationships I’m not just abstractly here philosophically exploring yeah and
1:05:15
I this goes way back to my 80 1980s and I come in and out of you know
1:05:21
the value of it and I usually put it in scare marks him the word itself just to keep it under deconstruction and
1:05:28
reconstruction and so it’s alive yeah that’s right and I I guess one of the things that is
1:05:35
hardest for me is it’s hard you know when people make decisions let’s call it in ignorance um
1:05:43
or a type of ignorance that they don’t know certain things or have not been exposed to or Etc I’m a lot more
1:05:50
forgiving it’s it’s more when people actually know the ways to better roots and I I’ve actually traveled with them
1:05:57
on those emancipatory routes and then they step out yes that that’s like the
1:06:03
alternative communities that we both have explored and been with they know so
1:06:08
much they’ve made certain decisions and then there’s a place where well that’s
1:06:14
as far as I want to go and in fact not only that I’m actually gonna go in the other direction in
1:06:21
rade yeah that for me is where I like to put evil
1:06:27
and it’s not blaming it that person it’s not even yeah ahead I feel the same in in in
1:06:35
Liberal Progressive communities that’s where I feel the most hostility the most
1:06:41
resistance the most anguish the most refusal to be in dialogue yeah that’s
1:06:48
sad and 100% which is why those
1:06:53
unexpected those unanticipated affinities are so critical that we’re open to breaking through these these
1:07:00
binaries and these assumptions and to remember that to be
1:07:06
heretical to be a heretic is to be in a place of choice and of course the
1:07:11
rhetoric of choice and that’s all hacked
1:07:18
and none of this is inevitable and to believe it’s inevitable in it’s inevitability
1:07:26
is submission to the evil which of course is is is not
1:07:33
we’re not talking about binaries here it’s obviously much more of a web and
1:07:38
it’s that web that leads to potential transformation
1:07:45
yeah it’s it’s it’s the both and it’s an image from um Zazu dreams of uh the
1:07:55
Alaska mmute digging at the roots of things that we think are um positive
1:08:03
replacements for capitalist fossil fuel addicted economies like supposedly
1:08:09
renewable energies you know we’re digging at that and we’re seeing that that actually is part of the capitalist
1:08:19
evil so the the the idea of evil with its tendrils and us being wrapped and
1:08:26
embodied embedded in those structures I feel can
1:08:32
be emancipatory and yes when we are with people like you’re saying uh Daniel
1:08:38
ellberg in Pentagon Papers fabulous quote about the Vietnam Moore how people he
1:08:46
said something I uh about the people they see it they understand it and yet
1:08:52
they proceed to yeah ignore yeah that’s that’s
1:08:58
exactly great to be with you again thank you we are not
1:09:04
ignoring we’re right here together thank you Michael it’s a delight looking
1:09:09
forward to continuing conversations and uh if you want to put my contact I’m
1:09:15
happy for um further conversation with with some of your viewers anded possible
1:09:21
collaboration okay enjoy bye bye take it care