SIO144: Aimee Terese on Socialism

Transcript

This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors — the audio is the record.

0:00:29 Thomas: Hello and welcome to Serious Inquiries Only. This is episode 144. Finally, 12 squared. We got there. So my guest today is Aimee Terese, and she's somebody I started following on Twitter a while back, and I've just been incredibly impressed with her thinking, her observations, her, know her a little bit more, I discovered that she is a podcaster as well, she just recently started co-hosting a podcast and she has appeared on another podcast with some really interesting analysis of some of these centrist intellectuals and why ultimately what they're doing is frustrating and a little fraudulent, in some ways. So I'll let her talk about that. But this is a really interesting interview.

0:01:14 Thomas: Also happens to consider herself to be a socialist, and I thought with all the people that I have on the show and all the opinions I talk about on the show that tug our Overton window to the right, I thought, you know what, I don't that often, you know, I've interviewed Dan Errol once and argued with him the whole time, but I don't, it's not that often that I have someone way left of me on to drag that Overton window the other way, and I thought that this would be awesome. All kinds of good opportunity in many ways. So, and as it turns out, Aimee has academic credentials as well. She's a very smart person, she's a very educated person, lots to learn from her. But, one note I have to make, she also tends to curse like a sailor, so, which I found quite endearing, but, so this is an explicit episode, just a warning in case anybody's worried about that kind of thing, there's some cursing in it, but I didn't want to take away from the authentic Aimee Terese.

0:02:11 Thomas: I was not at all disappointed. I don't think you will be either. Let's get to my interview with Aimee Terese.

0:02:25 Thomas: Thank you so much for coming on the show, Aimee.

0:02:28 Aimee: Pleasure, thank you for having me.

0:02:30 Thomas: So I've been following you for a while and I've heard a few things that you've done and I'm just I'm really blown away by by your thinking and some of the analysis you've done, especially of Pinker and these centrist intellectuals, that you did on, what was it, Revolutionary Left? Is that the name of the podcast?

0:02:47 Aimee: Rev Left Radio.

0:02:49 Thomas: Oh, okay. Yeah, I was asking if you had done that on your show before we started because I was like, yeah, I'd rather plug your podcast, but I guess you did all that brilliant research for someone else's podcast. So that's awesome already, I just want to say. But you also are a co-host of a show. Why don't you talk about that briefly? Briefly.

0:02:49 Aimee: Yeah.

0:03:05 Aimee: Yeah, so I just recently started co-hosting Dead Pundits Society, which is a socialist theory podcast that was started last year by Adam Proctor, sort of in the wake of the 2016 disaster that was. He sort of thought, hey, like, we on the left need to sort of get serious and think a bit more critically about the way we approach things, so that was sort of his focus going in, and then yeah, so I came on board for the second season, um, a couple of months ago, and yeah, I've been been really enjoying that, so yeah.

0:03:43 Thomas: Excellent. That's really cool. And, and briefly, do you mind going into your background? Uh, and, and yeah, go ahead.

0:03:48 Aimee: One So yeah, I originally did, um, an arts degree majoring in philosophy, so it's usually pretty helpful at encouraging people to overthink just about out everything. Which comes quite in handy in the political, political realm, um, and then I'm now doing a graduate law degree, so, um, but much of my focus is also like critical, critical legal studies, which sort of looks at law from a vantage point of asking sort of critical questions as to whether the law is achieving what it sets out to achieve, in addition to whether we're asking the right questions in terms of what we want it to achieve, if that makes sense, basically.

0:04:03 Thomas: Oh, interesting. Kind of.

0:04:42 Aimee: It's Sort Of it's a school of thought that emerged out of like critical theory, and it basically takes like the type of questions that critical theory would ask in like the cultural and political realm. And And it sort of applies some of those critical lenses to the law.

0:04:42 Thomas: Yeah. Oh, yeah Interesting. Yeah, I didn't. I didn't even think of that as a field existing, but that makes sense.

0:05:03 Aimee: Yeah, yeah, no. And so basically, so sometimes what happens in the law is that it can be reproducing certain inequalities, despite looking like it's coming up with perfectly reasonable outcomes. And so a critical legal studies perspective Is one that sort of attempts to excavate some, some of those notions and really make sure that like what the law is seeking to do is something that we, that we want it to do, but additionally whether it's actually achieving those ends substantively.

0:05:05 Thomas: Yeah. Hmm.

0:05:37 Thomas: That's so interesting. So that answers the question of why, because I know we interacted a bit on about intersectionality and you were approaching it from.

0:05:46 Aimee: One Of my hobby horses, yeah.

0:05:47 Thomas: Yeah, no, that's I might want to touch on that later. But but before we get to that, let's let's talk about I we were what we were talking about before we started recording, which is, you know, where we are on the political spectrum, because because I think it's interesting. I've, one of the reasons I wanted to talk to you is you label yourself as a socialist, and I don't think I give socialism its due on my show in any real way. You know, like, I'm not a socialist. But also, when we're talking about Overton Window, you know, I feel like I'm constantly addressing and talking to people more to the right of me, and maybe it's, you knows, time to shift that window a little left sometimes and talk socialism. So I thought that would be fun.

0:05:51 Aimee: Cool. Yeah.

0:06:27 Aimee: For Sure For Sure, yeah.

0:06:28 Thomas: Do you want to talk about that? What that label means to you, I guess?

0:06:32 Aimee: I mean, I'm not so sure how useful it is, um, once we sort of, like, you know, that tendency to sometimes get really sectarian about it. Like I'm not super fussy in that way, but certainly like broad outline, like, um, me, a socialist is someone who has an orientation of critique towards capitalism, um, And that the capitalist Motive But see, the thing is, um, I think that lots of like, um, people who describe themselves as sort, sort of progressives, think even if not explicitly, they're often to a really large extent like influenced by sort of social democratic, even if they're not like consciously identifying themselves as such. So, for instance, I can vote in the primaries for the 2016 election, like you supported Bernie, if I'm not mistaken.

0:06:39 Thomas: Yeah. Hmm. Well, I guess I'm a socialist then. Right?

0:07:30 Thomas: Yeah, true.

0:07:31 Aimee: Can, um, and so like I, I certainly think there's an enormous overlap between like a social democratic approach and, uh, and people who would call themselves like progressives or sort Of left liberals, um, but I guess the more substantive difference between sort of a democratic socialist and a socialist socialist is is really just one of degree, not kind, and basically the difference is is that, like, see it, social democrats haven't quite reckoned with the inherent contradictions of capitalism, and they're prepared to sort of stop a little bit before, like, myself would be prepared to stop. So I fundamentally think that there's no way of achieving broad, broad and overwhelming liberation whilst capitalism is still in place.

I think that market logic is fundamentally unjust, and I think in my ideal world, markets and market logic and the hierarchies that it reproduces and produces and the Exploitation that's required for capitalism to exist is not something that I think can be justified, like it's unjustifiable, and so that would be, I guess, the primary difference between like a progressive and a socialist is that like a progressive may be prepared to like go a significant way in terms of certain policies, like, you know, Medicare for all and like maybe a jobs guarantee or a universal basic income or something like that, but ultimately like they're still still, um, significantly more okay with markets and

0:07:41 Thomas: Right. Yeah.

0:09:07 Aimee: That's, yeah, I think that's where the central sort of difference might lie

0:09:11 Thomas: That's interesting. Yeah, I want to talk about, okay, there's a lot to talk about there. And I think one thing that I don't think you do, but that some of the socialists that I interact with do, and I I think it might be interesting to talk about for a minute, is because, yes, I consider myself a progressive person. I did support Bernie. And I'll tell you this, like one thing that I think should be true or should be something we could unite on is we both want more socialism, or if, you know, if someone listening out there is a socialist in the US or whatever, like that person and I are going to both want more socialism from now.

So, like, I feel like we should be able to kind of unite at least for part of the journey. And then if we ever get to a point where it's like, okay, I'm like, all right, that's enough socialism and they're not, then okay, then we'll be somewhere else. But what I find frustrating is that there are a lot of people who insist that if progressives, no matter how progressive I might be on any other issue, you know, no matter how much I might, and you just touched on some healthcare for all or universal basic income, or just, I personally want way higher taxes for rich people and all

0:09:15 Aimee: Yeah.

0:09:51 Aimee: Fucking Oath I can, I can get that in there, um,

0:10:28 Thomas: That. That. And it's like, no matter how much of that and how much, you know, socially too, like, you know, I want to bring awareness to trans issues and proper use of pronouns in accordance of what people want and all this stuff. Like, no amount of that, there are people who will get on me on Twitter and yell at me because as long as I think markets are okay in some capacity, then I'm like just as bad as the next Republican. And I know that's not you.

And that's finding an extreme example, but I seem to encounter that a lot. And I'm not using that to say all socialists are bad, but it's something that I guess I want to say, like, it frustrates me because I think how, depending on your philosophy, you're able to say like, if you think markets are the most evil thing in the world, then you're to say any Democrat, no matter how liberal, as long as there's a little bit of like market in them, there's like an ounce of marketness in them. Then they're just part of of the problem. And I feel like that can be destructive.

0:11:28 Aimee: Yeah, there's a lot there, so first and foremost I just want to kind of reframe it a tiny little bit and say like, like the way that, like, okay, sorry, just trying to figure out a way To attend to everything. So first and foremost, like something that Adam and I are incredibly with on our program is like that purity politics nonsense, that like personalized approach, like you posturing yourself as like an ultra leftist and being a fuckwit to anyone who doesn't share your exact like niche little niche little label and like cornering yourself off into like this little leftist ghetto that can never win, that's that's cancer for the left.

Like that is, is the last thing that I think any substantive socialist should be doing, like that is, that it's a fundamentally individualized framing. It's a way of like branding yourself as like leftier than thou by sort of giving shit to people who aren't as left as you, and like it fundamentally misses the point. Like to achieve the type of ends that we want to achieve, we can't do that just see people wearing a magic cape named socialism. We need to be appealing to as

0:11:42 Thomas: Yeah, that's okay. Yeah.

0:12:05 Thomas: Hmm.

0:12:53 Aimee: Many people as possible, and that is going to take reforms, and with certain types of reforms you enable people to see things differently and come on board in different ways. So for example, like right now the vast majority of Americans, uh, so have like a capitalist boot on their fucking neck. Like for the first time, this current generation of millennials looks at to have life outcomes across a whole range of indicators than their parents did. Like this system as currently constituted really limits the way people are able to think about things, what they're able to conceive of in terms of the political realm. And so what we think is really important is winning what we kind of refer to as non-reformist reforms, right? So there's sort of a critique on the left where people will be like, oh, you know, if you just want, um, Medicare for all, and you're not worried about like A, B, C and D, then you're just a reformer and you're not a real lefty.

0:13:04 Thomas: Right. Yeah? Hmm. Right, right,

0:13:57 Aimee: And blah blah blah, which is exactly, you know, it's it's sort of shades of the same thing you've referred to, um, experiencing. And like we don't have any time for that, because the thing is those reforms basically are non-reformist reforms, because what they do is they enable a whole world of possibility, they change the structural conditions for people in really monumental ways. So for example, like right now the fact that health care is so inherently tied to employment, it really crushes people in myriad ways and it limits the possibilities of what they can think of, what they can attempt to do. Like if you're stuck in a really heartbreaking daily grind of a job, but like you can't even attempt to like think about, you know, say if you had like an entrepreneurial idea or like something that you're more passionate about, but like, you know, if you have young children, like the fact that healthcare is tied to your employer means to a large extent you're chained to your employee in very real ways, so like that's another perfect example, right?

0:13:57 Thomas: Right. Yeah yeah. Yeah absolutely.

0:14:59 Thomas: Well and not to mention all the student loan debt everybody is saddled with right now. Yeah mm-hmm.

0:15:04 Aimee: So the way we see it is like it's not about like idealism. It's not like selling people this perfect radical vision and talking about fucking guillotines and all that type of nonsense. Like that to me achieves nothing. What achieves things is changing the material conditions that shape people's lives. And in doing that, you'll tend to find that you change the ways people are able to conceive of what they expect politically as well, like by making people's lives less relentlessly grueling, you open up conditions of possibility. And so I think just, yeah, just just, you know, demanding this like ultra-purist nonsense, that's that's a real issue on the left, and it's something Adam and I like really relentlessly focused on, so so you're not just alone in sort of seeing that as problematic. Like,

0:15:45 Thomas: Yeah oh good. Yeah you're you're you're my kind of socialist. That's good. All right. I love it. Yeah. Cause, cause

0:16:05 Aimee: Yeah. Yeah. And if we get like if, if Adam and I get our job right, like we want all the socialists to sort of be that way, because because like, sorry, just the other thing I just remembered from what you said before, um, it's not about capitalism and markets being good or evil, it's not about, because that's like inherently about individualized motivations and it's kind of a moralistic framing of things. We don't take issue with capitalism because we think that all people with lots of money are bad people, that's that's not the case. And that's the point, right? The point is that structurally it is a system that necessarily relies on taking more value out of people, it relies on on exploitation, and so that's why it's fundamentally a problem. Yeah.

0:16:10 Thomas: Sure. Right. Yeah, right.

0:16:57 Thomas: And that, so my question, what I'm thinking of is I don't even know that I care to focus on that because like, I kind of disagree, you know, like obviously, which is why I'm not a socialist. Like I, I think that the overwhelming good that markets can do, I think China would be an example of once they unlock their markets a little bit, are thriving so much. And I'm not an expert on this, so you feel free to push back. But it just strikes me as that's a country where the just the as as flawed as it is and as much as it's a bit of a dictatorship in some ways and is, you know, there's a great program, week tonight just covered a lot of the things she is doing in China. But but I think the fact remains, no matter disregarding all that, the fact that they opened up their markets and that prosperity has really, really lifted up just hundreds of millions of people who wouldn't have been lifted up otherwise.

0:17:56 Thomas: Wise. I think if I were to state my, maybe where we disagree, it would be in that I think capitalism can do so much good in terms of lifting everybody that it might outweigh the, if done right, then that good would outweighs the, I don't know, the discrepancies in the people in the top and the people at the bottom. And what I mean by that is it would also have to be coupled with higher taxes and all kinds of programs that would allow people to have a strong baseline of well-being. But I don't even know if I care to focus on that debate, because that's just the minor difference between where, socialism that you're expressing and the democratic socialism maybe I might lean to.

0:18:43 Thomas: And I just don't know that I care about that difference all that much because we're nowhere near that in real life. You know what I mean?

0:18:50 Aimee: If I could like two things, two things. Are you ready to have your, actually I'll explain this part in response to the end. Like don't care to focus on that because fundamentally in the here and now it essentially doesn't matter. Like it's a, it's it's an axiomatic difference, but it's not one that has fucking anything to say about activating and mobilizing as many people to the polls as possible for the midterms, right? It says fucking nothing about that, and it's an irrelevant thing to focus on, absolutely couldn't agree more. And there's no way to operationalize that in a particularly useful way in the here and now, none, right? So I'll grant that right off the top. But if you're ready, need to have your mind blown a little bit, um, and I think certainly some left liberals are, um, perhaps not quite as familiar with, um, the the theoretical underpinnings behind, um, for instance, like most Marxist thinking. And the funny thing is, like, we actually totally agree in relation to like, like monumental historical change in bringing the largest quantity of human beings out of poverty, at

0:18:51 Thomas: Sure. Right. Right. Right.

0:19:33 Thomas: I'm sure, always ready. Hmm.

0:20:06 Thomas: Oh.

0:20:07 Aimee: Least grueling, grinding poverty, has in fact happened in the last 20 years. And it is in fact due to liberalisation of the Chinese markets. Like, no doubt, that's absolutely correct.

0:20:17 Thomas: Thank god, okay.

0:20:17 Aimee: But, yeah, No, we don't deny reality, right? But the thing is, a Marxist understanding, understanding of capitalism will tell you that that trajectory is one that we expect. Like our critique of capitalism expects that in relation to China, and it expects that in developing nations as they develop, like it necessarily creates like a more comfortable existence for the people within those societies. Like that's not something that we deny, we totally acknowledge that, and that's a beautiful thing. But the problem ends up like, it fundamentally, um, liberal capitalism eventually have to come face to face with its contradictions. And so the way that that happened in the West, like what we were able to do was outsource a lot of our production to other countries for much lower prices and all the rest, and then so like for, for instance,

0:20:18 Thomas: I'm glad.

0:21:17 Aimee: China now is changing dramatically in terms of the degree of skilled labour that its economy is producing. So rather than just being sort of sweatshops and garment manufacturer, it's moving to a lot more high-tech industries and then some of those much less skilled labour will be moving to areas like Bangladesh and other sort of less developed nations in the region. And that's to a large extent really predictable. Like the way that capitalism works is that it seeks to increase or the the rate of profit tends to decline and so capital needs to find newer ways to extract value and so that means that ultimately like when we run out of developing nations to which we can outsource our production for lower costs like it, it eventually runs up against the contradictions inherent in the structure of capitalism. Now we still got plenty of, um, you know, developing nations and we still have plenty of fundamentally disempowered groups that we can continue to exploit, but we have only one planet, um, um, and if

0:22:07 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We've got to unlock another, a planet of of labor at somewhere free cheap labor. No, that's a great point, you know, and that's something that I don't think, I don't know that I've reconciled, and I don't think a lot of Americans ever end up reconciling, is this: we all, everybody's somewhere in their brains is aware of the fact that everything, you kow, every piece of clothing, everything we buy is made in China or made in wherever it is now, you now. Know, and but but there's a tension between that and like the trade deals that, you know, uh, Trump stupidly thought were like badly negotiated, he might, he

0:22:35 Aimee: Exactly. Like and just the Yeah. But

0:23:09 Thomas: He might be right about right I was gonna say he doesn't know why though, like Yeah.

0:23:10 Aimee: They But Here's the thing They, they were, but But he's the last guy who'll do fucking anything about it

0:23:16 Thomas: He doesn't he just knows Obama did it, equal bad, he doesn't know like what any of the, d and, and honestly, for him it might be that we need to be exploiting these people more. Like, it's not, it's not as though he has the right version of why these are bad deals, but it's weird because we think Americans deserve these high paying, you know, potentially sometimes low skilled jobs, but then people in other countries don't. Like, we still deserve to buy things for nothing because we can exploit people in

0:23:16 Aimee: Like But

0:23:48 Thomas: Another country

0:23:48 Aimee: I mean it's also in many ways not just a matter of like deserve, it's also a matter of like, um, neoliberalism has, um, exerted myriad pressures on the majority of Americans, and it's not even about like you, um, locating a sense of like moral blame in terms of consumers purchasing things that were made in less than, it, in a less than ethical fashion. It's like if your minimum wage is five dollars fifty an hour and you're working, you know, three jobs to try to keep a roof over your, your family's head, I think it's absolutely repugnant to expect that individual to not be shopping at the Walmart that's opened in their

0:23:48 Thomas: Right Yeah. I

0:24:27 Aimee: Town and not be taking advantage of the fact that the consumer options there are far more affordable than they are in, in certain other places, so like locating the blame and the responsibility within individuals is fundamentally something that socialists are not about at all, like we look to the structures and the way those structures shape our relations to each other and to our labor and to our purchases to a large extent. So to us, it's very much like a relational thing and a structural thing, not something that is like about like moral decision-making on the behalf of individuals, like not at all.

0:24:27 Thomas: Agree Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

0:24:45 Thomas: Right.

0:25:05 Thomas: Yeah. Interesting. It reminds me also somewhat related. I would hear this argument from, I think it was like Bill Maher or something who would, their, their their, um, you know, his, his immigration argument was like, I don't understand why these conservatives are against immigration. You know, like, who's gonna, what do you want to pay? $10 for a pound of cucumber or something like essentially the argument of like, you're going to have to pay a a lot more for your produce. And my thought was like, is that the reason you're pro-immigration is because we need to have like essentially slave labor? Like that's not, that's Not the reason I would be pro-imigrant. You know what I mean? Like, that doesn't sound like a good answer.

0:25:13 Aimee: Here we go.

0:25:43 Thomas: I feel like if the work is, go ahead.

0:25:43 Aimee: I think, yeah, I was just going to say it's like on the one hand, I appreciate how sometimes people People will frame things by citing a particular outcome or reason why it might appeal to a certain person, right? But frame

0:26:00 Thomas: Yeah. Like trying to frame it in conservative terms, maybe.

0:26:02 Aimee: It that way, Sure, but the problem with that, and I think this is something particularly like people who've had a bit of a cringy new atheist or sceptical type phase, something that we can really get behind is it actually matters is um not just like the the the end line of what you think but it matters like your reasoning that got you there because if the reasoning that got you very shitty like you're in no way um like it's not a principled stance and there's no guarantee that like that you'll reason in a good way in future right like I would much prefer to take an argument that is well thought out even if I I disagree the end line than like someone who has the same like the same outcome as me like i.e. pro-immigration but if their reasoning is because labor is cheaper that way like that particular rationale can have some really toxic effects if we apply it in different areas right you don't want that to be the animating reason behind your advocacy because because that's a really poison pill to swallow like you want but at the same time like sometimes it is you know effectively frame it that way I mean the tragic irony is that the border was only they only began intensively policing it in the mid to late 80s and the nature of long-term undocumented immigration has completely changed since then

0:26:03 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

0:27:30 Aimee: Where previously it was a dynamic back and forth people would come for seasonal employment right and that would be very much like a push pull push pull based on the seasonal work whereas now because the border is so grueling and such a risk people will come and they will stay there's none of that like back forth that they used to be so they've done there's modeling that suggests like there is there would have been dramatically less undocumented immigrants residing long term in in the US had they not police the border that way so I mean on the one hand it is tempting to argue with conservatives in that way like literally what you are doing isn't even achieving what you want it to do but it's also just fucking immoral right like it's reprehensible and it's gross and

0:27:32 Thomas: Right. They would go and work and then go back. Yeah mm-hmm.

0:27:57 Thomas: Absolutely.

0:28:17 Thomas: Yeah, there

0:28:17 Aimee: Selling that

0:28:18 Thomas: Was something it was weird because I've heard this line of thinking a little bit, uh, you know, unfortunately I expect it from conservatives, but even sometimes liberals, which is it's it's almost this racist thing of like, look, white people don't want to do those jobs, you know, like so we need this immigration to do these jobs. And I'm just like, what, that that sounds worse than that's worse than some conservative arguments

0:28:18 Aimee: Yeah, yeah But but it and this is where I think like a leftist understanding will actually shed a lot more light on what's going on, um, it's not so much white people don't want those jobs, it's that the capital, like the people running those fucking farms, want to exploit workers to a relentless extent, and if you're a legal citizen you cannot be exploited to the same degree because you have rights in that country, you know, like and so it's not about at individuals, it's about a structural, a set of structural incentives at play because

0:28:39 Thomas: Yeah yeah right right Right. My thinking is, absolutely. And my thinking is whatever, yeah, absolutely, and the fact that we never, you know, as has been pointed out a lot lately, we never go after the businesses that much. It's always, let's go afterthe people who have been, you know, here, not the businesses who havebeen exploiting that labor.

0:29:24 Aimee: Because your government has been fundamentally captured in in a really corporate way, like you don't even need to be like a leftist or a socialist to recognize like the extent to which money operates so rampantly in U.S. politics has a fundamentally distorting impact. They've like they've done, done studies that suggest that even if 90 percent of the U.S. population is in favor of something, if corporations broadly speaking are not in favor, but it doesn't happen yeah

0:29:57 Thomas: Oh, that's absolutely true. I mean, just look at gun control. There are gun control issues. I don't even know if that's a corporate thing necessarily, but there are certainly gun control issues that 90 percent of the yeah, but I would you call that like a, yeah, I think it's a little different that's a culture yeah that's right right right, um, but but still that is definitely an issue where 90 percent of people think, you know, we want certain, I've looked at the poll, but whatever the measure of it might be background checks or something and then we can't get it done, you know, there's a lot lot of that. And, and I think, I mean, my personal view, this is branching off, but I think I think the corporate right has been really good at keeping the, you know, ordinary right wingers population of this country engaged in a culture war, so that they don't notice some other things that are going

0:30:08 Aimee: So well The NRA has huge lobbying power but I think it's also much more like it's cultural too it's it's complex yeah yeah yeah I've looked at it too yeah oh

0:30:47 Thomas: On. But, but let's go. Yeah, yeah, let's let's come back. You know, one thing I want to say, oh, gosh, you mentioned, I wanted to address it, because you said about earlier, earlier, earlier on, you said, you know, this, this purity thing with, with left people. And, and I, I just want to touch on that because I think there are people who would think that that's me.

You know, I think There are certainly people who think, you Know, Thomas is the kind of guy where if you're not progressive on certain issues, then like, fuck you, I'm not going to talk to you kind of thing. And I just Want to make sure that like, I don't know, I kind of want to address that. Because for me, like, those issues aren't necessarily where you are on certain political things. But for me, it's like sexual harassment and racism.

Like, I do feel like if you are someone who, and I just mean general, if there's somebody who is kind of cool with sexual harassment or kind of anti-me too, or constantly reactionary toward that, like, I am kind of not really patient about that at all.

0:30:48 Aimee: You're speaking my language yeah I

0:31:51 Thomas: But I guess it doesn't mean, I don't know. It doesn't mean I wouldn't vote with that person. You know what I mean? I guess that's where I would draw a distinction there.

0:31:58 Aimee: Mean the way I like to look at this is like it's worth kind of, um, explicating whether we're talking about a political orientation or an interpersonal one, and like in an interpersonal sense, like, like I have no fucking interest in spending any time with people who are racist, comfortably racist, like subtly racist, like any of that shit. I have not time for it. Like I find it sickening and like I don't even envisage myself getting on with someone who is incidentally racist. Like I just can't imagine striking up a friendship and then like suddenly being shocked when they bring out like the big racism. Like I don't know, right?

But I am far more prepared to attempt to build solidarity with people whose, for instance, like their vernacular might not be especially woke because to me that's not good to me. That can also be a justice issue, and I think it is very easy as someone who is incredibly privileged and incredibly educated and clued in and linked into the kind of networks where you learn how to code your language in ways that are not offensive and you learn like the latest, like not so much euphemisms, but like you learn sort of a particular social vernacular that people in other circumstances are not clued into that.

And so I think to presume that, for instance, like unworked language necessarily signifies like a bigoted attitude or a more substantively in egalitarian worldview, I think that's a mistake, and I think it's a mistake politically because if you exclude everyone who doesn't use woke language, like you can't win, there's going to be a significant portion of people, like for instance, my grandparents, like my dad's a migrant, and before they met my dad, they they would have been relatively like racist in the way they talked about certain things or whatever, but like meeting my dad, having three beautiful, like, half immigrant kids, like their understanding of

0:32:09 Thomas: Right.

0:32:55 Thomas: No, I agree. I agree, right.

0:34:11 Aimee: Things completely changed, but even now, like they might use words or ways of framing things that are not woke, but like they don't, they don't want to, like, they want the same things as us, they're just fucking working class Aussie, like bogans, do you know what I mean, and so I think it means

0:34:26 Thomas: I don't know what the last few words you use mean, but I do know what you mean.

0:34:31 Aimee: Like like hillbillies it's like the Aussie version of hillbillies, right, so their language won't be woke but like I never want to be like alienating people on something as superficial as that but but by the same token

0:34:33 Thomas: Yeah, okay.

0:34:42 Thomas: Does Australia have liberal hillbillies? We don't we don't have those here. Mostly we have like two. Are your are your hillbillies in Australia liberal? Because ours ours here are never almost never.

0:34:49 Aimee: To what hillbilly liberal Oh, see, it's really ironic because I actually hear our conservative party are called the liberals so it's a real head fuck um but also it actually really varies, um, I I think in like the last 20 years there's sort of the right has done that like race baiting shit that, to a large extent, that would capture people whose economic interests are not actually aligned with their politics, much as the same way as has happened in the US since kind of the southern strategy, like very similar.

0:34:59 Thomas: Oh, right. Yeah. I forgot about that. I did know that. Actually, I forgot. Yeah, yeah. No, that is confusing. They, yeah, yeah.

0:35:28 Aimee: But there's a significant class diversity, I diversity like of voting habits not necessarily tied to a class, like there's a lot of like people who are just like labor voters through and through even though they might be like sort of a bit bogan, and vice versa, it's not as easily segregated on class lines

0:35:35 Thomas: Okay. Right. Well, I don't think our, I think ours is not, when you talk about class, I would, I think we're similar, but when you talk about rural versus city, that's where like, that'S where our huge divide is. So when I think of hillbilly, I Think of rural and that's very, very red. Let's see if I can use, what are terms that will translate.

0:36:03 Aimee: Yeah see our split our split doesn't occur in the way that yours does, like rural versus non, ours is much more diverse than that, because also, one of the significant differences between Australia and the States is the way their electoral boundaries are drawn up we have an independent administrative body known as the Australian Electoral Commission, and they just basically split up electoral boundaries just based on population data, so rather than all the gerrymandering and fuckery that goes on with like packing and cracking of electoral districts over there, we don't have any of that shit and

0:36:07 Thomas: Oh, that's interesting. Yeah. Hmm. Yep. Right. You don't

0:36:41 Aimee: The no well

0:36:41 Thomas: Have gerrymandering. No. Sorry. Explain this. How do you get around gerryandering? Explain this for me. I'm going to bring this technology.

0:36:48 Aimee: For instance you know how yours is, you know, you know how your electorates are drawn up as a parliamentary process every 10 years or five years or whatever it is? Okay, so we have a statutory body that's formulated, like, parliament passes a law that formulates an independent administrative body that is completely apart from the government of the day. It's an independent body. It's funded by the government, but it is statutorily constructed as completely independent of the of whoever's

0:36:55 Thomas: Or districts. Yeah, 10 years. Yeah should be 10 years with the yeah.

0:37:27 Aimee: In parliament

0:37:27 Thomas: And it actually somehow remains independent. That's the part that I I don't know that we would know how to do Wow, well, cool good job.

0:37:27 Aimee: Yes yes it is fundamentally independent yeah yeah so they just do it on population data, there's no, like, there's, it doesn't work that way and all our electorates, they try to have, like, roughly exactly the same number of people and stuff, so it's yeah it's just yeah well

0:37:41 Thomas: Yeah I mean it's honestly it's it's not that easy to know what's the perfectly fair way to do it, even if you are trying to be objectively fair, like it is a tough mathematical problem of, like, in a given state, do you, you know, let's say it's 55 45

0:38:04 Aimee: It's always going to be like within reason, right like like if it was yeah yeah but ours, yeah, because ours is independent and there's no, like, political gain, and it's also, yeah, it's just, yeah, it's not a thing here, thankfully yeah

0:38:05 Thomas: Yeah right right right But it's it's, but it's not like exploitatively gerrymandered ever. Yeah.

0:38:22 Thomas: But, but okay. So getting back to what I was going to say on that issue though, is I think what happens, and this is, you know, this is bringing it back to the very parochial considerations of, you know, within like this little atheist community that I still seem to be a part of because I've gone back and forth, but I guess I'm going to be back to being a part of. Just in my own head, like it has nothing to do with anybody else. But anyway, I think another thing people are doing is interpreting criticism of any kind as like, oh, you're just willing to throw me out based on one little thing. So like, because we're going back to that purity issue, you know, it's the easiest thing when someone says, well, for example, just off the top of my my head when someone talks about how Netflix has a, you can't look at anyone for longer than five seconds policy when they really don't have any such thing. And that's just a bit of fake news. Oh, sorry. This is a personal battle of mine. Some, uh, recently, uh. There's some fake.

0:39:00 Aimee: Yeah yeah what I've missed that, that has a no staring at people, what yeah

0:39:22 Thomas: Yeah. No, it doesn't. What ha. Okay. Five seconds. No. 15 seconds. What happened was Netflix was doing a harassment training. And one of the things that said in the harassment training is, hey, if you look at someone for like longer than five seconds, that could be uncomfortable. Like if you just, you know, if You're just staring at someone that could be considered uncomfortable.

0:39:31 Aimee: Which You know, we'd love to live in the type of world where instructing people that creepily staring at people for extended periods of time is funnily enough going to strike individuals as creepy. Unfortunately, we don't quite live in that world yet, so we're just going to throw this in the training manual, just in case, it's

0:39:56 Thomas: Right. Well, yeah. And, and that is a fundamentally, in my opinion, completely non-controversial thing to say, Hey, this could be creepy. Like

0:40:10 Aimee: Like it, it's like it's funny that we have to put it in, you know like no shit sherlock but to be fair, there are probably neurodiverse people, I think that's the right way to say it, like people who perhaps are on the spectrum where that may not, like, sometimes overtly, um, those I don't want to speak for other people but but that may be of some vague utility, I dunno maybe, whatever exactly

0:40:12 Thomas: Exactly. It's just it's just thrown it in there. Yeah. And then what happens is, yeah, that's fine. Yeah, let me finish. Let me finish what I was saying. Yeah? No, I know it. Well, it's whatever we have to cover the basics, because you have to be able to say in that in your policy, you know, this is Yeah.

0:40:41 Aimee: Exactly from a legal standpoint too, like we

0:40:43 Thomas: But anyway, let me that's I didn't even get I got through like 10% of what I'm saying. So like, Like what happened was then that employees didn't like that or they thought that was, you know, too far or something or two. So what happened with this publication, The Sun or whatever, this like online whatever, yeah, like interviewed some people and they said, oh, Netflix is saying we can't even look at each other. And then they like quoted them as that. And then the Independent shared it with the headline, Netflix enforces no looking at each other for five seconds rule. And then Seth

0:40:43 Aimee: Did instruct X right yeah tabloid tabloiding yeah yeah

0:41:19 Thomas: Andrews shares it as though that's fact. And I, you know, point it out.

0:41:19 Aimee: It's just some fucking clickbait bullshit

0:41:25 Thomas: Exactly. And so what, the only reason I bring that up is it doesn't mean that I'm saying anybody who shared that should be put to death or something. And it doesn't mean that I wouldn't vote liberal with you, or, you know, like, but, but I still find it valuable, like my pinpoint issue, like my hot button issues, I guess, right, for me mainly right now are things involving Me Too and things involving Black Lives Matter. And those are really important to me. And I'm going to be critical of things like that, where I think people are falling short, but it doesn't, like, people have a thing where any criticism is looked at as, okay, then you're being being divisive then, you know, and like,

0:41:25 Aimee: Clearly okay

0:42:06 Thomas: Go ahead. That's,

0:42:06 Aimee: So if I could, two things, I think, first and foremost, if not just for any political orientation, but social groups, any kind of collective project, any kind of vague alignment or allegiance of any kind, community group, whatever, if you don't have a robust culture of debate within that particular group, then you can't function, right? So to interpret criticism or disagreement as abuse, or to over, over, over interpret, um, what someone means when they make a particular critique, then it's just in bad faith, right?

And so someone like Seth Andrews, um, I don't follow him personally, but to the best of my understanding, like he comes out of that, um, atheist, skeptical type orientation, um, so to just be unflinchingly sharing bullshit clickbait is it's a performative of contradiction as to what he purports to represent. And so you, as someone who's sort of similarly of a similar orientation you're just saying, hey, man, like, if you're a part of this thing that I'm a part, and if we were, if what we say we care about is like rigorous thinking and being critical and not being just a dumbass, like, you're sort of like letting down the whole team

0:43:13 Thomas: That's a good, that'S a good way of putting it. Yeah. I should have, I should've used those words. Oh man.

0:43:32 Aimee: On this one like

0:43:32 Thomas: Can I hire you to do my social media and just use better phrasing than I can use? Cause you're more erudite and well-spoken.

0:43:33 Aimee: Oh cheers, cheers, mate, like, but seriously, like, it's just, like, and if you can't handle that criticism and either say, no, I get fucked, like, if he wants to say that, that's fine, but then he looks like a total douche, right? Or you say, right, I hadn't thought about it that way, um, I guess I must have just got so wrapped up in the story and, like, found it so extreme that I was, like, wow, mate, like, but you raise a good point, I'll take it under advisement, or I'll rethink that next type, like, it's not that fucking hard to say you know

0:44:11 Thomas: I know. Okay. Well let's, let's go to something else because

0:44:14 Aimee: Say maybe I got it wrong, whatever yeah no I

0:44:14 Thomas: Yeah, I know that's what I think, But sorry, this was a little self-indulgent for me to bring it back to this place because it's just what's on my mind. Let's get back to you. And

0:44:22 Aimee: Get it though I get that I get for sure, like it I think there's also a problem with well

0:44:23 Thomas: Yeah, yeah, Yeah, yeah. But I, but it was, it's the divisiveness thing, which is, I think that where it matters though, let's bring it it back to the discussion of politics, I think where it matters is who are you supporting politically? You know, because like, I let me say this. Hypothetically, if Seth Andrews tomorrow were running for office and I was going to vote between Seth Andrews and a Republican, no matter how critical I am of him on this issue, I'd be like, okay, well, I will vote Seth Andrews because, you like to me, I'm not disqualifying an entire person politically because of one thing they said, I just might criticize it.

0:44:39 Aimee: Clarify

0:45:09 Thomas: All right, I know that was a bit of an awkward ending, but I've got a story behind that So what actually happened right there was I quickly said, you know what? I've been, it's foolish of me to bring this conversation back toward my Seth Andrews thing. And I tried to take the conversation back towards politics, and I was going to make a point about, and actually I never ended up making it, so maybe I'll make it now.

I was just gonna make a point about politically, even if you are a socialist, list, it's my view that really the only... viable path toward socialism in the united states would be through the democratic party I can't imagine I mean even again even if I right now if I were a socialist I would still be supporting democrats because the way to get things to be more left is by getting left people in power it is not by putting the worst kinds of people in power and allowing them to nominate Supreme Court justices who are very young and who will ruin the system forever. I just don't think that's the way forward. There are a lot of people I interact with on Twitter who attack both parties equally. And there's nothing, again, as I say all the time, there's nothing wrong with criticizing one's own side. And in fact, it can be very good.

But once it borders on both sides are exactly the same is where I have a real disagreement because they just are not. They are not the same. I will die on that hill. They are not at all the same, no matter how many weaknesses and how many times the Democrats have fallen short, which they absolutely have. They are just not the same. And the idea that the better way forward, again, just under the premise that you are a socialist,

0:46:45 Thomas: The idea that the better way forward is not to empower the far left Bernie or progressive wing of the Democrats and try to move them into more power, not not by doing that, but by alienating everyone, forming no kind of coalition of any kind, not voting and discouraging others from voting, and then step four, question marks, and then step five, profit. Or I guess, since you're a socialist, not profit. Nobody, profit. The idea that that's the way toward successfully, uh... turning the US into a socialist country, that is absurd to me. I just think that's the most impractical thing. And there seem to be people that I interact with who think that. And if you're a socialist and you don't think that, then sorry, I'm not talking about you.

0:47:30 Thomas: I am talking about very specific people I've interacted with. And I personally, I have no way of gauging how many people that is. So I apologize. I don't, I don't want to be using like, oh, these are just a few bad examples to badmouth socialists. I hope I'm not doing that. But I do indeed just have no way to gauge what percentage of socialists that is, except those are the ones I seem to hear from a lot. But I will say, I mean, Aimee was an example of somebody that I could agree with a lot on and who I think understands that you have to do some sort of consensus and coalition building and that you're not going to revolution your way into a socialist utopia. It's just not going to happen. At any rate, that was what I was going to say and get her response from, but that didn't happen. What happened was I started to say that and Aimee interrupted, which is totally cool, but she said, you know, sorry, I want to talk about something else.

0:48:23 Thomas: And she launched into a conversation on Me Too that I found really interesting. And I don't even know exactly what I should say to describe it, except that she, we started, we started a discussion on Me Too. And I don't, I'm not again, I don't want to put any words in her mouth, but I'm just introducing this because she described an experience she had, and then we had a pretty rigorous debate about Me Too and I think it'll be interesting for you to listen and to see which side of that you fall on, if indeed there are defined sides. But this is all to say that there's going to be a part two with Aimee because this part two was actually even longer than part one.

0:49:10 Thomas: It was like an hour and it was really fascinating and I am immensely curious for your response on it. I'm also curious for your response on this part one, of course, but this was came out of nowhere, but it was very worthwhile. So I've got to get to editing that, because this turned, again, this turned from what was going to be a one episode recording to a very lengthy, longer than a two-parter, but I got to take it down and edit it down to a nice two-parter and get that to you. But in the meantime, thank you for listening to part one. I'm going to get part two out for patrons and supporters at SeriousPod.com slash support and Patreon.com slash SeriousPod. I'm gonna get that out to you sooner. It'll be early for you guys.

0:49:55 Thomas: And also, if you haven't heard it already, supporters, I did a bonus episode where I spoke very candidly about some of the Facebook drama that I was involved in, and the Seth Andrews situation that I just referenced was one of those things that I spoke about. Out And I wanted to get your feedback, and I've gotten feedback from some supporters and I appreciate that, because, you know, I'm genuinely not 100% sure that, you know, what I'm doing is like the best way to go about things, and I'm open to feedback, but I also think there's some false dichotomy happening there. So tune into that if you're a supporter, make sure you got a hold of that if you want it, and email me if you're having any problems with the feed or anything like that. But thank you folks for supporting. You are making the show happen, and you're the only reason the show happens.

0:50:40 Thomas: And supporters can also look forward to this part too early. But with that said, it is time to call it for this week. And I want to re-emphasize that, no matter the fact that I called out Seth Andrews for posting what I think is fake news, I would still vote for him tomorrow if he were running on the left, because I just used that example to show that it's not necessarily a purity politics. Politics? What's the line between a purity politics and merely a healthy call out of one side? And that's what I'm trying to figure out. I think that's what a lot of people are trying to figure out. But all that aside, thanks so much for listening, thanks to Aimee, and man, I'm really excited for you to hear part two next week or earlier for patrons, and I'll have to say that I will see you then, folks.