https://youtubetranscript.com/?v=BGzkliNrhQg
So in a video that Jonathan did called parasitic storytelling, he talked about stories with upside down stereotypes. And in this kind of storytelling, he said, the exceptional must be better than the rule, the outsider better than the one inside. The margin must replace the center while remaining the margin. Things become upside down when by social pressures and strange new taboos, these new counterintuitive stereotypes become an enforced expected norm. And this isn’t in our script, but I would also maybe like to add to that. You did also mention something about how when these stories, the outsider becoming better than the insider, they still need that insider as something to push back against. You can actually never quite get rid of those who are formerly once inside because you still need them or else your narrative doesn’t make any sense. You still need kind of that. So we wanted to talk about that video today and anything else you want me to talk about is as well as impossible. Responses to this phenomenon. So all that’s being said, Jonathan, could you first explain what it is you are talking about and maybe give some examples? I mean, what we’re talking about is really, let’s say the end of the revolutionary pattern. You know, we’ve been the revolutionary pattern has been around at least since the Enlightenment, but it takes a while for it to really seep into culture. And now we’ve kind of come to the point where it’s become so ingrained in culture that it has taken over pretty much every discourse and every narrative. And so it’s basically the idea of the underdog, but it’s taken so far now. It’s as if it’s taken so far now that it’s become almost as if it’s a moral weight. The underdog becomes the overdog. Exactly. And so that’s what’s insane about it is that because the narrative has basically taken over, then it has it has created these strange upside down stereotypes like you mentioned. I mean, the easiest example is that you can’t show, let’s say that a man is stronger than a woman because men and women are equal. But men and women in strength in general are not equal. And so in order to show that they’re equal, the only way to do that is to show that women are stronger than men. And so it creates a very strange situation where the only place where you can show an unbalance of strength between a man and a woman has to always be in the upside down version. So if you’re if you’re not going to show that, that’s fine. But if you’re going to show a relationship of strength between a man and a woman, the woman has to be stronger than the man. And so what how do you you say creates these strange upside down taboos where to show the normal, let’s say the normal pattern is actually frowned upon. And it’s it’s almost immoral to do that. Yeah, I, you know, I noticed this even so we’re obviously we’re going to be talking about popular culture and so forth. But, I mean, I remember when I was in high school now, which was 30 years ago, I think, Jonathan, you and I are right about the same age. So, yeah, yeah. When I was in high school, I remember, though, there was this sense of it was this weird tension, like kind of high schoolers. No one wants to be different. And yet there was a being different kind, you know, like like being different was becoming the mainstream. Right. Like or I mean, another example of this would be, you know, from that same period, alternative music. Alternative to what? You know, because it became like the norm. Right. You know, and I remember I can’t remember who the band was, but a friend of mine when I was in college, there was a band he listened to where one of the one of the things that was said in one of the songs was I want to be different, just like all the different people. And and and right, which is just contradictory, logically speaking, but it’s now become this. This is the thing, you know, that like you said, that the outsider is the insider. And and and, you know, since I think we’re going to probably poke at a lot of people, not by name in this in this episode. Well, you know, there’s there’s. Now I’m half losing my thought, but. Well, it’ll come back to me at some point, hopefully. But but but oh, yeah, yeah, right. So like diversity. Yeah. Right. This question of diversity, which is on everyone’s lips. Like just this morning, I read an article that NPR put out talking about a whole bunch of documentary filmmakers wrote a letter to PBS. Saying basically you’re giving way too much time and funding and support to Ken Burns. You know, you need to let some other people have a chance. And what was interesting is, you know, usually if you look at an NPR Facebook post, the responses tend to be a lot, you know, lauding NPR. The people who tend to follow NPR and Facebook tend to be on board. You know, if this is the kind of thing you like, you like this kind of thing. But but it was interesting to see actually some pushback. A lot of people kind of saying, well, Ken Burns gets so much time and support because he’s awesome. Right. And yet and yet there is the sense of like. That that PBS putting what probably they feel is their best possible documentarian out in front, that that was that that was simply a problem. Yeah. You know, like that’s that’s an example. And so that also reminds me maybe this is another aspect of this because I’m just throwing out all my cards on the table right now without any sense of order. Don’t worry, I got some too. Yeah. It’s like, I don’t know. It’s like playing Uno, you know. But what’s going to happen, it’s an interesting it’s a very it’s a very important moment that we’re in. And it’s a it’s a dangerous moment. Yeah. So a good example, the best example that I have here in Canada is Justin Trudeau. Our prime minister saying Canada is a post national nation. Our only value interest is diversity. That is the only value we have is diversity. And so it’s it’s like, OK, how does that? So something that the only value is diversity. That’s called decomposition. Yeah, it’s death. Literally, it’s a it’s a literal definition of death is diversity without unity. That’s what death is. And so when you listen to that, you think this is just insane. There’s there’s a kind of insanity going on. And and you realize that it’s dangerous because it’s just like a just like a body. Right. And so it’s like, let’s say you you you you’re doing something dangerous and you’re exploring diversity and you’re you’re out on a limb in your own experience. All of a sudden, you’ll realize that you’re playing with death, like you’re on the edge of death. And your body just normally is going to react and is going to want to preserve itself. And this happens at at the body level, but it also happens at every other ontological level at higher levels as well. And so if you keep pushing this this kind of insanity of decomposition, then at some point, there’s going to be a reaction. And the reaction will be an intuitive, emotional, identitarian reaction that is not going to be better than this. It’s going to be another form of death. Like just that. Yeah.