Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
A podcast at the intersection of psychology and culture that intimately explores the human experience and critiques the counseling profession. Your host, Stephanie Winn, distills wisdom gained from her practice as a family therapist and coach while pivoting towards questions of how to apply a practical understanding of psychology to the novel dilemmas of the 21st century, from political polarization to medical malpractice.
What does ethical mental health care look like in a normless age, as our moral compasses spin in search of true north? How can therapists treat patients under pressure to affirm everything from the notion of "gender identity" to assisted suicide?
Primarily a long-form interview podcast, Stephanie invites unorthodox, free-thinking guests from many walks of life, including counselors, social workers, medical professionals, writers, researchers, and people with unique lived experience, such as detransitioners.
Curious about many things, Stephanie’s interdisciplinary psychological lens investigates challenging social issues and inspires transformation in the self, relationships, and society. She is known for bringing calm warmth to painful subjects, and astute perceptiveness to ethically complex issues. Pick up a torch to illuminate the dark night and join us on this journey through the inner wilderness.
You Must Be Some Kind of Therapist ranks in the top 1% globally according to ListenNotes. New episodes are released every Monday. Three and a half years after the show's inception in May of 2022, Stephanie became a Christian, representing the crystallization of moral, spiritual, and existential views she had been openly grappling with along with her audience and guests. Newer episodes (#188 forward) may sometimes reflect a Christian understanding, interwoven with and applied to the same issues the podcast has always addressed. The podcast remains diverse and continues to feature guests from all viewpoints.
[00:00:00]
[00:00:00] Simon: This is something I've thought about a lot because if we are in a world where people can be modified, their, their cognitive system can be modified at such a deep level, and when you get down to the level of perception, that means their, their morality can be completely modified. It [00:00:15] means that someone can be completely morally inverted through these processes.
And so, like when I talk about moral inversion, I'm talking about the, the desire to destroy innocence for the sake of innocence suffering. You get to those [00:00:30] kinds of levels of depravity. I think it's important to understand that we live in a time in human history where people can be conditioned into the depths of total moral inversion, and, uh, there can be centralized entities that have the ability to [00:00:45] condition a certain amount of the population in that direction.
[00:00:48] Announcer: You must be some kind of therapist?
[00:00:54] Stephanie: Today I'm welcoming back filmmaker Simon Essler, who previously appeared on this podcast way [00:01:00] back on episode number 54, where we discussed the documentary he had recently produced, Cut: Daughters of the West, which exposes the dark side of the plastic surgery industry. And today we're gonna discuss his new series [00:01:15] called You Are Here, which is about cognitive warfare.
Simon, good to see you again. Welcome back.
[00:01:22] Simon: Thanks for having me. I'm really glad to be here.
[00:01:24] Stephanie: So tell us about what you're working on now.
[00:01:27] Simon: So my latest docuseries is exploring- [00:01:30] Cognitive warfare from a practical lens, and so it invites people into the notion that war has evolved, and it has evolved in the direction of, of human cognition, of human cognition as the most valuable [00:01:45] territory for, uh, wars to be struggling over.
And so now that human cognition is the most valuable territory, uh, the series really invites people into a deeper and more practical understanding of that so that they can defend their own [00:02:00] minds and their capacity for free thought and do the same for their families and their children.
[00:02:04] Stephanie: So you gave me an opportunity to watch episode one of the series, and I wasn't sure where you were going at first, um, because you [00:02:15] were sort of laying out the foundational concepts in that artistic manner that I've noticed is characteristic of your filmmaking style.
Um, you know, speaking about Iain McGilchrist's work, the left and [00:02:30] right hemispheres of the brain, uh, what happens when we, when we divorce intuition and embodied knowledge from cognition, how that makes us easier to deceive. And, um, then [00:02:45] after laying that foundation, you start to talk about the case of Barry Neufeld, um, which I had not heard his name until, like, a week or two ago, and then I got to learn his story [00:03:00] shortly after when you sent me the link to view your documentary.
So, um, for listeners who, like myself, are new to this story, can you tell us what happened with Barry Neufeld?
[00:03:10] Simon: So Barry Neufeld is a former school board trustee in [00:03:15] Chilliwack, British Columbia, and, uh, he had been in this position for years, uh, someone who's very focused on service to his community and, you know, making education better for children.
And eventually, he heard [00:03:30] about a massive change to the curriculum that was about to be launched in the schools, and it was strange to him because he hadn't heard about it prior to that and found out that this was about to be implemented in two weeks, and it was a program called [00:03:45] SOGI, um, SOGI 123, which is Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity 123.
And he looked at what they were launching into the classrooms and was shocked and, um, disturbed by it. And so he began to [00:04:00] speak critically of this program and- That over time escalated because far left community members and members within the teachers union, um, [00:04:15] started to be really upset that he was being critical of gender identity theory and of the program they were trying to implement.
Now, the problems that people had with this are not only that it was facilitating, you know, social transitions and [00:04:30] moving children towards medical transitions in terms of gender, but also the, the hypersexual nature of some of the content was-- which is often an issue with some of these, uh, curricula where they use the theory that hypersexualized content is somehow freeing, [00:04:45] uh, gay and lesbian and gender non-conforming youth.
So he spoke out against it. Eventually, he ended up saying that transitioning, medically transitioning children is a form of child abuse. He was then, um, taken on [00:05:00] by a human rights charge through a human rights tribunal in British Columbia, and that struggle went on for a long time. As he said, it went on longer than some murder trials.
And the result was that Barry Neufeld was charged [00:05:15] $750,000 because he does not believe that there are more than two genders, and he does not believe that children can be born trapped in the wrong body. And in the judge's ruling, they explicitly stated that his [00:05:30] refusal to believe is a form of existential denialism for which he should pay $750,000.
And so for me, this was a case study in cognitive warfare because it demands perception. It demands that [00:05:45] we participate at the level of perception, and that's what I found so intriguing about this story.
[00:05:49] Stephanie: It's really chilling to be fined, uh, three-quarters of a million dollars for Not believing something [00:06:00] that there's no basis for.
Uh, that phrase existential denialism, it's, it's taking the, the pseudo-intellectual quality of gender identity nonsense to the next level. You know, we've all heard that sort of hysterical [00:06:15] hyperbole, the, "You're denying my existence," right? But, but, but now it sounds so much more official, right? This quasi-intellectual existential denialism.
Is that what they called it? Existential [00:06:30] denialism?
[00:06:30] Simon: Yes. The judge's ruling was that it was a form of existential denialism and was therefore a kind of hate crime.
[00:06:35] Stephanie: A thought crime.
[00:06:37] Simon: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:06:38] Stephanie: You know, you're not allowed to not believe. Um, and, and let's unpack that a little bit, right? [00:06:45] It's this idea that you're denying the existence, which is im- uh, the indication there is, or excuse me, the, the implication there is that you're d- denying someone's dignity and humanity.
Um, [00:07:00] in America, with our freedom of thought and speech and belief, even though it's certainly not perfect, at least we theoretically aspire to protect those freedoms. Um- [00:07:15] You, you don't have to believe in anyone's dignity or existence for that matter, whatever that means. Um, I'm sure if they [00:07:30] asked someone like Barry Neufeld or any other biological realist, "Do you see this person in front of you?
Do they exist?" Uh, there's, yes, I see a person, right? I see a human being. The question is, uh, [00:07:45] do I have to pretend that I see beautiful garments on that emperor or can I acknowledge that the emperor I see is naked? Um, there's just so many degrees to unpack there.
[00:07:57] Simon: One of the major things is that [00:08:00] we're told it's political, we're told it's human rights, but it's so deeply philosophical and spiritual.
Um, to ask us to believe in that meta-narrative, that particular story that people are born trapped in the wrong body, this has huge, huge [00:08:15] implications for us philosophically and spiritually. And that's one of the things that I think is so strange, is that we're being asked to believe in a, a very sort of religious idea that, um, we're born, we can be born trapped in the wrong body, that there are gendered souls, [00:08:30] and that you have gendered souls that can be born in a body that's gendered differently.
That's a very religious, spiritual, philosophical idea. So to force us into that, I find very, very strange, but I think it's important to, to frame it and call it what it is.
[00:08:44] Stephanie: And the [00:08:45] way that you broke down that ideology with the sort of cartoon demonstration in episode one of You Are Here, I thought that was very well done.
Just to make sure I'm understanding what happened to Barry Neufeld, he was [00:09:00] fined $750,000 for not believing something not true. Um, you know, belief in biological reality h- is protected in the UK. Um, you know, I've, I've had Maya Forstater on to talk about that. Um, [00:09:15] and, and again, in America, our freedoms aren't perfect, but we do have the Constitution.
Um, in Canada, it feels more Orwellian than some other places when we hear about these stories from other countries. I, I just wanna [00:09:30] make sure I'm understanding. Was he fined $750,000 for so-called existential denialism specifically because he was a school board trustee member? Yes. Or, uh, so, so-
[00:09:43] Simon: That's part of the framework, yep.[00:09:45]
[00:09:45] Stephanie: So in or- How does the logic go in... Like, the, the judge who made that ruling, is it that if you are in some kind of public service role or if you're in a role that affects how children are educated or if [00:10:00] you're, if you're in whatever specific parameters, then you must believe in this or else you are guilty of hate crimes?
Like, how, how does the logic go?
[00:10:11] Simon: So the way the judge looks at it is that his role as [00:10:15] a school board trustee is a major part of it because he allegedly harmed, he harmed people by making these public statements in a position of power. There's the claim that all sorts of people were traumatized or deeply disturbed or upset.
Now, when his lawyers said, "Please tell [00:10:30] us who was harmed then," they weren't able to produce any names or examples. But the reason they have the capacity to do all of this is because in 2017, the human rights laws in Canada were altered to include the concept of gender [00:10:45] identity and gender expression as human rights.
And this is really, to me, where Canada went off the rails and started to push this religion on people, is when that was embedded into the Human Rights Code, and it's not a coincidence [00:11:00] that this occurred the same year that Trudeau made his big public apology to the LGBTQ community saying, "From the government of Canada, we abused you.
We apologize. We're sorry. We're responsible. We're gonna make it better," in this very dramatic speech. So he's pushing a [00:11:15] narrative that claims, "Oh, this is just about love is love," while quietly in the background, our human rights laws are being rewritten so that something as vague as gender identity and gender expression have to become human rights.
Um, [00:11:30] that's a totally different m- narrative than love is love.
[00:11:33] Stephanie: Yeah, and you showed that clip of Trudeau in the film Um, and what does all this have to do with, uh, Canada's Bill C-16? Is that the one that you were talking about? [00:11:45]
[00:11:45] Simon: That's the conversion therapy bill.
[00:11:46] Stephanie: Mm.
[00:11:47] Simon: That was a, a uniparty issue for sure, and that was definitely part of this because it's all part of the same meta-narrative.
So the conversion therapy bill is tied to the idea, first of all, that we have a problem with [00:12:00] conversion therapy in Canada, the idea that, you know, there are sort of Christian Bible camps trying to get the, the gayness out of children, um, when really that wasn't, there was no major issue with that. But the way they wrote the law was that, um, you [00:12:15] cannot in any way, shape, or form convince a child that they are connected to their natal body.
You can't move things in that direction in any way. Anything other than transitioning a [00:12:30] child towards being bi or gay or lesbian or transgender, that's the only direction legally anyone can go, and to move a child in the other direction, they carefully wrote the language so that that is considered conversion therapy.
And the scary thing about [00:12:45] that passing is that it was passed by all of the parties in Canada. This was a uniparty issue, even the conservatives. Um, even the, the current opposition right now, Pierre Poilievre, he himself was in support of that at the time. Now, his stance has changed, but [00:13:00] the issue being that we have time and time again created these bills and these laws that support this whole story of children being born trapped in the wrong body, and writing it into law is how we ended up at a place where someone like Barry Neufeld can then be charged [00:13:15] $750,000 for not believing in this story.
[00:13:18] Stephanie: It seems so obvious when we have these conversations and unpack these things that these sort of policies and cultural trends [00:13:30] set up a perverse incentive structure. In other words, let's, let's talk about personality for a second. Um, everyone has one. Not all personalities are equal. Some personalities suck.
Some personalities are awful. [00:13:45] Um, some personalities ha- have some growth to do. Um, and then we have a, a, a wide range of personalities. Um, I, I, I'd love to talk more on the issue of personality in general, but I, I recently wrote a tweet, maybe I'll turn it into a substack post at some point, [00:14:00] about personality as...
H- here, here's a metaphor for thinking about personality. Um, imagine a, a rock breaks off from a cliff in an avalanche, and at first that rock is jagged and misshapen and, [00:14:15] and, and then it tumbles down into a river. And through millennia, through friction, through contact with other rocks and water and time, that rock, it has its weak points broken off.
It has [00:14:30] its sharp edges softened. And eventually, uh, you can see the beautiful substrate of what it's really made of, and you can hold it, and you can pick it up. Um, it's still got a unique shape. It's got [00:14:45] unique colors. You can see what it's really made of, but also it can fit neatly with other rocks. It's, it's adaptable, it's, it's unique, but it, it works, and it's withstood the test of time, and it can't be broken anymore.
Um, I think of that as a metaphor [00:15:00] for what time and experience and relationships with other people do to our personality And I think that the absence of synchronous time, that the sh- the deficits that we're experiencing culturally of synchronous [00:15:15] time with other people in shared experiences, um, the shortage of relationships and experiences is affecting the formation of personality.
So I'm going somewhere with this, right? Um, I love, I love the, the metaphor [00:15:30] in and of itself, but, uh, but personality has a lot of implications. Um, because, like I said, personalities are, they're not always formed very well. Um, they haven't always had their jagged edges worn [00:15:45] down. And, um, there are people who haven't learned how to play nicely with other humans, let's just say.
And it would seem pretty obvious to anyone who takes a moment to think [00:16:00] about this, that if you create something as vague and abstract a concept of, as something called gender identity, and now I'm picturing when kids are playing tag and they have their safe zone that they can hide behind. It's like we've created [00:16:15] this safe zone where someone can hide behind this concept of gender identity, and if that's their, their free pass, their get out of jail, their trump card, their safe zone, I like to mix metaphors, sorry about that, um, then, [00:16:30] then any number of things can be excused and, and hidden behind that, right?
And so what happens to personality formation? What happens to the natural friction of relationships of people saying, "Quit being a jerk. I don't like it when you talk to me that [00:16:45] way." Uh, or, h- hey, try, try developing a sense of humor. What about if a person needs a thicker skin? I mean, there are a lot of things that need to happen to help a person develop a good, robust, [00:17:00] healthy personality, and you've just created this incentive structure that says you don't have to go through all of that at all.
You can have the most jagged, misshapen, you know, potentially ready to fracture at any moment, uh, [00:17:15] personality. And rather than being tumbled through the river of life and time and experiences and other people and, and, and becoming your true ultimate form of something that's been polished, um, you just hide over [00:17:30] here where it's safe.
You claim this exception of I have a gender identity And now nobody can question you, and anything can be deemed a hate crime against you. And what the hell is that gonna do to [00:17:45] relationships and culture?
[00:17:46] Simon: You know, I think about this a lot. I think about this a lot because of how deeply it incapacitates these children in terms of relationships and in terms of giving struggle and suffering meaning.
That's one of the scariest [00:18:00] things, I think, is that there is such an absence of meaning in the difficulty of, of childhood and adolescence when they're given this framework of oppressor, oppressor and, um, you know, victim, and that when they're always looking for that framework [00:18:15] in everything they do, it's so incapacitating in terms of forming healthy relationships, which in the end is really, like, that's the majority of what we're here to do, to get really good at relating with others through knowing ourselves well.
And I think, [00:18:30] um, we have yet to see the true fallout of this, especially in a place like Canada where they're allowing this to go off the rails much further than other nations. You know? And we have this strange Resistance on the, the global [00:18:45] stage while America pulls back gender affirmative, you know, medical treatments, and Norway and Finland and the UK, as they're scaling back, Canada is doubling down and writing this into our human rights laws and taking it even [00:19:00] further.
Um, I don't think we've yet seen the fallout from any of this, and I think it's going to be something kind of unique for Canada to have to wake up to. Maybe that's the way that people wake up to it, I'm not sure. But I know that the detransitioners in Canada are being [00:19:15] severely mistreated and deeply ignored.
[00:19:17] Stephanie: Speaking of, you mentioned, uh, in the Barry Neufeld case that, uh, there were going to be some detransitioners testifying in his favor, and the judge prevented them from speaking.
[00:19:29] Simon: That's [00:19:30] right. There were two detr- detransitioners and a gay man that wanted to testify in his defense. One of them was Faith Groleau, and she, uh, had a terrible experience where she was rushed, um, through the gender affirmative phases.
Um, her mental health [00:19:45] issues were not diagnosed, and she ended up, um, getting pretty severe illness and, and, um, depression from it, and was one of the people working with a group called Detrans Canada to try to fight [00:20:00] against the conversion therapy bill, to try to say like, "Please don't do this. This is actually hurting us."
Um, even, you know, th- their voices were ignored. So in Canada, we seem to have systematically ignored the detransitioners because they don't fit into that meta-narrative [00:20:15] that's being written into the Canadian way of life. And I really feel like Canadians, you know, good-hearted Canadians were manipulated into all of this by thinking it was about love is love.
And I think there's a lot of Canadians who haven't thought [00:20:30] it through to see how, like, that no longer connects to what we're doing, even though we have the one acronym now. We have the 2SLGBTQIA++,
it's something along those lines now. Um, people don't understand. These [00:20:45] are completely different narratives that they're pretending are the same.
[00:20:48] Stephanie: It's bitterly ironic because all of this woke nonsense is supposedly about protecting the most vulnerable, most marginalized people, and that's exactly [00:21:00] who detransitioners are.
And in Barry Neufeld's case, there was this allegation that he'd harmed people, and like you were saying, they couldn't identify who he had actually harmed. And then here you had these people who did wanna share their voices about how, how they felt [00:21:15] the opposite of harmed by his stance, and they weren't allowed to speak.
There's just so many le- levels of irony here.
[00:21:21] Simon: It's a lot to track, and I think this is why the cognitive perspective softens it for me, because rather than getting caught up in someone being [00:21:30] so far left and being, you know, radical and, and, and looking at them as an, an, an immoral person, I find it better to see it through the lens of cognition because I, I can understand the way they were conditioned, the way over time they were conditioned into a narrative so [00:21:45] that their perception has been manipulated.
And when a human being has been manipulated at the level of perception, um, it's very, uh, I think it's very wrong to dehumanize them. I think it's really important to understand the level on which they are being operated on is quite [00:22:00] severe, and I think Canada overall has a big issue with that, that as a territory, um, as a cognitive territory, Canada has been infiltrated by a lot of bad actors.
[00:22:10] Stephanie: And that's a compassionate perspective I'd like to get into [00:22:15] more. Before we do, I just wanna remind the parents in the audience, the ones who listen to this podcast because they have a, uh, kid in this fight, that on this podcast, we explore this issue from a number of [00:22:30] angles, but if you're looking for how to actually get through to your kid, that information is in my course, ROGD Repair.
Part of the reason I mention that here is because, you know, for instance, among other things on this podcast, we talk about ways in which people are manipulated, [00:22:45] and we're about to get into that, and that's what Simon does a really good job of, uh, exposing in his docuseries. That does not mean that I would recommend that you as a parent go and talk to your child about how they're being manipulated, and here's why: [00:23:00] because that is not a conversation that you're going to be likely to pull off successfully with a teenager when teenagers are the most primed out of all of us to resist the message, "You are naive and gullible."
So there's the [00:23:15] meta message, right? If you try to tell someone, "Hey, I think you've been manipulated," even if you're coming from a very compassionate place and trying to help them But anyone is likely to resist that message because it's like, "What? Do you think I'm stupid?" Right? E- even, even us as grown adults, we don't [00:23:30] like to admit how fallible we can be.
Well, that's exponentially, uh, greater of a tendency for young adults because their egos are so much more fragile. Yes, they are the most vulnerable to manipulation, but they're also the most resistant to the [00:23:45] message that they've been manipulated because it conflicts with their ego. That's why in the course, ROGD Repair, we talk about how to be effective in your communication with teenagers and 20-somethings caught up in this ideology.
I just wanna remind parents that there's a [00:24:00] difference between the educational content we share on this show and the strategies in communication that are actually gonna be effective with your kid. If you're looking for those strategies, you're not gonna get it here on the podcast. You're gonna get it at ROGDRepair.com.
And while I'm on it, while I'm on the [00:24:15] self-promotion thread, I have recently been reminded that I should tell my audience to please rate and review this podcast wherever you get your podcasts. Thank you very much. Okay, so now that
I've- Thanks to them ...
given that little disclaimer, let's talk about [00:24:30] how our psyches are being manipulated
[00:24:33] Simon: Yes.
I think the compassion piece is a good starting off point. You know, this is one of the things that really intrigued me and motivated me to make this series was that, you know, if you wanna have compassion for how people are [00:24:45] being manipulated cognitively, you know, from that lens in a way that is very powerful, well, I think it's important to recognize that we ourselves are so deeply conditioned on a cognitive level, and there's so much that we don't realize is being put in place for us in our cognitive system.[00:25:00]
So, for example, living in the West, you know, we are through the work of Iain McGilchrist, as you said, that I explore in the series, you know, we seem to be very entrenched in the left hemisphere. So here in the Western world, we are conditioned to use our minds to really seek out very simple, very linear [00:25:15] stories that kinda feel like a nice fit and feel very reductionist and mechanical and clear.
Um, and the, the way in which our society encourages us to focus more on that, um, that makes us very vulnerable. If we're just [00:25:30] people of the West, we have a certain amount of that. And I think starting with really understanding how deeply vulnerable you are personally and to recognize how much you're being conditioned, um, in, in through the world around you, through technology, through family, through, you know, where you [00:25:45] live, that to me is a great starting off point because when you really see your own vulnerability, then you're in a good position to start to understand, "Hey, wait a minute, my political opponent out there, they've been conditioned in these other ways," but it really is the same thing to a great extent.[00:26:00]
[00:26:00] Stephanie: It's always so much easier to see how other people are being manipulated than how we're being manipulated, isn't it? I mean, I, I grew so much in my career as a therapist. I remember just noticing in patient after patient, before I got into the kind of, you know, specialized work I do now, just [00:26:15] noticing this common thread that so many people were coming to therapy going, "If only I could get them to see," you know what, whoever it is, whatever it is, if it's, it's, "If only I could get this other person to see this thing," right?
And I'm sitting there as a [00:26:30] therapist having the same experience with my patient sometimes, right? "If only I could get them to see this thing." Um, and, and you know, who, who's coming to therapy saying, "Gee, I wonder who wants me to see something differently and [00:26:45] what they want me to see differently?" Pro tip, pro tip if you wanna be a really productive psychotherapy patient, ask your therapist, "Hey, when you're sitting there listening to me talk, do you ever have something that's like, [00:27:00] 'If only I could get him or her to see this thing'?"
'Cause that's your therapist's countertransference, and they should have a good awareness of that, and they should keep it in check, but it might tell you something. It's good to invite that feedback. Anyway, I mean, yeah, it, it's a universal thing, right? [00:27:15] That we, we see other people's shortcomings, deficits, blind spots.
It's harder to see our own, and there's nothing wrong with that as long as we can have a little bit of humor and perspective on it. Like, yeah, I probably have just as much of a blind spot in myself as I can see in someone else. [00:27:30] And maybe- Yeah ... that's a starting point, right? Like, maybe for some people that is the starting point of, oh, maybe I have that blind spot, too.
But again, there's that kind of resistance to seeing it. Simon, what helps you? 'Cause you're talking about having that awareness of [00:27:45] one's own vulnerabilities. Uh, is there anything that you found helpful for yourself or for people you crossed paths with in terms of having self-compassion, not, not a sense of shame or ridicule about it, but of like, oh, wow, I am really...[00:28:00]
Like, this, this might be just, like, a narrative that I've swallowed rather than, like, something I've actually thought about for myself.
[00:28:06] Simon: I mean, when you have a certain amount of mindfulness in place, when you have the ability to, to produce some stillness or, you know, some form of silent cognition or observer cognition, [00:28:15] you can really see a lot of this at play.
I think one of the things that was very, uh, that created some lightheartedness for me was really noticing how the way the media manipulates me with narratives is actually the same way that my own anxiety does it. [00:28:30] And that-
[00:28:30] Stephanie: Interesting ...
[00:28:30] Simon: that kind of made me laugh, you know? That, that if I really watch any anxiety, any anxious thought I have, it's always tied to a narrative.
It always infers a specific framework of the past and the present and where things are going. It always seems to be tied to that, and I just noticed, [00:28:45] I noticed that we are, we are story-based beings on a very deep level. So when I started to notice that that's just how my system works, that we just function on stories in this way, um, there was some lightness for me that came about.
And then I think the next thing that sort of [00:29:00] pushed me further into feeling softer about my own conditioning was understanding meta perceptions. You know, this, um, the, the way that we, uh, assume others perceive us, right? So thinking about the way others [00:29:15] perceive us. I learned a lot when I looked into that because I noticed how m- how much time I would perhaps spend on considering the way someone else is perceiving me.
And even just noticing [00:29:30] that, noticing stories built from that really opened my eyes. And then I found a study by a man named Emile Bruneau, and he was studying the meta perceptions of people on the left side of politics in the United States and the [00:29:45] right side of politics in the United States. And he was studying- Their meta perceptions on specific issues.
So for example, there'd be the border, and he would look at, you know, their own stance on the border, and then they would ask, you know, left-wing people how [00:30:00] they think the right-wing people perceive the border issue and vice versa. And what they would find was that their meta perceptions were so far from reality.
[00:30:09] Stephanie: Hmm.
[00:30:09] Simon: And where it really became stark was when they asked them how violent or extreme they thought their [00:30:15] political opposition was, and both on the left and the right-hand side with, in terms of their meta perceptions, they thought the other side was 400% more violent than was actually true. So I started to realize that meta perceptions is a place in which we are deeply [00:30:30] manipulated, and that, uh, that was, that was very helpful for me to sort of soften and, and humble myself and really comprehend, uh, how important this information can be.
[00:30:38] Stephanie: Hmm. Um, what you're saying about... We-- [00:30:45] Well, in the documentary, in the docuseries, you talk about perception. And I remember discovering about myself in early adulthood that I had the ability, call it a strength or a weakness, I think it's [00:31:00] both, um, to kinda put on a certain filter and then only be able to see everything through that filter.
So when I was studying, you know, I got a bachelor's degree in environmental studies, okay? So [00:31:15] like when I thought about supply chain analysis, for example, I ha- I was paralyzed grocery shopping because I would see the life cycle of every single item on the shelf, everything that went into creating it, and what would happen to the [00:31:30] waste afterward.
Um, you know, for better or for worse, uh, maybe I have sort of an obsessive type of mind, but whatever lens I start looking at things through, it's hard to take that [00:31:45] off, and I learned this about myself at an early age. Um, I think I have a bit more flexibility now in, in that I've tried on a lot of different lenses, um, by now.
But, um, I also [00:32:00] remember the kind of waking up out of the fog that happened circa 2020, 2021, when I started questioning some of these cultural narratives that I had absorbed because I just remember all these moments. Of [00:32:15] course, they're clearer in hindsight, but moments of feeling like there was kind of a fog over me, and I didn't really believe what I was saying.
Like, I would find myself saying something and not really knowing that it was true or not really feeling like it was connected to [00:32:30] my authentic thoughts and emotions. But m- like, I could almost hear myself saying something because that was what other people said or that was what I thought a good person thought about an issue, even though on some level I was aware that I had, I was taking [00:32:45] other people's words for it, right?
Like, like everyone seems so sure that this is true, and this is false, and this is good, and people who think that are bad and, and I was just sort of agreeing with that consensus, not because I'd looked into it myself, you know, uh, but [00:33:00] because I trusted the people who held those opinions, and I figured surely they held them for good reasons.
And at some point it started to dawn on me, I was like, "Wait, what if we're all doing this? What if this is like one big game of telephone?" Right? What if this person who seems so sure that [00:33:15] Joe Rogan is a far-right conspiracy theorist, for example, you know, like white supremacist, right? Like this person who seems so convinced of like, "Oh, I would never listen to Joe Rogan.
He's a far-right white supremacist conspiracy theorist." By the way, I'm not even like a listener. I, I [00:33:30] don't listen to Joe Rogan hardly ever, but I'm just saying this is one of those things-
Yeah,
it's a
good example ...
that like- At the time I was like, "Oh, bad people listen to Joe Rogan. No, I would never date a guy who listens to Joe Rogan."
Now like at some point it started [00:33:45] to dawn on me and I was like, "Wait, I haven't listened to Joe Rogan. I'm taking other people's words for it, assuming that they have. But what if they've taken their word for... someone else's word for it, and that goes back and back and back and back and back? Like, [00:34:00] what if we're all just pretending?"
So I, I do remember, you know, circa 2020 That's like starting to wake up out of the fog and be like, "Wait, does that sound right?" And that is one of the reasons that one of the techniques I recommend to parents [00:34:15] is, uh, simple reflective listening because, um, reflective listening can help people feel heard, it can lower cortisol levels, open up, uh, emotion- emotionally.
But also, I think sometimes we just need to [00:34:30] hear ourselves, right? Because sometimes we say things not because we've truly thought and felt into it, not because it's coming from a spontaneous place, but sometimes we say things because we're, we're absorbing things. And sometimes if our relationships are healthy enough, if we-- if someone [00:34:45] who cares about us reflects what we just said in a neutral way, "Oh, so am I understanding that you believe blah, blah, blah, blah, blah?"
Right? Sometimes we hear it back and we're like, "Do I? Do I believe that? Do I know that? Wait, where is that coming [00:35:00] from?" Sometimes we just need that reflection.
[00:35:02] Simon: Yes, absolutely. That's so important. I, a- and, you know, it's funny because, you know, having gone through a similar experience to you, you know, where you sort of wake up out of these layers and out of this fog, I think, [00:35:15] you know, even calling it a fog is very, um...
Well, it's interesting because to me, that fog, one that you're talking about, that it's very psychological and sort of cognitive in nature, that's the fog of fifth generation war. That's the fog of modern warfare. It's that kind of [00:35:30] mental fog, and so it's a great way to characterize it.
[00:35:32] Stephanie: Okay, so tell us more about what you mean by fifth generation warfare.
[00:35:35] Simon: So warfare has been evolving alongside technology throughout human history. Um, they've always been deeply intertwined, and so every time humanity makes a big leap [00:35:45] forward in technology, warfare sort of follows suit with the general principle that anything that can be weaponized will be weaponized until something better can be weaponized.
And, you know, we can look [00:36:00] at major leap forward, major leaps forward in technology like satellite. You know, of course that, that was a big game changer that allowed, um, people to have access to information from above that changed the strategic nature of warfare. You have [00:36:15] drones that changed the nature of warfare.
Even just having aircraft. Generally, all of a sudden, once there was aircraft, you had a whole new war fighting domain. So technology's always pushed warfare into these new spaces. And so when we got into the era of smartphones, [00:36:30] um, you know, something changed in the way that technology influenced us on the cognitive level.
You could even zoom in on one small thing, just the selfie camera, just that self-facing camera, that technology turning towards us, our [00:36:45] awareness, our cognition turning towards us in that way. Even that one small shift in technology altered The, the daily experience that we live in, in such a way as to invite forms of warfare in, to invite [00:37:00] influence campaigns in.
And that is generally, I think, one of the major thr- threats that we are now looking at in the world, is that there's lots of different bad actors looking to influence people on the cognitive level for various different reasons. And so you really do want to be [00:37:15] able to protect your mind and control your emotions and proceed safely through the, the daily warfare, uh, that we are all just living through right now.
[00:37:24] Stephanie: It seems so obvious when you put it so simply, but [00:37:30] I think it's not necessarily obvious to everyone, this concept that anything that can be weaponized will be weaponized. One way that I think about it is the devil doesn't play fair. Devil does not care about your [00:37:45] morals. Devil is, by definition, amoral, immoral, anti-moral, I don't know, whatever word you wanna use.
But devil don't care about your rules, okay? You don't get that safe zone. Remember when we were talking about the game of tag? If I'm [00:38:00] touching this rock, you can't get me. Yeah. And when you're playing with evil, there is no rock that you can go to where the devil's like, "Oh, I'm gonna leave you alone 'cause you're hiding over there."
Yep. Maybe, maybe that rock is Jesus, but I, I, [00:38:15] I, I'm willing to consider that the devil's willing to use people's concept of Jesus as well. Um, so I mean, that's getting into a whole philosophical and religious [00:38:30] discussion that I'm not r- necessarily even trying to invoke right now. Um, but, but the concept, anything that can be weaponized will be weaponized.
It's like- Yeah ... I think the reason that it's so hard to grasp is [00:38:45] because we do have goodness in our hearts, most of us. And because of that goodness, because of that instinct to play fair ourselves, we see the world through that lens. Because we have a conscience, because we have empathy, we see the world as we [00:39:00] are.
We project it. And so if there are certain things where you would never cross that line yourself, like, um, here's an example. Um, brothers might regularly [00:39:15] squabble and get into play fights, but there's an instinct in a brother that if your brother has fallen off his bicycle and he's bleeding, he's in the safe zone.
That is not the moment. You don't kick him when he's down, [00:39:30] right? So there's that kind of moral instinct that contains our, our inherent badness, our desire to, uh, to get under someone's skin, right? And so because we have that moral instinct in ourselves- [00:39:45] It's, it's hard to recognize and remember that when you're dealing with actual evil, that constraint isn't there.
There's nothing off limits. There's nothing to say, "Don't kick him when he's down," or, "Don't cross that line." [00:40:00]
[00:40:01] Simon: This is something I've thought about a lot because if we are in a world where people can be modified, their, their cognitive system can be modified at such a deep level, and when you get down to the level of perception, that means [00:40:15] their, their morality can be completely modified.
It means that, um, someone can be completely morally inverted through these processes. And so, like when I talk about moral inversion, I'm talking about, you know, the, the desire to [00:40:30] destroy innocence for the sake of innocence suffering. You know, you get to those kinds of levels of depravity. I think it's important to understand that we live in a time in human history where people can be conditioned into the [00:40:45] depths of total moral inversion and, um, there can be centralized entities that have the ability to condition a certain amount of the population in that direction.
A- and again, I, I, you know, on the one hand, I think it is important to call out evil when we see it. There are [00:41:00] things happening in this world that are evil. On the other hand, I think it's important to note that our most vulnerable can be conditioned to become morally inverted. They can become part of this whole process of de- the decay of our society and our social fabric.
[00:41:15] So you know, I, I, I personally think it's one of the biggest questions of our time, you know? To what extent are we dealing with people who have been conditioned and manipulated to do bad things, and to what extent are we dealing with people who have genuinely bad [00:41:30] intentions from the get-go? It's very, very murky out there.
Hmm.
[00:41:33] Stephanie: Have you read "The Screwtape Letters"?
I don't think so, no.
Oh, that's a good one. Um, which reminds me Another former guest of this podcast, Samantha [00:41:45] Stevenson, wrote some modern, like, version of The Screwtape Letters applied to a modern problem, and I need to look into that, and I need to read that and invite her back.
That just reminded me. Um, are you familiar with the premise of The Screwtape Letters?
[00:41:59] Simon: No. [00:42:00] Please tell me.
[00:42:00] Stephanie: Oh, so it's, uh, by C.S. Lewis, and it's basically a series of letters from a demon to his, uh, nephew, his, his [00:42:15] subordinate. Uh, and he's guiding his nephew demon in how to tempt a particular human victim, uh, away from good towards evil.
And so it takes place in C.S. [00:42:30] Lewis's time. So, like, an example would be how to get him to spend more time with his friends who are bad influences, and how to lure him away from the nice churchgoing girl he's starting to be interested in, and how to weaponize [00:42:45] his everyday emotions to make him more prone to envy and distraction and laziness and things like that.
And I'd be curious about a modern version of that because we have so many more [00:43:00] distractions now.
[00:43:00] Simon: Yes.
[00:43:01] Stephanie: I think we need art like The Screwtape Letters, and another good one is, um, have you seen The Good Place?
[00:43:07] Simon: No
[00:43:07] Stephanie: Oh, you haven't seen The Good Place? It's, it's a really great philosophical comedy, if you will.
Um- Okay ... [00:43:15] so the premise of The Good Place is, and, and so anyone who hasn't seen The Good Place, I might ruin a little bit. I'm just warning you. But you need to understand the premise because it's, it's important symbolically. Um, that a, a demon has come up with a [00:43:30] new way to torture humans. So instead of the traditional methods of torture in hell, like physical, inflicting physical pain, um, he brings certain humans to a place and tricks them into thinking that they're in heaven, [00:43:45] and then keeps, uh, creating moral dilemmas and double binds and disaster scenarios that make them go crazy.
So for example, [00:44:00] for the human whose biggest flaw is that he's too moral, the philosopher, the, the m- the, uh, morality professor who's got like a type of obsessive compulsive personality disorder where he's so obsessed with doing the right thing [00:44:15] at all times that he gets decision paralysis, he gets tormented by his own morality.
And the girl, on the other hand, played by Kristen Bell, who knows that she's a bad person, who's like, "I, I'm [00:44:30] in heaven? What? I don't belong here," she is tormented at first by, um, being presented with a variety of scenarios that would be appealing to someone who is a truly good person but aren't appealing to her because she has a lower, um, [00:44:45] taste, uh, for experiences, right?
So, um, so it's really, really clever, and where, where we eventually go in The Good Place is, um Is we learn that the system is rigged and that [00:45:00] no one's gotten into heaven in like 500 years. Wow. Because the demons have taken over the process of assessing who gets considered good enough to go to heaven or bad enough to go to hell.
And, and so of course the demons would do that, right? 'Cause [00:45:15] they're amoral. Like their mission is to get everyone to go to hell. Um, their mission is to bring out the worst in people. I feel like "The Good Place" gets at some really interesting, uh, philosophical themes and illustrates them in a very artistic way.
[00:45:29] Simon: You know, [00:45:30] we're, you know, we're, we're th- these beings that are challenged by awareness now. We're in this era of humanity where the cultivation of awareness is one of like the biggest challenges we face daily. And, um, those [00:45:45] areas of ourself, of our lives where we lack that, that awareness, where we haven't brought the light of awareness, um, really tends to be one of the areas where we're most likely to be manipulated.
And I often look at it [00:46:00] in a sort of pronoia way, you know, that this is the universe's way of benefiting us all, is that the, the pressure of modern warfare actually is beckoning us to a level of awareness that we perhaps haven't had and that that is [00:46:15] I think maybe a, a good catalyst in the sense that it is going to push humanity to cultivate awareness and free thought on new levels.
I think to become a sovereign being in these times, uh, we've never faced challenges like [00:46:30] this. But, but it is the pressure of our modern times that spawns new levels of, you know, human excellence. I think that's one of the areas where we're being pushed. I find it very intriguing.
[00:46:40] Stephanie: Your trans-identified kid won't listen to reason because reason [00:46:45] isn't what they need right now.
They need a parent who knows how to communicate in an empathic yet strategic manner. ROGD Repair gives you over 120 lessons in the psychology and communication tools that actually work [00:47:00] when normal parenting doesn't. Plus Repair Bot, your 24/7 AI coach trained on my entire body of work, ready to help you navigate tough moments in real time.
Visit ROGDRepair.com and use code [00:47:15] SOMETHERAPIST2026 to take half off your first month
So tell us where you're going with your new series, You Are Here. I've just seen episode one
[00:47:25] Simon: The next step I'm going to take is to explore this idea of cognitive entrenchment. [00:47:30] And, you know, this is really the idea that we can become cognitively entrenched.
We can, we can become trapped in the cognitive system we're conditioned into. And I think there are really big implications for this. The first [00:47:45] idea or the first time I came across the idea of cognitive entrenchment was in a book called Range, um, by a man named David Epstein. And, you know, he looked at the way in which people with a large variety of life experiences and [00:48:00] careers ended up forming, uh, greater forms of intelligence than people who become, who had become hyper-specialized.
And he really looked deeply into this and found that people that were hyper-specialized in a certain form of education could sometimes experience a form of [00:48:15] cognitive entrenchment, where they struggle to think outside of their domain. And, uh, this was really, really interesting to me when I found out that this was something that was actually being studied.
Um, for example, one of the things they looked at was chess masters. So they had people who had spent their whole [00:48:30] lives becoming masters of chess and What they would do is they would challenge these chess masters by having them play against total novices, but they would change one rule of the game. And as soon as they changed one rule [00:48:45] of the game, these chess masters would lose to the absolute beginners, um, because their domain expertise was an attachment that was so strong for them that to think outside of that was very difficult.
So I'm moving [00:49:00] towards exploring this idea of cognitive entrenchment, and I think it's got the biggest implications when we look at the ways in which we can become entrenched in how we deal with children and innocence, and the potential destruction of innocence that, um, [00:49:15] we're seeing with a lot of these ideological influences.
[00:49:18] Stephanie: Not to give the whole story arc away, but how do you connect the dots between cognitive entrenchment and the war on children and families?
[00:49:26] Simon: I'll give one really strong example. [00:49:30] There is a mother in British Columbia who was bringing her trans child to bars in BC and having their child dance for adults [00:49:45] for money, and, uh, this of course is not legal.
You can't bring a minor into a bar and have them dance for money for people. But this was nonetheless happening. And when confronted by the, uh, you know, by [00:50:00] people and by her community, by authorities, when confronted about this, she stuck to her guns that she was helping to affirm her child. Um, that to me is an example of someone who has become so ideologically captured, so [00:50:15] captured at the level of cognition, that they could be sacrificing their child's innocence to, uh, to a circumstance without having awareness of what they're doing, and I think that's one of the more frightening implications of this, [00:50:30] and I think there are lots of examples of that in which someone has been manipulated so deeply on the cognitive level that they, they, they will harm their own children and not perceive that which they are doing.
[00:50:41] Stephanie: So you use an example that's rather horrifying. [00:50:45] Even a person who believes in the whole born in the wrong body nonsense would not argue that it's any more acceptable for a mother to have her daughter dance for adult male onlookers than to have [00:51:00] her son dance for adult male onlookers. It's equally wrong regardless of the sex of the child.
You don't have to believe or not believe in gender identity nonsense to see the problem here. Um, but there is this trans-exceptionalism that brings that haze. Like you said when I [00:51:15] talked about the fog earlier, you said the fog is a symptom of the cognitive warfare. But it would seem like there's a significant emotional component to this stuff too, and that's a lot of the work I do with families is looking at how even when people are divorced from emotion, [00:51:30] um, or seem divorced from emotion, uh, seem to have flat affect, for example, or lack awareness as to what they're feeling, that there are some powerful emotional drivers that people are unconscious of that, that, that fuel the [00:51:45] entrenchment.
[00:51:45] Simon: Yes, absolutely. When we look at the emotional piece, it's important to remember that that's one of the ways in which our, our virtuous nature can be manipulated most greatly. When we are convinced that there are dangers, for example, [00:52:00] that mother believing that her trans child is in danger of suicide unless her child is affirmed over and over again, you know, that is a mother's instinct, that is a mother's love, that is her emotional system being manipulated on a very deep [00:52:15] level.
And the other side of it is that this is one of the ways in which narrative warfare is most effectively waged, is outrageous narratives that are outrageous, that create outrageous feelings, that create extreme emotional experiences are [00:52:30] much more effective at conditioning us into this kind of cognitive entrenchment.
And so I think you need to have a balanced relationship with our emotional system. You know, I do appreciate the view that emotions come in waves and that, you know, you really should [00:52:45] observe the wave of an emotion before you act on it, before you use it as a source of authority in your life. I think that is pretty beneficial.
Um, but I think generally understanding, you're right, the, the component that the emotional system plays in all of this is so important and, and I [00:53:00] think it really does vary between men and women. I think it's one of the reasons, of course, we're looking at why there are so many moms who seem to be standing behind the most extreme expressions of gender, uh, you know, affirmative culture.
Um, uh, [00:53:15] I think there's something there that has to do with the emotional system, and that's why it's been so effective.
[00:53:19] Stephanie: So you said the arc of the series is to bring it home to children and families. Can you give us a sneak peek of some of the other ground you're [00:53:30] gonna cover there?
[00:53:31] Simon: Why don't we take a little look into history because one of the things I'm going to be doing is comparing this to history.
So, you know, there's a very interesting history, um, in the story of Carthage. So there were some remains found in [00:53:45] Carthage, and they identified these remains in these urns as being the cremated remains of babies and young children And as they were exploring the forensic discoveries in this area and [00:54:00] moving through the timeline of Carthage, you know, they initially found these urns with children's remains, and they had been marked as sacrifices to Baal.
Um, so this is, you know, an ancient deity of child sacrifice. And [00:54:15] initially when they made these discoveries, this was a ritual that was only being performed by the elite class in Carthage, and they could see this by the urns and the way that the burial had been performed. But as they progressed through the forensic [00:54:30] story of Carthage, what they found was that over time, what the elites were doing in terms of sacrificing children to this god of child sacrifice, um, had become normalized, and that this practice of the elites eventually, through [00:54:45] culture, became normalized so that the forensic story changed.
And they found in Carthage Urns and, you know, uh, the evidence of these sacrifices that were being performed by even the lowest classes in Carthage. [00:55:00] And I think the story's very telling because I think the way in which culture and morality can trickle down, um, from those who are in positions of centralized power, especially culturally, um, the way that can trickle down really affects us as moral [00:55:15] beings, as emotional beings.
And I think it's startling to consider that story of Carthage and then to place that understanding within the framework of today's age of influence and recognize that if that could just happen in the normal [00:55:30] cultural, uh, you know, exchanges that are occurring in a place like Carthage, well, uh, uh, things like that are now amplified exponentially in our culture in the way that influence can move through a population.
So I'm going to be exploring some [00:55:45] of that and really looking deeply into, you know, what, what does this mean? What does this modern influence mean? And is there, is there a form of modern child sacrifice going on that we're not even aware of?
[00:55:55] Stephanie: When we hear something so horrific as ancient child sacrifice, it- [00:56:00] I think it's easy to dismiss as barbaric and of a completely different world.
Um, but this is, this is one of the reasons that I think that it makes more sense to study history in middle [00:56:15] age than in childhood. I've said this before, um, like when I talked to a historian, Matt Osborne, on this podcast. I, I talked about like how I'm interested in history now in this phase of life. As a child, it was probably my worst subject, so I was just like, "Ah, just a bunch of names and [00:56:30] dates and meh," you know?
Um, but, but you have enough human experience and you start to get down to the bedrock, the substrate of like what we're all made of and always have been and always will be. Like what is human [00:56:45] nature? And that is the common thread. It was people made of the same stuff as you and I that lived through these completely different times.
And, and you get tossed around and, you know, through the that current of [00:57:00] life. You know, you bump up against enough other stones over time and, and you get humbled enough to see, oh my goodness, I have more in common than I'd like to admit with, uh, people who have done horrific things throughout history, and you start to get curious as to how these things can [00:57:15] happen.
And it's interesting that you mention child sacrifice to Baal because I was just hearing Jordan Peterson lecture about that- I acc- I accidentally, like, you know how you pocket dial people? I ac- I pocket played a, a [00:57:30] Jordan Peterson lecture last night. I was in the middle of listening to something completely different, and my phone was in my pocket.
And, you know, one moment I'm listening to a podcast about psychedelic-assisted therapy, and the next moment I hear Jordan Peterson's voice in my ear. And I'm like, "Hmm, maybe [00:57:45] I'm meant to hear this. Let me just see what he has to say." And, uh, it ended up being really relevant. And, and that was one of the places that he went in this lecture, um, was, uh, that how nature worship leads to child sacrifice.
And you would think [00:58:00] like, "What? Nature worship? It's, like, the most, like, innocent, like- You forget the, you know, the Christian lens on what's bad about that. Just take it as, as, as face value. Like, like what's so, what's so ba- how, how does [00:58:15] appreciating the beauty of the natural world lead to something as horrific as child sacrifice?
Typically, people who have a soft spot in their hearts for nature are the same people who have a soft spot for children and, you know, it tends to be very feminine-coded thing to [00:58:30] do and, and, you know, what else is feminine coded is like loving on children, right? So, so it doesn't cognitively make any sense at first glance, but can you help us connect the dots as to how...
I, I mean, [00:58:45] 'cause part of what I hear you saying is that good intentions can lead to horrific outcomes when we have these cognitive blind spots, that our good intentions can be manipulated, and so something that starts off [00:59:00] very innocent can lead to something like child sacrifice in the end, and that's what we're seeing with the transgender movement.
[00:59:05] Simon: Well, we seem to have a responsibility for, you know, two different parts of, of human existence. We have this struggle to become sovereign individuals to the [00:59:15] extent that we are capable or to the extent that is possible, but we also have the struggle of like what is the collective morality? Like we're so deeply influenced by whatever the collective morality is, um, that we have to craft it with such [00:59:30] intention.
And so I think we're, we're moving through an era right now where, where we're waking up to the fact that culture, and therefore to a great extent morality, has been produced centr- in these centralized systems. So a very [00:59:45] small group of people have been able to produce the culture and send it out to the majority, and giving the power of culture and, and of course to an extent our morality to a centralized system I think was, was an extremely dangerous [01:00:00] experiment that, that, you know, we're now moving through.
I think when you look at our relationship with nature and, you know, religion and moral frameworks, we do have lots of examples of what Jordan Peterson is talking about, about this struggle where [01:00:15] when you become only about, you know, nature and the worship of nature, it te- tends to lead that way. And I, I recently, I found a different example of that a- and I'll, I'll explain it only to show a distinction between the Carthage story I just told [01:00:30] and a different version of this.
There's a story in Canada that we are a nation founded on white supremacy, on slavery, um, that historically, you know, we came here and we abused the First Nations population. And that story [01:00:45] has convinced Canadians of The idea that the First Nations people here have a, a moral high ground that we don't, that they were here living a morally pure and spir- uh, spiritual life that we then came in and destroyed [01:01:00] with corruption.
But if you go back and look through the history of the native populations that literally lived in the land that I'm living on now, um, a lot of them did actually, um, they did actually kill their children quite easily. So for example, when a woman would be left, you [01:01:15] know, if the man that she was with left or died, they would sometimes just leave the children in the cold to die.
Um, it wasn't a problem for them. They didn't have moral structures that necessarily made that strange. The reason I know this is because there's journals and diaries [01:01:30] from nuns at the time who were encountering this, and they ended up taking some of those children who would've just been left to die because it was normal in those tribal circumstances to just give up the children if you believed you couldn't care for them.
Um, some of those children were then brought into the residential school [01:01:45] system. The reason I bring all of this up is because there are, you know... In that example, they weren't sacrificing the children to a god or anything like that. It was just a cultural norm in which there was no reason to protect those children because it didn't seem practical.
But their whole [01:02:00] framework was one that was very much, you know, focused on worshiping nature and being connected to the natural world. So it, it does make me wonder, to what extent are we now faced with the dilemma of moving into an era where we have to be f- free-thinking individuals, but also where we have to participate [01:02:15] in this collective creation of what our moral compass is going to be as a society?
And I'm not sure. I'm not sure how that's gonna play out since we seem to be moving into a more sort of tribal, decentralized area of, of human, of the human [01:02:30] story. Um, but I think those are two of the biggest things that we have to contend with.
[01:02:34] Stephanie: Speaking of children and families, I know you mentioned that you are the father of three, uh, home birthed children, and you have an event [01:02:45] coming up.
You said you're, um, associated with something called the Reclaiming Birth Movement, and you're emceeing a conference. Can you tell us about that?
[01:02:53] Simon: Yes. So the Reclaiming Birth Movement Is really a push to bring back natural birth, to [01:03:00] promote the principle of non-interference in birth, um, to bring birth back into the family, back into the home, to take away a lot of the medical narratives that have framed birth as a dangerous emergency [01:03:15] that have resulted in women being, uh, abused, traumatized, disembodied, um, narratives that have alienated men and fathers.
So this is a conference that's been going on for, I think, three, four years now, and our mission is to really [01:03:30] inform families and families to be on, uh, where birth is at right now, what are the actual current influences, and what is their, you know, intention or what is the result of these influences. And how does one reclaim birth and take control of it, you [01:03:45] know, as a mom, as a father, you know, within the family unit?
So we're very focused on that, and we have a great lineup of speakers that are all about empowering people with the knowledge they need to protect their birth from systemic influence.
[01:03:57] Stephanie: And so that conference is in [01:04:00] Canada in September, and you'll send me the link to put in the show notes.
[01:04:05] Simon: Yes. Yes, and it's a great chance for people to...
You know, even if you're not yourself about to have a child or, um, or in that position in your life, it's a great thing to share with people [01:04:15] who may be in that place, um, because these are resources that are very difficult to find, to be quite honest, um, especially depending on where you are in the world.
So how to work with midwives and doulas and, you know, to get informed on birth, all of that. Um, there's an information war going on to an extent, [01:04:30] and we try to make it as easy as possible to leave people empowered.
[01:04:32] Stephanie: And this conference is for men also. Obviously, you're, you're an emcee. You say that, that it's also about bringing men as fathers into empowered, informed, um, [01:04:45] participatory positions within the family.
[01:04:46] Simon: Well, I really believe that all of this starts at birth, right? So we just went through this whole conversation about influence and the war on children and families and all of this, but I, I really do believe that a lot of this does begin with [01:05:00] birth and the way that birth is treated, and that can spiral in directions that make us more vulnerable to a lot of the influence we've been talking about.
So when birth is reclaimed by men especially, you know, there's, there's something powerful that can change. What we just [01:05:15] outlined today are a lot of the, the threats, the kinds of threats that are common today. They are cognitive in nature. It's the same in birth. So for men to step into the position of being a father who's going to defend his child's birth, you have to recognize that a lot of [01:05:30] what's going on is, is cognitive.
There are narratives about birth that you have to contend with. There are meta-narratives that you've been written into when it comes to birth and fathering that you need to contend with, that you need to release. You know, the cultural meme of the incompetent father, [01:05:45] uh, or the frightened father, you know, pacing up and down the hospital hallway disconnected from the arrival of his child.
All of these things really matter, and we're excited this year to bring men into the conversation. We're gonna be taking the fathers who are in attendance on some hikes early in the morning to connect [01:06:00] as dads and to really talk about what it means for men to step into this role and to, to be defenders of pregnancy and birth.
Like I, I, I believe men have a great chance to do now, and I think it's a huge opportunity for purpose. [01:06:15] And I know that, that men in our era are deeply struggling with purpose. So I think, you know, this call to action can do a lot for our society, in my opinion.
[01:06:24] Stephanie: It's really great to hear about, um I recently went on a [01:06:30] two-week road trip to California with my family, and we did a lot of outdoor adventures and got to connect with old friends.
And when we were visiting Santa Cruz, where I went to college and, um, stayed, stayed a little longer than that, [01:06:45] a place that still feels like home in many ways even though I've been gone for a long time, I got to connect with an old friend of mine there who, um, when I was there was very focused on building community and hosting gatherings and building sort of like an interfaith [01:07:00] spiritual community.
And it was really good to see him all these years later doing, uh, men and boys work, um, 'cause I, I thought of him as sort of my like spiritual hippie space holder friend. But this was [01:07:15] like, I'd seen how he'd like toughened up in, um, working with at-risk youth and finding that that was really his calling was to be, um, a role model, uh, and a mentor, including for a lot of boys who didn't have [01:07:30] fathers.
Um, I think that type of work is so needed and inspiring to hear about. And, um, yeah, men and boys do have purpose and need support finding their purpose. And, uh, [01:07:45] unfortunately too many people are wired this way. And it's not just men and boys. I'm wired this way too. Like a lot of us are wired in this way that if we don't have the right challenge, the right mission or purpose, we will create challenges for ourself, um, and for other people, challenges [01:08:00] that are not the ultimate, you know, fulfillment of purpose.
Um, and I think, uh, that, you know, obviously at-risk young men from working class communities are, are probably the prime example of that. [01:08:15] Um, but it applies to many people as well. So I think conversations about, uh, purpose for men are so important, and I welcome more of those conversations on this podcast.
For anyone listening, if you wanna be a guest, you wanna recommend a [01:08:30] guest, um, on that subject, I can't promise an interview to everyone who asks for it, but go ahead and, and drop names in the show notes because always happy to talk about that kind of work. Um, well, Simon, is there anything, anything you wanted to circle back to or, um, [01:08:45] sort of put a finishing touch on?
[01:08:47] Simon: Well, you know, I am on a mission to, to defend the family and to defend free thought. And so I, you know, I wanna put it to people that this, these are times that are filled with great purpose, and to defend children and free thought in [01:09:00] the family I think is a It's a magnificent calling that I think a lot of us can step into.
And so I really do try to flip the pressure of this war. And I, I study warfare a lot, and that may seem really dark to some people, it may seem [01:09:15] stressful, but to me it's just a discovery of purpose. It, it transforms the pressure of that into purpose. And, you know, uh, to echo a lot of what you said, a, a big part of what we can be doing now definitely is focusing on bringing boys and men purpose.
And, uh, yeah, that, that's a, that's a [01:09:30] great conversation to get into. As a father of three boys- Mm ... I think it's really important. But, um, you know, I would invite people to check out my website, simonesler.com, where you can check out my other films. Um, you can check out Cut Daughters of the West. I have a short [01:09:45] film with filmmaker Adam Riva called Vague Rules, which looks at the impli- implementation of a lot of this ideology in the West, um, through a variety of methods.
And, uh, you can check out the conference at the reclaimingbirthconference.com. Um, where you can get in- [01:10:00] information about that and, and join us if you'd like. I'd love to have you.
[01:10:03] Stephanie: Awesome. And for your new series, You Are Here, that's, um, people can watch that through Dauntless Dialogue?
[01:10:11] Simon: That's right. You can go to dauntlessdialogue.com and, uh, you can [01:10:15] sign up.
They have an incredible platform of absolutely magnificent, uh, original documentaries that are really unpacking a lot of what's out there in the world in ways that you can't get anywhere else. So I, I highly recommend it as a platform. You can check out my new series there. I'm [01:10:30] working on episode two right now.
And then my other docuseries, Superorganism, uh, which is about the war on the family, that's a six-part docuseries. That is also on both my website and Dauntless Dialogue as well.
[01:10:41] Stephanie: Very cool. And are you on any social media platforms where people can follow [01:10:45] you?
[01:10:45] Simon: Yes. Please come join me on X. You can find me, Simon Esler, on X.
I am on Instagram at simon_esler1111.
And I'm also working pretty hard to grow my Substack and do lots over there. I've got lots of new things [01:11:00] lined up. So you can find me on Substack, Simon Esler, or under Subversive Clarity.
[01:11:06] Stephanie: Very cool. Well, Simon, so good to chat with you again. Thanks for
joining me.
[01:11:10] Simon: It was a pleasure. Thanks so much.
[01:11:13] Stephanie: Thank you for listening [01:11:15] to You Must Be Some Kind of Therapist.
If you enjoyed this episode, kindly take a moment to rate, review, share, or comment on it using your platform of choice. And of course, please remember, podcasts are not [01:11:30] therapy, and I'm not your therapist. Special thanks to Joey Pecoraro for this awesome theme song, Half Awake, and to Pods by Nick for production.
For help navigating the impact of the gender craze on your family, be sure to [01:11:45] check out my program for parents, ROGD Repair. Any resource you heard mentioned on this show, plus how to get in touch with me, can all be found in the notes and links below. Rain or shine, [01:12:00] I hope you will step outside to breathe the air today.
In the words of Max Ehrmann, "With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful [01:12:15] [01:12:30] [01:12:45] world."