Values Make Friends

Every part of life can start to feel sorted into boxes: conservative or liberal, religious or secular, my people or your people. We push back on that instinct with a simple reality check: we are a progressive Christian and a conservative atheist who are also close friends, and we are not interested in letting the world tell us we cannot sit at the same table. 

We start with the stories we tell about place and identity, including Northern California’s rural “State of Jefferson” vibe and what it reveals about culture, geography, and belonging. From there, a frontiersmen docudrama opens a bigger question about American history and mythmaking: who gets remembered, who gets cast as the hero, and why the hardships of women in homesteading and frontier life so often get minimized. 

Then we take on the hard one: judging the past by today’s standards. Andrew Jackson, the Trail of Tears, and the temptation to say “I would never” lead us into a deeper conversation about moral certainty, presentism, and the purity-test language that shuts down nuance. Along the way we compare different responses to injustice, including why Martin Luther King Jr.’s restraint can feel almost superhuman, and why that should make us more honest about ourselves. We land on a practical takeaway for bridging political polarization: friendship is less about shared beliefs and more about shared values like loyalty, trust, and having each other’s back. 

If you care about common ground, civil discourse, and staying human in a divided culture, follow the show, share it with a friend who disagrees with you, and leave a review so more people can find the conversation.

©NoahHeldmanMusic

https://livingoncommonground.buzzsprout.com

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:02

Does it feel like every part of your life is divided? Every scenario, every environment, your church, your school, your work, your friends, left, right, conservative, liberal, religious, secular. It seems you always have to take a side. This is a conversation between a progressive Christian and a conservative atheist who happen to be great friends. Welcome to Living on Common Ground. Do you think if we met today, we would still be friends? I don't know.

SPEAKER_03 0:35

But we're friends now.

SPEAKER_06 0:38

A mom is known as a mom because they are living in a dog. Man, so well, we want a few games. Y'all fools think that's something? Man, that ain't nothing, y'all. And you know what else? We ain't nothing either. Yeah, we came together in camp. Cool. But then we're right back here, and the world tells us that they don't want us to be together. We fall apart like we ain't a damn bit of nothing, man.

Marker 6

SPEAKER_04 1:17

The Northern California.

Marker 7

SPEAKER_04 1:18

All right, tell me about the 51st state. Um State of Jefferson, uh, Northern California.

Marker 10

SPEAKER_04 1:26

Uh but when people who aren't in Northern California think of Northern California, usually think of San Francisco and East Bay and Napa and all that, which totally makes sense. That's where the population is. Guilty. But if you just look at a map and like you chopped off the northern third of California, the vast majority of that is all rural and it's like mountain rural. It's like it's like uh deep woods kind of backcountry borough. And um and it's uh it's deeply red. It's a deeply red area of the country, and they are uh there's been a movement to secede from California for the last at least for the last 35 years. I think it's gone further beyond that. I think it's like the last 50 years, something like that.

SPEAKER_01 2:15

So is Sacramento part of that area?

SPEAKER_04 2:17

Yeah, so Sacramento is the very northern tip of the um of the valley. So California's like a big oval-shaped bowl geographically.

SPEAKER_01 2:29

I'm all about it. I've read Steinbeck.

SPEAKER_04 2:31

Yeah, yeah, yeah. There you go. Yeah. So Sacramento is like the very northern tip of it.

SPEAKER_01 2:35

I'm just kidding about the whole, of course, I know everything because I've read Steinbeck thing.

SPEAKER_04 2:38

Might as well just say you do. It's cool.

SPEAKER_01 2:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 2:41

Uh so Sacramento doesn't really fall into Sacramento proper does not fall into um, oh yeah, I tripped and fell on my run and chilled myself. It's fine. I'm fine. I just need to grow some skin back, you know. I see that.

SPEAKER_01 2:59

Um for those of you that you can't see, Lucas is speaking with his hands and he doesn't have palms anymore.

SPEAKER_04 3:04

Yeah, it's kind of it's kind of gruddy. I forgot about that. Um, this is much better. Anyway, Sacramento proper is not part of state of Jefferson. Absolutely not. But you go just east of that and you get into Placer County, that's where we're from. And that north, all of that north, that's state of Jefferson. And their their flag says it's time for 51. That's like their uh their saying. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 3:28

So I just finished watching um Denise and I finished watching a show. Okay, so a few years ago, there was a show called Um The Men Who Built America.

SPEAKER_03 3:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 3:38

And that was really good. That was about the like the Rockefellers, yeah, right, and uh um Vanderbilt and uh this 19th century. Yeah, it was it was the the sort of the uh um uh part of the industrial revolution people, the people that made a ton of money during that time.

SPEAKER_04 3:55

People call that the Gilded Age sometimes.

SPEAKER_01 3:57

Yeah, yep, yep. Uh this one was the men who built America, but it went back to um the it was the frontiersmen. So it started with Daniel Boone. Yeah. Right, who's sort of that first part of that first wave just prior to the uh um the Revolutionary War. Yeah. And then ended up fighting in the Revolutionary War on the Western frontier. Uh-huh. Right. And then it goes all the way through to um uh what was his name? Kit um Carson. And who is his partner? That um it was Kit Carson.

SPEAKER_04 4:35

I don't know Kit Carson. That's a really blank spot in my education.

SPEAKER_01 4:39

Interesting, because he's like, I would imagine he'd be part of California history. Like if you were taking like like when I took Ohio history as an elementary kid, yeah, um, you know, there's people that are so important in the Kyle Rush? No. He goes back to pre uh American Mexican, Mexican-American War.

SPEAKER_04 5:00

Okay, so before California is part of the Union and yeah, but he's a big part of the reason it becomes.

SPEAKER_01 5:06

And then the first governor of the state. Um was that Sutter? No. And it could be I'm thinking of the first senator to the United States Senate from California. Anyway, it was a name that I recognize as his last name because there's an area named after him. Okay. Um, and that was Kit Carson's uh partner. So Kit was the um, he was the uh the uh scout. He knew the territory. Uh-huh. Um, and then and then this other guy who was his partner was like the politician that was sent out. And his whole purpose going out there, because at the time California was part of Mexico, and the Mexican government allowed United States, the the newly formed United States citizens to live on the land and to farm the land, and but they weren't allowed to own the land. Yeah. And so these two went out there because um president uh oh man, come on, Jeff. Um it was right after Andrew Jackson, the president after Andrew Jackson. Might have been two after him. Anyway, he's the one that actually created the like made the states all the way from one coast to the other. Uh-huh. Um we fulfilled our destiny. Yeah, the manifest destiny.

SPEAKER_04 6:27

Are you are you talking okay, so is his partner Fremont?

SPEAKER_01 6:30

Yes.

SPEAKER_04 6:31

John Fremont?

SPEAKER_01 6:31

Yep, John Fremont. And um, and so they went over there with the their their orders were to not start a war, but to antagonize one.

SPEAKER_04 6:42

To get one going.

SPEAKER_01 6:43

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so they would go to bars, they'd go to saloons and stuff like that, and they would start talking about, oh, so you're allowed to farm the land, but you can't own the land? And and they ended up riling up like 1400 men.

SPEAKER_04 6:58

Yeah. And then they instigate some uh Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 7:00

And then and then fr uh Fremont report was set kit sent Kit Carson back to try to go report to the president that they had succeeded in winning California independence. Uh-huh. Well, what he didn't realize is that Mexico hadn't um mobilized their army yet. Uh-huh. And uh, and this was all prior to um, I think it was prior to the Alamo. Uh anyway, the um then the Mexican government sent their army up there. And um, and at the last second, Carson gets back with the Western United States Army. Sure. And um, they're still greatly outnumbered, but the Mexican Army didn't anticipate them coming in from a different way, and they found themselves getting pushed into the coast and had to retreat and ended up giving California. Awesome. Yeah. And then and so I'm just thinking, I wouldn't be surprised if some of your ancestors, if you're fifth generation, might have been there for some of that, or at least shortly after, maybe after it became a state.

unknown 8:07

Maybe.

SPEAKER_01 8:07

Anyway.

SPEAKER_04 8:08

I don't know much about my ancestors on that side. I know I I know their names and I know where they lived. I don't know a lot about their history. Yeah. You know, it's interesting because um what I was thinking of, I'm gonna sound like a I'm gonna sound like a real liberal here, which is cool. Um But I when you were talking about um the title of the show, The Men Who Made America, which I have no problem with, you know, I don't I don't find that offensive at all. But when it comes to like pioneering and frontiers, you know, like homesteading and that kind of thing, that is an area that I think like, nah, the the women need a lot more we we need a lot more representation in the in um the the women who moved because it was most it was it was fan, not not the um the the real kind of what we think of as Western, like California. A lot of that was um the reason the violence was so high is because it's a lot of the dregs, the and which is which are always going to be almost always gonna be young men who are unattached, right? And so that's that's why that becomes really dangerous.

SPEAKER_01 9:24

But the the dregs and um Methodist Episcopal pre uh preachers. Are we just repeating ourselves? I'm sorry, it's just kidding. They were set me up. They no, that they were all young, unattached men who could be sent out. Yeah. Uh go ahead.

SPEAKER_04 9:42

So outlaws, dregs, uh people who don't have any other options, and the um uh people who are what is the right way to put it? Like who have a mission, who have the type of temperament where they jer they are like filled with some spirit to go out and that's gonna be unattached males, usually too.

SPEAKER_01 10:07

The gil the young Gil Pollards of the world, for those of you that know Gil.

SPEAKER_04 10:12

Yes, adventurous spirit, but that's not actually what I'm talking about. I'm talking about the um the spirit of uh it's more like a like an Enneagram one where they're going out to change the world. They're yeah, you know, they they're um the newly converted, the whatever, you know. Anyway, but what I really want what I was gonna say is that like I'm struck by the hardships that the family homesteading in the Midwest, trying to push that border.

SPEAKER_01 10:46

Which which was the West.

SPEAKER_04 10:48

Right. Yep Right.

SPEAKER_01 10:49

Yeah. Yeah. When you watch a show and you realize that when they're talking about the West, they're talking about the Ohio Valley and Kentucky.

SPEAKER_04 10:56

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Absolutely. And just, I mean, um, I I do think that that that is an area that I would like to see. I'd like to learn a lot more about the um the history of the hardships that the women went through. Um because they were I mean, the the men and women would be working side by side to try to They touched on it a little bit on the show.

SPEAKER_01 11:21

Um they talked about Daniel Boone's daughter. Um, and you want to talk about a tough woman. Any Frontiers woman is going to be at 14 years old, she got there was four w four of these 14 to 16-year-old girls that got abducted by I think it was the Creek um tribe. And she had the wherewithal to begin to rip off pieces of her dress so that her dad and a party of men could track her.

SPEAKER_04 11:54

Could track her, yeah. So she could understand track. I mean, like she understood, yep. I don't mean that that sounds dismissive, but like that they're they're people of that land, you know. And um, but anyway, I I want to make sure I say this. I don't think that it's inherently I made the flippant comment that I was gonna sound like a liberal. I don't think it's inherently liberal to think that you should be paying attention to the hardships that women are going through, especially in the in um homesteading and and that type of thing. Um just that like you know, when it comes to that kind of thing, I think it's the whole it's the term representation, you know, and that's kind of a yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:32

So this uh this brings up an interesting thing for me that as I'm watching it. Because one of the one of the scholars, so it's one of those shows where it's like a uh um a docudrama. Do you know what I'm talking about? Where the yeah, the the actors aren't fabulous. They don't do a bad job. Yeah, but you know, they're it's being narrated by scholars, and then they show actors.

SPEAKER_04 12:54

So reenactment kind of thing.

SPEAKER_01 12:55

Yes, yeah. Which is always interesting to me because like they show the military. I always love those. Like they like when they're talking about the Revolutionary War and they show like the British military. British military are going to be extremely fit, mostly young men. Right. I mean, like extremely fit. Yet when you watch the reenactment, they're mostly like 55-year-old guys who are overweight.

SPEAKER_04 13:23

And you think it's like that's who they could get to be the extra. I think so.

SPEAKER_01 13:28

I think so. Because I'm like, yeah, that like they showed one guy running, and you could tell it was killing him to run in that scene. Yeah. Anyway. That's funny. So if you can get kind of beyond some of that stuff, it's actually very interesting. But one of the things that the scholar talked about, and I think this is really I think I'd like to maybe make this the topic that we talk about today, unless you have a better topic for us, um, is he pointed out that um that Andrew Jackson is now looked at as a really bad person.

SPEAKER_03 13:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 13:58

By, you know, our and and what we do, and maybe I don't know if we've talked about this before or not, but what we do is we judge historical figures by our standards of society today. Yeah. Right. So like when you look at what he did and the way he was driven, we look at him and we're like, he was such an evil person because look at like he's only known now basically for the trail of tears.

SPEAKER_03 14:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 14:31

That's right. And and it's a horrific blight on the American history. I get it. But at the same time, I think that we have to be careful not to say, if I was Andrew Jackson, I wouldn't have done that. Yeah. And this whole idea of we judge not just historical people, but we judge each other based on what we think we would do in those particular situations. And we always seem to be better than I would even argue we really are. Sure. Like in in if you ask me, I would always be the martyr, I would always take the high road, I would always be the one to be admired, I would always be the hero. Um and and I think it's really important for us to spend a little bit of time acknowledging the fact that we're we're not always that person. Um one of the things I was thinking about this week is um, you know, okay, part of our community, the the whole thing is love all people. Right. Um and there's this guy, like what does that look like? And, you know, um, because we we can we can always dance our way around what it means to love somebody. Um which is why I kind of tend to lean more towards an idea of help each other flourish. Um but one of the things I think that we fail to remember is that we think that we are always the one that has to make a sacrifice to love other people, and we lose sight of the fact that there are other people who are having to make a sacrifice to create space for us in their lives. I'm not always lovable. And there are people that strongly would disagree with me on things, and I become the unlovable. Sure. So anyway, you just seem to be in all agreement with me. So maybe this is just a great short podcast, and everyone just remember that you're not always uh the hero and you're not always lovable.

SPEAKER_04 16:40

I I think that um I'll just speak for myself. I know I'm not. I'm not most of the time. Maybe I'm not lovable.

SPEAKER_01 16:51

But I think a lot of times, and I don't think you do this intentionally, but I think that you are a lot harder judge of yourself than the people that know you would be. Right? Okay. Like, like I think that I think that um, and and maybe it's true. Maybe you know yourself better than than like I'm just gonna use uh our relationship as an example. You you obviously know yourself better than I know you, right? But I'm gonna tell you that from my perspective, you're not nearly as bad of a person as you seem to think you are. And but but to my point earlier, but maybe the reason you're not is because you're self-aware enough.

SPEAKER_04 17:28

Well, may okay, maybe. And I I don't want to get too far into the um psychoanalysis because I could go off on um a couple of uh a couple of pathways that I think um would be not um necessary. I don't have to go that far. Um but I I I do uh for my for myself I think I think it's just my temperament. For myself, I just I know if I'm honest with myself the the aspects of myself that are um not attractive. Now, here's part of the issue is that I have to also be honest with myself, and this is where I think it's good to be married to a spouse who you both try to have an honest relationship, you both try to continue to know each other as you change. Somebody who in in my circumstance, somebody who is very wise, who can see me and and has history with me, right?

SPEAKER_02 18:54

So married to one person for a long time. If you're fortunate to do that.

SPEAKER_04 19:02

Um because I know my what Krista would say is it's it's not honest, Lucas, if you aren't honest about the things that you've grown in, right? Mm-hmm. That's not being honest either. Right. Right. At some point, like she knows my pathology and she knows that I have a there's certain things like like the thing, the thing I said, uh, I don't know if it was last week or the um the or a couple weeks ago or whatever in one of the recent podcasts where I said that I think there is an inverse relationship between how many people know of a good thing that I've done and how meaningful it is. In other words, the more people who know it, the less meaningful it is, the less it means to you, to the universe at all, in reality, to existence, to me, to God, whatever you want to say, that the truth of that goodness, the more people that know it, I have a feeling in my gut, the more people that know it, the more enjoyment I'm getting out of that. And the more enjoyment I get out of that, the more I know it's not real. Because it's it's for my enjoyment. Sure. I know that that comes, or Krista would probably say, a lot of that kind of underneath foundational stuff that that comes from is you know, it's it's six-year-old Lucas living with this dichotomy of my grandparents' kind of puritanical way of living. The the particular personality that my grandma has that is suspicious of all pleasure and enjoyment of life, right? Which I think there's benefit to. But also, is that just because of my temper? I don't know. My point being, like, it's good it's it's good that I have a wise wife who can who can walk next to me my whole life and then help point out when I'm doing this kind of thing, right? However, that's kind of the extreme part of it. The other part, the thing that I want to, that I don't want to just abandon is I I want to be honest with myself. And so when I like look at history, when I look at history, when I look at other people, I think, yeah, of course, it's it's unreasonable to expect you to have done any differently. If you had done differently, that would be notable. I'd be impressed, I'd you know, like we were talking about um Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X. This is gonna sound like I'm disparaging Malcolm X, and I'm really not trying. to but what I am gonna say is that you know I've talked about how like Malcolm X like he gets me going I like listening to him ballot and the bullet the ballot and the bullet I love and I I like listening to him some people listen to metal while they work out Lucas listens to the speech the ballot and the bullet I do actually um sometimes um but I also think that he's a representation and there were a lot of people Black Panther movement black power movement who responded in ways that were ultimately I think ultimately destructive but completely reasonable and understandable and expected as far as I'm concerned they responded the way I think I would Martin Luther King Jr. standing on the porch of his bombed out home where his wife and child were in the house when the bomb went off and they were just lucky enough that they didn't go out to the front porch to investigate the sound before it exploded and him saying put your weapons away you know that we this is our moment to show this is actually an opportunity essentially is what he said. Yeah I mean he didn't say that but like this is our opportunity here but the opportunity will be squandered if we respond the way there's a part of me that goes the way you should it's right it's just uh to deal harm uh in in response to harm that's a balancing of the scales that's justice you should there's a sense in which I really I really mean that and when he goes and we won't because this is when it actually counts that's superhuman as far as I'm concerned. That feels superhuman you know and so yeah I mean when you talked about Andrew Jackson yeah I mean he's there's so much more to him actually I have affection for Andrew Jackson in a way in a way not because of the Trail of Tears of course but because he tried to fight against the fed against a centralized bank. I mean he he was uh he wasn't the first I mean as far as I can uh tell Jefferson was the first trying to fight against a a national bank but um Jackson really tried to as well and so that I mean like I'm not as familiar with pluses he gets checks in the plus column as far as I'm concerned.

SPEAKER_01 24:44

Yeah I I'm very I'm familiar with Jefferson's attempts right I mean that's the reason that he hated Hamilton well it's one of the reasons he hated Hamilton. Yeah um the whole federal government versus the state authority thing too uh a federal bank in particular it is a big deal the bank is a big deal yeah anyway um so I I I'm not as familiar with uh with uh Jackson's but I do know too that um you know Jackson I mean you know you got the War of 1812 and the work that he does the way he's able to lead there's something about him that he can rally troops that people are fighting for him like they don't even think about the fact that they're fighting for their country at that point they're fighting for Andrew Jackson.

SPEAKER_04 25:30

Yeah you know well you it's hard to also as far as I'm concerned it's hard not to kind of like a guy who beats the crap out of somebody who just tried to assassinate him.

SPEAKER_01 25:41

I mean it's pretty it's pretty cool. I didn't realize that he and Davy Crockett had such a cantankerous relationship. I don't know much about that. So you want to hear it? Yeah are you interested okay yeah so so Davy Crockett volunteered to serve under Jackson during the War of 1812. Okay as a scout because he knows the area right and so he volunteers he goes down and he watched he witnesses a massacre that the uh um by the way I really noticed this too while we were watching it if the Americans slaughtered a tribe of natives came in and slaughtered them it was called a uh the battle of if it was the natives that came in and slaughtered uh Americans it was called the massacre that's interesting are those official titles yeah they're official titles so that's uh okay I was gonna say because I thought my mind went exactly the opposite I thought you were gonna say exactly the opposite but it must be because these were all named at the time yeah yeah and the United States wins we didn't so they get to name them.

SPEAKER_04 26:52

Yeah but we didn't have yeah exactly but we didn't have the same uh sentiment right that we have today right where today if if somebody was naming them they would battle love battle of or it'd be them they'd all just be called massacres. Maybe they'd all or it would be flipped.

SPEAKER_01 27:06

That's true too because we do have uh we we have really sort of learned um even beyond I think I think as a when we look at ourselves as a nation some of us not all of us I mean we're this is getting we're getting further and further apart from each other but there there sees seems to be a tendency um to go have even gone beyond self-deprecation to self-loathing. Absolutely um and so um Tom Holland would say that that the that comes from our Christian roots actually interesting yeah so um so anyway he volunteers but then um apparently Davy Crockett was actually kind of a decent human being and he saw this he saw this massacre and um of course it was called the Battle of but he saw the and he and a few of his friends the scouts were like we're deuces we're out and um and Jackson sent troops to stop them. And they were like we thought it was the tenant we thought we were the volunteers and he was like get back to camp it's a volunteer and he was like no it's not and they had guns on them. Mm-hmm and so Crockett told his men to stand down and they they went they returned.

SPEAKER_04 28:23

Wait, okay so so he brought in troops to stop the troops that were performing the massacre?

SPEAKER_01 28:29

No no the massacre happened yeah and Davy Crockett and some of his friends were there right because it was they were coming down they were coming down from Tennessee there during the massacre? Yes. Okay. They were coming down from Tennessee and they had been hired to track these uh the NATO I forget what tribe it was but right that had been attacking uh American settlements in the Mississippi area yeah and so Jackson volunteers they come down this is all prior to like just before the War of 1812 so this might be like in 1810 or something like that.

SPEAKER_03 28:59

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 29:00

And um and so and again it's because the Americans are starting to move out into areas that had been uh given to the natives and the natives are responding back to wait a second this is our this is our land what are you doing? And so they're starting but then they do the quote unquote massacres and so then federal troops are sent out and and Jackson puts together his own army from Tennessee and the Tennessee volunteers right the Tennessee volunteer army and they come down and they hire scouts and Davy Crockett is one of the scouts and so they come down and Crockett and his guys find the village okay and Jackson sends in the army and they slaughter everyone. Okay. Children warriors children everybody okay and Crockett is there. Yeah and so Crockett then like the next after the massacre Crockett and the scouts are like this isn't what we signed up for.

SPEAKER_04 29:56

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 29:56

And so they try to leave and Jackson has the army at gunpoint say you cannot leave you are now part of this. I see I see right and so they're so they fall in line and they stay but this builds an animosity between them and then when when uh when Jackson's president Crockett is a senator from the state of Tennessee which is Jackson's home state and this is when he's trying to put together the uh um Indian Act which becomes known as a trail of tears right the Indian Act and um and in the Senate Crockett opposes him and like to the point where and if Jackson like any politician um if you oppose them you become enemy number one. Yeah yeah right um and so they become real enemies and then uh Jackson begins a smear campaign uh against Crockett and he doesn't win the next election.

SPEAKER_04 30:57

And is that when he goes out to Texas?

SPEAKER_01 30:59

That's when he heads out to Texas okay because he's like he's got to reinvent himself again uh huh because you know the politician thing it i the local people liked him but with the smear campaign and everything like that and he realized he's he's a frontiersman he's a he's a scout he so he has uh because he thinks he can rename he can make a name for himself he shows up in in uh San Antonio uh-huh and everybody's like yay you know oh Crockett's here and uh Bowie um what was his name the guy who invented the Bowie knife yeah I don't know he was there and um and a couple other people anyway um but Crockett's the most famous one yeah so they get down to San Antonio and they hear that um I can't think of the name yeah is putting together an army and they're like oh we're gonna kick his butt yeah and so they they get up at the Alamo and then they realize they're outnumbered 13 to one and we think about this big battle that took place I think it took less than 17 minutes yeah for the army to overrun the Alamo.

SPEAKER_04 31:58

Yeah it's very similar it it's very similar in my mind to the story of the 300 um the the Spartans yeah um at Thermopylae and you know it's a it's a similar thing where it it gets um mythologized uh on purpose and um absolutely sam Houston gets used Sam Houston's the one that did that yeah and it's you know it's cool I I I love those you know heroic last stands you know but the heroic last stand can't ever be something that is um you know basically them just taking out a scouting party and moving on and like the you know which is when you look when you look at the history of the three the Battle of the 300 it's it's kind of like that. It's like it's not it does not really take much, you know so where are we in this conversation?

SPEAKER_01 32:53

We've talked so we were doing history and we talked about the idea that we judge people in history based on our current way of thinking about the world but then I mentioned that we do that all the time and you talked about how you uh you look at things that principle that you're talking about judging you know do we judge historical figures by our all of my judgments are always based on my values and um and I so I judge other people based on my values not on theirs.

SPEAKER_04 33:28

Yeah of course and it's um that is a like a really ubiquitous question in in historian circles. Not that I'm a member of that but I hear them talk about it and I have heard this question for well ever since I studied history in college um you know the though there will be that zeitgeist that that concept that you you can't do that you can't it's anachronistic to judge someone by today's standards. And there will be um then there will be the other side that's typically more this is the thing this is like a it's like a purity it's like a it's it almost feels like a pure position. And I what I mean by that is I find this sentiment that shows up over and over again where if you start to try to explain nuance in something and someone can come by come come back to you and go, it's not that complicated there are right things to do, Jeff and there are wrong things to do, Jeff and that was wrong. That carries with it a weight that is almost unassailable. You can't yeah it's it's at that point when someone moves into that kind of um rhetoric I personally have the instinct to go, okay, and back away. I'm not interested in getting in that into that um you know I I think that that that is a a sentiment that shows up when you're talking about religion, when you're talking about morality, when you're talking about lots, you know, lots of different uh areas but one of the things also that I think is interesting is that even sometimes people will they'll go, okay, well we can't judge them necessarily by today's standards but we know that that's they'll we'll say we know that's wrong now. That is another one where you're slipping in an assumption of this progressive art I don't mean progressive like like political. I mean a progressive evolution of or yeah where everything everything going further back is obviously stupider less moral more evil more simple more simplistic everything going forward is higher plane you know we we're more moral we're more ethical we know more obviously you know and I I'm suspicious of that I think things ebb and flow I think we have a different not necessarily better perspective now.

SPEAKER_01 36:29

I think that um I would definitely not disagree of that do you like the way I worded that's pretty good uh with there's an ebb and flow I mean you don't have to like there's no way you could argue against that even if you're familiar with just a s just a a smidge of history right is that like why why do they call it the dark ages? I think people could argue with anything sure okay whatever um yeah I'm tired of arguing I gotta be honest with you um I'm just anyway that's this that's another thing um but yeah there's an ebb and flow like we we we make advances and then and then sometimes we rediscover things that people already knew and we some and then it's interesting because we were shocked when we do that um yeah and uh you know like I I was talking to somebody not too long ago and I said do you you do realize like Romans knew how to pour concrete underwater and they're like what I was like yeah Romans were super industrial.

SPEAKER_04 37:39

Absolutely there were there were uh stories of people people would mention they wouldn't have stories about this because they wouldn't think you needed to have a story about that but they would mention they were coming they would be um heading toward like the mining area in Spain industrial mines and smog would hover over these cities over these mines it looked like it looked like London in the late 19th century.

SPEAKER_01 38:07

Yeah yeah um I mean there's a reason I still study today specifically for me it's stoic philosophy because there's it's brilliant right and it's very similar to our culture. But why? It's because we've the similarity is because of the influence that stoic philosophy has had on our culture. Yeah I think that's probably true. Right? I think if you look at um psychoanal like psycho what do we call that analy um help me out here. You psychoanalyze some yeah I think that's all straight out of stoicism myself. I think I think a lot of the way that we uh like therapy and stuff like that really kind of sort of comes from that philosophical school.

SPEAKER_04 38:50

Yeah maybe um anyway well you'll hear this other thing too to your to your original point. You'll hear this other thing too so I wonder what your um uh reaction to this is um you'll hear yes you can't um uh judge people by standards as long as they didn't have the opportunity to know what was better but if they did have that opportunity then we can like like if like for instance we can definitely jud maybe we can't judge a 16th century slave trader by our standards. Maybe we can't do that. But we can definitely judge an early 19th century slaveholder by our standards because there were abolitionists. So they had an opportunity to know what was better. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 39:48

Therefore we can definitely judge them I think I think with that you just have to look at how slow culture shifts take place. Just because there's a spark of a thought doesn't mean that everyone is convinced by that thought. Even if a hundred years later 200 years later it now has become the norm. At the time it's suspect. Any new thought is suspect until it becomes the norm or it disappears. Mm-hmm right so I think that we have to be very careful to go back and judge I will say this though that I am one of those people and that does believe that we're moving towards something. And for me it is it's a it's a widening of categories it's it's um it's it we're moving towards a more global tribalism than than the individual. I think the tribe is expanding I think all of those things are expanding and for all kinds of reasons right it maybe it's not I would like to believe it's because we're moving towards a more loving inclusive type of world it could simply be because through technology we've become more connected and so the more like the um what Chris has talked about before like the more relationship you have with somebody the more patient you are with them and and you know and so our access and our information has caused us to have greater appreciation for people that would have never been part of our tribe in the past. So there's all kinds of things for it.

SPEAKER_04 41:14

Maybe maybe um and that is it well just for all the people out there listening who are like this is the most boring episode because they just agreed on everything that is a that's an area that you and I have talked about before that we disagree on.

SPEAKER_01 41:28

Yeah I know that and your your choice is to just that's and that's where earlier when you said I just go okay yeah that's what you're doing right now.

SPEAKER_04 41:38

A kind of no I just want to make sure everyone knows that we do disagree on things. Yeah we we can still we can still be friends and talk about things that we do agree on.

SPEAKER_01 41:46

Yeah because I even though you're wrong I love you. So isn't that nice of me?

SPEAKER_02 41:53

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 41:54

Yeah it's not one of those moments where that this is an example of how how magnanimous you are yes exactly right and how I'm not the one that needs to be to understand that I that I need to be loved and accepted in spite of myself. This is an example of me loving Lucas and accepting Lucas in spite of him the how sacrificial I also think that in the grand scheme of things you and I both know that that that particular difference it doesn't matter.

SPEAKER_04 42:28

No of course not yeah no and that's the thing well I mean when it comes to this is a little bit off topic but not exactly when it comes to how I feel about friends I've heard Daryl Cooper talk about this too. If I think that you're if if if we have a relationship where uh I think uh you'd smash someone in the mouth for me I almost dropped an F bomb then I don't care if you're a communist or you're uh you know you're a young earth flat earth uh apocalypticist you know I don't care I'm trying to think of I'm trying I'm just trying to think of something that I is is completely different from me right I why would that matter you know you're my people that's it that's the end and uh you know I think and and I think you only get to that by actually sharing life you never get to that by um comparing litmus tests and seeing if you fall on the same side of the ledger enough. I think um I think that that kind of connection only comes from like you know having a With someone, or you know, not you know, whatever, like having dinner and having and like spending lots of time talking about the things that actually matter, your family, your fears, your you know, that kind of stuff.

SPEAKER_01 44:11

Yeah, because what I was gonna say is to me, what causes a friendship, yes, I I do like to know that this person has my back, no matter what. Right. Um, and I feel that way about like and I've you know, we've had that conversation before.

SPEAKER_02 44:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 44:31

Um it's not shared beliefs, it's shared values. Sure. Right. And that and that could be anything from uh I you know um value of truth or value of exploring, you know, uh you could maybe you could you could even put interests in there, but I do think it, I think it's more than just interest. I think it has to do with values, like like trustworthiness. So and I think that a val I value someone that has my back. And I and and I'm going to so because I do that, I will be a type of friend that has my friend's back. And so when you when you're out when you're like that, that's great. Um I am not really that concerned about whether or not we have shared beliefs about things. Yeah. Right? Like whether or not the world is is moving to a place of more inclusion. That's fun to talk about. You know, and I live my life as if that's the truth. And uh, and I try to contribute and participate in that making that the truth. Um and the funny thing is, I think that even if you don't believe that's the truth, what I have witnessed is that you live as if you want to believe that's the truth, or at least want to make see if you can help make that come about. Um, and I think we I think we value that together, um, even though we may have different beliefs about it. Um and and it doesn't have to be across the board. Like the values don't have to be across the board either, right? Like, um, I know that you don't care about baseball as much as I do. Sure. Right? But you you feign enough interest that you're willing to at least hear me talk about it.

SPEAKER_04 46:26

You know what I care about, actually, when it comes to baseball? Yeah. I care about the fact that it clearly connects to something having to do with your family and your kids.

SPEAKER_01 46:37

Oh, the the 100%. Yep. Not a doubt about it.

unknown 46:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 46:43

So it doesn't match. So then I'm so then that's interesting, you know, and and also, and also, by the way, for everyone out there, there is something to be interested in in friggin' everything. Yeah. What in existence is truly boring? Really. I can't think of a thing that is actually boring. Now, it doesn't mean that I'm always like it's, you know, like I things that that drive my butt like you uh I don't understand. No, I mean I do understand because you because organisms live their life and you get you have to be driven toward continuing to exist and your your own impulses and blah, blah, blah. I get that. But I can't connect to the the type of personality that isn't that couldn't be interested in virtually everything. I mean, what really? Like I like this wire has this wire has like an entire college curriculum of interest that could be, I mean, like how you make rubber, where does that come from? How would you source it? What are the companies that source it? How do they get financed? Where are they? What are the people? What have they been involved in? Other things they've been involved in. How many wars have been fought over this? Don't find the copper that's running through. I haven't even gotten inside, right? I mean, like, there's just there's nothing that so when you talk about baseball, no, it's not something that I spend my time doing. But like, there's scoring and there's drama and there's politics, and there's I mean, there's tons of stuff that's interesting.

SPEAKER_01 48:25

And there's yes, just yesterday. Unending. Robbie and I were both sitting outside listening to the end of the Mets Yankees game. And and uh and I told him, and this goes what you're saying, I said, Robbie, I can sit out here, smoke a cigar, listen to a baseball game, and it could be 1980s again.

SPEAKER_03 48:46

Yeah. Sure.

SPEAKER_01 48:47

Right. It could be 1970s again. I get that. And it's just that moment of, and I could I could be sitting here right now and I could look over at this other chair and see my grandpa. Right? Like I mean it's it's all of the things. It's not just it's not all of the things that baseball is. Yeah. Yeah. So okay, so real quick, we're gonna wrap this up because uh we both have places uh to go. But the value thing. I think that's I think that is a thread that has run through here is that we judge people based on our values that we have currently, whether it be as a collective, so like as a as a culture, right? As a nation, uh, which is interesting because I don't think that as a nation we hold shared values, but I do think that as a culture, uh there's always a battle for values. Our our our cultural wars. Yeah, our cultural, our cultural wars are really value wars. Um and then we but we judge people by that, which is why we're shipped up by central banking. Anyway, go ahead. So we but so we we do. We judge by values. We judge historical people by values, we judge each other by values, and that's also because of our judgment by values that we determine who our friends are and who our friends are not.

unknown 50:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 50:09

All right. I think we tied it up.

SPEAKER_04 50:12

Yeah, I think it's good.

SPEAKER_01 50:13

I think it, I think it if I was listening to it, I'd be like, is this a love fest? Like, what's happening right now? And who cares? And just go go get your own podcast if uh if you don't like it. I have uh old equipment you can buy. All right. There you go. Bye bye.

SPEAKER_00 50:32

Thank you for listening to Living on Common Ground. Please follow wherever you listen to your podcasts and share it with your friends. You can also find a link to our social in the description. The more people we have living on common ground, the better the world will be.