00:03:50.300The gym wasn't a big part of my life until about 2017.
00:03:53.780I think I kind of put on some weight, got, you know, a little overweight and wanted to
00:04:00.060change things up and, uh, started, didn't really know what I was doing. Just knew I had to get
00:04:05.960more active, kind of, you know, eat less and move more. And, uh, then I got quite into lifting
00:04:12.820eventually and, you know, my body responded pretty well. I've always kind of just been
00:04:18.940naturally muscular and so I did a couple bodybuilding shows and and it exposed me though
00:04:24.800to the manosphere I guess um you know of gym culture there's a real red pill kind of toxic
00:04:34.580masculinity pipeline in there and that you know that part kind of horrified me and so uh the
00:04:41.860combination I guess of like you know having a background in in post-colonial and feminist0.66
00:04:47.460literature and then witnessing this sort of gym culture, I was just kind of shocked and horrified
00:04:58.780at the state of masculinity and manhood and growing up in evangelical Christianity. I guess
00:05:05.620it wasn't that much of a surprise, but to see it become so mainstream since 2016 and that last 10
00:05:14.680years of you know in the united states since trump was elected the first time wait how i i i'm trying
00:05:22.460to understand the jump from evangelical sometimes homeschooled you're in alberta you move to montana
00:05:28.440it's not like you're moving to super liberal places you know what i mean you didn't say you
00:05:32.420moved to california or new york city you moved from like alberta to montana to a tiny town in
00:05:39.160idaho and somehow you worked in the words like post-colonial feminist literature how did
00:05:44.900did you pick up some argument how the hell did that happen yeah you know and that's i think part
00:05:52.840of why i have the platform that i do is just that i've always been quite aware of not only
00:06:00.200um the injustices in society and in the world but um my privilege like i have been privileged
00:06:10.380you know as a straight white male um my whole life uh and especially as an immigrant a white
00:06:18.860you know canadian immigrant to this to the united states i went to get my social security
00:06:23.800card. And, uh, this is in Helena, Montana, the, the guy who was working there and he was,
00:06:31.520you know, quitting. So I, he maybe didn't care as much, uh, either, but he told me verbatim,
00:06:38.320like the only difference between Canada and the United States is an invisible line in the ground.
00:06:43.040And I had my social security card the next day, which is like unheard of.
00:06:48.900And so I think just being kind of a naturally pretty empathetic person and, uh, a, uh, you know, both a thinker and a feeler, I, I, um, was just aware of the injustices and never felt or sat right with me.
00:07:09.800And this further solidified when I was, you know, went to college and university and was drawn to English and literature largely because of the exposure to, you know, other people's perspectives, other people's lives.
00:07:32.860And, um, you know, the way that you can learn and understand about other people and certainly
00:07:43.480it, um, expanded my worldview and the, um, the feminist part, I don't know.
00:07:52.180I mean, even from a young age, you know, I never fit the mold of how I looked, I guess,
00:08:00.740right? Like, you know, what people expected of me and, and sports and, and, you know, I, I played
00:08:07.320hockey, everybody played hockey. Right. But like, um, yeah, by, uh, high school, I was, um, you
00:08:16.340know, into musicals and, and, you know, that was not really accepted. Yeah. Right. Like, you know,
00:08:25.080we get all the, the slurs and everything directed at you, but I'm, you know, I was like, yeah,
00:08:30.700it didn't make any sense to me. And so a lot of my friends have been, you know, women and,
00:08:36.680and gay men too. So like, I don't know, maybe it's just who I feel more, more comfortable,
00:08:41.600comfortable around, you know? And so you went to Montana for college.
00:08:47.060Why shift from Alberta? Like what made you made that, make that move?
00:08:50.840Yeah. So I was living there already. So the YWAM, the mission trip was based out of Montana. And then I stayed down and was working and living down in Montana. And then it just was convenient at the time.
00:09:15.620And so, yeah, but it does provide, I think, kind of a unique perspective having that background and then post-secondary here and teaching here and then to bring it full circle and watch what's happening in Alberta right now and how they're just following all the worst parts of what's happening in the United States right now.
00:09:40.260Yeah. So you, English teachers, so you're drawn into this, which makes perfect sense about your platform. So you're drawn into this manuscript, you're drawn into sort of the construction or manipulation of what truth is and what people should be focusing on and things like that. And then you're drawing in literature with that.
00:10:03.100Now, do you instantaneously start to tie censorship and this kind of cultural control together?
00:10:10.680Because that's a lot of what you focus on in your channel.
00:10:16.500And I think that, again, with my background and part of the reason I was pulled out of school for grades three and four was just this sort of fear of public education and knowledge.
00:10:29.340and and in grade three and four what what i'm you're how old are you sorry 40 how old am i right
00:10:35.920now 42 42 so you would have gone to school in the 90s you would have been in elementary school in
00:10:42.600the 90s yep yeah elementary school what were the afraid of hearing in grade because now i could
00:10:49.540like you know now it's like all these buzzwords i'm just curious what the buzzwords would have
00:10:54.420been in the early nineties. Right. Yeah, exactly. And, uh, you know, it was largely, I think just
00:11:00.980fear of, you know, even things like evolution and, you know, science. Oh, sure. Sure. Evolution.
00:11:06.920Yeah. I guess the early nineties too would have been, it would have been the AIDS epidemic,
00:11:13.120right? So conversations about HIV and AIDS. When I was in high school, you would have still been
00:11:20.740in elementary but that was like top of every you went into math class you talked about hiv you
00:11:26.660went it didn't matter where you were because it was so scary and it was so not understood at the
00:11:32.460time it felt like it was a part and parcel of everything right yeah and then couple that with
00:11:37.700uh you know sort of fundamentals fundamentalist christian view that you know they deserve it
00:11:42.860kind of thing and i remember coming home with like an eight yeah that was a government view
00:11:48.040by the way they deserved it wasn't the fundamental the christian fundamentalists
00:11:53.080are over here but like we had a government in the late 80s early 90s that virtually said the
00:11:57.900same thing it's why any research was pushed so incredibly late you know right yeah that whole
00:12:04.380rise of the new right with you know mar um margaret thatcher and reagan and sure reagan and
00:12:11.160Mulroney. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And I mean, that's when Atwood wrote The Handmaid's Tale
00:12:18.320was under that environment and, you know, to see it come even further, uh, you know,
00:12:23.500coming true. It's truly frightening. Yes. So you, you get pulled out in grade three and four.
00:12:30.900what, what put you back in? You know, I think that I felt, um, that I was kind of missing
00:12:41.020something. Um, I wanted to go back. I also was the kid with like big glasses and, and, you know,
00:12:49.160was, was picked on and, and tease. So, I mean, that might've contributed a little bit to, uh,
00:12:54.020to why they wanted to pull me out but um and then i i think i just wanted to be kind of normal
00:13:01.240and uh like homeschooling back then it was super fringe and uh you know we would go to some of
00:13:09.380these events homeschool events and you know a lot of the kids lived up to the stereotype of
00:13:17.220of homeschoolers now like sure you know you know but very much it was it was uh you know under
00:13:25.060like a religious curriculum and uh so i mean yeah go ahead sorry oh i was just gonna say
00:13:33.960that definitely informs i think some of my my aversion to censorship and to you know that
00:13:41.180kids are capable and should be exposed to multiple viewpoints that was around the same time and i'm
00:13:48.080trying to remember the exact year but that that would have been the james keekstra era in alberta
00:13:54.380do you know i'm speaking about james keekstra he was from alberta let me just i'll just look up real
00:14:02.160quick um i want to say the 90s uh but he ended up uh but i'm trying to remember what time this
00:14:15.620particularly took place he was a teacher oh in the in the 80s okay in the mid 80s so but before
00:14:23.240okay yeah he was in alberta teaching that the holocaust never happened okay but he was a history
00:14:30.320teacher and the demographic and the population of that part of Alberta at the time, and obviously
00:14:37.420negating any access to the internet or anything else that your teachers, right? He was a denier
00:14:44.360in the sense that the numbers were, he would say the numbers were exaggerated and he brought in all
00:14:48.640these books, right? And then finally, when he was, when somebody outside of that community or
00:14:55.300somebody with a little bit more knowledge caught him they ended up saying you can't you can't be
00:15:01.960spewing this kind of hate took it all the way to the supreme court and he lost his job but this is
00:15:07.260interesting right because this kind of goes right down what we're we're going to be talking about
00:15:12.560because i think you and i tend to be more free speech absolutionists in a lot of ways in a i
00:15:20.120don't like censorship censorship's bad but then you have this gentleman saying that i am i am
00:15:28.460imploring i am utilizing my free speech to then command a room full of grade 10 history students
00:15:35.860and lie to them now there's a whole bunch of people on the internet right now that would0.58
00:15:40.800agree with him right but lie to him about the nature and about the conditions of the holocaust
00:15:46.320then it gets messy. And I like messy because that's where interesting is, right? Because then0.70
00:15:51.820it does get messy. Am I right by saying that you're more of a free, like, would you push it
00:15:57.940to the extreme? What would be your line of free speech, freedom of expression in Canada, free
00:16:02.420speech in the United States? Yeah, I think hate speech, you know, anything up to hate, you know,
00:16:10.700hate speech is what should be protected but there is um and i i guess it's you know popper's paradox
00:16:17.440that um you know ultimate tolerance complete tolerance will lead to intolerance right it's
00:16:26.980okay to not tolerate intolerance just like we don't tolerate you know crime and so you know i
00:16:35.000think up to up to hate speech then yeah it should be and how would you define hate speech i know how
00:16:40.260the law does, but you're in the U.S. now and Canada has hate speech legislation, but obviously
00:16:47.960provinces can now, terrifyingly enough, and I'm just waiting for this to happen, start utilizing
00:16:53.480the notwithstanding clause in order to get around hate speech laws. So then anybody who's listening
00:16:58.800who doesn't understand the disaster that is our Canadian constitution, we have a Charter of Rights
00:17:05.420and freedoms, very, very similar to the American Bill of Rights. We have freedoms designated in
00:17:11.900there. However, there was a clause placed in called the Notwithstanding Clause that stipulated
00:17:17.100that every province could opt out of the charter if they voted on it. And so they would say they
00:17:24.260are opting out of that piece of the charter, not, you know, we're opting out notwithstanding the
00:17:28.980charter we're going to get around it here so um danielle smith has actually used it quite a few0.98
00:17:35.320times already um in order to push cultural and um i would say religious opinions within her province
00:17:45.420uh i i think it's a failure of our constitution to be perfectly honest and it's wildly it should
00:17:52.080be wildly inaccessible for those kinds of reasons. But what would be your line? So James
00:17:58.940Keekstra is standing in front of a classroom of kids. Let's say he doesn't ever propagate hate,
00:18:05.820like propagate violence. He doesn't ever, he just simply says, listen, kids. And he's very careful
00:18:12.160with his words. The numbers have been skewed. The numbers have been greatly exaggerated. Here are my
00:18:19.660resources to to you know sort of support that what what would be your line there yeah so i think that
00:18:27.640is problematic on two levels one of course it's disinformation you know misinformation which
00:18:35.240doesn't necessarily negate i guess free speech we have people propagating misinformation left
00:18:41.500right and center on the internet but he's a professional and he's in a classroom and he
00:18:46.780is responsible for the education government i think that's the bottom line too yeah and so as
00:18:51.820a teacher that is you know reprehensible like to teach false history you know patently false
00:18:59.680um in uh that particular example of course is heinous um it's so clear too it's it's crystal
00:19:08.260clear where the line is um but i constantly think about that example now given where we are in the
00:19:14.780world. Given every time I go onto a platform like X or, you know, and I'll say something and people
00:19:24.120will draw upon zero actual information. You know what I mean? Like zero actual, they'll deny the
00:19:32.90095% of scientists wrong. They're just wrong. And this is what's true because this is what,
00:19:40.960you know is being hidden by the government or or whatever yeah it it really is a big part of
00:19:50.240the problem that we're in um the conspiracy theorist and actually it's interesting i just
00:19:55.980started a book on uh on this in evangelical spaces and i certainly grew up with a lot of
00:20:02.940that actually my my grandparents were holocaust deniers by the end of their life so um by the
00:20:09.480And otherwise reasonable, like people and good hearted people, but you know, it's, it's crazy.
00:20:17.700And, and the algorithms also push that, like they've done studies on YouTube that if you just keep watching YouTube, you'll end up down these rabbit holes of, of crazy conspiracies.
00:20:29.240and one thing that the internet has done though is allowed people to congregate in
00:20:36.840with other people who have these same ideas and confirmation bias right and also the idea that
00:20:44.620because other people believe it it gives some sort of validity to these crazy theories and so
00:20:52.340So obviously right now with Artemis II and, you know, we're back in space and you look at some of the comments and you're like, yeah, there's there's no intelligent life on Earth.
00:21:14.040I mean, Neil deGrasse Tyson said, and it is just becoming more true by the minute, he says, the better AI gets, the internet will be useless.
00:21:27.480It will create the internet to be useless because you will never be able to believe what you heard, what you saw, what you read, because it can all be manufactured.
00:21:38.200and that's terrifying and what that that's doing is it's like throwing us back a little bit in time
00:21:46.420and really relying on actual historical text or novels or pieces of literature um as being
00:21:55.120necessary touchstones to say wait wait wait wait wait this like let's just talk about this for a
00:22:01.620second right yeah for sure and even in the you know the classroom we're almost going to have to
00:22:08.100go back to just handwritten assignments yeah you know to make sure they're doing get people
00:22:15.340actually thinking and writing and not relying just on the technology but yeah it is interesting
00:22:20.660and especially with text too like paper hard copies like these are going to become more and
00:22:27.860more valuable i think like i'm you know i've gone back to just like hard copies of everything
00:22:36.460because you know you it's so easy to manipulate and change text online too so yeah i i think
00:22:45.520you're right and it's interesting to put this in in conversation with like post-colonial theory
00:22:52.560and like baudrillard and the idea that you know of the simulacrum and that we're like
00:23:00.740what is real and what is is a simulation but you know our virtual rule uh world is almost
00:23:10.400like a simulation that we're we're living in and we're choosing it yes oh absolutely oh we've
00:23:17.380chosen it yeah yeah yeah we would rather be living in that sort of constructed world and
00:23:22.300and then you start seeing it we'd rather be living in that world um obviously physically
00:23:29.940because we have we can have these representations of ourselves and we can kind of create and um
00:23:36.220and curate exactly what we would want that to look like but then intellectually we can start to
00:23:43.100include and disclude information on the basis of what I want to believe, not what is true.
00:23:50.600So the idea of confirmation bias, I can very much easily go on the internet and find anything to
00:23:57.640prove what I already think. And I think people on the whole like that. And I'll admit that freely.
00:24:05.400I think every single person likes to think what they already believe is the closest to truth.
00:24:11.540and they feel a sense of, you know, self-awareness
00:24:18.380and almost a superiority about, oh, well, what I believe is true
00:24:24.600and there it is there and there it is there
00:24:26.720and I'm just going to, you know, build it here.
00:24:29.640I think the only people or the few people that are coming up
00:24:34.060with a real perception of what's going on in the world
00:24:36.860have to be thrown so far out of their comfort zone
00:24:56.120If I hear somebody say they're objective one more time, I'm going to be like, and we're
00:25:02.200going to speak about this too, this idea that somebody is objective, that there's a clear
00:25:07.700truth in this world is a wild fallacy but sorry to continue go ahead no it it absolutely is and
00:25:17.580like you say though that the um our echo chambers are curated obviously for us that way but and then
00:25:27.920we we seek it out so it's just um we've always been that way but the the internet makes it easy
00:25:36.320And actually thrives off of that tendency, which is, I think we're seeing some dangerous consequences, obviously, of that right now.
00:25:47.120And this notion that all sides should be given equal time, which I think is where we're headed here, or that they're equally valid when they absolutely aren't.
00:26:03.920I think that's a great place to start.
00:26:06.320So, yeah, there's an essay by Isaac Asimov that I keep coming back to is from 1980. And there's a quote in that where he says there's a cult of ignorance in the United States and there always has been that your and it's the idea that my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.
00:26:27.800And I think that that is where we are right now and where people have been conditioned maybe to think that their lack of knowledge is just as good as somebody else's knowledge, right?
00:26:48.500Mm hmm. I think there's this also, you know, it's it's it's as though pieces of the truth can sometimes end up being the whole story. So has, you know, take government misinformation, right? Or or media misinformation. And are those elements true? Yes. Has the government hidden stuff? Sure. Has the media fashioned and manipulated stuff? Absolutely.
00:27:15.580But what that allows us, once we just admit that, even if it's a percentage, whatever that percentage happens to be, as soon as we don't like the information, we go full send, right? It's like, oh, well, the media is always lying and the government's never, and the CDC is just trying to trick us and the media is just trying to liberalize us.
00:27:39.680And all of these things are true, right?
00:27:41.700It's like there is the more that we engage and the more that people assume when they can find, I don't want to say knowledge, when they can find information on the Internet, the more valid or the more incapable everybody has of agreeing to any sort of possible middle ground, possible foundational truth.
00:28:06.780right yeah and like you say all the all this stuff is true and it does happen um and even with
00:28:15.500like the ai example of you know well i can't believe anything i don't know what's real so
00:28:22.880i'm gonna believe nothing nothing now that's it right i don't i i got a call today i got a i don't
00:28:29.580know it was a call yeah a call message from my bank you know uh you're they've tried to log you've
00:28:35.860tried to log in and you're going to get, please hit this button. And I'm like, first of all,
00:28:40.280my mom would hit the button. Second of all, I don't believe any text message or phone call I
00:28:46.980ever get from my bank now. Never. I don't pick it up. I don't answer it. I don't respond to it.
00:28:53.760My bank has called me. I will then get up and I will go to my bank and I'll say,
00:29:00.160is there a problem? And they'll say, yeah, why didn't you? I said, I'll tell you why.
00:29:04.420because the bank numbers get cloned people call and ask you you know and i'm not having any of
00:29:10.560the conversation whatsoever but what's fascinating about that is it's forcing us back into public
00:29:18.500space which i kind of like right yeah it's forcing us off the computer it's forcing us out of the
00:29:25.540internet off of our phones because if none of this is real the only thing i know that is real
00:29:31.140that I experience that has legitimacy is in real time with real people. So we are going to,
00:29:38.300I think, be doing that more often, which is why, by the way, going back to whatever's going on in
00:29:45.860Alberta, which I think, I'm going to ask you what you think, why you think this is happening and
00:29:52.700what it's gearing up toward. But I think it's taking advantage. I tend not to be as
00:30:01.260conspiratorial as a lot of people because I look at it more just like I look at advertising,
00:30:07.100just as I look at the algorithm. People tend to look at it like it's a controlling mechanism.
00:30:12.200And I tend to look at it as a function of one of two things. Somebody is getting and wants to keep
00:30:17.160power or somebody is getting in wants to make more money yep and those are the two drivers
00:30:22.540you might think somebody there's a group of people sitting in a back room rubbing their
00:30:26.960hands together trying to control all of our minds i i i tend not to be in that camp i tend just to
00:30:33.300think once people get power or the way they can see themselves collecting power um then they start
00:30:41.720pulling on these tethers which i think is what's going on in alberta right now yeah i
00:30:47.020I agree wholeheartedly. And, you know, every year I teach 1984 and obviously there's many, many parallels with everything that's going on in the world.
00:30:55.160But what we see and the example that I give them with, you know, our online data particularly is like, yeah, the government, you know, they could have that if they wanted to.
00:31:08.260But for the most part, they're not your information is not that valuable to them.
00:31:13.220uh but you know who it is valuable to it's valuable to all of these companies that are
00:31:17.660showing you targeted ads that's right yeah and they have the money and the power so yeah
00:31:24.740i also sometimes you know have you seen on oh you're you're not on twitter because you're a
00:31:30.760smart guy but recently i had a i had a day where i was like in i i posted something and then it was
00:31:38.180just all this vitriol and the next day i was in a horrible mood i couldn't figure out why i'm like
00:31:42.460oh, I know why, because I spent too much time. Anyways, there was a diagram, like a percentage
00:31:49.080diagram about who gets pushed out, what content gets pushed out, right? And everybody on this
00:31:54.360is basically saying, oh, look, well, Elon Musk is obviously pushing out a right-wing agenda on here,
00:32:00.960like that's his goal. And as much as I like to blame Elon for a lot, I see what they're doing
00:32:09.340and the algorithm as more of a function, unfortunately, of humanity, which is we are
00:32:16.540much more likely to engage in rage and anger and vitriol than we are to engage in ideas of
00:32:26.020puppies, rainbows, and newborn babies. We just are. So if that is true of our human nature,
00:32:33.920the reason why that content is getting pushed out, it's not because Elon's sitting in the
00:32:39.420back room. Now he is pushing his content out because I do think he likes to be liked,
00:32:43.540but it's not because he's not, it's because this is the kind of content and the way that
00:32:48.820they curate their content. It is no different, I don't think, than the old, you know, the old
00:32:54.500yellow journalism. If it bleeds, it leads because that's what people want to see.0.98
00:32:59.220They want the violence. They want the vitriol. Bring it on. It engage. Even if you're when you're fighting, you're the most engaged. Right. Yeah. That's that's not the algorithm. That's us. Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, look at look at, you know, old newspaper headlines. They're not that different. It's, you know, nuanced discussion doesn't sell.
00:33:23.680that's right that's exactly right you know even when people are saying well back in the day news
00:33:30.640reports were better well maybe maybe but it was always you know war and violence always led the
00:33:39.480headlines because it captured your attention everybody wanted to see what happened at the
00:33:43.980end of the car accident nobody really cared about the guy rescuing the kitten from the tree
00:33:49.300and and that's up that's on us that's on yeah we've always been into sensationalism for sure
00:33:55.900even you know old travel writing and and uh you know all this sort of crazy narratives that would
00:34:03.300come back about you know during the start of colonialism and and all these exaggerated
00:34:09.640stories about cannibals and everything like that like people eat that kind of stuff up
00:34:14.420um yeah well yeah with all the Epstein files right now it's in poor taste another it's a lot
00:34:25.880no another one yeah um so if you're if you're looking about what's going on in Alberta right
00:34:31.760now and let's say the books let let's talk about that for a second let's let's talk about
00:34:37.080because because that side is going to argue it's not a ban it's a limitation to age appropriate
00:34:44.540and i and i think you and i can be very honest about okay what is age appropriate everybody
00:34:50.620wants age appropriate material going to the right level of kids nobody's sitting down a bunch of
00:34:56.820kids to you know in grade five and having them read like slaughterhouse five it's just not
00:35:02.080happening it doesn't make sense um yeah nor do the kids want to check that off the shelf
00:35:07.260that's right um but i mean a lot of the books that have been deemed not age appropriate it's
00:35:15.260always been due from what i what i've seen anyways i could be wrong it's always been this connection
00:35:21.160to the gay or the trans community in some way shape or form um having said that i also don't
00:35:28.940have these books right and they're they've all said well there's there's graphic if it's a graphic
00:35:33.600novel um there's graphic sexual images in it so where do we put that because i think a rational
00:35:42.100person goes cool that's not like i don't know how graphic an anime gets but like that makes sense it
00:35:50.780doesn't go to young kids but my question is has always been was it ever right exactly and and
00:35:58.760No. I think what's going on here is, I mean, it's a complicated part of a larger culture war, obviously.
00:36:11.200But on one hand, you've got trained teachers and librarians who know what is developmentally appropriate.
00:36:20.780Nobody is out here trying to, uh, groom children, which is the accusation that we get all the
00:36:31.640time. Yeah, yeah, exactly. And, um, there are the, the graphic novel component is interesting
00:36:47.040and it's sort of a newer development it seems you know there have been a lot more
00:36:51.220graphic novels published in you know i would say the last 20 years especially the last 10 years
00:36:57.560and it's become a really popular form of literature but you people have always cherry
00:37:04.300picked passages out of books like you know catcher in the rye notoriously always has the one dog-eared0.90
00:37:09.880page about you know the word fuck in the bathroom i don't know if i can curse on the podcast but0.98
00:37:14.760um the i'll censor that later okay yeah so or drop an f-bomb in the in the bathroom i'm just0.97
00:37:22.260and um and so people would always show that or slaughterhouse five is a great example too there
00:37:31.300are a couple passages in that and uh you know it would would get targeted right um but you know
00:37:39.040you even have to put through the effort to like read that a picture what my understanding what
00:37:45.180happened in alberto is they would they took these pages out of these four graphic novels and um
00:37:51.300showing you know a sex scene labeling it porn right um i would argue otherwise um and
00:38:01.980you know they sent them out like do you want this in your schools right which is a terribly
00:38:09.060disingenuous way to put out information creating a crisis that really doesn't exist not stating you
00:38:18.400know what students have this available to them what level of students um and they it was almost
00:38:25.480like oh if this book is in the library obviously all the grade twos are reading it right um
00:38:31.480And this is a huge problem. We're going to create legislation. Meanwhile, you already had librarians and teachers that were already in the mix. I don't work in an elementary school. So I always found it interesting. Now, elementary is one thing, right? I guess.
00:38:47.400it it dividing that line that you know there's always been fights about when do you start sexual
00:38:55.540education right when do you when do you have that discussion like do you have it for us i don't know
00:39:00.900for us it was like grade seven and eight i don't remember having it any younger yeah but girls now
00:39:07.880a lot of young girls are getting their periods in grade five right so yeah are we not gonna have
00:39:13.720the discord that's that's reality that's true that's a that's and they all love to talk about
00:39:19.920biology so that's a biological fact are we not going to then reflect biology and start teaching
00:39:27.560a biological biological reality for quite a few young girls at a lower age because of reality
00:39:35.980yeah really and for i mean i can only imagine that right you know um i'm not a woman and i'm
00:39:46.480i haven't had to go through that but i can't imagine that it would be just a whole scary
00:39:55.320thing to have to encounter right like i mean it's totally life-changing what is you know and i've
00:40:01.280read enough to like, like I, I, I feels so bad that anyone would have to go through this without
00:40:10.580any information, without any reference. Um, but there is, um, a case happening right now in
00:40:18.600Rutherford, Tennessee that I've been covering and, uh, you know, on their books that they wanted to
00:40:24.100move to the adult section, right. Which is. So over 18, what does that mean? Yeah. The restricted
00:40:30.520section and uh yeah to the adult section basically okay and or at least with with parental
00:40:36.900you know approval um yeah it reminds me of you know blockbuster back in the day
00:40:43.640right the little back room with with the adult films um sure but you know what they're doing
00:40:51.880with that and one of the books uh was you know welcome to your period and i'm like it's absolutely
00:40:59.460really crazy and like what what's that that book was banned until they were 18 well yeah or at
00:41:06.060least without parental consent um to imagine i mean my mind goes to carrie right like my
00:41:14.460that's how old i am so my for those who don't know like one of the best craziest horror movies is0.83
00:41:20.400again it actually hilariously does involve some religious extremism carrie's mom is very very
00:41:26.680controlling uh never talks about anything actually says when she talks about a period i don't even
00:41:33.800know how she describes it she says that's when you know the devil is it like it's just terrifying
00:41:37.940carrie gets her period she thinks she's done if you don't know what it is you would i would rush
00:41:44.640myself to emergency like it would be like what is happening and you're not aware of what's going on
00:41:51.120because your parents have decided, um, this is an important biological truths that you should
00:41:57.920know. And, and some of the other books, and I often think about this too, you know, when we
00:42:03.440were kids, you'd see, uh, I don't know, die hard on TV. Remember when like the, those movies would
00:42:08.780come on, it would be like, Oh cool. Seven or whatever, like die hards on and, and they'd
00:42:54.580That, I mean, that is something that has always stood out to me, like you're saying,
00:42:58.240especially from that era of how normalized violence is and how culturally accepted it
00:43:05.160is versus any, any sort of, uh, nudity or like, you know, the human body, not that we
00:43:12.180should be like showing gratuitous um sure yeah yeah i don't think anybody but the uh i think
00:43:20.100that's where it comes into with literature though also is that um you know oftentimes it's always
00:43:27.360sexual content right yeah it reflects reality and and it's not there just to be gratuitous right
00:43:33.640And many of these texts are not even like erotic in a lot of their sex scenes or nudity. They're, they're reflecting. Yeah. Oftentimes. Yeah. So, yeah. So like, um, one of my favorite band books is probably Beloved, uh, by Tony Carson, which I've only read it a couple of times, not because it's not an incredible book, just because it's so horrific.
00:44:03.080so emotional like it wrecks you it wrecks you you can't it you know you can't watch you can't read
00:44:09.260that too many times but i know that the reason why that was taken off the shelf was because of
00:44:14.340the rape scene yeah and yeah what you couldn't have a bigger truth an actual truth of historical
00:44:22.200fact and a reflection of that time than that scene and for people to be like oh no but we're
00:44:31.480gonna ban this for kids you know for teenagers again i also think it's funny we think teenagers
00:44:38.100are reading as copiously as oh yes yeah right as we would like them to um and like you say you're
00:44:45.660i mean you're doing a disservice to make the bad less bad than it was you're you know it it's
00:44:53.500reprehensible in my opinion like if you make the racism less racist if you make the abuse less
00:45:00.200abusive like yeah yeah yeah what are we doing to to history and i and so when i think about all of
00:45:07.640this different forms of censorship because nobody's everybody's going to say it's not a book
00:45:11.680ban it's we've just we've just made it age appropriate or it's not a book ban we've just
00:45:17.080taken off the the book list so it's not going to be taught this year you can still get it wherever
00:45:21.660you want to get it it's not a book but so they they have all these ways to get around basically
00:45:26.800saying we're banning the book because they know that that's just not not necessarily something
00:45:31.660they can get away with um i would like to ask all governments um what do they think of the internet
00:45:38.540yes am i questioning because i know kids i don't have grade sevens going into we have a huge
00:45:48.040library in my school all these books kids don't go near it yeah oh yeah i'll tell you where they
00:45:53.280are they're on their cell phones looking up god knows what yeah so when we say that we are trying
00:46:00.520to control what kids read because we think somehow it's informing them it's educating them it's
00:46:06.760taking away parental right i have some bad news for these people yeah number one they're not reading
00:46:14.320which is a problem in of itself number two every horrible thing you could imagine that's not in0.97
00:46:21.220these stupid books that you keep banning is on the internet with like real life danger real life0.95
00:46:31.020you know snapchat pretending to be somebody else danger and some parents think that like focusing0.99
00:46:39.980and this is my real i think this is my real fixation for what's going on in alberta right now
00:46:45.320because they need to focus on something.
00:46:49.660It's like when people get scared, they need you to point to,
00:46:54.360if I'm afraid of something, as a parent, I can't imagine, I'm not a parent.
00:46:58.240If I was a parent, I'd be scared of everything.
00:47:09.800I get wanting to be able to control the environment.
00:47:12.380and that fear is so easy to manipulate so in a world like we have today where anybody can get
00:47:22.720on the internet and it's just a free-for-all and it's a disaster it can be a disaster no matter
00:47:28.780if your kid has a cell phone or not in that world it seems almost rational that an individual would
00:47:37.420say parents are afraid they're rationally afraid what can i do what can i manufacture what boogeyman
00:47:44.880can i kill so that they feel okay and here is the disservice right it's that book talking about being0.79
00:47:55.620gay when you're in grade seven that's the book yes that's the book don't worry guys i've taken0.99
00:48:01.480that book off the shelves everything's going to be okay now parents you're okay you have complete
00:48:07.840control over your own kids they're not being influenced by anything else anymore they're not
00:48:12.480seeing things you don't want them to see that that's it it's exactly it's like an illusion of
00:48:19.040control and patchit uh had a speech here just the other day where she talked about book bans
00:48:25.620and i think she put it very well in that we don't ban the things that we love and so her examples
00:48:33.320were guns and phones and you know two things that we really should be focusing on and we
00:48:40.300are instead focused on the books uh because a lot of people don't the ones who want to ban the books
00:48:47.600they don't care about the books they don't read they don't they don't want to read they don't
00:48:51.160necessarily want their kids to read um and so i do think it is a testament to literature as well
00:48:57.760um and this is something i i tell my students i've always taught banned books units before it
00:49:02.900was controversial uh just because it was something i've always been passionate about but sure um now
00:49:07.980it's become like a day-to-day reality but that it's not if it was just the content like
00:49:14.480we would get rid of the internet because like we have a much bigger problem guys yeah oh yeah
00:49:21.060and a much bigger problem most kids have un unlimited and and unregulated access yeah to
00:49:29.960all kinds like all kinds of stuff on the internet and horrible there's horrible horrible stuff that
00:49:34.400they're accessing um and people like real life people like forget ideas right images real life
00:49:42.580predatorial people that you don't know about because you're pretending that problem doesn't
00:49:47.440exist. Because there's lots of parents say, well, my kid doesn't have a phone. Are they ever around
00:49:53.380the internet? It's fine. Don't give them a phone. I mean, I can get on board with that when they're
00:50:00.700young. However, this notion that we shouldn't teach and we shouldn't discuss and we shouldn't
00:50:07.480put these things on the table that are really there to potentially harm, control, manipulate
00:50:14.960your kids and we're not going to do any of it i joke with my students all the time they're like
00:50:20.520you know they'll talk about banned books or they'll talk about phones or whatever i said
00:50:24.380i'll tell you what i want to destroy snapchat oh yeah well the fact that those messages disappear
00:50:31.060is wild and and i'll i'll tell that to my students all the time and then i'll you know i rat them out
00:50:40.080because kids are brilliant by the way unfortunately yeah they have folders upon subfolders upon
00:50:48.540subfolders so if i somebody was to hand me their phone and their parents like i want all their
00:50:56.360stuff gone right yeah i wasn't finding anything i'd have to be in the cia to find out where their0.74
00:51:03.280photos were not that i want to look through i don't want any part of it but like again parents
00:51:08.280be like oh no i went through they they don't have snapchat i'm like yes they do you you just can't
00:51:13.360find it because they're that good they're that smart with it oh yeah they're brilliant worried
00:51:19.500about we're worried about a graphic novel over here yeah i just and i just feel as though it's
00:51:26.340a you create a boogeyman you can slay it's like don't worry i got this dragon elect me this is it
00:51:34.560this is what's when in actuality it's it's way more insidious it's way more pervasive
00:51:39.540it needs to be talked about on on the whole it needs to be a part of every single class to be
00:51:45.060honest with you this idea of of access this idea of the dangers that teenagers will put themselves
00:51:53.120in because they have no frontal freaking lobe oh yeah yeah exactly they're not thinking about the
00:51:59.420future yep it's just what what do i want to do right now nor did we yeah right and the terrifying0.97
00:52:06.900part about our childhood is nobody knew where you were we were stupid yep yep right it's like oh i'm
00:52:13.520staying at my friend's house my friend said she's staying at my house and all of a sudden we're0.99
00:52:17.740walking to a party in the woods what kind of insane person if you survive your childhood and
00:52:25.560everybody's like oh today's so much date more dangerous i'm like no i don't think so at least
00:52:30.740you have your kid on lojack yeah it's wild to think about it at least you know at least the
00:52:36.380stuff we didn't or we did wasn't on video either that was just not permanent but it all happened
00:52:42.560it was all exactly you know um what do you think is the number one problem facing alberta today
00:52:49.600then this the number one problem yeah i think the the threat to human rights like the way
00:53:03.360that we are giving power to special interest groups to put their agenda and impose their
00:53:12.980agenda onto others. And that's what we've seen happen in the United States. And it's what I see,
00:53:23.040I think, happening in Alberta as well. And undermining the Charter of Rights and Freedoms
00:53:29.620with the notwithstanding clause. Well, I think that's my bigger problem. Yeah. I think there's
00:53:33.000lots of interest groups for lots of different things. And some interest groups I agree with,
00:53:36.680in some interest groups, I don't. I don't mind more ideas on the table. What I mind is the negation
00:53:44.140of ideas. And the only ideas that I say this often, everything is up for debate except for
00:53:52.320human rights. Human rights aren't a debate. There's no neutrality there. There's no gray area.
00:53:59.460Fundamental human rights of every person in this country should be the basis of every discussion.
00:54:05.740anything that then tries to take that away that's no longer the best idea that's no longer a good
00:54:14.100idea and if you're going to argue that a human right should be taken away or a freedom let's
00:54:18.580say because a human right's a bit different if i'm going to say a freedom should be taken away
00:54:22.760you better have a damn good reason how that is impacting the greater society you know people0.98
00:54:29.300will be like oh well they make you wear a seat belt in the car yeah they do stupid so that your0.99
00:54:33.760body doesn't go flying outside of the car and the damage you do not just to yourself but everybody
00:54:40.120else doesn't get to be a byproduct of you choosing to do something um dangerous um but i think those
00:54:49.720are the conversations that need to be had because like i said i think there's a lot of there's a lot
00:54:55.740of creating the boogeyman right yeah and i think the notion that there was some sort of idyllic
00:55:07.400past right oh yeah sure you know we we need to return to but that you know basically you know
00:55:15.940the subtext is that like let's make bigotry and racism and all the the prejudice is okay
00:55:24.820unacceptable again right and that's really what what they want and so you know i think that is
00:55:32.260obviously a dangerous path to go down and we're supposed to have laws in place to make sure that
00:55:38.140they can't do that and when those start to be uh undermined then that becomes a a real problem0.87
00:55:45.620I do think that the way that they are using the LGBTQ plus community and particularly the trans community at the moment is very frightening and it's happening here.
00:56:06.880Obviously it's happening up there and they've found something I think that scares people and they are in the process hurting, you know, real, real people, you know, trans kids, trans people, but also creating a crisis that, that doesn't exist in order to, you know, undermine trust in public education as well.0.56
00:56:31.860um and i don't know if i mean i know that they've got the whole like uh litter box thing in the
00:56:41.520bathrooms which is laughable nowhere is doing that but people sure believe that they are
00:56:49.380sure it's just right which is an extension of that too yeah and it's and it's it's typical0.76
00:56:56.720if i'm going to create a boogeyman i want it to be a very small fraction of the population
00:57:02.680so that most people don't know and if they don't know i can make up i can create i can curate the
00:57:10.400boogeyman to be as big and as horrific and as destructive as i possibly can because how many0.87
00:57:16.640people have somebody in their world in their ecosystem that is trans that they can talk to0.81
00:57:23.440about these things. Not very many. So it's really easy to say it's them. They're the problem. Don't0.98
00:57:29.760worry. As soon as I handle them. And there's been a couple other places in our history where that's
00:57:34.920been the go-to, right? What is a small population that we can point to and how many people really
00:57:42.220have interactions and real knowledge and I can manufacture everything. And you would hope that
00:57:48.020in this day and age where you have a computer in front of you, we had a window of intelligence and
00:57:52.680then it's been obliterated. You would hope that this gives you cause to be able to fact check and
00:57:58.260be able to look into things in a real way. But because like what you just, we've said before,
00:58:03.220there's this creation of false realities and echo chambers and self-serving re-indoctrination camps
00:58:13.320that we all jump into. And this isn't helping us anymore. So I think the only thing actually
00:58:22.120that's helped that would help is in person ready to have the conversation ready to be in person
00:58:30.780ready to actually explain and describe and communicate ideas externally to this yeah
00:58:41.120right yeah for sure and i mean if you like we have a lot more in common with any given
00:58:51.820person, then you have differences, right? And most people aren't going to say what they say
00:59:01.560in their comment section to somebody's face. So having that sort of anonymity behind the screen
00:59:09.460and also the distance between people that it's not like we're engaging with an actual human on
00:59:18.220the other end um if we actually have conversations yeah that's true yeah in person like you say and
00:59:25.840get out from behind the screens then we're more apt to to understand and have that empathy and
00:59:31.340certainly if we actually have a conversation with somebody say who's trans uh and get to know that
00:59:39.480person you're much less likely to be prejudiced negate yes and you're much less likely to easily
00:59:47.440negate everything that they are. And it's much less likely to create them as the villain or as
00:59:54.900the, you know, as the, the dragon that needs to be slain. And I, and I really do see this and it's
01:00:01.840going to have, and it is having horrific results as creating a pretend enemy because the world
01:00:08.840is a scary place. And there are lots of things to be very, very worried about. And there's,
01:00:15.760we have way more knowledge than we ever had before.
01:00:18.500And we're inundated with way more true,
01:00:22.420like way more horrible things that are going on the world than we ever have
01:00:25.700been before. And for somebody to stand over here and say, don't worry,
01:00:29.800I'll take these books away and everything's going to be just fine.
01:00:33.840And I don't even, I don't even know if I, if I'm having to,
01:00:38.760to criminalize, like the people that want to believe that I get that.
01:00:43.280I get wanting to believe that it's just that thing. I get it. I really do because it's the
01:00:50.520same kind of people who want to believe that I can lower taxes and give you the same social
01:00:54.320services. It just feels so much better. Right. Right. So going down that, you know, going down
01:01:01.740that road now before, thank you so much. First of all, it was an amazing conversation and I don't
01:01:06.720want to take up all your, your entire evening. Can you give me your top five censored books?
01:01:11.520i just want your top five band books what would you say go read them right now okay top five off
01:01:17.520the top of my head yeah i'm gonna go with the bluest eye another tony morrison yes um
01:01:25.320gotta say fahrenheit 451 just because the irony is is too much it is thick right now yeah perks
01:01:35.880being a wallflower oh it's another great one what was that band for you know it keeps showing up0.66
01:01:41.420just because uh yeah a gay character right of all things yeah sure and uh then how many is that three
01:01:51.980three okay so then the last two gotta throw uh probably a graphic novel in there persepolis
01:02:03.400and for number one i will go with the handmaid's tale um not just because we're living it but
01:02:12.740also because it's probably the most influential book or one of the most influential books in my
01:02:20.700life i read it uh for the first time in college not as part of a class just picked it up off the
01:02:26.280shelf. And, uh, I, I've always liked dystopian fiction, but, um, so much of the space has always
01:02:35.480been male dominated white men, especially, um, up until recently and particularly Atwood, um,
01:02:42.320with that book, but it just sort of solidified a lot of, um, my views on gender relations on,
01:02:53.280feminism. And I especially appreciate that she didn't invent anything for that book. These are
01:03:03.180all things that people have done. And we can do it again. And I'm afraid that we are in a lot of
01:03:12.900ways. That is true. Well, Dustin, thank you so much. Can you let everybody know where they can
01:03:18.060find you on what platforms under what, uh, under what? Yeah. So my platform is non-toxic masculinity.
01:03:25.320Uh, Dustin Pace is my name. You put in any combination of that. You should come up with it.
01:03:30.240I'm on Instagram, Tik TOK, uh, YouTube, Facebook, and, uh, threads.
01:03:39.560Fantastic. Sir, thank you so much for the conversation. I truly appreciate it. Thank
01:03:44.760you so much for all the work you do. Yes, thank you. And likewise, it's great to get to talk to
01:03:49.700you. Fantastic. Thank you guys, everybody. Have a great week and I will see you next time.
01:03:56.420Same bat time, same bat channel. Dismissed.0.89