it's great to see you it's great to be here I wish I could see you you're just
I see a number of lights out there and you know it's sort of like being on a
weak acid trip or something I can't really see you because the lights are in
my face but I I know you're there so and I'm here and so we're gonna talk it's a
real pleasure again to be invited here I'm really pleased then to see Eureka
Springs it's a fantastic place and I want to thank the folks that organized
this and got me here it's been difficult to get here but here we are and tonight
well as you can see already the title of my talk
he's I'm not in the way of it is defeating the death culture sometimes I
wish someone would defeat the technology we've had no end of technological
challenges getting this simple PowerPoint on this computer from my
computer but I won't bore you with that I think we're ready to go I had to
translate it into quick time so I don't know if it's gonna totally work
but it's pretty simple anyway
so so I'm gonna I'm just gonna forge ahead and hope for your indulgence if
things go off track here most of you that have heard me talk you know I'm an
ethnobotanist or ethnopharmacologist whatever you want to call it and usually
I present a lot of scientific data and a lot of downloads for you to mull over
and think about it and then I'll see you in the next video and then I'll see you in the next episode of the show.
but I'm not going to do that tonight I'm going to talk in a much more general sort of way about
some things that I think we all could do some thinking about and so hence this is the title
of my talk is the death culture or it could be called the death culture and how to defeat it
but I guess that's a little more awkward so hopefully the technology will cooperate so far
so good in some ways the dynamic tension between the fascination between and the dynamic polarity
that live that exists between life and death can be embodied in this notion of the tension between
arrows and
thanatos these are Greek terms that symbolize this dynamic tension and it's actually a term in Freudian
psychology I know that he's not popular anymore we're probably all Jungians but he had a few good
ideas and I think these concepts are among them we have in our culture particularly in Western
culture we have this fascination with death
we are fearful of it at the same time in some twisted way we're also attracted to it and a lot of our preoccupation with death is distorted
and is really infused into Western consciousness by Judeo-Christianity
Christianity tells us that we are inherently flawed beings we are born into sin we all have original sin
and that Christ died for our sins.
Christ suffered and died for our sins.
And we are supposed to be grateful for that.
Our salvation is not to be found in this world.
It's not to be found in this life.
It's to be found in heaven.
They usually don't get too explicit about where heaven is.
We're told that we have to reject the temporal world as somehow inherently evil.
The very things that sustain life are devalued by the Judeo-Christian tradition.
Our job on this planet, our job in this life is to suffer and ultimately to die.
And to go to our reward in heaven.
Heaven is a place where nothing ever happens.
So what is the sin that they're talking about?
This original sin that we're supposed to feel guilty about.
And that we have to be ashamed about.
And we have to suffer and regret all of our lives because of this sin that apparently we're born with.
Well, the sin is the sin of consuming the fruit of the tree of knowledge.
The sin is the sin of becoming conscious.
Of becoming human.
Of becoming minded.
In some sense, it's the sin of the descent into history.
The realization of our biology.
The realization of our mortality.
Shedding the monkey mind.
That's the sin.
The sin is to realize that yes, we are biological beings.
We have a limited life on this earth.
We have a mind.
We have free will.
This is the sin that they bludgeon.
That we're supposed to feel guilty.
And it's a catch-22.
Because in a sense, we would not be human if we had not committed this original sin.
But, we are conscious beings.
We're distinct from mindless nature.
And this attitude permeates western culture.
And has created this unhealthy preoccupation with death.
Leading us to reject nature.
Leading us to reject.
Our own biology.
Our sexuality.
Which is certainly part of our biology.
Ecstasy.
Um, watching Govinda's concert.
I saw far, far too much of that going on.
No, no, no.
You should be behaving yourselves.
You're not supposed to be having a good time here.
Your job is to suffer.
Your job is to.
Focus on the salvation.
Of your immortal soul.
Well, there you go.
Right.
So, it's this permeation.
And this preoccupation with death.
That has.
Transformed.
Our western civilization.
The eastern ones.
Not so much.
But the western.
Judeo-Christian civilization.
Is a death culture.
Um.
It's a culture that.
Uh.
Does not remind us.
the mega deaths of millions but will want to implement laws to put people in
jail for having an abortion you know this does not make sense and the death
culture is very clever and very good masters of rhetoric it likes to distort
the rhetoric of the life culture to its own ends death culture in the meme wars
in the wars of ideas in the wars of words between these polarities of Eros
and Thanatos represents itself and even calls itself the culture of life so what
do they mean by the culture of life well here's some of the death culture values
that we're expected to think about and we can expect it to accept for example
the idea that the soul of a frozen embryo
is more important than the suffering of millions of people for which things like
stem cell research could do a great deal of good the idea that the survival of a
fetus is always trumping the life of the mother even if the pregnancy results
from from incest or rape or the child is severely born with severe defects so
they have this idea I think in our
if we are the life culture I think we understand that these are false
dichotomies in some ways these are false understandings because you know
does a fetus have a soul probably does a frozen embryo have a soul probably but
extend that a little further beyond does a single cell have a soul probably I
mean I think that in our culture we understand that
the soul that mind that Consciousness is not something that requires even a brain or a nervous system
it's something that permeates reality a blade of grass has a soul a plant has a soul a rock has a
certain kind of a soul so it's it's an absurd argument really I mean I've just you know I can
scratch a little dandruff off my head I've just aborted oh I don't know five or six million cells
any one of which knowing what we know about DNA could be developed into you
know a fully functional human being given the technology that we have is
anybody arguing that we should you know preserve the souls of our epithelial
cells every time we take a shower we're guilty of mass murder it's just not
realistic you know and yet it is these absurd
concepts that sort of frame the discussion of these issues in our
political and and cultural conversation if that's what you can call it you can't
really call it a conversation because usually it's people with staked out
positions talking past each other there's no real conversation that goes
on anymore and another odd thing about the death culture they will go to any
lengths to preserve the soul of an embryo
but once you're born forget it you know their emphasis is on quality of life not
on on quantity of life not on quality of life you know once you're once you're
born you're pretty much on your own and under the under the under the precepts
of the death culture you're not even permitted to die with dignity however
degraded life may be it must preserve be preserved at all costs
decades spent on a respirator is preferable to being allowed to cease your
suffering and die in a dignified way does this make any sense I don't know
not to me I think not to a lot of people if you think about it and yet
it's very hard to have a conversation about this so here are a few death
culture values that we can talk about Dick Cheney has said has said if I can get to the bottom of this.
Dick Cheney has said if I can get to the bottom of this.
out of here oh this is much better now I don't have to hunch over that's good
that's good thank you so so Dick Cheney is famous for saying a lot of dumb
things but I think one of the dumbest that he said is the American way of life
is non-negotiable well what that means to me is well here we are we're
consumerist culture we live large on the planet we consume 25 percent of the
world's resources and we're less than 5 percent of the world's people but we
will go to any length to preserve that way of life this thoughtless
unsustainable way of life in the conversation that they want you to
swallow economics it's always about jobs jobs are always more important than the
environment jobs are always more important than sustainability well jobs
are important no doubt about it but if there's no environment for us
to live in if we've managed to destroy the planet you know it's not going to
matter whether we have jobs or not you know and yet this notion that we can
live sustainably we can live in a way that is in harmony with nature that has
a light impact on nature is not considered part of the American dream
it's not considered part of the capitalist worldview you know I mean
this is a group
as a group the likes to you know have things like the Republican National
Convention and I'm not just believe me I'm not just confining this to the
Republicans I mean it's you know they just happen to be the an easy straw man
that you can hold up you know but rather than discussing these issues they
like to have big conventions like in the St. Paul Excel Center that they had a
few years a few weeks ago instead of actually discussing
the issues about our use and overuse of the world's resources and our depletion of petroleum
and everything else you know they like to get up and chant things like drill here drill now
drill everywhere you know and this kind of thing it sounds good you know when it's going on but
it's not really a conversation and it's not really a solution and anyone who is not part of this
mindset who hears this what can you do except despair you know so one of the attitudes that
this leads to is the notion that we are not part of nature we are the rulers of nature
nature exists for us to be owned commercialized for us to exploit it for us to control it for us
to criminalize it when that becomes necessary
and ultimately for us to destroy it if we feel that that's necessary and this is part
of our of the inheritance of this judeo-christian perception that nature is devalued because nature
is part of this world and our world the reward for us comes in the next world so it leads us
to devalue nature and it leads us to feel that we don't have uh that you know we don't have a
stake in the game nature is a stake in the game and we don't have a stake in the game
nature can fully be destroyed and yet we will go on to our reward in heaven well i don't know as
i said before where heaven is but i'm damn sure that you know it's not on earth if we manage to
completely destroy the planet a few more death culture values that i think we need to
think about and try to bring into this conversation ronald reagan was famous for saying
government is not the solution to the problem
is the problem well some people may think that i mean they're certainly in some ways much too much
government but i think the difference between the death culture and the life culture is our
perception of what government should be doing i mean government can do good things for people
if it sets its mind to us universal health care this kind of thing you know i mean the part of
the perception of the death culture is that it's not about government it's not about
power you know one of the criticism it is about power one of one of the criticisms that's been
labeled against the last administration was that they were very good at winning elections they were
very good at politics they were lousy at government governance they were lousy at
governance because their philosophy is that government has no function government is the
problem you know so their notion is to undermine government as much as possible and i think that's
possible to undermine all the potentially good things that it might do the other thing think
you know that's why god gave you this hand so that you could think and i would go beyond that and say
think critically you know question what you're told question what you see in the media question
everything including this i mean i don't say i'm just here to or
articulate an idea i don't want to be followed don't follow me don't follow anyone believe in
yourself if you have to have faith have faith in yourself this is a statement about fundamentalism
which i think is a a poison that has permeated culture and not simply christian culture we find
it in many other religious uh traditions and and even non-religious belief systems but fundamentally
the idea of fundamental belief system is that one purports to have all the answers it also claims to
be the only way all deviations from the fundamentalist dogma lead to hell it follows then
that parents who believe they this would be this would be very concerned about what their children
believe any alternative ways of thinking about major life questions would be highly threatening
consequently the fundamentalist
household rarely encourages children to explore their own thoughts to be open-minded about ideas
or to come to their own conclusions in fact fundamentalist parents are typically vocal
in their opposition to the teaching of critical thinking skills or values clarification in schools
so we need to lose fundamentalism it is not fundamentalism means that you know there is a
real
rigid set of beliefs and no deviation is allowed it is not useful
for clarity it does not really help us understand and we need to understand another aspect of this
is you are entitled to your opinion but not to your own facts here is an interesting statement
we are an empire now this is probably carl rove it is put as a senior bush aide but it was probably
Karl Rove. We're an empire now and when we act we create our own reality and while
you're studying that reality we'll act again creating other new realities which
you can study too and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors
and you all of you will be left to just study what we do. So yeah well we've
seen the consequences of what happens when an entire administration decides
that they create their own reality. Yeah they haven't been in the reality-based
community for far too long and the real reality the real reality has a way of
sort of you know interfering with that agenda as we've seen as the wheels have
come off you know so not so good. The fact that an opinion has been widely
held there's no evidence whatever that it is not utterly absurd.
You know it's not a good thing. It's not a good thing. It's not a good thing. It's not a good thing. It's not a good thing. It's not a good thing. It's not a good thing.
Indeed in view of the silliness of the majority of mankind widespread belief
is more likely to be foolish than sensible. So this is something that's
worth keeping in mind. What about reason? He that will not discuss will not
reason is a bigot. He that cannot reason is a fool and he that dares not reason
is a slave. Reason is one of the things that this thinking mind can do. We should
Michael
there probably is a paradigm beyond reason but I'm not saying that reason
Reason, I mean, this goes back to what I said about know how little you know.
You know, I'm not saying that there are not other ways of knowing that are not necessarily logical or reasonable.
But I think reason is a good place to start from.
You know, particularly when you're having these conversations.
In other words, you know, what is the opposite of reason?
You know, the opposite of reason is unreason.
And reason leads to good judgment.
I don't think any society has ever managed to destroy itself with a spun because of a spontaneous outbreak of reason.
But many societies have destroyed themselves with spontaneous outbreaks of unreason.
And this is what we see.
So Richard Dawkins, who I agree with about some things but not others,
has said, reason built the modern world.
It is a precious but a fragile thing, which can be corroded by apparently harmless irrationality.
We must favor verifiable evidence over private feeling.
Otherwise, we leave ourselves vulnerable to those who would obscure the truth.
Again, I'm just putting these ideas out for you to mull over.
And hopefully we'll have a little time to talk.
And the other thing that's very important is to recognize the limitations of our knowledge,
which goes to what this gentleman over here said.
We must never assume that we have it figured out, because we do not have it figured out.
This is a famous statement of Don Rumsfeld, who said a lot of stupid things in his day.
But actually, I kind of like this.
This is kind of a Zen-like Cohen.
He said, as we know, there are no gnomes.
There are things we know we know.
We also know there are known unknowns.
That is to say, we know there are some things we do not know.
But there are also unknown unknowns, the ones that we do not know we do not know.
I mean, a profound statement from a major jerk.
Occasionally, they get it right.
He didn't know, of course, what he was saying.
A man who knows how little he knows,
a man who knows as well, a man who knows how much he knows, is sick.
So that's the thing.
And I think I would say to the scientists out there, especially,
we don't have it nailed down.
The expanse of our ignorance is always going to greatly outpace the tiny sphere of what we think we understand.
And as new paradigms emerge, that tiny sphere may be turned topsy-turvy.
The other thing is, the little that we do know, or that we think we know, we should share.
We should share with our brothers and sisters.
And that involves three things, at least.
One is to listen.
You have to listen in order to learn.
You know, if you're, and that's the other part, to learn.
Learning is a process.
We're all still learning.
Michelangelo said, I am still learning.
If you're still engaged in the dialogue, if you're still engaged in the process, we're all still learning.
We are, in fact, a community of learning.
Teaching has to do more with, not so much dishing stuff out, but a collaboration in learning.
Learning is not the product of teaching.
Learning is the product of the activity of learners.
And that's what we need to become.
You can learn from anybody.
You can learn from anything.
What you can't do, usually, is learn when you're flapping your mouth.
You know, now I should probably just shut up right here.
Because that's what I'm doing.
But, you know, that's a part of the process of developing this collaboration.
And that's really what I'm pitching.
And rock and roll, well where does that fit in?
Well, I think some of the people that were having their ecstatic experience understand that.
But look at it in terms of biology.
What is biology?
What are these systems?
They're not simply, I mean, I'm a bag of protoplasm.
True.
Right.
And some people would say I'm a bag of something else.
But anyway, the thing is, rock and roll, what is it about?
It's about rhythm.
It's about oscillation.
That's what biological systems do.
They're not static systems.
They're things that exist in time.
You know, they're very much like a song or a piece of music.
A song on a DVD or written down on a piece of paper is a static thing.
It's only when it's expressed through time in a dynamic way that it comes alive.
Well, same with biological systems.
When that rhythm stops, when the oscillation and the cycles,
the keep things going stop, it becomes not very interesting.
In fact, it becomes dead.
That is the difference between something alive and something dead.
So sex, drugs, and rock and roll, I'm all for it.
This is what life is in some very profound way.
The death culture says life is suffering.
That somehow if we enjoy this biological state
that we find ourselves in, we should be ashamed of that.
And the life culture affirms, no, life is joy.
Life should be joy.
It should be ecstasy.
So I guess we've framed sort of the two arguments,
although the argument on the other side,
on the side of the death culture, is pretty dreary.
There really is no argument.
You know, when you look at it that way,
I'm sure my argument, my presentation,
is so persuasive that, you know,
we all want to be on the side of the life culture, right?
So how can we defeat the death culture?
How can we defeat this mindset that has poisoned the conversation,
this mindset that is somehow, you know,
with the help of the church, corporations,
other instruments of power,
has infused the Western consciousness?
Well, I have some suggestions.
One of them is reject faith.
Insist on evidence.
Why should you believe something for which there's no evidence?
We're told, you know, you must have faith, my son.
Well, yeah, I mean, I have faith, all right.
I have faith that everything you've been telling us
for the last 2,500 years or so is a lie,
and I have faith that you will continue to lie into the future.
So that's my faith.
And it actually happens to be backed up with considerable evidence.
So, you know, we must make a distinction between faith and belief.
Belief is fine.
You can have belief,
but you can also have a lot of evidence to support your beliefs,
and that's the difference.
Faith has no evidence.
Faith is being asked to believe something without evidence
because we want you to.
Think.
This is another thing.
You know, the reason that we have this hypertrophied brain,
whether it was given to us by God or by Darwin,
was so we can use it.
You know, our job is to use it.
You know, we have a brain.
We may as well use it.
It's important also to note opinions and beliefs do not equal facts.
Sometimes they can be congruent with the facts,
sometimes not.
There can be some degree of overlap or not.
But opinions are not facts.
Rely on reason.
What's wrong with reason?
You know, I mean, why should I have to get up here and promote reason?
Why?
I mean, we're a psychedelic culture.
We're the counterculture.
You know, we're the ones that people say,
well, you know, they're just wackos and, you know, they have no...
And yet we're the ones that have to say,
we're the ones that have to stand up and demand that reason be part of the conversation.
It doesn't make any sense.
The other thing is, the other side of this coin,
know how little you know.
You know, there is, I mean, there, you know, I'm a scientist.
I'm all for science, you know.
But science commits the sin, if that's what you want to call it,
of being sometimes a little arrogant.
A little too arrogant.
Assuming that it knows more than it does.
Science only understands a tiny slice of reality.
And by the nature of the scientific enterprise, that's fine.
That's what it does.
It focuses on something very small,
a very tiny slice of the whole picture,
and it studies it in great detail.
And that's wonderful.
But it should beware and actually, you know,
other endeavors like it should beware of assuming that we know more than we don't.
Because in fact, we don't know shit.
And share what you do know.
That's the other thing.
I mean, the way that we change the deaf culture is to share information.
You know, to teach others to have real conversations that are not simply slogans.
To think and share our thoughts.
To distrust the media.
I don't think I really have to say any more.
I mean, you know, the media is a tremendously powerful medium,
being what it is.
And in the current cultural context, one of the most poisonous tools
that the deaf culture has to wield against us.
Now, we're in the process of developing weapons that will fight this,
or tools that can be used to counter it.
Which is why things like the internet
are so optimistic and hopeful.
Because those are things that individuals can wield
to counter the mass poisoning of consciousness
that the corporate media wants to propagate.
Don't follow.
This goes back to think for yourself.
And in our culture, and in a sense, really in all cultures,
especially in the deaf culture,
there is a tendency to follow.
You know, we want to...
find a leader, find a wise person,
a guru, a shaman,
you know, a messiah or whatever,
and sit at their feet and follow.
This is exactly what they've been wanting you to do.
You know, and this is fine.
It's not that you can't be wise.
And it's not that you can't follow.
But don't follow mindlessly.
That's the thing.
Demand evidence.
And finally, spread heresy.
You know, spread these ideas.
You know, so let's talk a little bit
about each of these things.
Faith.
Faith has been called the enemy of reason.
Faith is essentially belief without evidence.
Thomas Huxley said,
the deepest sin against the human mind
is to believe things without evidence.
And this is essentially what faith is.
Who needs it?
Sam Harris, who wrote an interesting book
called The End of Faith,
noted that the only angels we need invoke
are those of our baser nature.
Reason, honesty, and love.
The only demons we must fear
are those that lurk inside every human mind.
Ignorance, hatred, greed, and faith.
Which is surely the devil's masterpiece.
Kind of an odd statement.
And this fellow, H.L. Menick, has said,
faith may be defined briefly as an illogical belief
in the occurrence of the improbable.
So, I call on you to reject faith.
Which is not the same as rejecting belief.
Embrace belief if you can find the evidence for it.
If you can back up your belief with evidence, then fine.
And nothing is ever ultimately proven or disproven.
I mean, if you know science, you know that this is true.
The other thing, think.
You know, that's why God gave you this hand.
So that you could think.
And I would go beyond that and say, think critically.
You know, question what you're told.
Question what you see in the media.
Question everything.
Including this.
I mean, I don't say,
I'm just here to articulate an idea.
I don't want to be followed.
Don't follow me.
Don't follow anyone.
Believe in yourself.
If you have to have faith, have faith in yourself.
This is a statement about fundamentalism.
Which I think is a poison that has permeated culture
and not simply Christian culture.
We find it in many other religious traditions
and even non-religious.
Non-religious belief systems.
But fundamentalism, the idea of fundamental belief system
is that one purports to have all the answers.
It also claims to be the only way.
All deviations from the fundamentalist dogma lead to hell.
It follows then that parents who believe this would be this
would be very concerned about what their children believe.
Any alternative ways of thinking about major life questions
would be highly threatening.
Consequently, the fundamentalist household rarely encourages children
to explore their own thoughts.
To be open-minded about ideas.
Or to come to their own conclusions.
In fact, fundamentalist parents are typically vocal
in their opposition to the teaching of critical thinking skills
or values clarification in schools.
So, we need to lose fundamentalism.
Fundamentalism means that there is a rigid set of beliefs
and no deviation is allowed.
It's not useful for clarity.
It doesn't really help us understand.
And we need to understand.
Another aspect of this is you're entitled to your opinion
but not to your own facts.
Here's an interesting statement.
We're an empire now.
This is probably Karl Rove.
It's put as a senior Bush aide
but it was probably Karl Rove.
We're an empire now and when we act
we create our own reality.
And while you're studying that reality
we'll act again.
Creating other new realities
which you can study too.
And that's how things will sort out.
We're history's actors.
And you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.
So, yeah.
Well, we've seen the consequences
of what happens when an entire administration
decides that they create their own reality.
Yeah.
They haven't been in the reality-based community
for far too long.
And the real reality, the real reality
has a way of sort of, you know,
interfering with that agenda
as we've seen as the wheels have come off.
You know.
So, not so good.
The fact that an opinion has been widely held
is no evidence whatever
that it is not utterly absurd.
Indeed, in view of the silliness
of the majority of mankind
widespread belief is more likely
to be foolish than sensible.
So this is something
that's worth keeping in mind.
What about reason?
He that will not reason is a bigot.
He that cannot reason is a fool.
And he that dares not reason is a slave.
Reason
is one of the things that this thinking mind can do.
We should demand reason.
We should demand that reason once again
become part of the political dialogue
and the cultural dialogue
on the part of our leaders
and the meme generators
that run the cultural conversation.
Yes, sir?
That's not a good one.
Yeah, probably.
There probably is a paradigm beyond reason.
But I'm not saying that reason
I mean, this goes back to what I said
about know how little you know.
You know, I'm not saying that
there are not other ways of knowing
that are not necessarily logical or reasonable.
But I think reason is a good place to start from.
You know, particularly when you're having these conversations.
In other words, you know, what is the opposite of reason?
You know, the opposite of reason is unreason.
And reason leads to good judgment.
I don't think any society has ever managed to destroy itself
because of a spontaneous outbreak of reason.
But many societies have destroyed themselves
with spontaneous outbreaks of unreason.
And this is what we see.
So Richard Dawkins,
who I agree with about some things but not others,
has said,
Reason built the modern world.
It is a precious but a fragile thing
which can be corroded by apparently harmless irrationality.
We must favor verifiable evidence over private feeling.
Otherwise, we leave ourselves vulnerable
to those who would obscure the truth.
Again, I'm just putting these ideas out
for you to mull over,
and hopefully we'll have a little time to talk about it.
The other thing that's very important
is to recognize the limitations of our knowledge,
which goes to what this gentleman over here said.
We must never assume that we have it figured out,
because we do not have it figured out.
This is a famous statement of Don Rumsfeld,
who said a lot of stupid things in his day.
But actually, I kind of like this.
This is kind of a Zen lesson.
Like Cohen, he said,
As we know, there are known knowns.
There are things we know we know.
We also know there are known unknowns.
That is to say,
we know there are some things we do not know.
But there are also unknown unknowns,
the ones that we do not know we do not know.
I mean, a profound statement from a major jerk.
Occasionally, they get it right.
He didn't know, of course, what he was saying.
A man who knows how little he knows is well.
A man who knows how much he knows is sick.
So that's the thing.
And I think I would say to the scientists out there especially,
we don't have it nailed down.
The expanse of our ignorance
is always going to greatly outpace
the tiny sphere of what we think we understand.
And as new paradigms emerge,
that tiny sphere may be turned topsy-turvy very quickly.
The other thing is,
the little that we do know or that we think we know,
we should share.
We should share with our brothers and sisters.
And that involves three things at least.
One is to listen.
You have to listen in order to learn.
You know, if you're...
And that's the other part.
To learn.
Learning is a process.
We're all still learning.
Michelangelo said, I am still learning.
If you're still engaged in the dialogue,
if you're still engaged in the process,
we're all still learning.
We are, in fact, a community of learning.
Teaching has to do more with
not so much dishing stuff out,
but a collaboration in learning.
Learning is not the product of teaching.
Learning is the product of the activity of learners.
And that's what we need to become.
You can learn from anybody.
You can learn from anything.
What you can't do, usually,
is learn when you're flapping your mouth.
You know, now I should probably just shut up right here.
Because that's what I'm doing.
But, you know, that's a part of the process
of developing this collaboration.
And that's really what I'm pitching.
The other thing is distrust the media.
I don't think we have to belabor this too much.
Whoever controls the media controls the mind.