Weaponized Tolerance Can Save America

0:00Irreverent news talk and opinion with a little bit of satire in the mix for good measure it's Newsweek Radio. I'm Jesse Edwards. And today I want to talk about something a little bit bigger than politics because there is so much more to life and reality than politics. Now that's not to say that I'm not going to get political. Just think of this as starting broad and zooming in. Macro to micro in this case. It begins with our pursuit of happiness as human beings in the modern era compared to, you know, a hundred years ago and all the way back to the beginning of time itself. And it ends with the Pledge of Allegiance.

0:32Now just follow with me here for a second. I was watching a clip of actor Will Smith of all people a while back talking about something quite profound, which in itself is remarkable, because celebrities don't typically trade in profundities, and especially considering what he did to Chris Rock. Let's just say my opinion of Will Smith over the last few years hasn't exactly been glowing, but that all surprisingly changed just a couple of weeks ago when I heard him talking about this subject, because it stuck Talk with me now and I can't stop thinking about what he was talking about when he describes the difference between a person hitting rock bottom versus hitting cliff top.

1:09People talk about rock bottom, that when you hit rock bottom is when you'll make a change. But there's a corresponding place that I call cliff top where you get so high that you realize literally none of this stuff can make you happy. You can get to the end of the material world. You get to the end of money. You get to the end of sex. you get to the end of fame you have so much and you get and then you you like go off of a cliff into the same kind of abyss that you'd be scared of slipping into at rock bottom where life loses all of its ability to sustain and please you and then the only thing that's left the same thing at rock bottom the only thing that's left at cliff top is you have to you have to find what you're actually looking for and what you're actually looking for is you.

2:02You're looking for you. When you like a woman and you like being with a woman, it's because you like how you feel. You like what's happening inside of you. When you have money, it's like, yeah, it's cool to buy things, but it's not the money. You like how you feel inside. It's unleashing a feeling inside. And at rock bottom And at clifftop, what you have to learn how to do is generate that feeling without anything external. You have to learn how to like you so much that you like being alive so much that you bring positive energy that's not generated by stuff, right? Because stuff is coming and going.

2:46Right. Like people are coming and going. Everything you have and everybody you love is going to rise and fall in your life. The place that we have to find is a spiritual place where we are good with us. We trust us. I trust myself. I trust God. And I trust life that whatever happens, I'm going to make happy out of it. Wow. I mean, I really never expected to hear something like that out of Will Smith. But he's absolutely right. And I think it's a universal and profound truth that he's spitting here. And it sounds like he's come a long way in his healing process for whatever he's been going through in life.

3:20And I can only hope that we could all reach this kind of realization collectively and as Americans specifically. Because despite your financial status or your bank account or how skinny your wallet might be at the current moment, if you're an American with a roof over your head and a car in the driveway and high-speed internet with heating and air conditioning with cold and hot water on tap and a regular source of income, let me tell you something. You are living like a king and you don't even know it. And my point is that you don't need to be rich, famous, or powerful to reach that cliff top that Mr.

3:51Smith was just talking about. Look, I am dead center in the middle of the middle class, and I'm pretty certain that I've reached the point that Will Smith is talking about here more than once in my 45 years on this planet. What I'm wondering is if we can use this as an example to shed some light on the condition of our national discourse, and I think that we can. Because if we're all just sitting around collectively as Americans getting angry with each other over every little inconvenience or perceived political difference, pointing our fingers at everybody but ourselves, ready to throw down against the opposition at a drop of a hat, acting suspicious and envious of our neighbors who are just as stressed out as we are by trying to keep up with the Joneses, I would say it's pretty safe to say that we've collectively hit that cliff top together, and this is what's behind a lot of the toxicity in our culture currently.

4:39Look, wealth and success do not bring the kind of satisfaction that a lot of people assume it will when they finally get it. And this might be at least part of the reason why so many people in our country are on antidepressants. To be honest, I should probably be on antidepressants because it's a pretty depressing world out there from my perspective, but I just choose not to. And in that sense, I keep bouncing from rock bottom to cliff top a few times every week, it feels like. But I know I'm not the only one out there feeling this. Millions of us have hit that cliff top, and that's why so many of us are depressed despite having more abundance and freedom and technology than any generation before us.

5:14We've been conditioned to think that the climb is life itself, so when we finally reach that cliff top, we don't know what to do. We don't know how to simply just exist and enjoy the view. So we start inventing problems out of pure boredom, like fixating on skin color and gender. When we run out of real dragons to slay, we go to war with ourselves over identity politics, where people build entire online personas around being the most oppressed, the most enlightened, or the most offended, where every single debate becomes a new hill to die on because nobody's actually in danger anymore. So hard times create strong men, strong men create good times, good times create weak men, and weak men create hard times.

5:54Not my quote, but it's a good one. But we fantasize about societal collapse with zombie flicks and doomsday prepping and grid collapse videos because part of us misses the danger. It's existential nostalgia for an outdated animal instinct that becomes harder to satisfy as we evolve. And instead of hunting for food, we hunt for validation, likes, follows, and approval from the algorithm. I'm one to talk. And when all else fails, we chemically sedate the restlessness that is trying to wake us up. Most modern humans are not climbing out of poverty anymore. They're standing on the cliff edge of comfort, staring into a psychological void that is the paradox of progress.

6:31Because when survival is no longer the daily struggle, the mind invents new daily struggles to fill the space. And we're all guilty of it. And I think the best way to get over it is to talk about it so we can detoxify how we treat each other online and, well, in person sometimes. I mean, that is where the toxicity hits hardest, right? People tend to be a little bit more polite in person than we tend to be on the internet, and you can delete people that you don't like by simply blocking them. You've got so much more control about who you do and do not interact with online, one would think that could help to cool down the heated rhetoric.

7:03Because we are better people when we don't limit ourselves to our preferred echo chambers. Conservatives who are secure in their beliefs aren't threatened by liberals, and liberals who are secure in their beliefs aren't threatened by conservatives. And when we demonize the opposition, we give them power by inviting them to act like demons. But back to the main point here, and that is that many of these big culture war issues wouldn't even exist if we weren't such pampered, soft-bellied, spoiled brats, all of us, myself included. Then we sit back and wonder how such a pampered, soft-bellied, spoiled brat like Donald Trump gets elected twice in our representative government.

7:40Because like it or not, Donald Trump does represent all of us, and if we want that to change, we're going to have to stop acting like him and lead by example. Because this is trickle-up-ass hattery. After the last financial collapse, followed by the conservative Tea Party and liberal Occupy Wall Street, which were two sides of the same coin, many of us began subscribing to a more me-first kind of mentality. Kind of an ask-not-what-you-can-do-for-your-country-but-ask-what-your-country-can-do-for-you bass-ackwards bastardization of how this great experiment is supposed to work. I mean, who can blame us when so many others have given up trying to even be a part of this great experiment?

8:16And who can blame us for giving up on a society that gave up on itself years ago, its self-fulfilling prophecy? Not all hope is lost, I believe with all sincerity, that we can pull out of this nosedive if we simply cut the bullshit with each other and start blindly treating everybody as equals for a change. And don't let the far right own this America First idea. Because America First should be claimed by all of us, reclaimed by all of us who are sick and tired of hating on one another over the mere differences of perspective that rarely ever change. Let liberals be liberal, conservatives conservative, and libertarians libertarian.

8:50Quit trying to make everyone else think like you do, only to get offended when they don't. Look, the only way to fight this seemingly inevitable national divorce is to rekindle our love for each other as Americans first. You remember one nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all? It's time to refocus our attention on that word, indivisible, and talk about what that really means in America today. This is something that a lot of us pledged allegiance to, not just the flag itself, but to the republic for which it stands. Indivisible means inseparable. It means unbreakable. It means being bound together, united in a singular purpose as one nation.

9:27Did you mean the Pledge of Allegiance when you made it so many times as a kid? Was it something that you just repeated like a good little sheep, or did you mean it? Because I meant it, and I'm sure a lot of you did too. Look, I realize it might seem like we've gone way off topic from rock bottom and cliff top discussions, but I can assure you that it is all related because America too has hit rock bottom. America too has hit cliff top. And I think what we're all feeling right now to a large extent is the existential fallout. It's the best of times and the worst of times. The age of wisdom and foolishness.

9:57Belief and disbelief. Light and darkness. Hope and despair. We had everything and we have nothing. We're all going to heaven. We're all going to hell. Cliff bottom, cliff top. It is. It's a tale of two countries. But I've got a random idea for you here. Would you make a conscious effort to support free speech by supporting those of which you disagree with most? Look, I've never assigned any homework to my Newsweek radio audience, but what better time than now? If you are a right-winger, I want you to donate to your favorite liberal cause right now. And if you don't have one, I want you to find one and give them something, anything.

10:29And liberals in the audience, I'm going to assign you this same task for your favorite conservative cause. And if you don't have one, you better find one, because we should all be aware of the things we like and appreciate about each other if we are ever going to fix the things that we don't like. And if you believe in America, I think it's time you believe in your political opposition for once. And for the libertarians, centrists, and human first crowd out there who already know all of this, just spread the word and give to where you see fit. And encourage radicalized tolerance across the political spectrum because it might just be our only hope.

10:59Liberals are not the enemy. Conservatives are not the enemy. both sides are in danger of being hijacked by the lunatic fringe if we don't organize the serious push back now. We need both wings of this bird to fly. And if you can't support that first and foremost, then don't pretend that you meant your Pledge of Allegiance when you said it out loud as a kid countless times at attention hand over heart. And if you forgot what that really meant, maybe it's time to take the pledge again. Not just to the flag or to the republic for which it stands, but to reaffirm that commitment to yourself like you actually mean it.

11:32That's all the time we've got for today. And until we can do it again, it's Newsweek Radio. I'm Jesse Edwards. Catch you next time. Bye. Newsweek Radio is a member of The Trust Project. Oh, wow.