A friend who is well acquainted with my complaints about Joe Rogan (and Sam Harris and Jordan Peterson and all the other self-styled Intellectual Dark Web gimme a break) sent me a screenshotted tweet that said, "Joe Rogan is Gwyneth Paltrow for men." It's nice to have friends who know you :)
All of this resonates, hard. The amount of anger I feel regarding people like Galt, Wilks brothers -- all of them who claim "mine" simply by self-entitlement, well, that anger is bottomless. I know they're just champing at the bit to erase those stream access laws, and will never, ever want to face the reality of who actually took what land and when. I keep trying to pick up "Billionaire Wilderness" because I know it's a book relevant to my interests and research, but every time I look at a random page I just ... can't.
I think you've put your finger on something here: "With my close people I expect to have my bullshit called out, and they should expect the same from me. Good relationships require that."
It seems to me that many people don't have those kinds of authentic relationships anymore where our bullshit gets called out. I've put my foot down about some stuff over the past several years (thanks, Trump) that I couldn't put up with anymore, and those relationships in which I did so are no longer. Or are completely surface-level if we even still speak to one another. Now you've got me wondering when and to whom I've done that to in return.
There are obviously many things propping up white supremacy, but the lack of willingness to stay in relationship with people who call you on your shit has to play a role.
Sara, that is definitely something I think about. The people who have drifted away that I have been close to: what does it say about my own toxicity? We can't be all things to all people but it's still not easy.
Living in Alaska and Oregon, I cannot stand the rhetoric I've witnessed that amounts to the erasure of Indigenous peoples and the history of taking land. Of seeing placenames named after white men who caused genocide and harm to so many. It's the casualness of it that is galling. I love that you are calling this out --the white billionaires crying foul--reminds me of the 'takeover' of Malheur Refuge and claims of it being ranchers' lands....there are not enough swear words to cover how vile such 'claims' are. A couple of weeks ago I listened to Ezra Klein talk with Nick Offerman with worry as they started talking about National Parks--but then Nick Offerman calls out the stolen land that parks represent and I was doing fistbumps in the air on my walk. It's just one small reference by another white guy talking to another white guy on a podcast but....it helps to hear it being called out.
Offerman is doing just what more white dudes need to be doing. He's not ignoring the issues, he's raising the questions. Which he needs to, since most BIPOC folks rarely even get an opportunity to.
Thanks for the work you do (and the patience you exhibit) in reframing our contemporary reality in spite of the obscuring lens of this continent's distorted history.
Chris, a tangential question: Given its colonialist, ignorant origins, why is it still accepted to refer to native Americans as "Indians" - particularly self-referentially? It feels to me like this is something of an elephant in the room; so, I apologize in advance if it offends.
No, I understand it's curious so no offense taken. Indians have largely claimed the word ourselves to strip if of its ugliness, though I'm not sure how intentional that is. I prefer it to "Native American" myself. I use it interchangeably with Indigenous. First choice is always by tribal name when one knows it. In conversation I might refer to my Blackfeet friend Robert, or my Ponca friend Migz.
It's challenging because there wasn't a continent-spanning word to encompass everyone pre-contact that I know of. Tribes knew of each other and traded widely and certainly had names for their neighbors, but who ever had to talk about all of us at one time? It's a complicated world we've made for ourselves, heh.
I understand reclaiming the pejorative to transform it. And, yes, there is a veritable word salad of academically cleansed alternatives. Just having trouble shaking the stank of this legacy, based as it is on a bone-headed navigational miscalculation from the 1490s. Still, better than the one used by the Norse explorers some 500 years earlier (I won't even mention it here). Your preferences are duly noted.
For the record, I am a Canadian of European descent. I am sure you have an eye on the most recent "intentions" up here to right the wrongs of our Colonist forebears. To my mind they can never be righted, only possibly atoned for in some way. I am not even sure if atonement is the appropriate objective. The wholesale kidnapping of children into the residential school system, destined for unmarked graves cannot, in my mind, be atoned away.
Worth noting that the architects of that atrocity were themselves products of private schools to which they were sent by their parents. The overarching difference being that they were given up willingly and became known as graduates; whereas, the indigenous people of Canada were stolen and became survivors.
Arriving at a place of mutual respect for our merits and humility faced with our colossal human shortcomings seems a far off and too rosy outcome. Still, we persist. In the meantime, love, honour and empower.
I appreciate your comment very much. This especially: "The overarching difference being that they were given up willingly and became known as graduates; whereas, the indigenous people of Canada were stolen and became survivors." Thank you.
I wonder if Bourdain would have been so intellectually lazy had that exact same scenario played out in some other land. My relationship with him remains as it was - entirely parasocial and comprised of his artistic output, and so I have no additional input to provide outside of his written and televised thoughts. Having said that, he seemed to be exceptionally curious in many situations and contained a decent sniffer for bullshit. The fact that he didn't pick that up out in Montana is unfortunate, disappointing, and telling. I don't know...maybe he was just an upwardly mobile bro palling around in Montana with some other rich dude, living in comfort and enjoying a flirtation with colonization.
I hope it wasn't the latter. If he was an insecure guy, or at least more insecure than we thought, I could see him just being intimidated by "peers" who are strangers. It certainly is curious, though.
Has Rogan always been known as a piece of garbage? I didn't see this episode in real time, I was late to the Bourdain crowd. So I already loathed Rogan when I saw this episode for the first time just a couple years ago. Watching it now, his infamy is even greater at least from my point of view. So maybe in 2016 he hadn't evolved to the full choad he is now? I really don't know.
Rogan used to be a kind of entertaining bro who would just talk about ancient aliens and shit (this was back in the mid-00s). By the time this episode aired in 2016, however, he was fully bananas.
I do remember viewing the Anthony Bourdain episode that you reference. I will certainly watch it again, prepared with greater understanding and perspective. I must admit that I thought that Mr. Bourdain was a pretty cool dude and that he felt deeply. That he felt the beauty of the world and all of the various cultures, and that he felt the inequities suffered by so many. He communicated to me that we are all valuable. Maybe I am a bit prejudiced. He and I grew up in the same part of New Jersey, Bergen County. Most of my peers were the grandchildren or children of European immigrants who came to this land seeking a better life.
I totally agree with you that history should not be whitewashed and that truth should prevail. Transparency should reign. The stories of all who were here before us should be truthfully told.
Again Chris, thank you for your honesty and for your eloquence and grit.
Ugh. I had only seen the Harrison parts in some episode where they put the best scenes with writers or something. I would remember Rogan... What he's doing with Bourdain I don't know. He's dead now so we'll never know. Same with sticking up to rich fucks. Disappointing, especially when one white guy is whining about water access when he's on stolen land.
On a side note - I played many piano recitals including two solo recitals in Pershing Hall on the MSU Northern campus. I had no idea about General Pershing and Fort Assiniboine (it was an AG station when I lived in Havre) until I grew up and read a lot of books.
A friend who is well acquainted with my complaints about Joe Rogan (and Sam Harris and Jordan Peterson and all the other self-styled Intellectual Dark Web gimme a break) sent me a screenshotted tweet that said, "Joe Rogan is Gwyneth Paltrow for men." It's nice to have friends who know you :)
All of this resonates, hard. The amount of anger I feel regarding people like Galt, Wilks brothers -- all of them who claim "mine" simply by self-entitlement, well, that anger is bottomless. I know they're just champing at the bit to erase those stream access laws, and will never, ever want to face the reality of who actually took what land and when. I keep trying to pick up "Billionaire Wilderness" because I know it's a book relevant to my interests and research, but every time I look at a random page I just ... can't.
That book has been on my radar too since it came out and so far I just haven't been able to either.
I'm not familiar with "Billionaire Wilderness". Is the trouble you're having with it rage?
I think it's looking at something and suspecting it will make me angry and choosing to stay away.
I fully understand that. It's a critical skill in today's media landscape, isn't it?
Also I think sitting in the back seat driving around Butte listening to you and Kathleen shoot the shit would be a dream vacation for me!
So much profanity.
That's my jam ;)
I think you've put your finger on something here: "With my close people I expect to have my bullshit called out, and they should expect the same from me. Good relationships require that."
It seems to me that many people don't have those kinds of authentic relationships anymore where our bullshit gets called out. I've put my foot down about some stuff over the past several years (thanks, Trump) that I couldn't put up with anymore, and those relationships in which I did so are no longer. Or are completely surface-level if we even still speak to one another. Now you've got me wondering when and to whom I've done that to in return.
There are obviously many things propping up white supremacy, but the lack of willingness to stay in relationship with people who call you on your shit has to play a role.
Sara, that is definitely something I think about. The people who have drifted away that I have been close to: what does it say about my own toxicity? We can't be all things to all people but it's still not easy.
Living in Alaska and Oregon, I cannot stand the rhetoric I've witnessed that amounts to the erasure of Indigenous peoples and the history of taking land. Of seeing placenames named after white men who caused genocide and harm to so many. It's the casualness of it that is galling. I love that you are calling this out --the white billionaires crying foul--reminds me of the 'takeover' of Malheur Refuge and claims of it being ranchers' lands....there are not enough swear words to cover how vile such 'claims' are. A couple of weeks ago I listened to Ezra Klein talk with Nick Offerman with worry as they started talking about National Parks--but then Nick Offerman calls out the stolen land that parks represent and I was doing fistbumps in the air on my walk. It's just one small reference by another white guy talking to another white guy on a podcast but....it helps to hear it being called out.
Offerman is doing just what more white dudes need to be doing. He's not ignoring the issues, he's raising the questions. Which he needs to, since most BIPOC folks rarely even get an opportunity to.
Thanks for the work you do (and the patience you exhibit) in reframing our contemporary reality in spite of the obscuring lens of this continent's distorted history.
Thank you! I wish I was a little more patient though, heh....
I, for one, am glad you're not "more patient".
Thanks, Carl.
Chris, a tangential question: Given its colonialist, ignorant origins, why is it still accepted to refer to native Americans as "Indians" - particularly self-referentially? It feels to me like this is something of an elephant in the room; so, I apologize in advance if it offends.
No, I understand it's curious so no offense taken. Indians have largely claimed the word ourselves to strip if of its ugliness, though I'm not sure how intentional that is. I prefer it to "Native American" myself. I use it interchangeably with Indigenous. First choice is always by tribal name when one knows it. In conversation I might refer to my Blackfeet friend Robert, or my Ponca friend Migz.
It's challenging because there wasn't a continent-spanning word to encompass everyone pre-contact that I know of. Tribes knew of each other and traded widely and certainly had names for their neighbors, but who ever had to talk about all of us at one time? It's a complicated world we've made for ourselves, heh.
I understand reclaiming the pejorative to transform it. And, yes, there is a veritable word salad of academically cleansed alternatives. Just having trouble shaking the stank of this legacy, based as it is on a bone-headed navigational miscalculation from the 1490s. Still, better than the one used by the Norse explorers some 500 years earlier (I won't even mention it here). Your preferences are duly noted.
For the record, I am a Canadian of European descent. I am sure you have an eye on the most recent "intentions" up here to right the wrongs of our Colonist forebears. To my mind they can never be righted, only possibly atoned for in some way. I am not even sure if atonement is the appropriate objective. The wholesale kidnapping of children into the residential school system, destined for unmarked graves cannot, in my mind, be atoned away.
Worth noting that the architects of that atrocity were themselves products of private schools to which they were sent by their parents. The overarching difference being that they were given up willingly and became known as graduates; whereas, the indigenous people of Canada were stolen and became survivors.
Arriving at a place of mutual respect for our merits and humility faced with our colossal human shortcomings seems a far off and too rosy outcome. Still, we persist. In the meantime, love, honour and empower.
I appreciate your comment very much. This especially: "The overarching difference being that they were given up willingly and became known as graduates; whereas, the indigenous people of Canada were stolen and became survivors." Thank you.
I wonder if Bourdain would have been so intellectually lazy had that exact same scenario played out in some other land. My relationship with him remains as it was - entirely parasocial and comprised of his artistic output, and so I have no additional input to provide outside of his written and televised thoughts. Having said that, he seemed to be exceptionally curious in many situations and contained a decent sniffer for bullshit. The fact that he didn't pick that up out in Montana is unfortunate, disappointing, and telling. I don't know...maybe he was just an upwardly mobile bro palling around in Montana with some other rich dude, living in comfort and enjoying a flirtation with colonization.
I hope it wasn't the latter. If he was an insecure guy, or at least more insecure than we thought, I could see him just being intimidated by "peers" who are strangers. It certainly is curious, though.
Me and my well-worn copy of A Cook's Tour hope it was not the latter as well. The Rogan thing is inexcusable, though.
Has Rogan always been known as a piece of garbage? I didn't see this episode in real time, I was late to the Bourdain crowd. So I already loathed Rogan when I saw this episode for the first time just a couple years ago. Watching it now, his infamy is even greater at least from my point of view. So maybe in 2016 he hadn't evolved to the full choad he is now? I really don't know.
Rogan used to be a kind of entertaining bro who would just talk about ancient aliens and shit (this was back in the mid-00s). By the time this episode aired in 2016, however, he was fully bananas.
Thank you for expressing your truth.
I do remember viewing the Anthony Bourdain episode that you reference. I will certainly watch it again, prepared with greater understanding and perspective. I must admit that I thought that Mr. Bourdain was a pretty cool dude and that he felt deeply. That he felt the beauty of the world and all of the various cultures, and that he felt the inequities suffered by so many. He communicated to me that we are all valuable. Maybe I am a bit prejudiced. He and I grew up in the same part of New Jersey, Bergen County. Most of my peers were the grandchildren or children of European immigrants who came to this land seeking a better life.
I totally agree with you that history should not be whitewashed and that truth should prevail. Transparency should reign. The stories of all who were here before us should be truthfully told.
Again Chris, thank you for your honesty and for your eloquence and grit.
Sincerely, Melissa
I'm inclined to agree with you re: Bourdain. He just had his blind spots, as we all do.
Ugh. I had only seen the Harrison parts in some episode where they put the best scenes with writers or something. I would remember Rogan... What he's doing with Bourdain I don't know. He's dead now so we'll never know. Same with sticking up to rich fucks. Disappointing, especially when one white guy is whining about water access when he's on stolen land.
Rogan is such a tool. One almost wonders if there was some kind of contractual obligation, who knows.
Excellent post. Have you heard about the Cascade County realtors getting all worked up over President Biden’s 30x30 proposal? https://www.agweb.com/news/policy/politics/vilsack-bidens-30x30-goal-not-land-grab
On a side note - I played many piano recitals including two solo recitals in Pershing Hall on the MSU Northern campus. I had no idea about General Pershing and Fort Assiniboine (it was an AG station when I lived in Havre) until I grew up and read a lot of books.
Given my involvement with the anti-BSCNHA efforts in Cascade County, I am not surprised.