The Troubadour Podcast

Obsession and Morality in 'Baby Reindeer': Art, Psychology, and Philosophy

Kirk j Barbera

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What happens when a simple act of kindness spirals into a dark and twisted obsession? Join us in the Viewing Room as we dissect the British black comedy miniseries "Baby Reindeer," available on Netflix. Our panel, featuring Jennifer Buoni, Jax Schumann, Mark Pellegrino, and myself, embarks on an exploration of comedian Donnie Dunn's harrowing experience with an obsessive stalker. With thumbs up from Jennifer, Jax, and Mark for its unflinching narrative and nuanced character arcs, and my ambivalent take, we dive into the show's raw storytelling and intricate themes.

We explore broader motifs of obsession and abuse, debating whether Donnie's journey represents personal growth or remains unresolved. Comparing the narrative techniques to shows like Fleabag, we discuss how narration enhances emotional depth and brings to light the destructive behaviors driven by unhealthy obsessions with fame, sex, and relationships. Despite the show's challenging content, we appreciate its artistic approach and thematic consistency, recognizing the power of storytelling in addressing complex issues.

Shifting to moral and philosophical complexities, we scrutinize Martha's behavior and the dangers of excusing negative actions with psychological explanations. Hollywood's tendency to evoke empathy for flawed characters comes under fire as we highlight the importance of clear moral judgments. We delve into the moral dilemmas faced by Donnie, examining his introspective journey, the impact of his traumatic experiences, and the cyclical nature of abuse. Through the lens of Ayn Rand's philosophy, we underscore the significance of conscious convictions and the role of philosophy in human behavior and personal development. Don’t miss this thought-provoking discussion that bridges art, psychology, and moral philosophy.

Speaker 1:

Welcome to the Viewing Room. I'm joined by Jennifer Buoni, jack Schumann and Mark Pellegrino, and today we are going to be discussing Baby Reindeer, which is on Netflix. It's a British black comedy, at least according to Wikipedia, and it's a miniseries. That is about a comedian, donnie Dunn, who's a bartender in London, who gives a cup of tea to one customer, martha, who then proceeds to stalk him intensely and a whole ensuing plot comes and all these things that we're going to be discussing today. Now, first, before we get into the discussion, I want to get our roundtable thumbs up, thumbs down. I guess I'll start. I'm going to give it a sideways thumbs on this one, not up, thumbs down. I guess I'll start. I'm going to give it a sideways thumbs on this one, not up or down, for a couple of reasons that I'll get into, but that's it for now. So why don't we go, jennifer, and then Jackson and Mark.

Speaker 2:

I give it a thumbs up. I think it's an important story worth telling.

Speaker 1:

Good Okay, Jax.

Speaker 3:

I agree, as difficult as it was. Oh, look at that.

Speaker 1:

I didn't get a.

Speaker 3:

Zoom thumbs up. As difficult as it was to watch, at times it was a thumbs up. Oh, look at all those thumbs up that Jennifer's giving now.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, my only I don't. There's no option for thumbs down or thumbs down. We've discovered buttons on Zoom. All right Mark, my only I don't. There's no option for thumbs down or thumbs.

Speaker 4:

We've discovered buttons, all right mark in your I'm going with the girls, I'm saying it's a thumbs up and I don't know that we're often on the same team. Oftentimes it's boys against girls, but yeah, this is a different one I'm going with the girls on this one that's fair that's finally, you've come over to the dark side mark over to the right side.

Speaker 4:

Listen, yeah, correct, kirk has convinced me. I've been utterly convicted in the past and kirk has turned my mind around a little bit. He has a way he's forced me from a sideways to an almost up position, so that that's. That's uh pretty formidable Okay.

Speaker 1:

So, mark, I did want to start with you, though, so you selected this one. Why did you choose this one? What intrigued you about it? Why don't you get us started in this discussion of?

Speaker 4:

Baby Rain. It was a recommendation from my stepson, whose taste I have a very similar taste to him, I think, in drama, uh, and comedy, uh, every, every show he recommends I usually like, so, um, and the premise of this sounded interesting. Uh, you know, it's a stalk, very fascinating uh, and and from moment one, uh, I was, I was taken in by what I thought was a fantastic acting on everybody's part, um, I, I thought everybody did an amazing job. What was? What was?

Speaker 4:

What drew me in most, however which you might, I don't know if you just find this too naturalistic, kurt or whatever was was on, it was to me was an unflinching uh narrative.

Speaker 4:

It was, he was unflinching expose of his own character, or lack thereof, and an unflinching expose of her character, what he took to be her character.

Speaker 4:

In no way does he paint a prejudiced or biased picture against her as the aggressor and the assaulter, but takes a great deal of moral responsibility upon himself. And it's not inappropriate, it's not the altruistic guilt that one feels by, you know, because they think that he was put in where he abandons himself and pursues an idea of what he thinks is an ideal goal for all the wrong reasons. And to me, the victory in the end is the realization that the come to Jesus moment that he he becomes aware and conscious of what it was it was, misleading him and taking him down the path uh towards uh abuse and allowing the abuse to uh to to turn his personality and changes his uh, his, I can't say to change his character, but certainly warp his character and and and make uh, make life, uh and normalcy much more difficult. Well, can I ask you a question? I got a complete arc of the character, I think from beginning to end, that was extremely flawed but aware of the flaws and actually, I think, did something about them.

Speaker 1:

I'd like to ask you a question. I do want to get jennifer and jacks, but so, given that, what? How do you think of the ending? So, spoilers, obviously, but the ending remember. He quits comedy, he is distraught, he goes to a bartender, forgets his uh wallet and then, in reflecting the very opening scene, gets a free drink, which is obviously, in my opinion, some kind of show of the repetitiveness of this psychological abuse that it's not gone Right. So that's how I took it. How do you take that?

Speaker 4:

No, I didn't take it that way. I took it as a bit of a PTSD flashback or that he might have felt. You know, he might have felt like he was in her shoes. Now you know, but it's, it's a, it's a subjective sense, but it's not objectively. So I think what made him get out of comedy was actually being enlightened and understanding that that's not what he really needed or wanted. So yeah, that last image, it's also sort of a writing thing too. Now, I don't, I know he was a comic, but you know there are certain writers who believe that you sort of have to start with an opening image and end that with a similar image. And he might have been a writing gag on his part. I don't necessarily think it meant that he's in the same psychological boat as me?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, but keep in mind what else was going on when he's getting this drink is. He's got the earphones in and he's listening to these voicemails of Martha, and Martha is the woman that has stalked him. He's categorized all of these, become obsessed with her obsession. He's categorized all of these voicemails and he hears this part where she's talking about you know where the name baby reindeer comes from. Was this really intense moment? Sorry for that.

Speaker 3:

I thought it was this really intense moment of empathy, in a sense of like putting himself in her position not to excuse what she's done. I don't think it excuses at all what she's done, but she's on a different level from like a Hitler. She's on a different level from like a complete and total psychopath, although she might be a bit sociopathic. And then, as he's listening to the, you know he finishes listening and then that's when he gets the free drink. So I thought it was kind of this interesting juxtaposition of empathy, but it didn't. I didn't. I didn't take from it that it was going to turn into him stalking this bartender now or him repeating a pattern of abuse. I thought it was kind of just this like beautiful empathetic moment and leave it at that. I don't know. What did you think, jennifer, of that last scene?

Speaker 2:

Well, stepping back. What did I think of the show? So and then I'll get to the ending so I liked it because I thought it was a you know, it's a great character story really, really well done, specifically focusing on codependency and how it starts, why it starts, the dynamic of the positive flattery and, combined with criticism and ridicule, and how that creates that unpredictability, creates the addiction to each other. And I had never heard the word codependency until, like, I think, 2018, until I met someone who was codependent and and shared that with me and I started, I read a book on it and so I thought this I've never seen a show that did this so well, just really honed in on how, how it starts and and at the end, I I kind of side with kirk.

Speaker 2:

I I thought the fact that he was sitting there was kind of a way of saying hurt people, hurt people and get ready, because he's been hurt, he's been through all this trauma on many different levels and he's going to have an impact on the next bartender serving him. So I did pick up on that, I did take it like that, but I didn't see it as a negative thing. I thought of it as, yeah, this is what happens. This is why we got to stop the pattern. So becoming aware of it fully is how you stop it.

Speaker 4:

But you don't think he cycled out, you don't think he became aware and cycled out. He stopped pursuing the name, he stopped pursuing, you know, promiscuous adulation. He stopped all that because he recognized that, that was on the wrong path.

Speaker 2:

That's a big question. Yeah, he did definitely learn and introspect and I respected him for that. Did he do it enough? Had he gone far enough that it was going to be absolute? They left it as a cliffhanger. I thought they did?

Speaker 3:

They did leave it kind of open-ended. I mean, there was a way that they could have definitively shut it off. Um, you know, the he could have yeah, I'd be, but it probably wouldn't have been as artistically satisfying. You know, they could have showed another scene where he comes back in and pays him for the, for the drink, or um. But I mean, I also saw it as he's recognized this pattern, because it was very, you know, as soon as the, soon as he realized he doesn't have money, and then the bartender gives him a drink and he has this look of realization in his eyes and I think you know you could say he can either start the pattern or stop the pattern, but he's at least recognized. Oh, here's the pattern which is, I think, far different than.

Speaker 3:

Martha different than Martha Right. So he's, he's taken and he's taken one step further to stop the cycle Right, to stop that cycle of abuse. I so I will, I'll go back and I'll say I really I'm with Mark and Jennifer. I really enjoyed the show. It was so well done it was, it was so well written and well acted and it was very, very honest and difficult to watch. At the same time.

Speaker 3:

There were, you know, a couple of, obviously, the we had a rape episode and it's not too often that I pay attention to the warnings that come on for the show that say warning, you're going to be triggered by this. I'm usually OK with that. And boy, I was like wow, and it was because it wasn't the actual things that were happening, it was his narration. Impactful things that were happening, it was his narration. His voiceover was so deeply, deeply honest and tragic and heartbreaking at the same time. As compared to remember, the first show that we ever did was Fleabag, where you know she'd break the fourth wall and look at the camera and lots of narration, and it was brilliant, but it wasn't as impactful and deeply honest, I felt, as as Donnie's narration. This was a show where narration worked so well like it, this show would not exist to it in in in the goodness that it is, or the the the artistic goodness that it is, without that narration, and that's pretty rare to for that to happen.

Speaker 1:

Hmm, Um, okay. So yeah, there's a lot said. I I think one thing I did want to say based on what you said, Jax, is you said something about the ending. You know the the some other alternative ending wouldn't have been as satisfying. If he would like go back in and pay for the soda or whatever, right, but uh, I I do think it may not be as artistically succinct, I mean, it may not be as artistically you know, full circle.

Speaker 1:

So that's well given what he wanted to, perhaps, which does seem to be something about obsession and what obsession looks like, because there's obsession with sex, there's obsession with drugs, there's obsession with fame and there's obsession with individual people, with Martha to Donnie, with Donnie to Martha, with Donnie to the. What is the trans woman's name? I can't remember her name, terry, terry. There's all this. None of it is healthy at all. It's all obsessive in a very unhealthy way, and I think the show seems to explore what is obsession. It's damage, lore. What is obsession? It's damage.

Speaker 1:

Even Darian the abuser has a kind of obsession, it seems like, with the way he's focused on and the word that is used outside of I don't think it's used, oh no, it is used in the show. Sorry, used in the show is grooming. He's grooming him for a certain sexual behavior that he's trying to get. So it seems like it's all these what you might call deviant behavior, obsessiveness, right Of having that and the causes of it. And now the issue that I I mean there's a lot of issues I have with that One. I just will say that I agree with all of you about the acting, for sure, and it's well-written in the sense that he does seem to be focusing on this kind of theme that he's hitting over and over again in various ways and giving us a view of it and there's this kind of circular arc where it comes back to the beginning. But I do want to say I do think that there's many different ways he could have arced it and ended it.

Speaker 1:

One that I have to condemn it personally is because there is no moral condemnation in the end of Martha. There is an excuse for her and her behavior and this is what I don't like at all and I think it's not necessarily the author's fault. He's not a philosopher or an objectivist or anything like that. He's in the culture. But this kind of excusing of bad behavior whether it's a murderer oh, he didn't get kissed enough as a kid Like that is not acceptable. Bad behavior is bad behavior. You condemn bad behavior, whatever the reasons are, you make moral judgments about things and you say that is bad.

Speaker 1:

Now it's fine for psychologists to go in a room, listen, like he did as a detective, to try to learn and categorize deep subconscious behaviors for things or subconscious views, but I did not like the portrayal of that as a function of human behavior that we should all kind of, oh you know, if we see someone like that, there's a kind of excuse that could be made.

Speaker 1:

They have a baby reindeer in their past, and I see this as a dominant thing in Hollywood as that kind of excuse-making for bad behavior, and for my personal philosophy, I just have problems with that. I think if someone does something bad, you should call them out on it, and part of the whole conceit of the show, I will say, is that for months he didn't do what is clearly the simple thing that he should have done, which was to identify this as bad behavior, to document the bad behavior and then to take it to the police properly in the proper way. Now, the reason he didn't was interesting to some degree, although again, it's the same kind of psychologizing I'm using Ayn Rand's term, psychologizing which is trying to figure out someone's subconscious viewpoint.

Speaker 4:

But you could also say it's part of introspection as well, because part part of what he's he has to come to realize certain things about himself before he can make the move to to to the police. So he's not just he's not just uh, psychologizing about her behavior or uh, he he's, he actually seems to be making excuses for be here, for behavior, and it takes time for him to introspect and understand that he's making excuses for her behavior and that that in, in fact, what's really going on is this other psychological dynamic in him that we get to see over the course of the show sort of the source of his moral confusion.

Speaker 4:

The source of his moral confusion is this rape that happens rather far into the series for us, but for him it's a source of moral confusion, and that's what he has to untangle.

Speaker 4:

And so, for me, the show is about untangling that, not not. Not morally excusing bad people, as I do think hollywood does. They try to get us to empathize with the bad guy um, he's he's, and not just throwing all the responsibility on himself, though he does take a great deal of moral responsibility for leading her in the directions that he led her, because it's true he did do that, but it was only through an effort of deep introspection that he was able to understand how and why he did that. So he has to, he has to get through a lot of of moral confusion, and the rape that happens to him happens to him while he's under the influence of drugs. So he doesn't. You know it's. It's, it's like the bill cosby thing of roofing somebody, and they wake up and you know their, their body has been traumatized, but they, they can't. They can't piece together exactly what happened. They can know it in an abstract sense, and that's almost worse, in a way, because you, you know what I'm saying and yet, and yet, he went back.

Speaker 3:

He went back.

Speaker 4:

That was and he goes back and that's that's, that's another. That's another part of the moral confusion and entanglement that a guy in his position with his wants, has to sort through. So I would think I would consider a great deal of the show introspective and that's why we go ahead.

Speaker 2:

I think. I think the structure of the pilot itself fully supports mark's position and that by the time you get to the end, like the whole time you're watching the pilot, you're like just run away, she's a crazy person. Like it's like when you're watching a horror film and you're like don't go outside, don't go upstairs, like just why are you entertaining this? And then the very last scene of the pilot he hovers over the the facebook button and he makes the choice oh yeah, that's when I thought like to friend her and you're like something here you do that, that, that's.

Speaker 2:

that's the whole I knew why he did that. To figure out why.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, exactly, figure it out. Yeah, and I agree, and that's what gets you hooked. It was a mystery right, you're a mystery.

Speaker 2:

You're like why would a human being do that? I need to know, I need to.

Speaker 1:

Well, I do think so. This is what I think that was done well to back what you guys are saying to some degree is I agree with you in the sense of in the first episode he gives you a reason, like in the show, in the first episode, and all the evidence that's there. There is a reason why he does that and it's it's. It's so. It's like one onion, one layer of the onion, right, and it gets deeper as you go into the show. But that first layer is that he, he wants a following and she helped him at that show, right, and so there's a little it's. It's like that's what it seems like when you first watch. It is okay, there's a successive person, I'm trying to get a following. Here's someone who, like, backed me up and there's all right, I don't know, it's my first fan, I'll like that.

Speaker 1:

There's a kind of thing like that going on which, as someone who tries to get my content out there, I kind of can see that as it's not a healthy thing and it's not a good thing. I don't think I would ever do that, but someone was that clearly psychologically damaged. But the point is I could see where he was coming from from that very start. But then, as you guys are saying, as you go through the series you see that there's way deeper things with his girlfriend and he's living with his girlfriend's mother, that there was him. How did he meet Darian? Who is Darian, and all these types of things that led him into having a much deeper need for what Martha was giving to him, and then his desire for men and how his sexuality changed and all those types of things. So I think that is the interesting thing about the psychological onion that he's peeling to some degree, is trying to get at that.

Speaker 4:

I mean sexuality corresponds with deep, deep moral confusion, so I mean sexuality back to your corresponds with with deep, deep moral confusion.

Speaker 4:

So I mean, and that's not easy to untangle for anybody. Yeah, he's, he's in the midst of living life and in the midst of a rather traumatic situation with with Martha, attempting to untangle all of this stuff. All of this stuff, um, and that, and that's what I thought was, if I don't know if you could call it heroic, but it's certainly, he's certainly, you know, attempting to fix, certainly attempting to become a more honest person, he said, and and unswerving in the way that he's looking at himself and attempting to get out of this fix that he's in and back to your point, though, kirk, about um, the uh, uh.

Speaker 3:

What was it that you were saying that you didn't like? About the end, about um? There's no moral condemnation yeah I think that, yeah, I, I don't agree with that necessarily, because I thought that I mean she got consequences, she went to, she got, she got a jail sentence.

Speaker 1:

Yeah but murderers get jail sentences and we still forgive them and a lot of stories. That's my point is she's I didn't.

Speaker 2:

I never forgave her. Did you forgive her? I think the show forgives her is what I'm saying.

Speaker 1:

the show gives her a reason for us to oh, okay, we found some deep-rooted psychological problem she had because her parents fought and she had this baby reindeer and it's like okay, in real life there's a sadness to that, of course, if you hear that, but still, the behavior is bad and to me the ending should be like this is a bad person, this is bad behavior. It's unacceptable.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, but it's unrealistic to think that bad behavior doesn't root from something and they're just saying, hey, you know, there's something behind here. It's worth looking behind the curtain. Don't, don't turn your eye to that.

Speaker 4:

I mean in this respect, in this respect, I'm on Kirk's side, not not with respect to the show, but in general, like in general, kirk's side, not with respect to the show, but in general, like in general. Yeah, if somebody does bad things, you condemn the behavior and you know, justice is the most important phenomenon that we, as human beings, I think need to pursue with others. In this case, I think he needed something slightly different. He needed a kind of closure. He needed a kind of emotional understanding of of her. I mean it's, it's become a bit of a cliche. Uh, out there now and hollywood abuses the cliche that you know, anger and rage at somebody, um, it can, it can affect your life, uh, badly, it can affect you, the quality of your life, and that coming to, to grips with something, the terms of something, understanding something on a deeper level, can also be healing. Uh, for for him.

Speaker 1:

Okay right, can I let me? I also think I wanted to say something really quick.

Speaker 3:

sorry that, that's okay. Where has he just come from when he goes to that?

Speaker 1:

bar at the end.

Speaker 3:

Where has he just come from? I don't remember.

Speaker 3:

He's just gone to confront Darian. He's just coming from his rapist house who offered him a writing job and he accepted the writing job. Yeah, and so I mean, that can't have been on accident, right? You think that he's going to show up? And when he showed up at Darian's house, I thought, finally, he's going to confront his rapist and condemn him. And maybe this is a criticism that I have of the show, although I actually think that this is kind of an honest portrayal of how victims of abuse interact with their abusers. It looks like he's going to confront Darian and condemn him and instead he walks in. He's Darian you know like. And no consequences for Darian.

Speaker 3:

By the way, who I think is the is the, the worst you know abuser, the worst perpetrator in all of this right, almost worse than Martha, I should say, because he's he's cruel about it and he's calculating.

Speaker 3:

It's obvious. This isn't the first time that he's done something like this. He's the Bill Cosby, you know, a boogeyman, and he comes from Darian's house and Darian has offered him a job like in a writer's room, and he said, yeah, you know, that would be great, I would like that, and my heart broke. My heart absolutely broke, but it was something that just seemed so real as well. And so I feel like that scene where he's listening to Martha is almost him like realizing oh my God, you know the he's just gone through this cycle of abuse on his own and and there's kind of a weird understanding for how almost to Jennifer's point earlier of, like, hurt, you know, hurt people, hurt people. So I just I thought it was I don't I can't have like a moral condemnation of it, I, because I just thought that it was sort of accurate in terms of how, you know people who have gone through this kind of abuse respond.

Speaker 2:

Struggle, struggle.

Speaker 4:

The accuracy doesn't negate the fact that it should be morally condemned. I mean, yes, it's true.

Speaker 1:

But Jax let me ask you this, let me ask all of you this so Donnie is 25, darian is in his 50s In 25 years. Do you think it's possible, given the facts and the way that this show is made, that Donnie becomes Darian? No, why not?

Speaker 3:

uh, because he I think it is, by the way, he really, oh yeah, he found like why can't you sympathize, why can't you empathize with darian?

Speaker 1:

maybe he was raped as a young writer coming up and this is his. He's recurring back. Just that's what, all the abuse in the show, except one. There's one counter example, if anybody remembers, but I I don't see how you like, so help me with the argument of how. I don't think.

Speaker 4:

I don't think he becomes daryl because of the, because he has gone through a spiritual journey that makes him he's introspective a a ton daryl daryl, introspecting darian darian, whatever his name is. Yeah, he. He's not the same power-driven character, but he does want things in the world. He does want to be the writer in the room. He does want to be the comedian. Is that a power lust, donnie?

Speaker 1:

goes back to his music, but he also has Donnie has.

Speaker 3:

in terms of between Martha and Darian, Donnie is the one who has the most empathy. Martha, martha can't empathize with Donnie, uh, because she's too focused on her need to connect with him. She can't empathize with the kind of tortures she's inflicting on him, with the trauma she's causing him, the trauma she's causing, um, uh, his parents. Darian has zero, he doesn't care. He doesn't care about, I mean God, that scene where you know he rapes him and wakes him up and is like go take a shower, you'll feel better.

Speaker 3:

You know, I mean it was the tenderness that he showed was so cruel, absolutely cruel.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, for sure.

Speaker 3:

Donnie is the empathizer There'sizer there's no way.

Speaker 1:

He's also the writer, is the problem, but okay, he's the narrator. Yeah, but I don't see him.

Speaker 3:

You ask the question do I see him as a darian and at the age of 50, and there's no way I'm not hearing any evidence you say he went through a spiritual journey.

Speaker 1:

I could see the reason that darian came to all of his spiritual. Remember, that's how they connect, right. Darian has these spiritual things he's talking about and he's this mystic and he has all these. You know, let's do this drugs, because it takes your mind somewhere else. I could totally see Darian getting that. I didn't see him Just because he came to some obsessive desire to understand Martha, which I don't think he really got to, except the baby reindeer thing doesn't mean that he has some kind of closure.

Speaker 1:

So this is a question I wanted to ask you, mark. Earlier, when you were talking, you said something that I thought is really interesting, and I think you're right that we all feel this in our culture today. But I think that there's something wrong with this desire that we all have, that a lot of us have and I. But I think that there's something wrong with this desire that we all have, that a lot of us have, that I have had for sure. So I'm not trying to condemn anybody here. You said he needed an emotional understanding of her and that that you know, like there's an idea that if you have this understanding and by understanding I think you mean psychological subconscious understanding, because I you mean psychological subconscious understanding Because I have an understanding of her.

Speaker 1:

This is something I'm going to bring Ayn Rand into this a little bit. This is something Ayn Rand brings up about the difference between philosophy and psychology. Philosophy deals with conscious convictions only, not subconscious, and so I can judge you and jax and jennifer and myself mostly based on not with myself I have something else, but we'll put that aside for now but conscious convictions, the words you say in your actions, and that's it. That's how you judge, that's judge. And there's a. I want to pitch something that happened in okon on uh. Ankara Ghate gave a great talk called Justice, moral Judgment and the Danger of Psychologizing, which is based on this article that Ayn Rand wrote in 1971 called the Psychology of Psychologizing. We won't go into the whole thing, but she talks about that in essence.

Speaker 1:

Our culture today substitutes psychology for philosophy and it's really. Psychology is a new realm of. It's basically mysticism. It's the same kind of thing, the way that we see psychology today. Now it's a lot to talk about and I know I'm bringing it up, but the thing that I'm catching on that I had the desire to like.

Speaker 1:

I've had this in my life. I know I bet you could all sit there and think of a person in your life who you thought you needed to have some kind of deep, deep understanding of who they were in order to move on from some bad experience with them. This literally happened to me not that long ago where it's like I'm thinking and there's a question of how deep do I need to go into their psychology to feel better about what happened? And I think what philosophy and Rand's philosophy offered to me I'm just speaking for myself is a real, clear understanding of there's a level where it doesn't matter, like that deep, subterranean, unknown flux of things in a person's mind is not my responsibility or realm to think about in judgment. It is the, the firm, conscious convictions and the actions that this person took that I can evaluate and the you know the their ideas, that I can see from what they say and I don't see, I don't see understanding as mutually exclusive from judging no, no, no.

Speaker 1:

It is judging. It's what are you judging, is the question. Are you judging?

Speaker 2:

You can judge Martha and still try to understand her and not be in control. Well, that is very true.

Speaker 1:

That I would definitely agree with. I don't think. And by understanding, if you mean understanding her subconscious, I'm trying to make a distinction between the subconscious and her conscious conviction. Why she?

Speaker 2:

became the way she is? Yes, from her childhood. Like, understanding someone's childhood helps you, that's information that helps you.

Speaker 1:

Okay, that's where I'm going to disagree a little bit. I know that's a common psychological theory, but this is the issue with psychology. We're in the very early stages of it as a science, so I don't know to say that, oh, something that happened in Kirk's childhood is why he's a salesman, or he does this or does that.

Speaker 2:

I use that all the time, I operate on that all the time with people who treat me poorly. I want to understand how they do that, why they do that in order to protect my own self-esteem and not let that permeate in.

Speaker 1:

Okay, and just to be clear one more time, what I'm saying is that, yes, we live in a culture where that is the dominant thing. Yes, I'm pushing back because I've studied Ayn Rand and I agree with this to the degree that I understand it, that really the thing that works for me is not trying to necessarily dig deep into someone's subconscious mind, which is impossible. This is my claim. We cannot do it, we do not have the tools yet. We're in the very early stages of this as a science. It's like we're trying to delve into the deep depths of the solar system when we don't even have a telescope yet. We can't do it. We can just look up and make some big hypothesis about things, but it's all opinion and astrology essentially. But what I can get to are these philosophical frameworks or philosophical convictions of their conscious mind, and judging, which is using facts to come to a conclusion about somebody, is based only is what I'm saying only on their conscious mind, the things they say and do, essentially their ideas and that's it.

Speaker 4:

I agree with you, but I think when you're deeply entangled with somebody in a relationship of this kind, where there's a codependence going on, it's important for you to figure out what's yours and what's theirs.

Speaker 4:

And in some respects he's doing that as a rationalization, you know, because he hasn't sorted out yet that his ambition has led him in the direction of liking her company, that she gives him some positive input and it actually feeds him in a way. You it's, it's important to see, you know to, to find the barrier between you and them, and sometimes that's not just introspection, also sorting out, you know the origin story of somebody else. You know what I'm saying, even though I want to, which has facts, there are facts to it.

Speaker 2:

She did have the baby reindeer. That is a story.

Speaker 3:

That is a fact but the other thing too though, is that it is.

Speaker 3:

I feel that this is a little bit different, because several years ago I had a stalker and it was an ex-boyfriend, and it went on for months and months, and months and I tried to understand all the reasons why, and especially because I knew this person I used to date them and at some point I agree with you at some point you have to stop spiraling down to figure out the why. Why did they do this? Because at some time you just it doesn't matter, it's the fact that they did it Right.

Speaker 3:

So you get very obsessed. But that's also, I have to say, that's also victim, uh a mentality, because when you and and Donnie even though Martha didn't abuse him in the same way that Darian did, he still fell very much into that victim mentality. And when you are a victim of abuse, you start to have these cognitive distortions where you start to feel like you're in control of things. In reality that you're really not, and I can't remember if it was Mark or Jennifer who just said it, but it was about learning the difference, like learning what's yours and what's theirs. I think it was Mark that you said it and we wouldn't have.

Speaker 3:

He's trying to understand Martha, but he's not like, he's not making up stories about her, he's actually listening to her words. So I don't see it as him delving into her subconscious. She's sharing in these voicemails who she is. She's sharing her experiences, rather than you know another person, who you don't know their reasons for doing it and sitting there trying to, you know, come up with all the well, maybe they were abused as a child, or maybe it was this and maybe they did that. So I think that this was a different circumstance. She's showing the you know the subconscious, her own subconscious, but I do agree that at some point you can't judge based off of what their intent is right or based off of what kind of life they have. However, I want to add a caveat to that, which is we do that in our legal system. Intent plays into sentencing right. Intent plays into there's first degree murder, second degree murder, vehicular manslaughter.

Speaker 4:

And we include the context of the person's life as not as necessarily completely deterministic, but certainly as playing a part in and influencing a person's behavior. And so it's hard, look, I mean, I agree with you, kirk. This is the way I look at the world and other people. I think that you know, leave the psychologizing to somebody else. I can't do it. All I know is what you're doing and what you're showing me, what you're showing the world, world. But even with that ethic in mind, with respect to the way I think you should look at others, um, I, I still, I still understood his attempt to introspect and and find, eventually find separation or find the distinction between he and her because they were in an unhealthy relationship. So I'm, it's like pre, like presupposing brokenness, like psychological brokenness or miswiring going on there from the get-go.

Speaker 3:

And I will say that when I have been in, you know I have to be careful not to spiral too much about trying to figure out somebody's motives and what's going on in their subconscious. But I will say that there have been times when I realized something about somebody else's psychology, about their subconscious psychology, that actually reinforces to me oh, it's not me, it's not me, it's not personal even though it felt very, very personal, right, it's not this person would have done it to anybody else and that actually releases me, that frees me up to have, you know, better self-esteem and to be able to move on from a situation. So I think in some cases it is important to understand, but you know you have to be very careful about not going, you know, spiraling down that rabbit hole.

Speaker 1:

I'm going to make again the pitch to read Ayn Rand's Psychology of Psychologizing and to listen to that lecture Justice, moral Judgment and the Danger of Psychology by Ankar Ghata. The reason is because there's a lot to parse out here. You guys used terms introspection, motives, intentions, all these different terms that I think are important for us to categorize and understand, because I do think we're agreeing on certain things actually, but we're kind of talking about them in different ways, and that's part of why I think fleshing out and having clear concepts and definitions are very helpful. I think fleshing out and having clear concepts and definitions are very helpful. So I just want to stress one more time that I'm not saying that some part of a person's psychology is not relevant. What I'm saying is there is this whole category of our subconscious psychopathology, like there's this whole deep part of it that is completely unknowable at this moment in our time, right now, and so the desire to go into that and to pull out whatever you want and I think the baby reindeer is a good example of pulling out what you want Because in order to have a conclusion about a person's subconscious, you need to have all the relevant things, like all the action, like a lot of us have lots of traumatic experiences.

Speaker 1:

Some of us have deep, deep traumatic experiences and yet lead very healthy, happy lives. And it's just not just because someone had something happen to them means that. You know, it's just. My point is that there's this deep psych, there's this deep, subterranean aspect of the human psyche, this deep, subterranean aspect of the human psyche which is as deep as the sky, as deep as the universe is infinite, and going in there and trying to come out with one or two or a couple of explanations, that explains the moral judgment of the character. That's the problem. That doesn't mean some kind of understanding, especially motives. Motives, I think, is very different. So, understanding a person's conscious reasons for something I think I've seen this a lot with people when they're talking about dictators, where it's like a dictator tells you what they're going to do.

Speaker 1:

Hitler wrote a book about what he's going to do. Hamas has said what they're going to do. You know, hitler said he wrote a book about what he's going to do. Hamas has said what they're going to do and yet people don't believe it. Right, they don't. They don't pay attention to the things that they're actually saying. I think more people say what they're going to do, and do it than we think or give credit, and what we do is we go well, there's some you know, oh, they're impoverished, they're this, they're that. There's all these like deep psychological things, that's like no, but he said he's going to do this and he did it Right, or he's going to do it that the first opportunity, and it's the same thing, like she's. She's showing Martha, showing all these things that she wants to do and she does it right. And you have to take a person at their word, right?

Speaker 4:

So in order to behave or to operate in the world? Did you see the interview between the actual woman and?

Speaker 1:

the Pierce Morgan one. I saw the clip. I have not watched it. Have you seen it?

Speaker 4:

Yes, I've seen pretty much the whole interview. She's clearly pathological. I mean clearly pathological, I mean clearly, yeah, pathological.

Speaker 1:

Well, lies, contradicts herself yes, see that that right. There is how you judge a person. So when she lies, clearly lies, and he found evidence of her lying um early on. That's all he needed to know, right that's all you need to deal with her, but that's all he needed to know to deal with her Now he's damaged, and that's what the show's about.

Speaker 4:

Yes, he's damaged.

Speaker 2:

There are many scientific psychological studies that show when you've been in abusive relations at a very, very young age, that you're more likely to turn out pathological. Oh sure, yes, so if the show is simply saying that. Then how is? How is that wrong? My my original still judge her and you can still say that is crazy, but it's also part of the story.

Speaker 1:

It's also very true um, okay, so I don't look, I don't. This is what my original contention was. My issue is the lack. Like I know, you guys think that there is a kind of moral condemn condemnation. I did not see it, so I didn't see a real moral condemnation Instead what I saw what would you have liked to have seen?

Speaker 2:

What would have been a?

Speaker 1:

moral condemnation nation. I mean there's a variety of things that I guess the writer could have done, including focusing on his healthy. You know the resolution could have been. He has come to a conclusion. He does see her as this evil person that did real wrong and bad and he's moving on and he's living a better life. He's dating somebody Like there's a whole bunch of ways you could make a happy resolution. He put it into this bubble.

Speaker 1:

That is clearly a work of art, showing that there's really no escaping this realm of the subconscious, because his whole thing is again what I'm saying about subconscious and psychologizing as a mystical thing, where he's trying to listen to hundreds of hours, thousands of hours of her ranting, trying to categorize things and look, I think there's value of a psychologist doing that. There's a great show called Mind Hunter where they're trying to identify, but they're trained professionals and so my point is there is value in categorizing, but my point is that we're not there yet and for him as a person, what I wanted to see was a kind of resolution of, yes, he did come through this traumatic experience and came out a little bit better. I didn't see that. I saw like he just dwindled right back into it, which as an art. So again I put them sideways because I thought it was well done. He did, but again I didn't. The ending definitely destroyed, it didn't have a heroic ending.

Speaker 1:

It didn't even have to have a heroic ending, it just had to have some kind of arc where he got out of it.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, what if he had? But that's not real, that's not. I don't care, I don't want it, need real in art.

Speaker 1:

I want, I want.

Speaker 2:

I do think it's real. I do think people get out of it.

Speaker 1:

That's not worth it. I gave it them sideways, I understand where you're all coming from.

Speaker 3:

I'm not. You know what if? What if he had? What if at the end, as he's, he's listening to the um, he's listening to the uh, to the voicemail, and what if he had uh, even though it was on his phone? So it would have been symbolic, but he could have actually gotten up and left his phone there and left it on the table or thrown it away, because you still see that he's obsessing, right? You still see that he's obsessing over why, what's going on with her.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, that'd be interesting.

Speaker 3:

It would have been interesting if he could have just gotten up and left Left the drink on the table untouched, left the phone on the table and signifying that he's moving on to.

Speaker 1:

I mean, that would have been more.

Speaker 3:

I'll write the writer and let them know. Maybe they should change that, bring an alternate ending.

Speaker 2:

But Did you know this was autobiographical?

Speaker 3:

yeah, it's based yeah, it's based on uh based on a true story that was the interview that the author kirk were talking about yeah, yeah, no, it's the author is that donnie plays the guy who plays. Donnie is the person, the guy that it happened to Is the guy that it happened to.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah, is the guy that it happened to.

Speaker 3:

Like it's him so one of the things that I wanted to actually bring up that's sort of relevant, I think is I thought that this show was very much like, and I doubt that this is at all what the writer had in mind, but what I see from this philosophically because I see it sort of everywhere is the difference between primacy of consciousness and primacy of existence, and so I'm going to read briefly how Ayn Rand describes the primacy of existence, which is the axiom that existence exists, the universe exists, independent of consciousness, of any consciousness that things are what they are. They possess a specific nature and identity. The primacy of consciousness, however, is the notion that the universe has no independent existence. It's the product of a consciousness, either human or divine, or both, and the epistemological corollary is the notion that man gains knowledge of reality by looking inward, either at his own consciousness or at the revelations it receives from another superior consciousness and this is something that abuse breeds is primacy of consciousness over primacy of existence, because it so happens that the abuser becomes almost like this philosopher king. The abuser becomes the authority.

Speaker 3:

And Donnie had no, he started out.

Speaker 3:

We meet him with a desperate need to be validated, a desperate need for somebody's outside consciousness to validate his own consciousness, consciousness, and I think that ultimately this is his journey, is is the discovery, and I don't know that he gets there at at the end, but I think that his, his, his journey is understanding.

Speaker 3:

When he has that scene, when he breaks down at the, at the comedy final, he actually understands if I, if I wasn't so work, so consumed with how other people saw me and with all this external validation, none of this would have happened to me in the first place if I truly loved myself, independent, right, independent of what other people are saying about him, because that was the draw to Martha Martha gave him this extreme validation of, of external consciousness.

Speaker 3:

So I think it was. It's a really important theme and it's very specific also to people you know who have been abused, because the abuser becomes the authority and their world and their, uh, their, you know divinity, in a sense, and part of learning how to come out of the, the, the mindset of victimhood and abuse, is understanding. You know where your own validation and where your own self-esteem comes from, which the abuser is so good at tearing down, because Darian would not have been able to um, uh, to assault and rape and victimize Donnie If he didn't, if Donnie hadn't already started from some point of primacy of consciousness in my opinion and in my experience. So I don't know what you guys think about that.

Speaker 1:

I mean, I definitely think it's interesting. Again, it's a psychological categorization that's possible. That primacy, like does primacy of consciousness come out of, or can it come out of abuse in the sense where someone's you're codependent because of the way they're abusing you I? So this, I think, is a it distorts reality.

Speaker 3:

It's a. It's a distortion of reality well, I.

Speaker 1:

So again, I. The issue to me is I think it can. I don't personally, so I don't know that there's enough evidence for something like that, because I do have the belief that we have even damaged people have more control over their conscious convictions than they say. I'm a person who believes that philosophy and ideas are what shape you as a person and you're choosing those things. Now that doesn't mean that there's not roadblocks, problems, abusers and bad things that get in your way.

Speaker 1:

There absolutely are, and in fact, ayn Rand's characters although she never gets credit for this have a lot of that.

Speaker 1:

Like Hank Reardon has an abusive wife, a very abusive wife that he's married to, to have an affair outside of his marriage with a healthy person and to finally learn what it is to be healthy in a sexual or romantic relationship and to desire that, even though he doesn't get spoiler, get her in the end right.

Speaker 1:

Rand is really good at all that, and I definitely agree that there has to be some relationship between our philosophical ideas and our psychological effects, and probably vice versa. I do not know that we are anywhere close to understanding what that actually is and it's kind of dangerous, I think, for us to sometimes make these hypotheses about it. It's fun sometimes, it could be a fun parlor game, but I just don't know that we're there yet Right, and that to me, is the concern. When you were talking, jax, a lot of what you're saying did kind of resonate, though I'll say there's things that like, yeah, I could see like an effect that being in that kind of relationship where you start to be codependent, and then that is a kind of primacy of consciousness type thing I see what you're saying there.

Speaker 1:

I just a kind of primacy of consciousness. I think I see what you're saying there. I just I'm just saying I there's a, I'm like I just don't know. It's just I have to be honest and shrug my shoulders about the level of knowledge.

Speaker 4:

I want to piggyback, yeah, I want to piggyback a little bit on what jacks was saying, I think, because if you start out in it, if you're formidable relationships when you're growing up, you know, in that pre-conceptual stage of growing your, your mind is is drawing conclusions, uh, preconceptually, um. You, if you have a codependent relationship with a primary relationship in your life, like a father or a mother, uh, or because of abuse or inappropriateness that that does, of abuse or inappropriateness that that does, um, it definitely sets that primacy of consciousness tone to, to the way you evaluate the world since you, since they are your universe growing up. I think it can, but again, I'm saying, I'm not saying you're powerless against it, because that's where philosophy can come in. Once you, once you have, philosophy can come in once you have it.

Speaker 3:

Yeah right, that's why philosophy is critical.

Speaker 4:

Yes, once you have moral agency.

Speaker 3:

That's why I think we all agree yeah.

Speaker 4:

Yeah, once you have moral agency, you can use philosophy to combat a lot of this stuff that feels visceral, like Ayn Rand talked about, that it was impossible, I think she said it was impossible to change your sense of life. Now that's or extremely difficult difficult, but I don't.

Speaker 1:

yeah, I don't anyway, but I know what you're saying, I get what you're saying.

Speaker 4:

And I think it's. I think it's really hard because, you know, all of that stuff starts before we're able to categorize and conceptualize stuff and and it's it's at such a deep level, it's so deep within us that it's hard to sometimes access what that all means. But philosophy can certainly help us get there. It improves our lives, for sure, like a great deal. It contributes a great deal towards healing that stuff and seeing the world in a different way. It takes a long time for that abstract stuff to trickle down right and becomes-.

Speaker 1:

Well, and it takes work, conscious work on your part because desires and motives and things are especially. Your feelings are kind of, at least in Ayn Rand's philosophy. Like you said, a philosophy can't help with these things. I bet what you meant was the right philosophy, because there's a lot of bad philosophies, right?

Speaker 1:

So most philosophies we all have a philosophy, right? Ayn Rand gave a great speech philosophy who needs it? We all have a philosophy. That's an important thing. Philosophy is a guiding principles of our life and often it's this jangled mess of stuff and contradiction. But anyway, I think that's what you are saying and I agree that a good philosophy can help you gain a kind of confidence in the control you can have over your life if you have the right kind of guide, and I do want to and if he did, if he had a, if Donnie had a good-.

Speaker 3:

He doesn't have that Right? He doesn't, and that's his journey, right? His journey is sort of uncovering that and he never makes it to you know, having like an explicit philosophy yet. But his journey goes from. He starts out terribly insecure and needing that validation. And if he had started?

Speaker 1:

out but he ends that way he ends-. He also ends that way.

Speaker 3:

You mean he ends insecure? Yeah, he still ends insecure, I think, you know, I think that he, I think that he ends in the, in the middle of his, in the middle of his arc maybe, because I don't think I think you're being too nice to the show.

Speaker 4:

I think he's doomed. You think he's doomed.

Speaker 1:

The show he shows that he's this is. You'd mentioned the word naturalism earlier. This is one of the things that's frustrating to me is yeah, I don't doubt that there's some element to this actually happens to people. That doesn't mean that it's worthy of art, but now-.

Speaker 3:

I'm just a benevolent person, Kirk, and you're just malevolent.

Speaker 1:

I am super malevolent, but I did want. Well, anyway, I agree with you what you guys are saying on a lot of things. I think it's worthwhile to explore philosophy. I want to say something that Netflix this is what's interesting to me it's like this blurring of this line of you know, here's art, just look at this art and enjoy it. And Netflix had like these, you know, call this hotline, like it was problems, call 1-800-TALK-ABOUT-IT or whatever.

Speaker 1:

I'm not saying there's anything wrong with that, I'm not accusing anything, but I think it's interesting because it's almost like that. You know that's what people are going to be excited about and we'll help them out if we need to, and we can have some nonprofit charities and things like that to to get into the, you know, if they need help, and that's that's good to have help, go get help If something like this is happening. That's very important. But to me it was a little, um, like I said, the art artistry of it was what bothered me in the way that it was this bubble of recurring abuse and I think there's better philosophies out there and that and I was triggered in that way. I've seen this really bad I'll use the word triggered and seeing the bad philosophy and which I see all around, obviously everywhere.

Speaker 4:

He's fighting a battle and introspecting without the tools. He simply doesn't have those tools, so he's using what he can. The good news is a show like this gets us talking about it. Well, exactly, that's why I was glad you put it on and reaffirming our values and assessing how we would behave in that situation. How did we behave in situations in the past which now we get to introspect and sort out how we would?

Speaker 3:

I didn't go down. I want to bring up an interesting dynamic that might go toward one of your questions. You'd asked earlier, Kirk, about who's to say that at 55, not going to. At 55 years old, he's not going to be a Darian.

Speaker 1:

Based on what's in the story Right.

Speaker 3:

So yeah, I want to bring up an interesting dynamic from the story, which is the relationship between him and his parents.

Speaker 1:

That was the one exception.

Speaker 3:

Yes, yes, and and his so what it is. His father grew up that that scene, where where his father is teary eyed and he said I grew up in the Catholic church and that's all you had to say. His father was was his father stopped that cycle of abuse, because it's very clear that his father never abused his son. And what did his parents do when he, when he told them all about you know, when he confessed everything, they loved him. They embraced him, that's why he's not going to be Darian.

Speaker 3:

That's why he's not going to be Darian.

Speaker 1:

That's one of the reasons why, exactly.

Speaker 2:

He's not going to be Darian, that's fine.

Speaker 1:

Like I said, I think that was the only counterexample and it was well done and I thought it was well done and I thought it was not a predator, it was critical.

Speaker 4:

He's not a predator.

Speaker 1:

He's definitely not a predator I know, but my, my argument is that if you accept the premise of going into subconscious under like explanations for behavior, if that's your starting premise of human behavior, you're saying okay, there's a subconscious. That's what essentially determines you, which is, I think, what's going on in this story. Essentially, he's determined by all these things that happened before him and if that's the premise oh, Sam Harris would love this.

Speaker 1:

Then I think that is very possible, that over 25 years, because, again, if he would have ended it before going back to Darian, he would have accused Darian, he would have accused Martha, he would have said this is bad, I'm going to go pursue this career, whatever, and do something to wrap it up and move on and say I've made he didn't. Instead, the story is about the cycle of abuse. That is reality, I guess, right that it does happen. Yes, it does. Of course it doesn't have to, but it does right, and that's a choice that we as adults have to make, and some it's harder than others, for some which is why I do agree with therapy and some it may be impossible, right, and there is some where it's completely impossible. It's just unfair in that sense. But my point is that in the realm of the story I definitely think it's a strong possibility he moves in 25 years into the realm of Darian, based on the ending sequence.

Speaker 3:

I think it's highly more likely that he's going to find a healthy partner and that the two of them will engage in consensual sexual rape fantasy so that he can take control of what happened.

Speaker 2:

It's very common, it's a very common thing I don't have a problem with any kind of-.

Speaker 1:

It's actually a very common thing, but I think that's more likely than him actually becoming a predator. But there's just no. All right, I've made my argument, I just don't see enough evidence. Yes, there is one counterexample example, but the evidence is he goes back to his abuser he's gonna write.

Speaker 4:

I think this is a glass half empty, glass half full perspective that's a powerful example, though, that his father stopped the cycle of violence it is a powerful example for who he is. I don't think it's guaranteed he will go there.

Speaker 1:

I sorry, I don't think it's guaranteed he's going to be daring, daring. I'm saying it's not clear like it's possible I didn't pick up on that at all. I don't know like again, if it's subconscious and it's this determined. Oh, all these subconscious things, that's what causes like maybe martha I saw.

Speaker 2:

This is this is a multi-generation problem that has to be fixed. It takes multi-generations and we're in the middle of it, seeing one guy's partial journey through this and that is a tourist positive away from the negative. That's what I saw. We saw a little Okay.

Speaker 1:

All right. Maybe I don't know, I think it's possible he becomes a Darian. I agree, I think it's interesting. I think it's worthy for people to think about this story. What does abuse mean to them? How do they experience it? I think I agree with what you're saying, mark, about the importance of introspection. Of course that's really critical. I think that is a kind of psychologizing about yourself. But it's really more about introspecting like an apprehension, like an understanding of your deep motives that you have a lot more evidence for than anybody else. Nobody else can have as much evidence about yourself as you do and you see yourself. Over time you can look at why did I feel that way and ask the right kinds of questions and things like that. So I agree, all that stuff's important. I think Donnie I don't know that he did a great job of that. To be honest, when I think about the actual story, I don't think he did a good job, but at least he's, given the tools he has, he's trying to figure something out. You know, it's a kind of a show.

Speaker 3:

It's also a show that demonstrates the importance of philosophy.

Speaker 1:

Well, that's what I was trying to argue what a good philosophy can do and the lack of a good philosophy can do.

Speaker 1:

I do want to say look at this book as another one that just came out by Tara Smith Egoism Without Permission, the Moral Psychology of Ayn Rand's Ethics. She doesn't talk about this stuff, but she does talk about this kind of thing a little bit and desires, and I think it's a book worthy of getting, so anyway but I would I would say that the show didn't it failed on actually showing it didn't philosophy.

Speaker 2:

Because it it? Because it doesn't address philosophy at all really. I mean, there's a little buddhism and stuff in there, but like, from our perspective, our, our standards, it doesn't go there. Yeah, we would want it to be addressed more explicitly and it's not no, you're, you know you're right, it's not an explicit demonstration of philosophy versus no philosophy.

Speaker 3:

I just as, as you know, fellow uh followers of philosophy and objectivism. We see in shows like this just how much philosophy is lacking and how important it is.

Speaker 2:

If they just have philosophy, everything that you could, philosophy, they have the right philosophy.

Speaker 3:

So he does have a philosophy. Everybody has one right.

Speaker 1:

Everybody has one. But I think the thing that it does that I thought was well in terms of why I brought all this philosophy and I ran into it is he is trying to find answers and trying to understand the world, but he's doing it all in the wrong way. He's operating on the wrong ethics. He's operating on the wrong epistemology. He's got the the wrong ethics. He's operating on the wrong epistemology. He's got the wrong metaphysics. And that's how Darian gets in, because it's Darian gets in because of two things, I think primarily, it's mostly one he has this help for his career. That's his immediate hook and that happens a lot. I imagine right, I'm going to help your career, you come hang out with me, I'll help you out. Right, I got you. That could be genuine, it could be disingenuous, it could be predatorial there's all the types of things that can happen. But then the conversation around them has to do with all of his Buddhism, I don't remember. Oh, he's a polyamorous guy and he's like trying to say, oh, there's meaning in this music, so you need to take this MDMA, and that's how he kind of hooks him into the deeper stuff. It starts with productive career and goes a little deeper, and I will say that a lot of Scientology and a lot of religions they start. I think that's probably one reason why Scientology is popular is because no am not. No one has ever really approached me for Scientology, but I I imagine this happens a lot where it's like we'll help you with your career, and that's how they start right, like come on over a little bit, a little by little by little, and then they draw you in little by little and then you start becoming a little successful and then it's like oh, you want to hang out with the, the, the crew got a little higher and I don't know. I'm just, I'm not saying I have no idea, but I assume there's some level. You know, no one's ever done that to me.

Speaker 1:

I will say one quick story of um, um L Ron Hubbard's uh whole thing, that this that did happen to me where I was. It was after a big breakup. I started going to meetups and networking events and and this girl was interested in me. I thought, and she was. She was like, she was flirting really heavily and she's like oh, yeah, come, come. Uh, you know I'm doing, I'm a psychologist, I do these things, I take this test. I was like, oh, okay, that'd be fun. And I thought she wrapped it up in like this flirty, like I like you type thing and I and I walk into this weird bunker by the John Wayne airport and I was like what the hell am I? And there's like a guy taking a shower and like you could see most of his body. I'm like what is? This is the weirdest thing. And I walk into this hallway and then it like I walk out of the hallway and there's this big room with just L Ron Hubbard of stuff and I was like, oh shit, I still took it.

Speaker 1:

But so my point is that I think like there is the philosophy and this is what these you know. Philosophy is like a framework for living and existing and being a human, and there's part of how these bad philosophies, I think, hook you is religions, bad religions in particular, but all philosophies is. They take something you def that is sometimes even a good and desirable thing a desire for a good, productive career, a desire for romantic love and connection and they start reeling you into these deeper causes. And I think the same thing is happening here with Darian and this whole deep subconscious psychopathology as an explanation. That's my overall argument psychopathology as an explanation.

Speaker 3:

That's my overall argument. I think that's really interesting. And, kirk, I think that you made really interesting points. I'm not convinced on I'm not over on your side yet. I'm still on my side, that's okay. But there's something that I wanted to still on my side. But there's something that I wanted to to. It's totally kind of a little bit off the subject, but the character of Darren, that actor, like the places that you have to go as an actor to carry to, to bring that out Like Mark I don't know if you can speak to that Like I mean, what is, how mean, what is, how do you? How do you do that as an actor? How do you? What's your mentality? What? How do you get into that mode?

Speaker 4:

of the abuser well, it isn't.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, it's been a while since I've seen it, but the character you play in dexter is an abuser, isn't he the ex-husband? He's an abuser, right?

Speaker 4:

so, yeah, I think that's a good example, there was a, there was a clear. There was a clear positive through line to paul bennett's character, like he was trying to demonstrate to his wife that he was better, that he was sober. He wanted to get his family back together, he wanted to be a good dad. There were there, all these aspirations that were, that were in, uh, paul. Of that he could never realize, he wasn't capable of realizing, but that was his intention for sure, whereas the intention of this guy is, in the end, probably doesn't really have anything to do with success. It has to do with grooming him for rape. He wants to take advantage of him and exploit him sexually and you can see it from the very first moment they meet.

Speaker 4:

It about something flat and cold yeah yeah, there's something predatorial and animalistic about him from the very beginning. So, yeah, there's you, you just have to make yourself about appetites, you know, and that you know you're a hungry thing that deserves to be fed, and that's sort of. You know, because there's no, there's no redeeming, unless the guy just talks himself into. Look, this is the way one succeeds at the, at the career. This is I'm helping you climb the ladder of Hollywood, corporate success. This is the way artists are. We blur the lines between the personal and the and the and the business. You know, there, we, there aren't distinctions between me and you, and you know we're supposed to be free sexually.

Speaker 4:

A lot of the grooming took advantage of our misconceptions about art and the artistic character, which I think so many people have those misconceptions today.

Speaker 4:

And they're reinforced by teachers, so that when a Harvey Weinstein is not just using the, you know, or a predatory casting director or a predatory teacher is telling you look, you're an artist, you should be uninhibited, they can, they could work on you, you know, use, use, shame. That's legitimate, that you, you know, you, you shouldn't do that. You understand you shouldn't do it, but they could use your misconceptions about an art, what an artist should be in order to to gain some kind of exploitative leverage on you, which I think this guy did and as an as an actor, you may just think that you're doing. You're opening the sky's pathways, spiritual pathways, up. You know you could be thinking you could make yourself into that spiritual guru. I mean, that's what a lot of these predators do in scientology and some of these other. You know east eastern philosophies. They're really just satisfying their appetites for sex or indiscriminate. You know power over other people, but they tell themselves that they're actually making the world a better place.

Speaker 1:

Well, yeah, I think they believe it. Yeah, I think they believe this, like they probably have those kinds of convictions of that. This is the truth, right? And this is the problem of having you know. This is why a lot of people are against thinking that there is a objective truth, because it the viewpoint is that it leads to that kind of well, if the objective truth is that the German is the master race and that the Jew is a you know, leech on it that we need to get, if that's true and objective reality, then the result is you do have to get rid of Jewish people, right, like that's the good thing to do and that's like that's the good thing to do. And that's that's why I think so many people react so negatively about the idea of objective truth is because that's the image of, that's what truth is, versus there's a view of, you know, obviously, objective reality and things like that.

Speaker 4:

But well, that's the view, that's just a consensus view, like. So it makes up the objective reality and so people confuse, confuse it. Oh, they do this all the time on social media when they say you get ratioed. Oh, you got rate. Your response got ratioed because you said something controversial, so lots of people view it, but not a lot of people like it. It must not be true.

Speaker 1:

Oh really, I've never even heard that one, I've never, heard that either.

Speaker 3:

This is the first time I've heard that expression.

Speaker 4:

Ratioed. Yeah, so I get that a lot because you know I'm fighting with people a lot on social media and so they're like, oh, how do you feel being ratioed? I'm like I feel pretty good, you know, um, I'm good. Why do you think it's? Why do you think? Uh, you know, because a thousand people saw it and only one reacted that it's false yeah, yeah, I will say that the the just just back to Darian, real quick.

Speaker 3:

The tragedy of this story is that he's the only person who doesn't suffer.

Speaker 1:

Well, hold on hold on.

Speaker 4:

Lots of people, lots of people, lots of people think that he may be suffering mentally, or I think he is suffering.

Speaker 1:

It's just not in the show that I would agree with. He's not. He doesn't, Although I don't see his life as a good life.

Speaker 3:

The person that's talking about you can't judge on subconscious. How can you say that he's suffering? There's no evidence of his suffering whatsoever. He walks in to his house at the end and Darian's like oh, I caught your thing, you know cool. He's picking and choosing.

Speaker 1:

You have to define what's means. I think his whole life is suffering. I do not think that is not a flourishing life. Darian is not living a flourishing life.

Speaker 4:

He is on drugs all the time he's abusing.

Speaker 1:

That is not a good thing.

Speaker 4:

That is suffering. It's true, he didn't, but he should be dead.

Speaker 1:

So let me sorry, mark. There's a great series that I love and I've been revisiting it and I think it's like a great counterexample to this as great art about abuse, and it's the character Elizabeth Salander in the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, where she title was Men who Hate Women, and that's what the story is about. And now the way she does it is she puts a dildo and kicks it until it breaks and destroys people. She's like an Athenian Greek fury. Come back. That's what I want to see. I don't want to see this cycle of abuse. I know that it exists and that's unfortunate. That's not the kind of artistry I want to see. I want to see. I don't want to see this cycle of abuse Like I know that it exists and that's unfortunate. That's not the kind of artistry I want to see. I want to see Lisbeth Salander fucking you up. That's what I want to see. Like. I want to see that because it's like she like puts, I am a pig rapist. As a tattoo on this one guy Like yes, that's what I want to see and that's what I had.

Speaker 1:

A problem with this is that the naturalism is what bothered me so much about it is. Yes, I know this happens and that's horrific. I want these people to burn in the bottom of hell, and art is where you could do that, and this guy didn't do that. The artist did not do that. He chose to give us like this is my truth. It's like fuck your truth, kill the motherfucker. Know, sorry, I'm getting pissed off, but I want justice in my art and I don't get that enough and I wanted to see it here. All right, I'm sorry, mark, go ahead no, but I agree with.

Speaker 4:

well, I have to agree with you in that sense. Um, you're right, that's what I want to see too, but that still, that's. That still did not reduce the impact of this show for me. Sure, because I'm like you, I want to see the girl in the dragon tattoo here. I'm a rapist pig on the guy's stomach too, and yet this still got through the crevices for me.

Speaker 4:

Now, it could be that I was relating to him as a 20 year old wannabe actor who was exploited in some ways, or was almost exploited, by people in the business and and still and still maintained a relationship with people who were exploitative. Now, they didn't go to the places that he went. I stopped it, but I still maintained a relationship with him. And it's again because those those personal and professional lines are very, very strangely drawn in our world, and that's why he has to go through this sort of this incredible task of untangling himself from it and figuring out what's his and what's theirs.

Speaker 4:

Um, so maybe I was flashing to an earlier stage in my life, right where I, I I understood what he was trying to go through and without the power of powerful philosophy to help open your, your eyes to what's happening and seeing clearly and helping you to establish a sense of self and self-esteem and boundaries. He's doing it all without that, those weapons. I sort of related to him that he may be floundering around in the sea, but he's able to. He was able to articulate it in a way that I think other people floundering around will, at at at base minimum, be interested in not doing that anymore and seeking help.

Speaker 2:

See Kirk, maybe in 25 years he'll be like Mark Pellegrino.

Speaker 1:

It's well, no, but see the. The story that Mark just told me was that that I heard. And again, this is just. I don't know what happened to you or your subconscious or any of these things, but the story I heard is that you chose not to go down that path and you chose to draw the line.

Speaker 1:

You chose to do that he chose not to do that, he chose to continue to go to Darian's house and despite all the clear evidence, despite his girlfriend saying not to do it, despite his own inner convictions which, by the way, is the opening of Ayn Rand's essay, the Psychology of Psychologizing it's exactly that kind of warning signal that you ignore because you want. That's the problem that he is perpetuating that does happen in real life.

Speaker 4:

But I didn't have that. But I likewise didn't have that moment with this person like, hey, you tried to abuse me, so fuck yourself. Even when I saw this person at a convention four or five years ago, I never said, hey, man, you tried to abuse. He was like hey, mark, how he hadn't seen me in years. He's usually no longer representing me. He was my first, the first person to represent me, but I to represent me.

Speaker 1:

But I didn't like go ah, fuck you, pal, you're not worth it, you're. You're a creepy dude.

Speaker 4:

I just said donnie huh, donnie didn't start, he didn't tattoo rapists on his yeah I didn't tattoo rapists on it, right, but that's, that's the part that I relate to, that's the part that I understand even philosophy I didn't seek out violence against the guy I didn't seek out like.

Speaker 3:

That's one of the things that I really related to with this show and I understand I didn't seek out like fucking years uh portrayed abuse as accurately as this and has really portrayed the kind of shame that a person goes through in that, um, in that abusive scenario. The only other show that did it for me in in terms of that was I don't know if you guys saw, I know jennifer did big little lies, um, with nicole kidman and, um, uh, what's his name? Gorgeous, uh, gorgeous, sweet giant who played the abuser. The only other show that did that well is the relationship between Nicole Kidman and her husband. God, I can't remember his name Skarsgård, is it Alex Skarsgård? Anyhow, it's. The show for me was just such an honest portrayal of what happens from an inner person's perspective. And you know, yes, maybe you know, if you did maybe a sequel to it, you know then then he will be able to tattoo your rapist on his chest, but you don't know where he's going at the end of this.

Speaker 4:

Yeah, we can say I know we have to wrap up, but we can say that honesty is at least the beginning. It's a step in the direction of enlightenment. I know you don't want to go there.

Speaker 1:

No, this is the problem with naturalism is you're filling in with. That's what great art should be a moral assessment. I think great art should have moral judgment in it, and it does, and this moral judgment is as art. It is a moral judgment and the moral judgment is there's no moral judgments that's basically what I got, unless you'd be judged, yeah and that's what I got out of this and that's what I don't like about it.

Speaker 1:

I think in real life, all what you're saying is true 100, 100%, but the artistry. That's my problem with naturalism. But I'll let you guys have the last thoughts and then we'll end it.

Speaker 4:

I'll just say quickly I agree with everything that you said and still give it a thumbs up. I also agree with everything that the girl said and give it a thumbs up.

Speaker 1:

That's fair, I'll say that I will have come away a little bit more positive about the value of it, in the sense of for the purposes of contemplation, so long as we continue to condemn it as not going far enough in the moral attack. That's how I'll caveat it. But I do think it's worthy of contemplation.

Speaker 3:

But I do think it's worthy of contemplation, and I'll piggyback on what Mark said, in that the journey to having a good philosophy has to start with honesty. All of Ayn Rand's books and try to wear her philosophy like a cloak without truly understanding where they are honestly in their lives, psychologically, and that messes you up even more. So I think that the true road to enlightenment begins with honesty and introspection.

Speaker 1:

Jennifer last thought.

Speaker 2:

The journey of a thousand steps begins with one right. This is what we're watching is the beginning of that change, the introspection and the honesty with themselves, and that is something to be celebrated. And I think we have to have patience, because people don't just change overnight.

Speaker 1:

All right. Well, thank you everybody for joining in. Make sure you give us your comments about your thoughts on Baby Reindeer and our discussion. So, thank you, and we'll see you next time.