A Geek History of Time - Episode 250 - The Humors of the Ooze, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and the Four Humours Part III
Episode Date: February 10, 2024...
Transcript
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I don't want to get the grocery store item to laundry item three over through capitalism.
You know, for somebody who taught latin your inability to pronounce French like hurts.
Oh, look at you getting to the end of my stuff.
Motherfucker.
But seriously, I do think that this bucolic,
luxurious, live your weird fucking dreams kind of life
is something worth noting.
Because of course he had.
I got new an argument essentially with some folks
as to whether or not punching Nazis
is something you should do.
And they're like, no, then you're just as bad as the Nazis.
And I was like, the Nazis committed genocide.
I'm talking about breaking noses.
Drink scotch and eat strict nine.
All right, you can't leave that lying there luxury poultry.
Yes, yes.
Fancy chickens.
Yes, fancy chickens.
Pet, pet fancy chickens.
Pet fancy chickens. Pet Fancy Chickens. Pet Fancy Chickens. This is a Geek History of Time.
Where we connect and are to the real world.
My name is Ed Blalock.
I'm a world history and English teacher
of here in Northern California.
And related to the second part of that description,
this week,
I dared my students to do something.
In our English class,
we are in order to study characterization.
We are reading excerpts from Boy Tales from Childhood by Rold Dahl, and
he waxes Repsodic in one of these chapters about about candy,
specifically his memories of the candies of his childhood. And I got birdwalking And Black Likrish is a recurring thing in the candies that Dahl particularly remembered
from his childhood and he really likes the stuff.
And I mentioned to my students that Black L, you know, black licorice is one
of those things that, you know, people either love or hate. And but I know of a candy that's
even more polarizing than black licorice. And I said it is a form of black is related
to black licorice. It is salmiaki, the very particular kind of incredibly heavily salted black licorice
from the Nordic countries, especially Finland.
And I dared my students, if they could get a hold of Salmiakki, try it and write me two good detailed paragraphs describing the experience, I will give them extra credit,
which I never do. Now, what you need to understand is Salmiyaki is literally the most disgusting
thing I have ever tried to eat in my entire life. Well, I mean, there's a couple things I want to awful. I want to bring into that one. Yeah
You're talking about a a culture that largely consisted on really shitty fish
Um or subsisted um so much. So yeah, money python made fun of that in their in their musical
um, yeah, two
um, there are only two rules to candy and dessert rule.
Number one, don't be spicy.
Number two, don't be salty.
Like that's those shouldn't be the chief flavor profiles of candy.
And they failed at that.
Have you tried salted?
Have you tried salted caramel?
That's actually not bad. Have you tried salted caramel?
That's actually not bad.
The chief flavor profile is caramel, not the salt.
No.
Okay.
Yeah.
It's not caramelized salt.
No, this is true.
That's okay.
Yeah.
Meaningful.
Yeah.
So leave it to the kids to treat.
To treat, deserve like you would treat fish that you need to preserve in in your attic.
Mm hmm.
Yeah, pretty much.
Yeah.
One of the list of crimes that Finland has committed against the world.
The chief crime Finland has committed against the world, of course, was unleashing my my
ex-wife and her family upon the world. But that's a whole story for
never. I was going to say siding the Nazis, but I mean, you go off. It's fine. Yeah. Apparently.
Yeah. If you if you met the Queen of Air and Darkness, you'd understand what I'm saying.
Um, actually, if you met her mother, you'd understand. Anyway, no, never.
I was going to say another time, but never.
So anyway, I have I have dared my students to do this.
And I have already a couple of them have already told me I've I got I got the bag.
This was this was yesterday.
I got I got the bag.
I haven't tried it yet.
I was like, oh, are you in for an experience?
And I cannot wait to read their responses because I want to know because I described it to them
and I had several students who were nodding along like, okay, I can get behind that. That
could be pretty good. Okay. And I'm like, you know, again, it's intensely polarizing,
like either this is going to be catnip for you, or you're going to vomit, there is no in between.
So that's the that's the evil I have done as a public educator in the past week. What have you
been up to? Well, I'm Damien Harmony. I am a high school history teacher up here in Northern California.
And just real quick, there's a fellow on TikTok whose wife films him eating sour candies.
And they've also brought their daughter, their 10 year old daughter into it.
And the facial expressions that the two of them strike are just so, so good.
So this kind of, I feel like there's
your level of evil and then there's mine where I would tell the kids, all right, I know most
of you have a social media. Post the video of yourselves eating it and trying it for
the first time and see if that has viral. Because why not?
But yeah.
That's good.
I like that, yeah.
I, okay, so I don't know if I told you before,
but I challenged my children when COVID hit
that if they got their typing speed up above 20 words
per minute, I would buy them collectively an iPad.
And they have both reached it recently. 20 words per minute, I would buy them collectively an iPad. And okay, cool.
They have both reached it recently.
They both hit 20 or higher.
My daughter, I think hit 45.
My son took like 10 seconds to look at what he was going to type and then started banging
away at it, which is very much my son.
And he still ended up 21 words a minute.
So I think he can go a lot faster, but bought them an iPad. Yeah, uh, also replaced my iPad
um and
This new iPad it's it's lovely. It's it's it's wonderful. Um
Everything is just off a little bit. It looks like
It looks like somebody came to surveil my house and plant bugs and put everything back,
one quarter turned the wrong way.
Like I can't put my finger on what's wrong with this thing,
but everything's just off a little bit.
It would be like when you would go
to visit your grandparents
and they would watch Will of Fortune and Jeopardy,
whereas in your household,
it was Jeopardy and Will of Fortune.
Like the world is just a little off, you know? and jeopardy, whereas in your household, it was jeopardy and will of fortune. Like
the world is just a little off, you know, just slightly. Yeah. So what what generation was your prior iPad? I the six. Okay. And you and you jump to a nine. Nine. Okay. Yeah.
That's a pretty that's that's a that's a big jump in one in one go.
So yeah, full size or a mini full size.
I don't I don't I want I want a screen big enough that I can watch things on while I'm
doing dishes. So OK, fair enough.
I dramatically underuse these things to be perfectly honest.
OK. Yeah, it is fair.
It is lovely. It's just as good as the last one.
It's just a little bit clearer. It's just that everything's off by a quarter turn,
but I'll get used to that. Yeah. Yeah. All right. So last we spoke, the Nazi party was
going in hard against Steiner at the end of his life in 1925, which was funny because some Nazis really
liked anthroposophy and others really didn't like anthroposophy.
And I'd mentioned that Rudolph Hess of all people was really dug it.
Yeah.
Huge booster.
Yeah.
And set up Waldorf schools.
And so I think it's best to kind of start start there tonight. I promise schools here are schools
Steiner Rudolph Steiner wanted to create a school system now remember
This is not the same person as his great great great grand or his great great grand nephew
Scott Steiner, okay?
Although their right abilities at math might be tied to the same issue.
Yeah. And and also important for anybody who's who's watched the movie Downfall.
This is not the same.
Steiner mentioned in the famous bunker scene there, who very true.
You know, everybody, you know, the the furor was thinking was going to,
you know, save the day. Right. Right.
So, yeah. Yeah.
That's that's a different one. So also also
important. Also important. It's not house Steiner.
In in battle tech in the 31st century. That's true. And it's
also not somebody who brings no battle max in a big. Yeah.
A stoner. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So. Okay. All right. So we're
clear. Anyway, yeah, yeah, no, it's definitely a distinction
worthy of making. Yeah. So Steiner Rudolph wanted to create a
school system that was holistic and incorporated the precepts of
anthropology into its basic purpose, which makes sense given
what he's reacting to what he's reacting to is the industrial model of schooling.
The industrial model of schooling, very simple.
Rockwell or no, Rockefeller.
Rockefeller and not Nelson Rockefeller.
But oh, God, what's his name?
Rockefeller, the standard oil guy. Yeah, what's his first name? Yeah, I know I know I know the last name
I can not the guy from the Republican Party
50 years. Yeah. No. Yeah. Yeah. No, this is no though. I said it oils Rockefeller said it takes about 12 years to train loyal and
obedient workers who it takes about 12 years to train loyal and obedient
workers who
Want to work for you because it's worker staff
So get them used to living by a bell staying in the same spot
the absolute authority of the floor manager and
All of these things and so they came up with public education and it was a way to keep you know
It's just out of rich neighborhoods too
It's really remarkable
Mm-hmm. How long ago late-stage capitalism actually like hit?
Yeah, it does kind of feel like
You know what it feels like wow remake of oh jest, you know how he'd write back
Okay, and how's, still alive and dying.
Yeah.
That phrase, you know?
It's still alive and dying.
Yeah, it's the same, still alive and dying.
Yeah.
So, but okay.
So the old way was that getting you ready for work.
And in fact, the reason for grades existing at all
was because they needed a way to determine
how obedient and how good of a worker somebody would be based on the grades. And they were casting
about to figure out a good way to do that. And they happened upon the idea of, well, we do this
with meat. And so that's why we have the grades that we have. So as much as you want to throw hellish shade at Rudolph Steiner,
he was trying to do better by our kids. Like, yes. And yes, low bar, but I dare say he did.
Like, okay, yeah, no, that entirely. Yeah, that's that's a fair assessment. Yeah. And the only
way this work by the bar is in hell. Yes. Yes. But along with rock seller. Um, yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. Probably. Yeah. Well, you're Catholic. Um, I don't have an answer. I can't had a life. I, I, I, if there was one, I can't, he'd be there.
I, I will say I would, I would, I would certainly argue for putting him there.
I can say that.
Got you.
So yeah.
Is there a yearly draft that you all get together and do?
Or, I mean, I have friends who bet on Deadpool's, um, where get points by how many years they
are away from a hundred when they die
So, you know, do you bet on Rick flair or you bet on Betty white like
You know, which one more points, you know
You know, I have not been invited to join one, but I'm okay I would be surprised if if something like that didn't exist somewhere. Sure.
Yeah.
So, anyway.
The old model was that and it kept poor kids out of rich people's neighborhoods and it
kept kids from, it basically started to answer the issue of what are we going to do with
these immigrant kids who are turning into juvenile delinquents?
Yeah.
And it was let's make them better workers and a smarter worker.
And that's how it was sold. And that doesn't mean there weren't people involved in public education.
I'm looking at Mr.
Mann, who who genuinely were true believers, but they were already operating within a system
that was set up to be abusive.
Yeah. So so there's that.
So, yeah. Steiner was trying to focus on the creativity and
imagination and artistic expression of the kids. And I think you could only kind of get
this at this time in that area of Germany, because the celebration of the child was starting
to grow. I mean, you got the Boy Scouts starting in 1911,
the Boy Scouts in 1912.
You eventually will have the Hitler Jungan
and the Young People's Communists.
And you have all that.
You're starting to see this focus on the child.
But I do think this idea of imagination, creativity,
you kind of only get that from Austrians.
Well, I mean, playing outside, all that kind of shit. Like,
like him being able to look at that and go, OK, you know what, these are the things that kids
are doing. I think you only get that in a vulkish culture, a culture that's prone to vulkishness,
because you don't get it in France. What in France you got was an effort to demilitarize the classroom because it's after World War
I.
Okay.
You get a huge effort to change the history curriculum so that people don't think about
war and nationalism as the first go-to because of what it did to France.
Yeah.
You have a huge movement toward that. In England, you have different kinds of focus.
But in Austria, you have this idea of let's encourage this holistic imagination play type
thing. You don't have that in America because it's hyperindustrializing.
Well, you don't have it in America because it's hyperindustrialized. And you don't have anything
Well, you don't have it in America because it's hyperindustrialized and you don't have anything akin to it in the UK because they still have an empire to try to watch out for.
The one that is crumbling away from like they're grasping at too.
Yeah, they're they're they're desperation there.
Sleaching at.
Whereas Austria, that empire done collapsed.
Yeah, it's like gone.
So there's nothing.
There's no collapse. Yeah, so it's like gone. So there's nothing. There's no motivation.
Yeah. Yeah.
Let's never never would have thought the phrase would have crossed my lips.
So yeah, the Austrians were kind of, you know, the Europe's hippies of the time.
But I mean, if you look at where all the music and the liberal arts
stuff came from, oh, yeah, century.
It does make sense.
Yeah, yeah, I was entirely entirely entirely correct. The one.
And you met her neck. So so.
Yeah.
What I what I kind of at first wanted to quibble with you about.
But then you you kind of kept going and clarified when you talked about
the celebration of the child in the United Kingdom,
there had been a kind of, I don't know if I want to say cult, but there had been a
profound romanticization of the institution of childhood, that phase of life. And that's
part of the reason that Victorian Christmas was such a big deal was because there came
to be this idealized idea of childhood for middle-class families who because of industrialization, there was this new class of, you know, call
it middle management, you know, people who had the wealth and the opportunity to shelter their
children in a way that people from other social classes and people in earlier time periods
had not had the opportunity to do.
And I kind of I wanted I wanted to I wanted to kind of bring that up in the conversation.
But then you you continued on and said, you know, talking specifically about, you know, playing outside, being out in the forest and
imagination and all that kind of stuff
And I'm like, okay. Well, yeah, that's that's that's not have that's also in England you while you have that that is true
Undeniably, so you also have Dickens like
It's it sucks to be a kid in the Victorian times like most and and what's in the popular zeitgeist, right?
Yeah, and and in America it fucking sucks to be good like most places are go away kids you bother me
Um, yeah, whereas Austria seems to be and this is a cursory glance at it on my part
but Austria seems to tack a different wind because
There's not so much. There's still like well, they're just fucking kids
But at the same time like I look at the cool shit. They're doing in the like, well, they're just fucking kids, but at the same time, like,
oh, look at the cool shit they're doing in the woods.
Yeah.
Here's hoping they have fun.
I don't see that anywhere else.
And I wonder also because, so in England, let's just break that down a little bit.
You do have the middle class Victorian Christmas, right?
Yes.
And then.
Which then got exported to the US.
Right. But you also have Dickensian
God awfulness
Well again part of what I'm gonna point out there is
You know, it was kind of a throwaway line in what I was saying earlier is there's a very important difference in social status
Well, yeah, and that's what I'm saying between you know, yeah stratification
You've got Dickensian. Yeah, all of us are poor and it fucking sucks
The weights you've got the the middle-class Victorian Christmas like oh look what we can finally do and you got rich people
Sending their kids away to school. I don't want to be around me. Yeah
So only one of them celebrates the kid. Yeah, well and and and it's a small group
And important an important aspect of the of the upper class is sending their kids off to school.
There is the element of, I don't want to be around my kids. Part of that is because their
parents hadn't wanted to be around them. And the upper class was much like the Empire was desperately clutching to control over the colonies, by this time,
there is an undercurrent of quiet desperation within what had been the land of gentry,
because the middle classes is catching up to them and exceeding them in terms of wealth.
Many of their families are broke and
they're having to sell off all their estates. And so that class and those traditions are the only
thing they have to cling to, to separate themselves. And so in their own minds, while I'm sending them
off to school to make these connections and to be part of this tradition and to, you know,
this is the favor I'm doing him, you know, is also a very big part of this tradition and to, you know, this is the favor I'm doing him, you know, is also
is also a very big part of it. And yeah, I don't know enough about Austrian social straight
up straight up. Right. and the class experience within Austria. But one can understand how like, okay, the Austro-Hungarian
Empire is no more. So there might have been kind of a fin de saco, like, no, let the kids do
whatever they want to do. We have nothing. We have no reason to send them off to do these
things anymore.
Well, and that sending off thing I think is important, especially if you're going to compare
to England. England had a history of exporting its children, whether they were children or
growing up. In fact, a colleague of mine just found out like he found his birth family and he he got very into his genealogy and such. Okay.
And he said that there was a special kind of category of kids
that they literally just put them on a boat to Canada
in the early 1900s.
Like just straight up.
And it was like a type of kid.
Like it was a class.
It's almost like, you know, we have our hot rodders, you know, in the 50s.
They had Canadian boat kids. I don't remember the exact name, but you have that, right? So,
and England relied on Second Sons and beyond because that's how they kept their empire.
Austria, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, was in slow decline for so long
that it was more about defense
and more about restoring itself or maintaining itself.
Right, and so everybody's staying closer to the moon.
Bringing everybody inward.
Yeah. Exactly.
And so I think that that absolutely might play into,
and again, this is something
that's fairly uninterrogated by me honestly I am I am assuming
Based on several things so it intuitively sounds really good. Um, my research didn't take me here and now I kind of wish it had
Yeah, well, yeah, but this makes some sense like that's why you have
Kids playing in the forest, but they're still near home
You know, you've got yeah small towns and again you look at the topography as compared to an island where everything's jammed in and you have these small towns
It's fairly urbanized though. You know, you've got factory towns. You got this. Yeah, that whereas Austria you don't have that as much
It's still fairly peasant E and at least it it
Romanticizes the peasant E. Yeah, so yeah. And and of course, by this time in England,
most of the forests had been cut down either for firewood or to build the English navy.
In the previous yeah, and everything else, all the engineering that had been done. Yeah.
everything else, all the engineering that had been done. And so there is a lot less access to that primeval setting. Exactly. Exactly.
The forests in England by this time are very carefully manicured, managed by the noble
entry families. Right.
They're privatized. Yeah.
So he wants creativity, he wants imagination, artistic expression, which when you look back
at his meditative goals, you remember, all of that makes a lot of sense, that whole reflecting
on it and then immersing yourself, becoming one with it and being separate from it.
So the owner of the Waldorf Astoria cigarette company was really high on anthroposophy
And he had money and he bankrolled Steiner's first school hence the name Waldorf school
This was in 1919 which hell of a time to start a school. Oh
but
I'm just thinking in terms of the flu
Yeah, but so rather than educating children for factory work, the school would educate the
children whose parents were factory workers.
So already it's better than the US system, which only two years prior finally had 48
states on board with compulsory publicly funded education.
Thank you, Mrs. Sippy.
So in their own in their own words, the Waldorf School
philosophy posits that quote, music, dance and theater, writing,
literature, legends and myths are not simply subjects to be read about and
tested. They're experienced through these experiences. Waldorf students
cultivate their intellectual, emotional, physical and
spiritual capacities to be individuals, certain of their paths and to be of service to the world.
OK, sounds great.
I mean, honestly, if really actually say a parochial school advertised this,
I bet you jump for it.
Yeah, like, OK, cool.
You know, yeah. Further quote, teachers in Waldorf schools
are dedicated to generating an inner enthusiasm
for learning within each, or within every child.
This eliminates the need for competitive testing,
academic placement and rewards to motivate learning
and allows motivation to arise from within.
It helps engender the capacity
for joyful lifelong learning.
This is all their words, okay? This is what they're advertising. This is what they're putting out there. This is
their mission statement. And I have no reason to doubt that that's what they truly want to do.
Oh, yeah. No, I mean, I don't doubt any of this being sincere.
Right.
Certainly. Yeah.
And frankly, it's way better than what we offer and are no child left behind
scarred lack of infrastructure, deliver the competency models that pressure teachers to pass
kids who can't fucking read or write because we've commodified it so hard that sending a kid to
school or out of school without a diploma is an economic death sentence. So I mean, if I'm looking at those two models, I know
which one I would want to send my kid to. Yeah, definitely. Now, the basics of how the
schools are organized in the broadest possible strokes is that there are three epochs and
here's where you lose me. But they're and again, it's one of those. Oh, intuitively, I guess that kind of makes sense, you know, but as soon as you start like a taxonomy, I start to get a little twitchy.
So, yeah, according to the Waldorf model, there are three epochs of educational development for a child, one lasting roughly seven years according to Steiner
Early childhood elementary and secondary now that makes some sense tk
You know, yeah, you know like like we all know that like k through two is something and then third grade is kind of a level jump
It's a huge level jump, right?
So I get third through six, right? And then seven through
12, like it's just your grinding and polishing, right? Yeah, I get that. So so far, so good.
The schools, thus should at each epoch awaken the quote physical, behavioral, emotional,
cognitive, social and spiritual capabilities and aspects of every child.
These are the model that they use is very experiential based.
Lots of inclusive play, lots of circle time, lots of gardening,
rhythm, recess, songs, games, cooking, that kind of thing.
Again, this all sounds good. This sounds like, you know, the ideal kibbutz on some levels.
Yeah. You know, lots of focus on festivals that are based on seasonal changes in the world
around the kids that they experience.
Okay, cool.
Yeah.
You know, I have often bemoaned the lack of ceremony in our kids' lives.
So this kind of tickles me where I itch. All of the very back to the rusticus kind of vibe overall is there.
And there's something to be said in the post-war era for a return to a simpler, more peaceful
and simple vibe.
I feel like Ramark would have liked that.
I mean, that was a motif through most of all quiet was yeah, the stillness of nature.
Well, and I mean, across the board, culturally all over Europe, you have, I mean, you have
and through and through a post-a-fi, like itself as a as a mysticism,
like itself as a as a mysticism
becoming popular
Because the experience of the war. Yeah had
disillusioned so many people with the
societal model that had led to World War one like
Yeah, and schools were a big locus of that too
They absolutely preached national nationalism.
Oh, yeah. Especially in the 19th century.
Yeah. And, you know, as we've pointed out,
as you've pointed out mostly many times, when you have the all of the
modernists or futurists, I should say, getting themselves killed off.
You know, the the the opposite number,
you know, the the mystics and the and the Gnostics and, you know, everybody who's like, no, this this industrialization shit is not healthy for us. Right.
They're now they're the voices that are that are left.
Yeah. You know, yeah.
And I couldn't find the title, but I remember that in
1905, there was a book written about how electricity going through the wires, you know, because if you
stand under like power lines, you hear a buzz, right? Yeah. They talked about this book put
forth the idea that electricity and I don't think it was microwaves
I think it was like radio waves. Yes, it was radio waves. Don't get electricity both were going to disrupt the human nervous system
That and and that was in not an unpopular book. I couldn't find the title of it. I think I have a note somewhere
at a different site, but
but yeah, there's that goes back to what you're saying is like, you know, we got to get back
to the simpler thing because we are just cooking ourselves. Yeah. You know. And yeah, in the 19th
century, you do see the romantic nationalists after the Congress of Vienna and the counter revolutionaries after 1848.
And you also, again, you have this kind of collision with the Vulcish culture that the brothers Grimm and others in
Central Europe, especially in the area that would become
Germany and by proxy Austria. There was a lot of cultural
pressure in the 19th century to build Central Europe out of
blood and iron, which influenced every part of public pressure in the 19th century to build central Europe out of blood and iron, which influenced every part of public life in the late 1800s. There were lots of myths and
folktales about a king under a mountain, a sleeping hero, that sort of stuff. There's a lot
of ties to nature just culturally. Oh, yeah. Oji or the Dane in more northern stretches of Europe.
I forgot to first say, but I remember there was somebody the Dane. That's who it was. Yeah. Yeah. Oh dear. Yeah. Who initially I know at some point,
he had been tied to Charlemagne and the 12 peers. Yeah. Yeah. And yeah. And in Britain, you had the same thing with, you know, the legend of King,
the Roman, the surge of Arthurian legend, you know, and him sleeping somewhere in Avalon,
you know, come back. Yeah. The one that's your king. Yeah. That part, you know. Yeah, absolutely.
I mean, it's, you know, America
didn't have that because we're such a new and push westward kind of culture. Yeah, that it was a
very different America was much more about like, Oh, fuck it, I'm leaving. Yeah, just gonna keep
going west. Yeah. Who was it? It It was are we talking Frederick Jackson Turner?
No, no, it wasn't was it Davy Crockett or was it Daniel Boone Daniel Boone y'all can go
I'm going to Texas y'all can go to hell
Well, yeah
No, that was Davy Crockett. That was Davy Crockett. Yeah, but I think Daniel Boone was the one who?
upon
stepping out the front door of his cabin one day saw somebody else's
Smoke coming up out of a chimney in the distance. It said, all right. No, I that's it. I gotta pick up and move on
Like you can't even it's on literally on the other side of a ridgeline fucker like come on, right?
like a fetishization of, you know, independence and
self-sufficiency, like no. Also, I just point out autism has many forms.
Okay, you know, all right, you know what? Maybe that's ableist of me. I hadn't taken that into
account. But I'm just I'm just thinking like because I mean it's impossible to first off
I'm not a diagnostician secondly. Yeah, it's impossible to diagnose people in history. That
being said, yeah, when you read about somebody and you're like, oh yeah, you know, like, he felt
too crowded because he saw smoke that far in the distance. That sounds like fixation to me. Like,
I can. Okay, I can understand that. Yeah, that's not a list of you.
It's just like, you know, because again, it's not responsible to diagnose him
as having autism.
That being said, it's a real clear marker.
By the way, we're going to we're going to tick that box on the floor.
Exactly. We're going to.
Like, yeah.
Um, you know, hundreds of questions that we as
teachers get to answer about students is like one of them is, if they see smoke on the ridge line,
do they want to move? You're like, yes. Yeah, as a matter of fact, odd, odd that that comes up so
specifically on this one. Right. Did you know, by the way, that Daniel Boone is the reason that
Right. Um, did you know by the way that Daniel Boone is the reason that
President Andrew Jackson didn't kill a man?
No, yeah, so I mean talk about birdwalk. I mean, I I literally haven't left the page that I started with
but Andrew Jackson the first a presidential assassination attempt was against Andrew Jackson and the guy came
out and fired two pistols at Andrew Jackson point blank range, both misfired.
They later tested those guns and found them working just fine.
So it's clear that the bullets were afraid to go into Andrew Jackson.
But Andrew Jackson was walking with a hickory cane, which basically means he was walking
with a shillayly.
Yeah. He proceeded to start beating the man to death with his walking cane until Daniel Boone
pulled him off. So just for perspective, Bill Clinton is walking down the street.
Clinton is walking down the street. Somebody is and he's there with, oh God, who would be somebody in the nineties?
Michael Jordan.
He's there with Michael Jordan walking down the street.
And somebody tries to kill him.
And Michael Jordan is the reason that Bill Clinton didn't strangle a man to death.
Like imagine reading that headline in 1995.
Like Michael Jordan saves Bill Clinton's would be assassin from the wrath
of Bill Clinton. Like, yeah, like, yeah. And yeah, the only part of that story that I don't
boggle at is the understanding that Andrew Jackson was the first president anybody tried to assassinate
Like if there was if there was gonna be a first one. Yeah, Andy. Yeah, Andy is right up there like that said
Would you try to assassinate a man who had won 52 duels?
when if you lose a duel you're probably dead
When if you lose a duel, you're probably dead
What I know I'm doing culture had a lot of subtlety there
Yeah, what I'll say is if I had decided to do it I wouldn't have tried to do it
With handguns at close enough range that he could get me with a stick. Yeah. Yeah.
You know, like the rifled musket existed at that point.
True. Very true.
I was just gonna say.
Daniel Blue had old Betsy.
So.
Yes.
So, you know.
Yeah.
So.
So.
So.
Back to Central European education. Yeah. Yeah. So. So back to central European education. Yeah. Yeah.
Well, we're getting off the subject a little bit.
A little bit.
So you take this revulsion at nationalism, right?
And you combine it with the focus, the the vulkish focus
of that nationalism in Germany, right?
So you're revolted by it, but it's also tied to vulkism
as well as the essential soul focus nationalism of
anthropocopy, right? Because nations have a soul and so it's
these are subtle turns and facets of what's going on. And
then you make them all react to the mechanized horrors that
World War One brought about and you get a pretty clear line to
understanding that the Waldorf approach to education was a viable approach for people
at that time. And with these things come the humorism that preceded it because there were
plenty of regressive, which I don't I don't actually mean disparagingly per se. I just mean that there were plenty of,
when I say regressive, what I mean is that
it represented a return to things
that had been let go of centuries ago
because the modern era was so fucking awful.
So when I speak of that regression,
I'm not talking about a decay or a decline to dumber times.
I just mean people going back to the simpler time.
The country mouse, not the town mouse, you know, that kind of thing.
Okay. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. So there are plenty of regressive ideas that began to warrant a second look because
look what modernism and futurism had brought us. Look at the destruction that came about
as a result of the mechanization and the industrialism
and all of the things that had taken hold for the last hundred years and then apply it to
children and look at this idea of soul focus, which was big because you have the forgotten
generation or not forgotten generation, the lost generation. And because you have all of this emphasis on, you know, you have all
of this emphasis on soul and on nature and on returning to our spirit, you know, in the
spiritualism. So, you start to see like how that's working. Now, the idea of a child's
temperament guiding a teacher to best educating that child in that context
Starts to make sense, right? I mean how many times do we see that stupid quote?
Where if if you know a child's not learning then it's not a problem of the child. It's a problem of the teacher, right?
You're right. Yeah, there's something to that
But also like there's genuinely something wrong with the system that creates that kind of a dichotomy.
So why not use the child's temperament to see what they're into?
That starts to make a lot of sense.
European schools had spent generations beating obedience into children and they got 10 million of them killed in
anonymous inevitable grinding combat that did nothing
but that for four years.
Afterward, it's definitely worth an effort to try the opposite.
And while other countries and systems were recreating their education system, like I
said, French history teachers specifically moving very hard to change their textbooks
that their students would read in an effort to specifically prevent another such war, the Waldorf model embraced
an old intuitive model that focused on growing individuals, the four temperaments.
Now, so yeah, go ahead. Now, now we're, we're getting back to
we're getting back to yourism.
Yes. And and and kind of elementalism. Yes. At the same time.
All three of those things cannot be separated from each other fully.
Like, yeah, they're all facets of the same belief of this
archetypical quadrant, right?
Now, so yeah, it strikes me that, you know, Steiner had
some laudable ideas and certainly his goals were laudable. And I almost feel like I kind of have a bone to pick with him about like at this point,
this is where you decide that we're gonna kind of half-ass it.
And instead of like, you know, coming up with a way to actually target the individual child,
we're gonna say, okay, well, you know, we got we got to we got to simplify this now.
And we're going to we're going to, you know, go to, you know, every every kid fits in an archetype.
And it's like, but that is a really good point.
Like, instead of like, we're going to unlock each child individually.
You're right. There is a layer of now we're going to generalize it out to the world.
Yeah. In many ways, you're just zooming out further.
Kind of.
Yeah.
That's a good point.
Well, that's what he encouraged.
Now, Helmut Eller, who has done extensive writing on this topic,
was born about 15 years after Waldorf started to take off.
So he wasn't at the ground floor for these things,
but he does a pretty good job of
codifying what they were trying to do in the late 19 teens,
and the early 1920s in these schools. The efforts of
Ehlers' writings and by many Waldorf practitioners is to
help to find the balance, help children find the balance
within themselves. Again, find the balance within yourself.
There's humorism, right?
There's temperamentalism.
To encourage the various aspects of who they are.
Not simply drill down on the one personality trait
that they exhibit the most and just play to that.
So again, having them in balance though,
this does come back to Galen, right?
This does come back to that same thing.
So while I like this in general
Um, I like the idea that a kid could be really good at automotive and at theater. I like that. I like it a lot
Yeah
it's still coming back to this this
Ancient thing which again
Yeah, it is pseudoscience
Which you know, I'm never gonna be a huge fan is pseudoscience, which, you know, I'm never going to be a huge fan of pseudoscience,
but I get why they got there because letting go of all of our humanity is what led to 10
million people dying.
So I get it.
I get it.
Well, yeah, I mean, I understand the motivation.
Yeah. And as you've said about other things before, it's like I can see every single link in the
chain of thought.
Right.
I can totally understand.
And in hindsight, I can look at the chain of thought and go, and that's the one that
was miscast.
And see, I can't even...
Like, that's the link that's gonna snap.
I can say that I don't like where the chain led, but I can't tell you the one that was deeply flawed to
me. Like, because again, yeah, like you said, I see every step they made, every one of them looks
reasonable along that logic. But I mean, it's soph history. At the end of the day, I think it's soft history or, you know, or
solipsism, I always interchange those two.
You and it's kind of both. But yeah, one where you are
begging the question. Like, it's that
solipism. Yeah,
solipism. There you go. Now, the idea, though, is that like, if
you looked at the old way of education, we're
going to drill down on and we're just going to like insert a personality into you so that
you can be a good little bug, right?
If you have any print upon you, the personality that we need.
Exactly.
Although actually, I'm using I'm using the wrong accent because I really want to sound
like an American.
Like Northeastern Yankee. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'm using the wrong accent because I really ought to sound like an American. An American.
An American, Yankee.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
We make it make cars.
What we're going to do here.
Yeah.
What we're going to do here.
It's right.
Can't get there.
We're going to train you.
Yeah.
Yeah.
We're going to give you the best skinnerian.
Yeah.
We're going to give you the best skanearian conditioning anybody's ever gotten anywhere
Here's a young man who has put together 4,000 widgets in the last four hours
When asked why his hands won't stop shaking. He said simply that he's happy to eat
Keep it going young man
But okay, so this idea was slow the fuck down
But okay, so this idea was slow the fuck down.
Don't just drill into the one thing. So I mean, I love history, right?
Don't just teach Damian history.
Don't do that, right?
Teach him other stuff.
So if a kid is choleric, work with that,
but then also draw out the phlegmatic aspects
of her personality,
along with encouraging the sanguine and the melancholic. Each one is
a valuable part of that child and thus must be nurtured as fully as possible. And none
of the temperaments are bad for educating and the educators must adjust to allow for
them. Now that sounds great if you have a class size of eight. Yeah. So yeah, well, it's really hard. Let's talk about classroom models in Austria in the
1920s, shall we? Right. Well, and the thing is, is that we will look with bitter escance at any
of these things because we have 35 to ones. Like it's, it's, it's not a fair thing for us to be
bitter all along those lines when discussing this
So it's a way of me checking myself there because I'm like, oh, this is true
It is not it is presentist of us. Yes
Um, I don't I don't I don't think it's unreasonable though
No, I see I see
And where we got yeah Yeah. But yeah. Yeah. So, um, like I said, each one's a valuable part to the child. You got to nurture it.
Yeah. None of the temperaments are bad. Um, teachers need to adjust to them and be able to adjust to them and allow for them. And at the same time, just as the earth has its seasons, so too does education.
Certain colors at certain times and certain days will help the child to unlock and sort those aspects within themselves.
And of course, lots of rhythm, lots of gardening, lots of festivals and lots of handiwork.
Now again, there's some really good stuff braided in there.
I know you're shaking your head, but you and I both know that October sucks and March sucks.
And these are seasonal things. It's getting darker. Yeah, you're not, yeah, you're not wrong.
Right. And you teach where puberty hits. I teach where puberty is already hit. You teach where
puberty is. So you know that May also sucks. Oh, May. Yeah, May. I've talked about I have I have gotten very
poetic about a class colleague of mine who suggested a number of years ago in conversation
that you know what? We all have to just get a week off in October. Like, like just just
give us a break in October because everybody's
pissed off. We're in the doldrums like, you know, and and what I and I said, okay, so how do we
schedule that out? He goes, oh, well, you know, we just extend the extend the gear like take away
a week in in in June, but give us a week off in October. And I looked him right in the face.
give us a week off in October. And I looked him right in the face. And I said, no, no, you might be brave enough. You you might have the fortitude to face a June Maddened adolescent,
but I do not. Right.
Like no. Yeah.
Like so much. No. There's a reason there's a phrase called crazy as a June bug like yes. Yeah, like yeah
Yeah, and we know the seasonal stuff. Yeah, the seasonal stuff isn't the part of the hemichake in my head like at all
Cuz anecdotally, I mean the same thing is like if you talk to ER doctors or cops about the full moon
Like there can be like, you know, it's a thing. Yeah, I'm going to go with that. But I know, I know. But
but yes, you get the point. You get the point. I'm trying to do. Yeah. And and what I was
shaking my head at was like the mystical deep psychology thing associated with like certain
colors in the room at certain times. I'm like, all right, now we're getting woo woo.
We are. And and, you know, so I don't remember if it's been proven or not.
But I know it's certainly been attempted by college football teams
to change the color of the locker room of the visiting team.
Oh, yeah. No, I've heard about that stuff.
So I don't know if it's been proven to work or not, but.
And, you know, interior designers and psychologists
working for corporate interests that like when you're in,
when you're in a particular store
or in a fast food restaurant.
I was gonna say red and yellow.
Yeah. Yeah, you know, the color of the environment affecting like making you hungry or making you in a fast food restaurant. I was gonna say red and yellow. Yeah. Yeah, the color of the environment affecting,
like making you hungry or making you in a hurry
to get up and eat and get out.
There you go.
So there is something to that.
And yet, I mean, it's not practical for me to...
Back then though, the idea was that the teacher
like absolutely was sacrificing themselves for the kids, et cetera, et cetera. Practical for me to you know back then though the idea was that the teacher like
Absolutely was sacrificing themselves for the kids etc. etc. So oh, yeah You would be expected to put in a shit ton of free labor because it's for the kids. Um, yeah, you know as opposed to now
But yeah, so I could see going like okay, it's getting to be October I
Need brighter colors in here to combat the fact that it's darker when they get here I
Get it that makes sense
See from a from a from a lighting like okay. No, I need I need the room to be brighter
Totally makes sense
Yeah, I know that's not the extent of it, though. No, no, no.
Or for adherence of no times of day, different colors and lessons have different colors.
And yeah.
Yeah. Yeah.
Now, again, we are mammals.
We are driven by some seasonal stuff.
Yes.
You know, and seasons absolutely change colors of things.
This is true.
There's that.
And I would say that the focus on rhythm, gardening, festivals, handy work, all of those
things absolutely fit with what we've always said is that these kids should be on a farm.
Right?
Yeah, these are these are entirely laudable and I agree with all of those points in theory.
It's it's how are we going to put the how are we going to do that in practice? I agree with all of those points in theory.
How are we going to do that in practice?
Well, again, if you had low class sizes enough, I think you could create a community.
You could almost create a boarding school community wherein you do something like that.
So for instance, according to Steiner, sanguine children are most inspired
by their love of parents or teachers. Okay. Right. He said, quote, everything must be
done to awaken love in such a child. Love is the magic word. Eller tacked on that you
needed to quote, increase their attention spans by looking closely at an object of interest together,
a picture, for example,
and pointing out the details that they might have missed.
And that such a child was, quote,
light and cheerful, spontaneous and confident.
She openly approaches new situations.
She makes new friends easily.
She is quick to discover something about her teacher,
something new about her teacher.
Suddenly remembers all
the things she wanted to tell him, bubbles over with the news, then runs away and hands
out her birthday invitations. The sanguine child loves the world and other people and
would like to embrace everyone. Okay. Okay. Yeah. Sound honestly, it sounds a little
horoscopy to me, but more than a little but we all we've all met that cinnamon roll. We absolutely have so like yeah
And we've all had that kid that we've struggled to reach and then we do look at something closely with them and point out
Details that only they noticed
And now we've got a connection so yeah
that only they noticed. And now we've got a connection. So yeah, now Steiner also advised adults to stay calm and collected in the face of a caloric child's anger. This makes sense.
This is how you diffuse things, right? I have a co worker who works in the front office
of our discipline office, and he's masterful at diffusing a kid by not matching his energy.
Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah, people people who have that gift like
I'm I am in awe of them. Right. Um, quote with the cholera child tried to become inwardly
apathetic to watch Cooley when he has a temper tantrum. This is what Eller said, quote a cholera
child. No, so that's Steiner. Eller says, a choleric child leads the way constantly strives
forward and energetically pursues her goal.
Once it is achieved, she immediately seeks a new one.
Determination and drive go hand in hand.
We can sense something forceful, energetic, quick-witted,
vigorous and decisive.
Sheer willpower.
Firm goals are set and forcefully pursued.
You get the impression whatever she plans will be carried out tenaciously and thoroughly
Okay, yeah, I mean honestly were we to discuss a certain turf's writings I
Was that this is the one that that is green and silver?
Whereas the previous which is which is remarkable
silver, whereas the previous one. Which is remarkable.
Uh-huh.
Because the element associated with that particular group within that turf's writing is usually
elementally tied to water.
No, water is the one with the bird.
Air is the one with the bird.
Oh, you're right.
Yeah, bird goes in the air. Yeah. Oh, you're right. Yeah, bird goes in the air. Yeah. Yes,
you're right. Yeah. Well, you know, things evolve. Yeah, yeah, well, yeah, carefully.
Come up with cool shit too. So now, melancholic children can be too inwardly focused, especially
on their own suffering, and Steiner recommends
helping them focus on the needs of others. He said, quote, the melancholic child is capable
of suffering of moroseness. These qualities exist in him, and we cannot flog them out,
but we can divert them. Above all, we must show the melancholic child how people can
suffer. Eller thought of the melancholic child as, quote, he feels much more at home in his inner
world, in his thoughts, emotions, and even dreams.
He loves inner and outer peace and quiet and behaves sensitively and tactfully.
He doesn't like bothering other people, which is why he usually keeps to himself.
He is a master of self-control and self-criticism.
He therefore observes others closely and is capable of suffering deeply with them.
His great assets are his ability to think things through seriously and to sympathize and empathize
with others. Okay. Cool, right? Yeah. Where Steiner thought sanguine children would be most influential
by their love of adult, he also thought flagmatic children would do best when they connected
with other children. Quote, so saying of the
flagmatic quote, he must have playmates with the most
varied interests. Steiner saw this as a way to help them
become more active and engage with the world around them.
Parents then should give like mad at children plenty of
opportunities to make friends and have play dates.
Eller said of the phlegmatic child quote,
he experiences things sentimentally and whenever possible,
comfortably and cosily as well, because he encounters the world around him with a feeling of well-being at his own leisurely, unhurried pace.
Nothing can get him worked up.
He particularly relishes everything that has to do with the regularity and rhythm, which
is why he can spend a lot of time doing things he enjoys.
His great assets are patience, endurance, calmness, and peacefulness.
He would never insult anyone.
He enjoys situations that make him feel good and has no desire to change them.
I mean, again, each of these sounds like a house at a certain
a certain school. Yeah. Yeah. So that and, you know, cool.
Again, that in many ways just points out the archetypical nature of this.
But it also points out the horoscope nature of this.
Yeah. Now, I'm not here to judge the particular merits of the system, though given my lack
of trust of such unifying theories that draw on race science, the emphasis on the soul
and woo, you could probably find out what I think well enough.
Yeah.
However, I do think that it is interesting that with all of these specific foci on children's
temperaments and with Waldorf education remaining relatively flat from 1919 through the 1970s
Like there were not that many schools worldwide from 19 through the 70. Yeah, they
Just it stayed pretty flat like I found a chart
and I want to say
Well, actually, I've got the numbers right here. Um, so I want to say, well, actually I've got the numbers right here.
So I want to say, because I wrote it down.
So the sudden and constant rise of such schools starting in the early 1980s, as well as the
revisitation of the influence of astrology and temperament explanations in the same era,
it would make sense that a quartet would come onto the scene in comic books that people
would latch onto by the late 1980s.
Okay.
Worldwide, Waldorf schools hovered around the 50s from 1919 through the 1970s.
Worldwide there were about 50 or so Waldorf schools.
No shit.
Yeah, it always stayed right around in the 50s. Um, as late as 1967, there were only nine school, Waldorf schools in all of the United
States.
Yeah, bullshit.
No, there were only nine.
Really?
Yeah.
But by the 1980s, that number surpassed 200.
And by 1990, it was nearly 600.
Okay. That's a hockey stick. And by 1990 it was nearly 600
Okay, that's a hockey stick like yeah, like that's that's that's quite the curve
so At that time period
In the 80s
People having kids
Yeah, and getting their kids to an age where they were going to be sending them to schools
Or the boomers true
Do you think
There is a correlation
Between
The counterculture
Outlook of the boomers back when they were busy rebelling against their, you know, silent parents and not wanting to go to Vietnam and getting to be old enough
to have their own children and saying, well, you know, I mean, I don't I don't want my kid to be,
you know, a drone. Right.
And and they're now being a very large. What's we're looking for demographic that would be
supportive of this model.
That's giving them a lot more credit than I'm willing to give.
Okay.
But you're on the right track just for the wrong reasons.
Okay.
So in the 1970s, there was absolutely a movement in America toward cultish behavior.
Hmm.
So, uh...
You caught me drinking on that.
So, like I said, you're on the right track, but you were following the wrong side.
So, you're saying it was the Mooneys.
The Mooneys were responsible.
The Mooneys and Hare Krishna, right?
Yeah, yeah, kind of.
With less CIA than the Moons though.
Or less Japanese Prime Minister murders than the Moons.
Oh my God.
I had to mute my mic because the laughter came out along with a lot of coughing.
But oh my god, okay.
Yeah.
So there's a movement toward cultish behavior starting in the late 60s, early 70s, right?
As well as a greater emphasis on the Fulcish nature that we see in Anthropocopy and Waldorf
prior to that, there's suddenly
the study of folklore. And in some of this, we have Joseph Campbell to think. And some
of them, we also have Tolkien's, the revival of Tolkien's books, Frodo lives, that kind
of stuff. So you have acid to think for this. In fact, if you look at the way that churches were interacting with despondent hippies and the marginalized in the late 60s and 70s, it's very much of a return to the land vulkish effort. Jesus was the ultimate hippie that kind of stuff. Oh, yeah. What what what that twigged was there's a huge overlap
between the hippie movement and evangelicalism in a really weird way. Yes. That like, you know,
because they're both they're both touching on a wound that people don't know how to heal from.
on a wound that people don't know how to heal from. Yes.
They're both, they're both like offering a salve to a psychological separation and abandonment
almost.
Yeah.
From society.
So, yeah.
So this this rise in cultish behavior and this wave of what like in Japan, there's a whole
lot of stuff that gets referred to as like new religions.
That's the same kind of mysticism, cult vibe kind of thing.
In the US, we see this in the 70s and this is when a huge wave of the boomers are hitting
young adulthood. Is this the outgrowth of the counter, abandonment of traditional spirituality. And like I'm looking for whatever
else I can find is this, like my parents don't get me and these people who, you know, as
this is, I think, I think that this is, and I'm fairly critical of the boomers, but I do think that this is the logical consequence
to raising a group of people to think that they were special, but never talking to them.
I think you have those things happening to boomers.
Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
That that.
So they have to kind of create their own.
In a really. Yeah, it really is like.
Oh, shit.
I get why the boomers act the way they do now.
I really do understand it.
I don't like it.
We're still responsible for it.
But I get it.
And you can keep in mind it's, you know, in the 1970s,
there's so much more emphasis on on purity gardening, right?
Organic focused gardening. Oh, God.
Home spun cloth, homemade foods, making your own.
Everybody had those fucking Afghans on the back of their couch, you know?
Yeah, Macrame as a hobby. Yeah.
More communes,
all that kind of stuff like this. So there's also a tremendous effort by specifically religious
groups, including the ones who are dabbling in völkish cultism, to re-segregate the schools
that federal government was insisting desegregate. And this is where we get the intersection between of like, like everything.
Sad boomers and shitty boomers.
Yeah.
And and and neo Confederates and cause apologists and all of those horrible fucking people.
Yeah. Well, and you can hide one sense of purity inside of another.
I'm not racist.
I just want to go to school where he can garden, you know, that kind of like, yeah,
it starts to get weird. Yeah.
If we only look at the amount of private school enrollments,
we can actually see a bump from 1979,
when the number of kids enrolled in private school had been hovering around
7.5 million
Compared to the 50.3 million in public schools
Okay, and just fast forward by four years now. I picked four years because there's a certain presidency that's starting
It resettled at about 8.5 million compared to the 48.9 million in public schools.
Okay.
So to put it another way, from 1970 through the mid-1980s,
public schools saw a decline of roughly 14% nationwide.
I'm not saying that it's due all to having to desegregate,
but when you look at when folks start to look into alternative schooling,
the two things tend to line up across the board politically.
Yeah. So yeah, you have riots in Boston.
You know, you have and remember
Brown versus board was 1954. Oh, yeah.
Well, but it's all due hastee which meant that people could slow walk it. So in the 70s
You still had people de desegregating. Oh, yeah. Well, and I mean, I remember when when I was in elementary school
I
remember hearing about
the level of controversy and the screaming and shouting and just anger,
you know, from suburban white people about, you know, busing programs. I vaguely recall
I right vaguely recall my father venting about the idea.
You know, I mean, there was there was no chance like I was not going to be sent anywhere.
But, you know, just just the the idea of it.
Was enough that my father who. Is not an overt racist of any kind,
but is the kind of latent racist that you get by growing up in the 50s in South
Florida. Sure. You know, on he he was.
He definitely was was not thrilled with the idea.
I won't I won't go so far as to say he was heated
But it was really clear that like he he considered this like
Un unfair somehow, you know and
And I know I know it is unfair to I have a neighborhood school a mile away
And you're gonna put my kid on a bus for an hour each way
neighborhood school a mile away and you're going to put my kid on a bus for an hour each way.
Yeah, that's bull. Oh yeah. Yeah, but that's not the unfairness my father was was upset about.
You know, but I would also say that yes, that is that part's unfair and and deserving of of like I understand people's anger at it. However, let's look at what that's looking to fix. It's not like
that exists in a vacuum. It's not like a school board woke up one day and they're like, you know what we need to do?
Like, yeah, there are reasons that that became the solution.
Yeah. Well, so so here here in our country, we have, I would say, two.
Two main problems with with them with the model and the mechanism of public education.
The first one is we're still operating under the industrial model.
That's the first one.
Like, I would say that's a pretty big problem.
Number one, that's that is number one for a reason. Number two, we have decided that across the board, the way to determine
funding for schools is through property taxes around like and there is I am 100% on board with, you know, within, you know, individual districts having a lot of a lot
of say, you know, in local, local control of schools, I am, I am on board for.
However, the way we have chosen to fund our schools is desperately classist. Well, and I would point out that the the year ranges that I gave you
were one year after Prop 13 came out.
Mm hmm.
The Howard Jarvis proposition.
So, yes.
So, well, I mean, that later.
Right now, we need to go back to 1917.
OK, all right. Catherine Cook Br need to go back to 1917. Okay. All right.
Catherine Cook Briggs, a graduate of Oberlin College and professor in Michigan
State University, began looking at data starting in 1917 to analyze and assess
what would maximize a child's chance for future happiness. Grants you,
this was still 10 years before people discovered that ether wasn't real.
Right. How do we, do we? Sorry. Sure. I might be jumping ahead
here. But how are we measuring happiness? What's the definition
there when we're talking about Max minds and child's future
happiness? How how are we? What are we pinning that to?
Oh, like a lack of certain stressors. Okay, the abundance
So, like a lack of certain stressors, the abundance of certain opportunities. Okay.
Because she is as Yankee as it gets.
She went to Oberlin and she was in Michigan.
Okay.
So, Protestant work ethic all up and down.
Right.
Okay.
Thank you.
Sure.
I just needed to like...
Yeah.
Okay.
Yeah. Now, she created vocational test for youngsters.
So there you go.
Um, and she ended up classifying them based on this data that she'd gathered from those tests into four basic types.
Of course.
Why is it always four?
Right.
Go figure.
Why the fuck?
Okay.
Because Galen.
Because of the foot pad of Italy. The Pythagorean school.
Like because of that.
Like I would say I would say that there is something just inherent in us.
I mean the four cardinal directions, right?
Yeah.
There are certain numbers that pop up a lot for us.
The number three and the number four both of those. Yeah, you know
So the the four the four types sociable executive meditative and spontaneous
Which should sound familiar yeah now she's coming up with this in 1917
and Now, she's coming up with this in 1917. And again, there's some lateral thinking going on here.
I'm not saying that she didn't read Steiner's stuff. Absolutely. I don't know if she did,
to be perfectly honest, because he was kind of niche and over there, you know? Well, yeah. What I was going to say is I think this is a case of kind of parallel evolution.
And I think if she had been exposed to his stuff, my gut reaction, my got theory is that being as Yankee as fuck as she was.
Her she probably would have been outwardly dismissive of, well, that's that's all, you know, European mystical hokum.
Right. She's a data person.
Yeah. What I'm doing is science.
Exactly. This is this is math. Exactly.
None of that shit. Get that vokish garbage out of my face.
Yeah. But here you've got two different approaches coming to the same ideas, right?
So and at the same time, she was writing all sorts of essays on child development
and the like and focusing on their creativity and their need to have that
nourished for proper education to exist.
OK, that should, like you said, seem pretty damn familiar.
Yeah. Anyway, in 1923, seem pretty damn familiar. Yeah.
Anyway, in 1923, Carl Jung's psychological types was translated and published in English
and she devoured that.
Now.
Okay.
Yeah.
Everything I just said about her being an a he and completely rejecting, you know, Steiner
followed by you saying, oh yeah, no, she ate Jung.
I'm like, yeah, that completely tracks like with everything I said, that's yeah, of course,
she did.
So in Jung's psychological types, he argued that there were again, four types.
Yeah, but this time they were functions and expressions of consciousness, two that took in the world
and two that made sense of what was taken in.
There was sensation and intuition, and there was thinking and feeling.
And of course, people were introverts or extroverts.
He's all about the archetype, so this fully fits.
Additionally, we have dominant and repressed
functions, so it's a bit of a spectrum. Briggs thought that this was too complex for the
layman to digest, and she sought to make it more sense or more accessible to the Vulgate.
But real quick, though, where does Carl Jung get his archetypes?
Where does Carl Jung get his archetypes?
Oh, no. Oh,
he looks he was he was a student of Freud, but that's not the answer.
Yeah.
Does he get him? He doesn't get him from Galen. Yeah.
Of course, he gets him from Galen.
And what theory on how people are is similarly archetypical. Yeah.
Humorism. Yeah. Yeah. It's all humor. Humorism all the way down, is that? Yeah.
I feel like we're in that meme of the two astronauts. Yeah. It has been like. Right.
Of course. Yeah. I hate unified field theories and yet here I am pushing one
Yeah
Normally it's like oh dang it white supremacy really but this time it's like oh humorism, huh?
Got you laughing and coughing again
Yeah, you got me again. Um, oh
my god, so Yeah, I don't I don't. But the thing is, this isn't
a unified field theory. This is no, no, here is all of the observational data.
Right. Everybody keeps going back to the same Wikipedia page.
Everybody's everybody's going back to the same source. Right. Why can't you pick something else for the love of God?
Montreuxor.
Well, and I would say that this is like that one time that I accidentally grabbed soy sauce
instead of vanilla and put it in the cookie dough.
You could take this, you could taste soy sauce in every single cookie. Yeah, right
Yeah, this is soy sauce in the cookies like you can taste the humor
Everywhere man, that's a really good analogy because that's gross. Yeah, it is
Took me like six days to eat them
Well because I was really poor I couldn't like just throw away those calories.
So it was, it sucked. Yeah, okay. I can. All right.
Now, meanwhile, her daughter, uh, is about Briggs Myers studied political science at
Swarthmore College until meeting her future husband, a Clarence Gates Myers.
until meeting her future husband, a Clarence Gates Meyers.
Isabel left college in 1918 to marry him, and it was upon meeting Clarence that Briggs grew interested specifically in personalities.
He was so different than the rest of her own family
that she was fascinated with her future son-in-law.
Okay?
So...
Yeah.
Because we're talking about Isabel as the daughter daughter and Catherine Cook Briggs is the mom.
Okay, so I said Briggs.
Yeah, no.
Briggs is Catherine.
Okay.
Yeah, yeah.
So she's looking at her future son-in-law and going like, he is so completely different
than us.
What the hell?
So she sought to understand his personality so that she could be a better mother-in-law
to him and maintain her close relationship with her daughter, unlike so many other mothers
had done to that point.
Okay.
Now, these studies took up much of her time from that meeting forward, and much of Isabelle's
history after marriage is largely static.
She was a mom, she raised kids, the standard package.
However, Isabelle had a deep and abiding love of writing fiction. And in 1928,
she entered into the National Detective Murder Mystery Contest with her first
novel, Murder Get to Come.
It won and got published serially the next year.
She also got $7,500 and that's in 1928 money.
That's okay. Yeah. It's roughly $130,000 in today's money.
Oh, damn. Yeah. And she got a contract for a second book and evidently the late 1920s was a
financial paradise, the benefits from which we would never end in that decade. Although I did
read something about that 7,500 getting invested in the stock market and completely
evaporating the following year, but I'm pretty sure that's a one off that probably didn't
happen to many people at the time.
Yeah.
Right.
Now, incidentally, the runner up was Ellery Queen for the novel, The Roman Hat Mystery,
which of course.
Really?
Yeah, which this is why Queen sought another publisher.
I thought you'd like that.
Ellery fucking Queen, second place.
Okay.
Yeah.
All right.
Well, it's like the 1979 San Francisco Comedy Competition.
Do you know who won first place?
Nobody does because-
The second place was Robin Williams. Yeah. Yeah. So now
Briggs tried to interest Myers. So mom tried to introduce daughter in type theory, which
I still see as largely the same thing as temperament ideology based out of the humors. But Myers
wasn't too interested during that time. However, when World War II broke out,
she shifted and Briggs and Myers began collaborating as mother and daughter.
And this may have been due to the fact that Myers had read an article
about getting the right kinds of people into the right kinds of jobs
to maximize the U.S.'s home front contributions to the effort to defeat fascism.
Specifically, this was aimed at getting more women
properly placed in the workplace.
Interesting.
And this kind of makes sense if you're the kind of person
who doesn't mind loud noises and assembly lines,
not a bad place for you.
But if you're kind of nervous and twitchy,
that's the worst place for you, but we could get you a job
in the Steno pool
and you could still contribute, you know, shit like that.
Like personality type makes sense
when you're trying to maximize
a totalitarian democratic regime.
And it was a totalitarian regime.
We put every, it was total war.
We put all our effort toward that, right?
And I mean, the fuck rationing was there.
They told industries what to make and what not to make. It was totalitarian. That being said, it was to to fight worse
stuff. But yeah, personality typing of that type to to help get the machines running right
is yeah, I don't see it as a particularly bad goal. By the way, Briggs had a degree in agriculture and Myers had studied political science before
leaving school to get married.
Okay.
Okay.
So in 1945, they ran the first tests of personality type that they developed on medical students
at George Washington School of Medicine.
They had 5,500 students tested and the two of them spent years researching
and trying to deduce from these surveys that if there were any patterns to who would drop out of
medical school. Now keep in mind at that time they didn't know how long the war would go, right?
There was still the specter of the Japanese theater
taking until 47 probably, maybe 48.
Right, right, right.
Now, Bear's mentioning that this industrial approach
to behavior and personality is still leagues better
as an approach than the prior model of just expecting people
to simply handle the abuses of the system or leave.
These two surveyors were specifically trying to find
what would include more people and enable them to work better
at the jobs that they were best suited for.
And over the next 20 years, from 45 to about 65,
the two of them collaborated to hone and sharpen
and clarify and make useful what we would come to know
as the Myers-Briggs type indicator, the MBTI, or what we colloquially
refer to as the Myers-Briggs personality test.
Yes.
The first publication with it named as the MBTI came out in 1956, when Henry Chauncey,
the founder of the Educational Testing Service, started using it for his private nonprofit
assessment firm.
God, do I have a problem with stuff like this? Yeah. service, started using it for his private nonprofit assessment firm.
God, do I have a problem with stuff like this?
Yeah.
And he and they collaborated to create the first manual for the MBTI in 1962.
And this led to Donald McKinnon of UC Berkeley and one of the foremost experts on the psychology
of creativity at the time and other big wigs through the sixties and seventies taking it and running with it further.
Okay. Yeah.
Just so that we're both clear, this is the one that has ENTJ, ENFP, INFS, etc., etc.
Right?
Or, yeah, ESFJ.
Right. Yeah.
So, by the 1970 1970s the MBTI is
Essentially canon and plenty of institutions used or altered or popularized it and after Briggs died Myers continued the work Eventually writing the book gifts differing with her son Peter after she was diagnosed with terminal cancer
This is actually considered the definitive work on the MBTI and she died shortly after
its publication.
Now leading up to her death, reportedly, Meyer spoke to people of little beyond typing
and its importance and not only was it something that she thought was useful for vocation and
job placement, but at this point she thought it should expand into couples therapy, child
rearing and so on.
Oh yeah, well, I mean, it did. So yeah. And at its core,
it has four things. And it had become such a way of life for her that Myers credited
her own happy marriage to her awareness of personality types. Now, is there something to this? Perhaps, yes. I've certainly seen people go into
couples counseling or couples pre-counseling. Like,
apparently, you religious types will do this often as you'll meet with the minister and do that.
And they would talk about communication styles or personality types and things like that and it's just hey, you know when yeah when so-and-so gets upset that you don't put the cups
Lipside down the way they're gonna communicate is based on this and
Yeah, here's how you make a marriage work, right? Yeah, okay
Now I just I have to interject here sure that there is so much to say about couples counseling and the
evangelical movement, like in relationship between the two, and the the idea
put forward by by so many people in evangelical circles that,
well, you know, marriage is hard and you really got to work.
And like my first marriage because it's a patriarchy
and one of you might have trouble with that.
Yeah, well, one.
But I mean, that's where it's coming from from the evangelical part.
Oh, well, you're saying that part out loud.
Yeah. Well, you know, and the thing is my first marriage was was a lot of work.
My second marriage, I actually found somebody.
It was more mature.
I had had more life experience.
She was more mature.
She had had more life experience. She was more mature. She had had more life
experience. And so we knew what we wanted. We communicated like grown ups and and it's
not nearly that much work anymore.
I dare say that both are hard work. It's just that this marriage is the beneficiary of you
having done the hard work of growing up
Yes, there you go. Yeah, and and so much of the
so much of the the
cultural that guys within within that subculture of
Well, you know, this is just gonna be hard is well because you're pressuring people to get married when they haven't actually fucking dated
Yeah, like you get't taken themselves out.
Like you know what it is is I want someone to complete me instead of I want a complete
person.
It's I want someone to grow with instead of I want to grow alongside this person.
Like there are differences there.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So anyway, sorry. No, it's fine. We're blocked again. She she actually Myers
Said that she was an INFP and her husband was an ISTJ
And that made it easier to understand and appreciate him knowing that
Along with the use of the MB. Okay. Um, I kind of I'm okay with this ultimately because it would be akin to
you got the Emily Posts comma Sutra and you figured some things out. Like, cool. there is validity to, well, my husband and I both learned about how we view ourselves and what
our worldview is and what lights us up and what doesn't light us up. And understanding that opens you up to being able to communicate in a more meaningful way.
I think the semi-mystical value attached to, well, my type is this and his type is that,
is like, no.
What's important is that you understand and value each other
based on what you know about each other and you've put in the effort to like listen to
that.
Right.
I mean, I would say that what she's doing is humorism is just with a scientific, you
know, foundation or scientific skinning.
Um, it's it's it's humorism with a lot of extra steps.
Yeah. Well, and again, I think there's something in the water
That's making people think along these lines. There's something that's deeply a trap. Yeah about this stuff. She get she did the version for
academic levels
Yeah, you know
Yeah. You know, um, so she remained married to her husband by all accounts quite happily until her death in 1980. The copyright to the test was then specifically passed on to
her son Peter. Now, right? Yeah, scientifically, it's been deemed virtually devoid of substance
and for a long while now. So yeah, for a number of years now, doesn't mean that it hasn't made him lots of money. It's
considered pseudoscience. Yeah, it's considered to pseudoscience
both due to its methodology and to its conclusions.
Organizational psychologist Adam Grant called it the quote fad
that won't die. He did that he said that in 2013. Organizational psychologist Robert Hogan said, quote, most
personality psychologists regard the MBTI as little more than an elaborate Chinese fortune
cookie.
Okay, that's cutting.
Yeah. Barbara Aaron, right? That's author Barbara Aaron, right? Point pointed out its flaws in her famous book, Nicol and Dime.
Now in fairness Briggs and Myers both wrote several disclaimers and warnings at the outside
outset of it once stating that the MBTI needed to be considered quote a framework for understanding
individual differences in a dynamic model of individual development and not something to use to screen out applicants.
So in fairness to them, they said, don't use this this way. And then everybody went and
used it that way. Oh, yeah. Well, yeah, they made they made money hand over fist doing
that. And what is it that we always say about authorial intent? Well, yeah. So, yes. Given how much stock both Myers and Briggs put into the importance
and the increasingly broad application of this test specifically advocated by Myers in 70s,
I wonder if some of that wasn't a professional cover your ass kind of move too.
Oh, I'm sure it was. Yeah, absolutely. 100%. Yeah. Now, of course, David
Kiersey developed his own sorter in 1956 after encountering the MBTI, and he called it the
Kiersey temperament sorter. Right. Again, it's literally temperament meets Myers-Briggs. He was
a personality psychology expert and a professor at CSU Fullerton.
He wrote two volumes titled, Please Understand Me, in which he followed the four temperaments.
Oh my God.
Literally linking them back to Hippocrates and Plato and blending them with the MTBI's 16 types
to create four categories with subcategories.
So the four categories, the artisan, the idealist, the rational, and the guardian.
Okay, artisans who were directive were called operators. Artisans who were informative were
called entertainers. Idealists who were directive were called mentors.
Idealists who were informative were called advocates.
Rationals who were directive were called coordinators.
Rationals who were informative were called engineers.
And finally, guardians who were directive were called administrators.
Guardians who were informative were called conservators.
Now, yeah, it curiously would later then further develop the ideas administrators, guardians who were informative were called conservators.
Now, wow. Yeah.
It curiously would later then further develop the ideas and came up with the quote, four
differing roles that people play in face to face interaction with one another.
End quote.
He said this in his book brains and careers in 2008.
Initiators, contenders,
accommodators and collaborators. So again, four. And of course,
each of those could be subdivided as well in a way that ties back
to all the Myers-Briggs terminology, 16 basic types again. And
all of this stuff is pseudoscience and all of it is
intuitively very fulfilling to those of us who love patterns
and love to see where we are in relation to others. Yeah. Now this shit is a whole section of borders
or at least it was now it's a whole section of what is now Mendocino farms in Sacramento. I don't
know. Um, I, I, now that borders is gone, I don't know. Yeah. But anyway, there was a lot of books on the subject of dividing ourselves into helotypes
in the early 2000s.
Self help for an unstable job market, for an unsteady dating pool, for finding the right
kind of therapist even.
And it's been going on since well before you and I were children. Hmm.
And I want to leave it there because in the next episode,
I'm going to talk about Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird.
And we will finally get to the subject of this podcast, the Teenage Mutant
Actress. All right.
So. So what have you gleaned?
Oh, what have I gleaned that?
Jung had something right when he talked about archetypes.
Sure, because on some kind of subconscious level.
These kinds of ideas are something we can't get away from.
I think there's an awful lot of other stuff about it that was absolute complete woo-woo,
but there's something there. The other thing is so much of this is built on an idea of
nature over nurture. There is so much of this that is, well, you know, this kid has this temperament.
Right. And, you know, your personality type is this thing. And, you know, you are an
INTP, you are an INFJ. Right. Or an ESFJ or whatever. And, you know, just like astrology, which was a huge big deal in the 70s amongst boomers,
this idea that, well, you know, that's such a Gemini thing for you to say.
There is this deep-seated nature versus nurture thing going on there.
But it's like, well, these are just qualities that are just inborn.
And, you know, there is some level on which
we we have parts of our personality or parts of our temperament
that like have just been there and we don't know why.
But then, you know, part of part of what I thought when you were when you were talking
about the Waldorf model in Austria, you know, and, and, you know, building a community to
make that work, you know, there is so much that a kid brings into the classroom
that the teacher has no control over.
Like at all. And that's all the stuff that's going on outside the classroom at home.
Right.
And the culture that the parents are inculcating in their child. And just like there is so
much nurture involved in all of this. And like the Waldorf School was
trying to nurture things in a certain way. But they came at it from this point of, well,
this kid is coming to us with this inborn temperament.
CB – Yeah, this inflexible.
LR – And it's like that, yeah, it's like that's where you dropped the baton is like,
let's talk about the societal issues that areon is like, let's talk about the societal
issues that are going on there. Let's talk about the attitude that the family has toward
education. Let's talk about like all of it. How are the parents disciplining the child at home?
You know, there are so many factors that are involved in all this. Well, it's interesting too, because like they were looking to address the structural
problems with prior education models and yet they still fell into almost the same exact trap.
Yeah, a lot of the same kind of trip. Yeah. It's like telling the Jedi Order like you guys are
too reliant on the force and they're like, OK, how can we use the force to fix that?
You're like, God damn it.
Yeah, like that's not it.
Stop.
Yeah.
Back up.
Yeah.
It's like there are certain things that are just being taken so much for granted.
That you know, you can't you can't get away from them. And it's just, yeah, it's inescapable because, again,
as you've pointed out a number of times, everybody's begging the question on so many levels. Yeah. Well, and to the point where that begging of the question has become archetypical.
Yeah, you know, that's part of the archetype. Yeah. Yeah, so it's just and again, it's weird.
I again, I think it's that whole
Intuition is easy to satisfy so you stop looking after that because this is good enough to explain what's going on
Like we all know someone who I could like I described melancholic
We all know someone like that
You know we all know someone who's cholera. We all know someone who sang when we all know someone who's like Maddox
Like honestly, I've just described two out of like the five
D&D groups that I've ever played with
Everybody fits into that, you know, I remember even talking about the wasn't even D&D group
It was a Star Wars group. I remember talking about a Star Wars group that I played with and I I
Said oh we are the elements
Yeah, friend his he he was absolutely air.
One friend was absolutely water.
One was absolutely fire.
And then there was me, absolutely earth.
And then I found another group
and it was basically the same thing.
And again, if you have an explanation that works,
you stop looking after that.
you know, if you have an explanation that works, you stop looking after that, you know.
So yeah. Yeah. And the other thing is when you all of this, all of these people talking about temperament
and all of these people talking about, you know, you know, humoristic, you know, type.
Who you are at any given moment is affected by who you're around. Yeah.
So like between you and me, for example, I'm generally the caloric one. Right.
More frequently, right? Yeah. When I'm around other friends, I'm the sanguine one.
You know, in other circumstances, some somebody else is, you know, takes over the caloric one.
I will admit, I'm almost never the phlegmatic one. Like, you know, that's just not not a role.
I'm good at playing. Sure, but like in a given group
Who we are changes from moment to moment like we code switch
But we also are are going based on a codified
Limit right there, too
Yeah, you even said someone else takes over that though that doesn't have to be taken over
But we think about it now.
Terms, we absolutely.
Yeah, that's that's the.
Yeah, that's that's the paradigm.
Mm hmm.
The lens that we're that we're reviewing it through.
But you know, an outside observer looking at my behavior
in other circumstances is going to see.
A different facet or different sides of my personality being more
more outward. Yeah, or more more prominently expressed maybe
in different circumstances, you know, when I'm when I'm at home with my wife,
right? And my parents come to visit, the relationship that I have with
them means that certain patterns of behavior come out. And I'm still the same person,
but the expression of my personality is different. And by saying, well, you know, this kid has this temperament. It's like, well,
there's so many parts of the picture
that you discard or
wind up softening the focus on. Right.
When you just, you know, apply the cookie cutter.
Yeah. Well, even if you say like, oh, well, we need to bring out these other aspects of their personality
and you allow for the fact that people aren't just single stories.
You're still sticking to those four paradigms.
Yeah, you know, so.
Yeah. All right.
You got a book you want to recommend?
Yeah, I do. I do. I want to recommend Tales from the Dying Earth by Jack Vance.
I mentioned him when I was talking about the fantasy of the 1950s in my episode on Michael
Morkock and Stormbringer and or Elric of Melon Abedin, Stormbringer being, you know, the
title. But Jack Vance is a very important figure in fantasy,
especially if you're a D&D fan.
When you read Tales from the Dying Earth, you will find all of the places
where Gary fucking Gygax like literally stole shit word for word.
Nice.
The the magic system in old D&D actually up through modern D&D.
And in Pathfinder and all of those all of those genera of games, it's all lifted straight
out of Jack Vance. It's referred to, in fact, as a Vanceian
magic system. Right.
So it it winds up in some ways that almost reads like, well, this guy's just writing
about, you know, his really high level D&D characters, you're like, no, no, I love the
characters work that way because of Jack Vance. Right.
So, yeah, it is really entertaining.
His world building is wonderfully weird.
His language is awesome.
Very evocative, very moody.
So, yeah, I'm very strongly recommending that, mostly for the fun of it.
How about you?
I'm going to recommend a play by Ben Johnson called Every Man in His Humor.
I believe it's from the 1500s.
Yes, it is.
And I attributed it to Shakespeare in an earlier episode.
God damn it.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah, it was Ben Johnson. All right. But, you know, a contemporary, but it's actually part of
the comedy of humor. So the English comedian Adele Arte, in some ways.
In? Yeah. Because you have the stock characters and stuff like that. But if you want a way to to get a
more entertaining and accessible read on it without having to read the MBTI,
I recommend that play.
So cool.
Do you want to be found?
And not at the moment.
No, cool. I do not.
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But feel free to go back through our archives and find whatever subjects catch your fancy.
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Just so people know, March 1st and April 5th, you can find me going back to capital punishment
at the comedy spot in Sacramento.
Nice.
Please check your local listings.
It's going to be quite a bit of fun.
We made you miss us this long.
So mark your calendar for March 1st and April 5th.
So nice.
For a Geek History of Time, I'm Damian Harmony. March 1st and April 5th.