Uncertain Things: "Joy as an Act of Resistance is the Dumbest Slogan of the Woke Era"

Summary

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Podcast Summary: The Gist (Peach Fish Productions)

Episode: Uncertain Things: "Joy as an Act of Resistance is the Dumbest Slogan of the Woke Era"

Date: April 4, 2026

Host: Mike Pesca (appearing on Uncertain Things with Adam and Vanessa)

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Overview

This episode features Mike Pesca on the Uncertain Things podcast (with hosts Adam and Vanessa). The dialogue explores themes of nihilism, annihilism, and their expression in modern culture—particularly through art, political activism, and social discourse. The conversation dissects the left and right’s flirtations with “burn it all down” rhetoric, the allure and dangers of radical chic in art, the muddling of truth in the digital age, and the psychological underpinnings of modern malaise. Special attention is paid to the slogan "Joy as an Act of Resistance," which Pesca brands "the dumbest slogan of the woke era." The episode weaves in examples from pop culture, current events, and personal anecdotes, all approached with measured skepticism and humor.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Introduction: Podcasting, Ghosts, and Skepticism

• Pesca introduces his own podcasting background, clarifies the distinctiveness of The Gist, and humorously comments on podcast naming conventions. [00:04–02:24]
• Describes new show How To—a question-driven, expert-paired, whimsical podcast. Example questions: how to protect elderly relatives from scammers; how to get ‘jack and buff’. [02:24–02:58]
• Playful discussion on ghosts vs. demons in Jewish and Mesopotamian traditions, with social commentary on how different cultures address the supernatural and exorcism. [03:01–06:54]

“When the ancient Mesopotamians did their ghost exorcism, there was a clause at the end that said, ‘And including any demon or spirit we might not have anticipated.’ And then any demon became the name of a demon. So this was one of the worst demons haunting Mesopotamia: Anydemon.” — Mike Pesca [05:58]

2. Nihilism, Annihilism, and the ‘Burn It All Down’ Mentality

• Adam distinguishes between nihilism (“nothing matters”) and annihilism (“let’s destroy the system because it’s irredeemable”), noting a historical and cyclical pattern in Western culture's revolutionary impulses. [08:58–11:49]
• Pesca discusses how both right and left now express this destructive impulse, highlighting the ‘manosphere’ and black pill attitudes as examples from the right. He attributes the current proliferation of radical negativity to connective technology, not solely to worsening material conditions. [11:49–15:41]

“We just live in an age of rampant information... crazy negative ideas of burn it all down really just were kept cauterized in their little bubbles. But now they can cross-mingle.” — Mike Pesca [14:19]

• The panel debates whether artists meaningfully perpetuate annihilist tendencies, or if radical posturing is more aesthetic and traditional to artistic rebellion (punk rock, hip hop, etc.). [15:41–18:45]

“The pose is punk rock. I love a lot of punk rock. I don’t subscribe to any of the policy prescriptions of punk rock... you can’t really take the art too seriously. You never should.” — Mike Pesca [23:34]

3. Symbols, Social Pressure, and the Digital Manufacture of Meaning

• Adam and Pesca explore the adoption of loaded political symbols (e.g., the ‘Red Hand’ for Palestine) by artists and celebrities, and how the meanings of these icons can get sanitized, distorted, or rebranded via social pressure and algorithmic information flows. [18:45–23:10]

“If a regular decent person who just thought, I don’t know, Free Palestine... researched that Red Hand of what it means... what they’d find by looking at ChatGPT and Wikipedia would be a contradiction of what you said… that becomes what is asserted to be the truth.” — Mike Pesca [20:27]

• They expand on how the democratization of ‘truth’ via platforms leads to confusion, relativism, and nihilism—undermining meaningful discourse and enabling radicalism. [23:10–23:34]

4. Artistic Pose vs. Literal Revolution

• The hosts contrast performative activism (as displayed by celebrities) with ideological radicals who earnestly call for system destruction. The implication: many actors and musicians endorse aggressive symbols but lack substantive revolutionary intent. [23:34–26:07]

“A lot of times the people who avow their most nihilistic sentiments... are making very comforting kind of non-challenging Marvel superhero type art.” — Mike Pesca [25:19]

• Adam argues that, regardless of intent, embracing destructive cliches and icons can have concrete cultural impact—possibly paving the way for ideological or even violent escalation. [26:11–29:24]

5. The Slogan: ‘Joy as an Act of Resistance’

• Vanessa observes a trend of “defending joy” among the exhausted left—a counterweight to the overwhelming negativity of public discourse (“It is part of the revolution to take care of yourself. It is OK to have some fun and joy so that you can, you know, fight against capitalism.”) [31:39–33:09]
• Pesca reveals stumbling across the slogan “Joy as an Act of Resistance” and branding it “the dumbest one” of the woke era. [32:48–33:09]

“As I was having this conversation, I looked down... and that was on the top. I’m like, this is it. This is the dumbest one there is.” — Mike Pesca [32:48]

• Adam pushes back, calling it self-pitying, and notes that misery is the human condition—what matters is how we cope, not whether we can abolish suffering. [33:17–34:14]

“People have been miserable from the beginning of the world... The question is, do you burn down your town because you’re sad?” — Adam [34:17]

6. Emotional Malaise vs. Material Conditions

• Discussion pivots to whether current radicalism is rooted in material reality or existential angst. Vanessa highlights that “all the stuff... is very lightly connected to material condition.” [33:27–33:45]
• Adam asserts that many lack the psychological tools to deal with malaise and therefore seek external enemies. The conversation points to education, cultural messaging, and civilizational values as sources for better emotional regulation. [34:14–35:39]
• Pesca quips that slogans like “Joy as the act of resistance” are just an inversion of older, glib pop philosophy (“Don’t Worry, Be Happy”). Americans, in contrast to Israelis or Poles, seem less resilient, more disconnected, and thus more susceptible to malaise and nihilistic rhetoric. [35:41–36:20]

“When nothing is real and everything is possible, into that maw comes the idea of the black pill and that we live on stolen land.” — Mike Pesca [36:20]

7. Labor, Unionization, and the Failure of Revolutionary Posturing

• Pesca shares insights from an interview with labor journalist Noam Scheiber: college-educated workers, disillusioned with the jobs market, turn to collective action and occasionally radical posturing. Yet, the drive for “revolutionary moments” rarely translates into tangible material benefit (e.g., wage gains). [36:57–37:47]

“When it comes to the revolution versus a $3 raise, which one do they choose? He didn’t know the answer... there’s no clear evidence that they chose their material conditions.” — Mike Pesca [37:27]

• Panel notes that performative gestures may actually impede practical negotiation and underscores the symbolic, often emotionally driven nature of much contemporary activism. [37:47–end]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

On the commercialization of nihilism and joy:

“Joy as the act of resistance is the answer to don’t worry, be happy. It is be happy so that you can worry. Use your happiness to fuel future worry.” — Mike Pesca [35:41]

On the meaninglessness of symbols in the digital age:

“Facts are determined, especially technologically, just by taking a median of what is asserted online.” — Mike Pesca [21:35]

On the history of artistic radicalism:

“Artists have always been drawn to chaos... enthralled by that life and those statements… but I wouldn’t take them seriously.” — Mike Pesca [23:34]

On collective emotional ennui:

“I’ve noticed people are physically feeling weighed down from the level of discourse and how negative it is all the time… on the left, I see a lot of people coming up in defense of joy.”— Vanessa [31:39]

On generational malaise:

“People have been miserable from the beginning of the world... The question is, do you burn down your town because you’re sad?” — Adam [34:17]

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• [03:01] — Ghosts & Demons: Cultural differences and exorcism
• [08:58] — Defining Nihilism vs. Annihilism
• [11:49] — Rise of annihilism across the political spectrum
• [14:19] — Technology spreads burn-it-all-down sentiment
• [18:45] — How art and artists channel radical destruction
• [20:27] — Symbolism, social pressure, and digital “truth”
• [23:34] — Artistic radicalism: pose vs. sincerity
• [25:19] — Celebrity activism—meaningful or performative?
• [31:39] — Leftist malaise and the “defense of joy”
• [32:48] — “Joy as an Act of Resistance” - dumbest woke slogan?
• [35:41] — The American mental health malaise, slogans, and resistance
• [36:57] — College grads, labor organizing, and failed revolutionary postures

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Tone and Takeaways

• Conversational, sardonic, and factually rich, the hosts approach sensitive topics with intellectual candor, a dose of gallows humor, and a willingness to critique all sides.
• The core warning: radical chic and annihilist sentiments, even when performative, risk seeping into the culture and can enable or empower less metaphorical forms of destruction.
• Amid the emotional fog, participants call for discernment, skepticism, and context—reminding listeners that not every historical pattern or social slogan should be taken at face value.

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Transcript

[Mike Pesca]

Hi, it's Mike. It's Saturday. It's the Saturday show. And we bring you some other shows that I've done. I've done a few, but then again too few to mention, too few to play in their entirety here. So I'd like to play for you a show called Uncertain Things, which is an app title for the show and it's a modest title. It's a title that doesn't try to say too much, but I have to say every time I am told by someone, reminded by someone, asked by someone, hey, are you going to be on a dom show? I'm like, yeah, love Adam show. What the hell's the name of it? That's the thing. When you name something uncertain things, unless you really, really know what the name is, you're is kind of uncertain as to what the thing is. So I give you. We can't play all, but I give you some. A portion, but a nibbler of the certainty. That was my appearance on Uncertain Things.

[Adam]

Hey, Vanessa.

[Vanessa]

Hey.

[Adam]

Today we have Mike Pesca, a long term host of the Gist who's now also hosting the how to podcast.

[Mike Pesca]

Wow, I incepted, I think I accepted that introduction.

[Adam]

I have no idea where it came from. The puppet master Mike is the award winning journalist host of the longest running daily podcast, the Gist. Is that true, Vanessa? Can you fact check?

[Vanessa]

Oh my God. On the spot. Absolutely not.

[Mike Pesca]

There's a qualifier there. It's the longest daily running news slash analysis or news and analysis podcast because they're. They're Keith and the Girl is a podcast where Keith talks to the girl. Apparently I haven't listened in a few years. That's been going on longer. I know that one. There are a few. And then there are a bunch of podcasts that were radio shows and they just put them on podcasts and they're still going. I acknowledge that. But we're podcast, we start as a podcast and we'll die as a podcast in a.

[Adam]

In your new show and how to tell us about it.

[Mike Pesca]

How to kind of. It's not self explanatory because I'm here to explain it. People ask a question such as some of our other questions we've entertained so far is how to protect my elderly relatives from scammers, how not to say when I talk, how to do a little ghost busting at home, how to get buff and jacked or maybe jacked and buff, you know, some of the more. And then we pair this question asker with an expert and have a little bit of whimsy along the way. So that's the idea of how to.

[Adam]

Is the. Is a non expert somebody. This person who asked the question.

[Mike Pesca]

We call them the civilian. Yes. They're both our guests. And someone will come on and say, I live on a military. An abandoned military base and I think I'm experiencing ghosts. And then we go out and we find an expert with the British Museum who wrote a book about ghosts in Mesopotamia. And we try to figure out if there really are ghosts in the military except installation. But you know, it's always about something else. So that one. Was it really about ghosts or was it about our. My skepticism versus the vast array of humanity for all time overwhelmingly believing in something like ghosts. I also was just hearing about how Ernest is a. Shackleton saw ghost when he was in the. When he was on one of his expeditions. And then days later he asked the other two guys and like we saw the same ghost. But scientists have figured it out that what we do is kind of project. When we're in extreme situations, we project human forms visually outside ourselves for some reason. And they could actually stimulate this in the lab so we could make someone see a ghost when it's not a ghost.

[Vanessa]

Interesting. My sister had a ghost experience, but it wasn't a visual. It was a. It was weird. It was like a physical interaction which was also in a moment of distress.

[Adam]

Was it was a ghost or a demon, like Tucker Carlson?

[Vanessa]

No, definitely a ghost.

[Mike Pesca]

The demon question actually came up because our Mesopotamian expert made a clear distinction. Ghosts are different from demons. And he laid us all through it. And like in ancient Mesopotamia, one might hire what we consider an exorcist or someone to help you with ghosts as we might hire a contractor or even some work. Yes, it was very. It's just very common and be kind of silly not to since obviously ghosts exist and you got to deal with them.

[Adam]

This was never a subject of interest or serious concern for me. But. And you know, in my Jewish upbringing there's always an emphasis you're Jewish. On rejection of ghosts. Like it's an interesting little point of history where the priests wrote all the liturgy, really wanted to eliminate the profession. Maybe it was like a guild thing. They wanted to eliminate the profession of exorcism and witchcraft and all that stuff. But obviously it still went on. So like you don't see it in the texts because they're trying to ignore it, but you have actual records of all the Jews of the secretly worshiping angels and putting charms against demons. So it's really Interesting. Like the little shadowy world of ghosts and demons that they clandestinely, heretically believed in. And they all have the weirdest freaking names because you all have the Christianized name, like Azazel. We have those sounds for demons, but. But the. The real Mesopotamian secretly Jewish demons had, like, the weirdest freaking names with so many syllables that I can't pronounce.

[Mike Pesca]

Yes. This is where abracadabra comes from. And we even got into. There's some aspects of the names. Like there used to be when the ancient Mesopotamians. Mesopotamians did their ghost exorcism, there was a clause at the end that said. And including any demon or spirit we might not have anticipated. And then any Gh. Any demon became the name of a demon. So this was one of the worst demons haunting Mesopotamia. Was any demon? Because it was kind of named in the contract. I think it was like, the point was to haunt the lawyers, which might be a good thing.

[Adam]

My favorite is a guy called Ket of Meri, which is, first of all, is very silent. It's like. It's. It's bitter, but it also sounds kind of slimy. And he would show up in the shadows during the High Holidays. So we need to avoid the shadows, because that's where Ketam will get you.

[Mike Pesca]

So were you saying that the early Jewish people were like, yeah, yeah, yeah, I know, Rabbi. No, this is your teaching. But come on, we got to do this. We. I mean, what, are we going to be idiots and leave ourselves vulnerable to the ghosts?

[Adam]

Yeah, you. Of course. They are hedging their bets.

[Mike Pesca]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. This makes sense.

[Vanessa]

Does the mezuzah have any talismanic properties or not at all?

[Adam]

No. I mean, it is a talisman, I suppose, but it is technically kosher in the sense that it is just a line from the Torah.

[Mike Pesca]

Okay.

[Adam]

It doesn't refer to all those unmentionables.

[Vanessa]

Okay. It doesn't, like, prevent vampires from coming through this restaurant?

[Adam]

No, it doesn't prevent vampires. Oh.

[Mike Pesca]

Is the portion in every mezuzah the same?

[Adam]

I think so. I think it's supposed to be interesting, but, you know, that's not my profession.

[Mike Pesca]

You're not a mezuzahist. How to.

[Vanessa]

How to.

[Mike Pesca]

Yeah.

[Adam]

How to.

[Mike Pesca]

Mezuz.

[Adam]

So, you know, we brought you here to celebrate your new project, and we, you know, encourage all our listeners who are curious or have questions, including how to get me to stop in the middle of a sentence, to send them to Mike and maybe. Maybe you'll get to be heard. Where does one send their Queries.

[Mike Pesca]

How about how. Toikepeska.com how to@mike pesca.com and we're also specifically looking for people who want to ask certain questions like how to get jacked and buffed. We have a parenting expert, Ophira Eisenberg, who will give some parenting advice. We just need some good parenting questions. So if you have any good parenting questions questions, lay it on us. And we have actually, I don't think this is the technical term a poopologist, but someone who has studied the best ways, methods relating to the gastrointestinal, intestinal.

[Vanessa]

But parenting is interesting. I'm a new parent.

[Mike Pesca]

Boy or a girl? Vanessa.

[Vanessa]

I have a one year old boy.

[Mike Pesca]

We would take. We would take either by the way, questions about either.

[Vanessa]

I thought you're taking your. Take him.

[Mike Pesca]

Yeah, we take a boy, we'll take

[Vanessa]

boys, we'll take girls.

[Adam]

We need associate producers. We'll just take it.

[Vanessa]

I mean they're probably about as. As good AI at this point.

[Mike Pesca]

Uhhuh. We'll raise them to be associate producers. One step ahead of what Claude can do.

[Adam]

So last time we had you on, I guess last time I had you on because Vanessa was. During her maternity leave, we got sidetracked into I think a 20 minute discourse session about the question of nihilism that actually nudged me to try at least to articulate my thoughts a little more clearly on what it is that I worry about in nihilism. And it helped me distinguish the line between any kind of nihilistic behavior that simply seems to be either power driven or unprincipled, moral abandoned, that seems to be getting a lot of American political discourse these days. And the thing that I am actually concerned about, or more concerned about, which is the phenomena that I clunkily try to term annihilism, which is taking it a step further, being so enmeshed with your hatreds, your frustrations with your culture war, with your hostility towards the world around you, that you have reached the conclusion that the only solution for the world's woes is burning it all down. That, yeah, that and the more I thought about it, the more I saw it related to a thread that runs through Western culture that is the, you can say the revolutionary thread, a truly bloody, purging, redemptive sort of revolution bringing the kingdom of heaven to earth that is associated with, on one hand, you know, some of the utopian movements, but also just a deep aesthetic desire to break through the shackles of the oppressive every day and see the system burned and see the institutions Topple and either usher in a new, better world or just relish in the bloody carnage in itself. Because it's better than our oppressive everyday. And maybe it's just something that our society goes through every few decades, every few hundred years. Maybe it's just something cyclical that our society needs to experience. But it seemed to me that there's been a rise in accepting that kind of purging, total burn it all down energy in the public discourse over the past few years. And it is that that my attention is drawn to. So having I sent you the article after I wrote it, we. We chatted a little bit about that. I wonder if. If you have new opposition to my thesis.

[Mike Pesca]

Yeah, I don't know if it's opposition. Since we talked, it's definitely. That concept has definitely evolved and I think been embraced by right and left. I don't know if you were aiming at one end of the political spectrum more maybe back then, in our pre. Pre post woke era. So maybe our woke era there was more campus radicalism and explicit calls to burn it all down from the left, whereas conservatives wanted to conserve. Maybe it's the case that we're seeing a lot more nihilism on the right. But if you look at the manosphere, and I just saw that documentary by Louis Theroux, the specifics, I don't know. Did either of you guys see the Manosphere documentary?

[Vanessa]

No, my sister recommended it, but I didn't watch it because it looked very cringe. I wasn't sure if I could handle it.

[Mike Pesca]

He does. Well, he's very skilled at making himself look like the patsy or the schlub, but to great effect and then turning it around on the person who's kind of trying to attack him. So yeah, in the manosphere, there is a nihilism. There is the idea that we're all being controlled by a sinister cabal who wants to keep you down. And of course, how many steps from sinister cabal to the Jews? Not very many in the manosphere. But we meet some, you know, pretty significant players, though not the biggest. So for me, I had never heard of these guys. I'm like, wow. So that's how they operate. I see how they're. How they do their thing. They're kind of. Not different from the different kind of Svengalis who existed. The. The anti women's Svengalis, the investment Svengalis. Great way to lose your money. Great way to lose, you know, any sense of morality or proportion. But y. There's a lot of nihilism There sometimes this is called being black pilled. I do think that most of it is, you know, you'll get intellectual people telling you that it's a logical reaction to how bad material circumstances are. Right. Whenever things are this bad, there's a call for revolution. Or in the first book about the meritocracy, the idea was the meritocracy gets too crazy. By 2033 there's literally going to be a revolution because the people who aren't deemed to be meritocratically blessed will rise up. I think that's all nonsense. I think we've, we just live in an age of rampant information. So 20 years ago we were all atomized. Not Adamized, but atomized and we couldn't connect with each other. And crazy negative ideas of burn it all down really just were kept cauterized in their little bubbles. But now they can cross mingle. And so it seems. And we are getting more of it, but not for any real reason. I don't think, you know, I think that it's worth rejecting. But I think most of our. Not even going to say serious. But everyone who's not explicitly endorsing some sort of black pilled or some sort of revolutionary fervor I think inherently rejects this. Right. They don't have to say it. So let's just take an example. Some actor who you like, who's actively going out there and creating art and trying to create meaning, they're not nihilist. And so that's the vast majority of the people that we admirer or some athlete, every athlete is, who's successful, is trying really hard at their craft. They're not nihilists. Their work has meaning. So it's this odd thing and I've talked too long, but the nihilists and the burn it all down crowd are easily identifiable as such, whereas the, the counter argument is just doing their thing and imbuing their life and other people's lives with as much meaning as they can.

[Adam]

So I think you actually pointed to one of the areas where we disagree. I think that there are many artists and artists is a great example because some of our artists today are the worst offenders to me in the propagation of annihilism. And the reason that is the case is I'd say twofold. One, many artists are just being drawn by whatever they consider to be the salient trend on their political side. A fine example of that is all the Hollywood actors who had the bloody hand tattoo or the tag or you know, pin worn to their Hollywood appearances or red Carpet appearances over the past two years. Whether or not they understood that the Red Hand that they were using to supposedly support poor Palestinians under Israeli onslaught was actually a symbol derived from the literal lynching and dismembering of Jews. Were Red Hand symbolizing the bloodied arm of one of the dismemberers celebrating the death of the Jews? And this is the symbol that they decided to adopt. Did they adopt it knowing that they were quite literally celebrating annihilism? No. I mean, maybe some of them. But even if they didn't, they did it because they comfortably embrace the imagery of it because of some kind of peer pressure, psychological pressure or social movement influence. Second, though, and to me, this is the more interesting thing that I was trying to get at in my article, I think artistically there is something seductive about the nihilistic position. People are often excited about the stories of the French Revolution are excited about the stories of the rabble rising against the aristocrats and tearing out their skins and dragging them to the guillotine. Those imageries of purging society from the rot in a very violent way excites a part of the human psyche. And artists are often, you know, will be much more drawn to these kind of edgy, violent storytelling than. Or an aesthetics than to something that celebrates a status quo. The status quo itself seems to have some. Some kind of pejorative tinge to it for an artist.

[Mike Pesca]

It's bourgeois.

[Adam]

It's bourgeois, right? And shocking the bourgeoisie is the mission of the true romantic artist. So I think that the aesthetic passion, in addition to the social pressure, is actually driving artists that, you know, are. You can say that they're just chasing their artistic fascination and building meaning for themselves, but in the process, they are in fact perpetuating a lineage of annihilism. And I don't think that's trivial.

[Vanessa]

How are they perpetuating it? Are they perpetuating it in their art, though? Is. Is my question, because I feel like there's a lot of, like, you mentioned, like, the guillotine and the French Revolution. It's like, yeah, I think I. I actually just sent you like a comedy special from a guy who mentions the guillotine and the audience gets like, yeah, like, kill them all. Like, there is this, like, bloodlust in lefty circles, some of whom will be artists, but, like, well, where is the.

[Adam]

And I agree with Mike that it's not. I've never said that. It's just the left, I think. The. The left, yeah.

[Vanessa]

Left, no, and on the right. I Also agree that there's, there's a, there's a different typ of bloodlust. Sometimes they weirdly converge, which is also very interesting. But. No, but, but you were making the point of artists. So like, to what extent are we seeing, I suppose a, an aesthetic of annihilism or like some, something productively embracing the annihilation?

[Adam]

I mean, what's the difference? What's the difference? At some point if you get, if you get immersed in an artistic message and you get into your head that this is what, you know, a purge looks like. This is what, Sorry, not a purge. This is what redemptive end looks like. Anything short of that suddenly feels unsatisfying you, because you were raised on those images, you were raised on a narrative that this is how society heals itself. And then suddenly when your politicians compromise and you know your city is not immediately fixed or your country is not immediately fixed and you're not getting the most extreme results by your politician, you feel like, well, you're all corrupt. Because I have in the back of my mind this image of what a healed society looks like. In a healed society is one where the heads of my enemies are rolling down the street.

[Mike Pesca]

Yeah. So first of all, on that red hand, you know, it's really interesting. You're, I mean, you're right if you research the actual history of it. But it's been so sanitized that if a regular decent person who just thought, I don't know, free Palestine and It's sad that 70,000 people have died, research that red hand of what it means. And if it means what Adam says, they would find by looking at ChatGPT and Wikipedia, they would find a contradiction of what you said. Because what ChatGPT picks up is what is most constantly written. And I've done this, I'm like, wait a minute, I know what that means. And it is just contradicted by our sense making technology that while some allege this, others Mark Ruffalo have rebranded it as not that at all. And since, you know, there's whatever over a billion Muslims and 10 million Jews that wins, I mean that's kind of the definition of truth on a lot of our social media and Wikipedia and not even just social media, you know, AI. So that, that's kind of, I don't know, that might be nihilistic, but I've always.

[Adam]

That sounds quite different almost definitionally. I mean, first of all, before even getting to the analistic part on a nihilistic level, where you've just pulled the rug under the ability to, you know, land on or converge on a shared truth.

[Mike Pesca]

Right, like nothing matters.

[Adam]

Nothing matters, exactly. Of course, we know for a fact that this is the only reason that the. The Red Hand is associated with Palestinian circles is because of that one historical imagery.

[Mike Pesca]

That's where it started. I don't know if 20 years later or 15 years later, someone wanted to say it doesn't really mean that, and everyone believed them. That seems be a classic propaganda technique.

[Adam]

And of course, the same people will not, you know, will they have the same generosity when they see somebody with a swastika or waving a Confederate flag? Well, 200, 150 years ago, the Confederate flag was loosely associated with slavery. Arguably, some argue that the Confederate flag may be. May have been loosely associated with slavery, but people waving it today in Virginia are only expressing their association with a lost legacy.

[Mike Pesca]

Right, right, right. But that's because how facts are determined, especially technologically, it's just by taking a median of what is asserted online. And so you have more people saying the Red Hand doesn't mean that, then does, and that becomes what is asserted to be the truth. And that didn't happen with the swastikas.

[Adam]

So democratizing truth, I think, is one pathway to nihilism. Right?

[Mike Pesca]

Yeah, it definitely has a lot of downsides because truth is. Truth stands athwart the popular vote ought to. Yes, that's true.

[Adam]

Depend.

[Mike Pesca]

Yeah.

[Adam]

Right. So.

[Mike Pesca]

Well, no, the actual. The actual quality.

[Adam]

Right, right.

[Mike Pesca]

If you believe our agreed upon definition

[Adam]

of truth, assuming that we. Assuming we believe in such a notion, which obviously many academics will reject. Right.

[Mike Pesca]

That fits in with nihilism and annihilism and. And the postmodern idea of nothing actually being real. But let me just inject this always, ever thus idea. And artists have always been drawn to chaos to some extent, and they've always been drawn to bold statements and challenging expectations and being enthralled by that life and those statements. And it's always been like that during my life. And I've loved some very, I guess, radical statements, but I wouldn't take them seriously. I listened to the lyrics of Public Enemy, and I don't think that Farrakhan's a prophet that you think you ought to listen to, but that's what Chuck D said, and it fit the meter. And I'm like, all right, fine, Chuck D was doing a number of things, and I bet he did like Farrakhan at a time and maybe still does now, but Flavor Flav was just in it for the clocks and the ladies, right? So the pose is punk rock. I love a lot of punk rock. I don't subscribe to any of the policy prescriptions such as they are of punk rock. And a lot of those people have evolved and looked back, back and say, oh, that's what we had to do at the time. One of our most nihilistic seeming artists is Billie Eilish talking about how America or we're standing now on stolen land. But her art is a fun song, like bad guy. Right. Little electronica. So there are a couple of trends where you can't really take the art too seriously. You never should. You can't take the artist too seriously. You know, the comportment, the makeup of an artist I think is good to be a bit radical. And then a lot of times the people who avow their most nihilistic sentiments. So let's take Mark Ruffalo, Javier Bardem and Billie Eilish. They're making very comforting kind of non challenging Marvel superhero type art. So they would probably say they're not nihilists. I think that Mark Ruffalo thinks that they're not nihilists or a nihilist. They think they're, you know, in the tradition of those who are holding hands and being progressive. That's what they. He would say he is. And if they of. So it's a difference, right? The people online, the manosphere guys and a lot of the, you know, Zoran Mamdani's dad at least are explicit revolutionaries. And I think that Ruffalo is the sort of critic who definitely flatters himself by saying I'm on the right side of history and I don't want to tear it all down, but I'm just like civil rights activists of the 1960s who weren't nihilists. They believed in the system. And then he goes and plays the Hulk for the eighth time.

[Adam]

Yeah, while. While wearing a Confederate badge.

[Mike Pesca]

Oh, the redhead. Yeah, yeah.

[Adam]

The equivalent, equivalent of. But see, I mean with people like Ruffalo and many of the self congratulating Hollywood figures. Yeah, of course they're more complacent, smug and feckless than they are thoughtful revolutionaries. I think, you know, Zoran Mamdani's dad is a thoughtful revolutionary. I think he is a very, very much mindfully an annihilist intentionally in a nihilist. Whereas Mark Ruffalo is not an impressive, anything but an impressive actor. You know, that's all he is, but filling the void of his empty intellectual life with cliches. But my concern is that when you Fill your empty intellectual life with cliches. It does matter. Like if the cliches that you're adopting are the equivalent of a Confederate flag or a swastika cliche. And that's the thing that becomes, is the symbol around which you organize yourself and the groups that you associate yourself with. It doesn't matter if in your mind you are just locking arms with Martin Luther King in peaceful protest against segregation. What you actually are promoting is genocidal and nihilistic ideologies. And those. I don't think that immediately A, B and C, like A leads to B, B leads to genocide. I don't think anything like that. But I, but it is making horrible ideas more accepted. And when people are actively pushing towards the extreme ends of these views, you are creating an easier, smoother, less friction pathway for that to happen. You know, because tomorrow when the DSA and the other groups around this country who are true annihilists will say, the next demand is, you know, we've done Palestine, now we're going to demand attention to Cuba or attention to, or like support to China or to China's right to take Taiwan or whatever the next mission on the list is. They'll have a direct line into like culturally to Ruffalo, it's like, hey Ruffalo, you said that you were with us, you wore the hand, like why aren't you now supporting us with Taiwan? And that pressure does not necessarily mean that all those actors will align and the same energy of messaging will happen in the Oscars 2028. But it is possible that Oscar 2028 is going to be about we need to stand with the Chinese indigenous right to take over Taiwan. Right. It's not impossible. And I think that no way.

[Mike Pesca]

Not giving China's tentacles into the film industry. No way.

[Adam]

Exactly.

[Mike Pesca]

Never.

[Adam]

Not Hollywood, not our Hollywood. Right, right. So I'm saying it's like those things. I don't, I'm not hysterical about it, but I think ignoring it or thinking that, you know, it's just a stupid little pin. The artistic cliches that people embrace and make part of their day to day surroundings does shape people's expectations and behavior and the sort of pressures that guide their political choices and also the political choices that then get transmitted to the followers of these influencers. I, I don't think it's trivial.

[Mike Pesca]

Yeah, I, I wish Javier Bardem would not be as, as wanton in the expression of his beliefs, but I put him in a misguided tradition that thus far we've been able to deal with. And you know, I also have different virtues like pluralism and the acceptance of even bad views. So I really. How they express their anti Israeli or anti Zionist sentiment. And I think about Vanessa Redgrave who received an Academy Award and talked about the Zionist thugs outside who were protesting her latest project. And then actually Patty Chayefsky who wrote Network, I think he won the Academy Aware Award for that one. But it might have been something else. He got up there and said I wish Ms. Redgrave would use. Would not use the Academy Awards as a platform for her very boring arguments. And he got a much bigger round of applause than she did. That's. I think the thing that's missing were someone to say that from the stage, I think in general about, you know, Billie Eilish again talking about Stolen Land. I don't think such a person, unless they're, I don't know, Lee Greenwood or someone would be brave enough. It would have to be an extremely. Spielberg goes up there and says something like that. I just kind of can't see the opening for that being greeted pretty warmly in Hollywood. And yeah, I mean that's a, that's a bad thing. I'll give you all of this. These bad opinions that are essentially vaguely let's have a revolution or nothing is meaningful or we need to tear it all down and we're part of fallen people and everything like from America to Israel needs to go. They're depressing. But. But the one way I get around that feeling of depression is to contextualize them and say they're foolish and bound to fail. That doesn't mean I don't need to do anything like talk to you about it and think about it. And if someone, if it starts getting too much traction among people I respect say something. But that is how I think about them.

[Vanessa]

I will say that one thing that is a little interesting is I've noticed that people are physically feeling weighed down from the level of the discourse and how negative it is all the time. And I don't know if this is true on the right, but on the left, I do see a lot of people coming up in defense of joy. Like they, they feel like they have to couch why they're allowed to be joyful or experience pleasure despite how terrible everything is. And it's like it's. It is part of the revolution to take care of yourself. It is okay to have some like, fun and joy so that you can, you know, fight against capitalism. Capitalism wants you to be a tired, upset puddle and no, no, no, no, we must rise with joy to fight again. And so that. That, I think, is a very telling.

[Adam]

Joy and pitchforks.

[Vanessa]

Joy and pitchforks. Like, you gotta. You gotta have one at a time. Let's see. Joy is the act of resistance. Where did you find that?

[Mike Pesca]

This was a mailer outside. I was. I was talking to my wife. What's the dumbest slogan of the woke era? And as I was having this conversation, I looked down in a. In a pile of mail that. Not that we got, but like a apartment building where everyone pulls their mail that we were visiting. And that was on the top. I'm like, this is it. This is the dumbest one there is.

[Vanessa]

But. But that is that people need that right now. It seems like there's so much weighing everybody down. You're supposed to just be, like, in the mud.

[Adam]

So, so often, as opposed to the Middle Ages, when people were just uplifted and thriving. Like, I. I hate. I. I just hate this statement so much.

[Vanessa]

This is actually a critical point because I think all of the stuff that's happening right now is very lightly connected to material condition, which there's something you were bringing up, Mike. It's not about your material conditions at all. It's about the emotional surge that people are feeling.

[Adam]

Yeah, I mean. I mean, it is your. It is the emotional surge, but it's not the. That there is an emotional surge in the sense that there is a cause for the emotional surge. It is the lack of. Of psychological tools that those people have to cope with emotional surge. My point is that people have been miserable from the beginning of the world. The oldest texts that we have from, like, Mesopotamia, when the Ghosts Abound, people were writing about the misery and mawkish life that they were trudging through.

[Vanessa]

I mean, maybe the demons were even a nice distraction.

[Adam]

I mean, I'm sure that was part of their psychological cope with misery. I'm sad. I'm gonna invite somebody to banish all those bad vibes away. The point is that there's nothing new or unique about being miserable. The question is, do you burn down your town because you're sad? And if your only way to deal with your pathetic existence as a human is to take it out on your neighbors, then you have been poorly raised as a human. The whole experience of civilization is to teach you how to not externalize your pain and loneliness on your neighbor and fucking deal with it. So to me, every time that I hear the. Oh, but they were going through. They're feeling crushed.

[Mike Pesca]

Yeah, we all do.

[Adam]

It's the human Existence. We all do and we all have, since we have evolved from whatever kind of ape we came from, whatever simian creature preceded us. That is the human condition. If you can't deal with it, maybe it is something to say about the environment, the education system. And, you know, I do say that, and this is why I talk about arts, art, and symbology and what kind of messaging is being created. The point is that we do not give people the tools to cope with this misery without turning it out on their neighbors.

[Vanessa]

Yeah, yeah.

[Mike Pesca]

So a couple things. One, I think that joy as the act of resistance is the answer to don't worry, be happy. It is be happy so that you can worry. Use your happiness to fuel future worry. Now, Adam, you say this because you're Israeli and you feel connected to your fellow man and you have. You give meaning to the civilization with which you grew up and lived. Americans don't feel this way. We just feel angry and disconnected and have way more mental illness than Israelis do. In fact, Israel and Poland, right, have the least amount of worry.

[Adam]

Israel is like the third happiest country in the world according to the latest.

[Mike Pesca]

Yeah, yeah. Because, you know, they know the stakes are real. And when nothing is real, when nothing is real and everything is possible, into that maw comes the idea of the black pill and that we live on stolen land. So I interviewed this guy for. Oh, let me just do this. I have a couple of visuals here. It's not only how to. It's of course, the gist. Sorry to screw up the mic. And so I interviewed this guy writes for the New York show, for the

[Adam]

listeners, for the podcast listeners. The. Because some people still consume podcasts merely as an audio experience, Mike just changed. Changed the branding of his microphone from how to. To the gist. So we are now at a different phase.

[Mike Pesca]

Right.

[Adam]

Secondly, he is now showing us the book. Show us the book.

[Vanessa]

The Rise and Revolt of the College Educated Working Class by Noam Scheiber.

[Mike Pesca]

Right. So Noem writes for the New York Times. He's the labor correspondent. And what I got at, I read the book, I talked to him, and by the end of an hour long interview, I was like, I get it. I get what the thesis is, maybe even more than he intended, which is I asked him a question. It's all about labor unions. And he follows a couple of people that we might identify with labor unions. But mostly one of his characters is a Grinnell graduate who lived in a tent and toured with a puppet show for a year before and tried to be an actor. Before working in a Starbucks and then trying to unionize. And another one is a Marxist who wore an antifa t shirt to their Rhodes Scholar ceremony, who went undercover into a Starbucks to try to unionize. So it's all these unionizing college workers who are dissatisfied with the workplace. And so I asked him, when it comes to the revolution versus a $3 raise, which one do they choose? And it was. He didn't know the answer because there's no clear evidence that they chose their material conditions. So the whole thesis is something like, these people are so upset, in general, the state of the economy makes them upset. There's great information about how recent college graduates are in a worse position, and there's less of a premium for having gone to college than there used to be. And they feel betrayed by the you have to go to college, not just. Not just message, but the way they instituted it in schools. And that was misleading, and that didn't do people many favors. There's a lot of good economic explanations, even the people for. For since there's been college or been college graduates who just took jobs that you don't need a college degree for. And in the past, those people did so much better, but now they don't. And now they feel betrayed. But it's all of a piece. So when, for instance, the Starbucks union put out a tweet saying not just free Palestine, but some, that there was a graphic of bulldozer going through a fence, and this was tweeted out on, you know, October 10th, and it caused a huge kerfuffle with the corporation and the union. Some of the unions said, take it down. But what he quotes people in the book is saying, you know, this was great because the people who came into our store who really agreed with us gave us so much momentum. And there's a quote in there that said it provided the most revolutionary moment there was. And then I asked him, did it help their negotiating stance in trying to get $3 more for the workers who weren't so invested in the Israel question. And he said, you know, I can't. I can't say it did. In fact, the evidence is that it didn't, but it doesn't matter. So it seems like it's material, but when you stack up the material against all this other Michigan, all this other Depression, all this other the everything is fine, dog in the flames type way of looking at the world, I think the depression wins out. I think Greta Thunberg should be best understood not as a climate activist and someone with a deep insight into climate or Gaza, but she should be understood as a mentally unwell young person. And the fact that she became the poster child of the Children's Crusade is pretty telling. And that's it for today's show. Cory War produces the Gist, Kathleen Sykes runs the Gist list, Ben Astaire is our booking producer, and Jeff Craig runs our Socials. Michelle Pesca oversees it all benevolently, and thanks for listening.