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- [00:00]
Mike Pesca
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Benoit Denize Lewis
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Mike Pesca
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- [01:16]
Benoit Denize Lewis
This is the dumbest conspiracy theory I have ever heard. Because the Democratic establishment and Karen Bass wanted Spencer Pratt in the runoff. They don't want any part to do with Nithya Rahman. Why is that? Because just take a look here. Okay, Mayor ranoff polls Bass versus opponent versus Pratt. Bass would have crushed Pratt by 18 points. That's what the polling showed. Look at how she does against Nithya Raman. On the other hand, Rahman is ahead by four points. Bass has a real race on her hand if in fact Rahman is the one who advances. And of course the Democratic establishment is backing Karen Bass. But versus Spencer Pratt? She was crushing him. She wanted to face Pratt. She wanted nothing to do with Roman. That's why these conspiracy theorists, simply put, make no sense people.
- [01:59]
Mike Pesca
I mean, I saw Meghan McCain getting into it with one of the Pod save America guys. McCain was saying she knows people who totally disbelieve anything about Trump winning the 2020 election, but they believe this one. Well, I know hollow earth people who are also flat earthers, which doesn't make sense when you think about it, or when you think about it with our non earth lizard brains can't really process good Lizardian Euclidean geometry. The LA Times had a story today which I linked to in the gist list. Mike pasca.substack.com and the title was How a Misreading of Data Fueled False Claims about LA Mayoral Vote Count. It Wasn't even a misreading of data. Was much stupider and a bigger nothing slash Pratt burger than that. The votes at one count were reported a minute apart. So the Bass votes came in first and the Raymond votes came in with her. And then the Pratt votes came in a little later, like a minute later. But in that minute, people started shouting, whoa, Pratt get zero votes. The fixes in. He didn't get zero, you nut. Nix took a minute to report that argues that there was a simple election snafu. And from that we got the conspiracy theories. But that's not how it happened. The conspiracy theories were out there looking to attach themselves to anything because a Pratt loss was going to launch all the theories. We are in a conspiratorial age now. The one sentiment that I have been hearing among non conspiratorial types I also disagree with, which is that California has somehow so screwed up its counting that invites the theories. I think not. I think the theories were going to come. I think there was nothing that California could do to avoid the theories given the rules they have for voting. And the rules they have for voting allow for mailing in your ballot up to election day. So if it's postmarked election day, they count it. But then it takes time to go through the mail and then you got to open the mail and you got to count the mail. And when the mail comes in, of course that could change the totals of before when the mail came in. And if it couldn't change the totals, you wouldn't even have to wait for the mail to come in. If you're going to have a mail in system, you're going to have change in the totals and sometimes a change in the rankings of candidates after election day. So is the answer don't have a mail in system? If the most important thing is not to have any changes after election day, you don't. But of course that's not the most important thing. That's not why you would allow these ballots to be mailed in on, on election day. You're not going to suppress some conspiracizing that's going to happen anyway. And even when the conspiracy makes no sense, maybe even, especially as in this case, it's going to appeal to a certain factor, a certain segment of, not even the electorate, just people watching on Twitter, I say don't twist around your electoral process for that consideration. And so we should think of it this way. The election or an election is not, can no longer be considered election day. Also, governing isn't elections. We should be paying attention because of the elected officials govern, not because they are elected or because they win a race. And when they win a race, that race isn't held on that day. It's a little like how they have to calculate the decathlon winner not during any one event, but by the point totals and a complicated system. But then again, no one likes the decathlon, do they? But election days are the made for TV part or made for media. Now that TV is a lot less important. The analogy I think of is that a marriage isn't a wedding and governing isn't an election. We give over way too much importance to the acute activity when we should emphasize the longer process. That's what really affects us or the participants in a marriage. The contest of an election may be exciting or gradually less exciting for a former reality TV star, but that doesn't make it less fair, less democratic or less of the thing we actually need more of a careful accounting of the will of the people on the show. Today I have a full show interview with an interesting guy. Maybe you were thinking about that election in California one way and then you changed your mind. Or maybe you changed overall and you never believed in conspiracy theories. Or you always used to believe believe in conspiracy theories and now you don't. You're a different person. We could all change, right? Or can we? Benoit Denize Lewis asks and answers this question in his new book, you've changed the Promise and Price of Self Transformation. Benoit Denize Lewis. Up next. Every day as a small business owner feels like solving a puzzle. One moment you're cruising along and the
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Benoit Denize Lewis
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- [07:27]
Mike Pesca
So go ahead, surprise yourself. Get a quote in as little as 8 minutes@progressivecommercial.com progressive casualty insurance company and affiliates. Discounts not available in all states or situations. So in the annals of change, of discussing change, of thinking about change, there is of course one great text. I bring you to the final scene in Rocky 4. Rocky has just defeated the Great Russian and says to the crowd during this fight, I've seen a lot of changing the way you feel about me and in the way I feel about you. In here there were two guys killing each other, but I guess that's better than 20 million. I guess what I'm trying to say is that if I can change and you can change, everybody can change in the script Says loud applause Even by the Politburo. Is it true? Is it true? I mean, Rocky did beat Victor Drago, but how much can we change? How much did Russia change? Or Sylvester Stallone? I have more Rocky. Four thoughts. But, but before we get to that, let's get to Benoit Denize Lewis, who has written a new book exactly on this subject, though without as much Rocky content. You've changed the promise and price of self transformation. Benoit, welcome to the gist.
- [08:46]
Benoit Denize Lewis
Thanks for having me.
- [08:48]
Mike Pesca
So this is a fascinating topic. I think we're all kind of fascinated by it. And you lay out the conflict between the identity lifers and those who think that change is within us all the time and are maybe trying to sell us something. Which do you identify with or which did you identify with going in?
- [09:09]
Benoit Denize Lewis
Whether I'm sort of skeptical or, you know, if I'm on team people can change or team people can't. Is that essentially what you're asking?
- [09:15]
Mike Pesca
Yep.
- [09:15]
Benoit Denize Lewis
Yeah. I mean, I am, I, I, I am on both. And I think many people are as well. I think we, we're deeply conflicted about the possibility of our, of real change. And so we tend to categorize ourselves, you know, as, as being deep believers in the possibility of change or the idea that, you know, people are going to always be the same that they've always been. And I think I went in with, searching for answers about that question and ended up as confused as ever. I think that there are many ways that we can change. We can certainly change our identities. People change their belief systems all the time. People change after a psychedelic experience. People change after spiritual, religious experiences. People change their gender identity. People change their political beliefs. And so I was interested in exploring all of that as well as the ways that the rest of us, you, me. So, Mike, if you change in some way, you need buy in from other people. Most of us need buy in from other people, whether that's our families or strangers on the Internet. We need other people to agree that we have changed. And so the politics of this, the ways that we interpret other people's change attempts, is deeply fascinating to me. And it's throughout the book because it's, you know, we change in community. We often talk about the idea, oh, you know, you have to change for yourself. Well, yes and no. We change in relation to other people. We change based on the identities available to us on the identity menu. So, you know, change is a deeply, is done in community and is and depends on the buy in and the say of other folks.
- [11:14]
Mike Pesca
Yeah, change is a Schroderian principle in that it all is dependent on the effect of the observed and the observer. And early on, I think you were at a retreat and you texted, they allow you to text in a retreat. You texted your then boyfriend, now husband, and he texted something back, very sweet, very nice. Okay, don't change too much. I essentially like who you are. Which led to something that you just said, an opinion. Well, when we change, we have to get the buy in from other people. That is true to some extent. The change is just looking at their eyes and seeing their reflection of us. Have I changed? Do you think I've changed? And then there's the complicating factor that the people we chose, you know, sometimes our family is assigned to us, but our interaction with our family are dependent on choices. You know, we choose people for a reason. And we might like or think we like who we've become, but if, if our group of friends or social circle was pre selected for a specific reason, they object to the change that we are trying to be in the world.
- [12:20]
Benoit Denize Lewis
Yeah, yeah. And I think, I mean one of the interesting things that comes up just so much in talking to people who change, whether it's like I read about a bully who, terrible bully who becomes a leader of this Buddhist retreat center. Talk about an octogenarian who's trying to change her personality. People who've had wild shifts from left to right, politically spiritual changers. I became so interested in both the experience, like how they interpret that and sort of how they understand it. And then I kept asking people throughout the process, six years of working on this book, you know, what stays the same, right, what changes and what stays the same. So, you know, I write about Michael Glatz, who was a, you know, sort of a leader. I worked with him in a gay magazine when we were very young and, you know, progressive, seemingly the most comfortable gay man that I had ever met, really anti religion. You know, through a whole complicated series of events, he decides he's no longer gay and is conservative and evangelical. So he changes everything about himself, seemingly. Right. And then at the core though, he's a black and white thinker who like is a black and white thinker still. And this idea of personality, core personality, how much we can shift that. You know, there's a whole sort of cottage industry now saying, oh, you can change your personality. And there's a way in which that's partially true. If we really want to become like less neurotic, there's things that we can do to do that. But at Our core. If you look at these studies, people don't change all that much their core personality at the same time. That doesn't mean I can't change like someone can have the same personality, but I can wake up every day when with an entirely sort of different view of the world or a new idea of how I want to spend my time. And that often happens with people who have profound change experiences. Their core remains the same, but they just devote themselves to a different idea of the world. And that's. So that's someone who's both changed and not changed.
- [14:27]
Mike Pesca
So your former colleague who became somewhat of a poster child for successful, quote, unquote, successful conversion therapy, you rightly put your finger on that. His expression, his sexual expression, his self ID is gay. That obviously, and especially when you were working with him 20, 30 years ago, that seemed the most prominent thing. But there are fundamental aspects of the personality that are consistent and I think of people who've done that transformation politically. David Horowitz, who died as a right wing firebrand, started off as a 60s radical. Arianna Huffington, who started off as a conservative stalwart, wound up as a very liberal individual. Did they change or were they extremists like they were always given to, maybe in Ariana's case, just saying things that got a lot of attention. I think in Horowitz's case, extremists.
- [15:17]
Benoit Denize Lewis
Yeah.
- [15:17]
Mike Pesca
So then, right, it brings up the very thorny question of when you say, or when a person says they've changed, what is the fundamental person? What is the epiphenomenon? Just their personality expressing itself. And it always seems like you can always say we've always changed or never changed, depending on what rubric you look at.
- [15:42]
Benoit Denize Lewis
Yeah, yeah. And political identity changers are fascinating, and I devoted an entire chapter to them because interestingly, while political scientists have spent a lot of time looking at how we form our political identities, there's been comparatively little interesting research about how those change and political identity changers are unlike identity, other identity changers in a fundamental way, which is most of them say, I didn't change, everyone else change, everyone else went crazy. And there is certainly, you know, especially over the last 10 years, as we've seen, you know, Trump has sort of obliterated coalitions and, and there's, you know, it's, it's, it's a little less simple than it sort of felt 10 years ago to sort of identify politically. But oftentimes there is deep emotion. There is a need for a new community after being shamed by your community. There's so much more going on under the surface of political identity changes. And I was sort of shocked. As you know, you'll see pieces that are like, what happened to Matt Taibbi? And what happened. What in the world happened to Blank? And what happened to Blank? And there are these ex. Is, you know, typically from newspapers or magazines trying to. And then their friends are like, well, we can't figure out what happened to this person and that person and what happened and is it a grift and is it true and all of that stuff. But oftentimes, the folks who we're talking about, I'm always shocked. It's like in a lot of these interviews, it's like they're considering the question for the first time. They're like, oh, I mean, I didn't change my. And so we reflexively go on this when in fact, there is often much more under the surface. There's relationships have changed. There's often a shaming that happens by one's own side. And we are creatures that need community. And so the idea that one would go, you know, if. What often happens with political identity changers is they disagree with their side on one issue, and then that issue, they get shamed for expressing that belief. And then they say, well, oh, maybe my side is crazy. Maybe my side is lying to me. Actually not about this one issue, but about everything. And the other side sits there saying, yeah, your side is lying to you about everything and come over to join our side. And again, all of this is often done sort of on social media. And in a way that's. That's partly performative. So the rest of us sitting there trying to figure out if these things are real, and what they mean is it's endlessly fascinating and confusing. And so I devoted a whole chapter to it because we've seen so much of this over the last 10 years. I mean, as you mentioned, Horowitz, this has happened before. This is not a new thing. But over the last 10 years, the amount of people sitting in the front seat of their cars talking about their identity change on social media and their political identity change on social media, it's been nonstop.
- [18:42]
Mike Pesca
Yeah. And you write about this as during the COVID period, where you began questioning, oh, not if the vaccine scenes work, just if maybe schools should be shut down for as long as they were. And then people got in touch with you and said the classic, you've changed, man. And you probably thought you have.
- [18:58]
Benoit Denize Lewis
Well, there was a we, you know, I. I am, you know, I did not go to the right after that experience, but partially that's because I. I mean, I talked a little bit about it on social media, but it was more private with my friends who were saying, you know, I had one friend who was, like, worried I was going to become a Trumpist just because I had, you know, it was the first time, actually that I disagreed with sort of my tribe's take on an issue. And it was, to me, it was just so. Just I was completely disorienting because I had a different view than the people that I usually agreed with. And this was like, you know, again, in interpersonal relationships, like, how much do I share that? And there was pushback from my friends. And anyway, I try to sort of figure out, like, why did I not, at my core, even as I disagreed with my part, I mean, you know, I'm a Democrat. I've always voted Democrat. At the same time, I have always loved people who disagree with me politically. And there's ways in which, you know, I agree with centrists and conservatives on some things. So expressing this was, like, deeply disorienting. But, you know, for many people, it was much more consequential. You know, they had to, like, change where they live, change where they work. You know, this. This, like this identity shift about one thing about a person can cause one's life to blow up and everything to change. And so I, you know, we just have a lot of not very good reporting on how this happens and why this happens. So I tried to sort of fill that gap with this chapter.
- [20:44]
Mike Pesca
Did you hear becoming the quote, unquote, reactionary centrist, as they sometimes say, open your eyes to other aspects of what your tribe believed in that either. You didn't question so much before. It just wasn't high up in the list of things you were concerned about. And then you said, well, I think that one's wrong, too.
- [21:04]
Benoit Denize Lewis
I mean, yeah, people have that experience. You know, my dad, you know, I write in the book about how in so many ways, I've just become my father. And there's a way in which we, you know, there's, you know, we do all these things to change and then we just become our father. And my father had a, you know, he's very, very far progressive left. And he had a moment in the 80s where he voted for Reagan. And, you know, I talked to him about that and, you know, he's like, well, I never changed my identity, really. You know, it was. And again, yeah, because for him, the idea that he could be Seen as a Republican was. So it just, it doesn't fit for him. But, you know, we chatted about this time. You know, when I was a kid, he'd drive me to school and we grew. I grew up in San Francisco. And, you know, he'd have Rush Limbaugh for like two or three years on the radio. And he sort of talked about it as like, oh, we're just sort of laughing at Rush. But, you know, there was a part of him that, that, that, you know, went a little right for a period. So in any event, it's interesting the ways in which we judge those shifts. And we tend to do it in very knee jerk ways. So if someone is shifting in a direction that pleases us, it's a sign of growth and change is wonderful and they've really grown and finally seen the light. And if someone changes in a direction that displeases us, it's a trip down the rabbit hole. It's they've lost their mind or it's a grift. And so we have these knee jerk political reactions to political identity changes and to many kinds of identity changes. I don't think there's an issue where people are so certain about judging changes of others. And then, you know, we're really bad, actually, the data shows, and people who study this, we're really bad at knowing whether we've changed. Like, we think we've changed and then other people don't see it, or we don't notice that we're shifting and everyone else in our life sort of notices that. So we're actually not great at knowing how we change. And then if we do change, we create these narratives around it. Well, I did this, and then this happened, and then I did this. And it's often much more mysterious and complicated than that.
- [23:13]
Mike Pesca
Mm. Are there check ins tests that we could do if we're interested, to see if we've changed? I mean, the big five personality traits, I guess there is some self reporting on each of them and maybe if you take an inventory every five years, you can see what's going on.
- [23:28]
Benoit Denize Lewis
Yeah. And I think. I mean, I did something that was sort of awkward, but I. Midway through the book or towards the end of the, as I was reporting the book, I asked my friends, I'm like, have I changed the people that knew me best? And it was really. I had decided that I wanted. One of the changes that I wanted to do was to become like just a much, much, much better friend and son and husband, just much more. When I say Better, I mean, less selfish, more vulnerable. I wanted to sort of deepen my relationships, especially my friendships where I was kind of, I could be, I could be distant, I could sort of not give all of myself to those relationships. And I wanted to shift that. And I made that a conscious thing that I worked on in all kinds of ways. And so in the end, I asked my friends this awkward question, you know, tell me how I've changed. And I tried to tell them, you know, you can tell me the bad news too. And to a person, those friends and my parents and my husband, my husband in particular was like, yeah, you've changed. And thank God for it. So we can ask other people in our lives, but there's some data that shows that on subtle changes, they can feel big to us that other people don't see them. So I don't know, how can we change? Go to therapy if you can. Ask your friends if you've changed. You know, again, there's like ways that we can direct the bus of our changes and then there's ways in which we're really like, things happen to us that change us. We turn into our parents without wanting to. There's a whole sort of mystery about this as well.
- [25:11]
Mike Pesca
Yeah. So I just want to get to. You mentioned him a couple times. Your father is a well known. A lot of things. You know, a breath expert is one. And would it be fair to say guru if we don't take any of the pejoratives of that term?
- [25:28]
Benoit Denize Lewis
I mean, I would never call him a guru, but sure, if, if you want to say that term, whether he's
- [25:33]
Mike Pesca
a teacher who doesn't play Rush Limbaugh in the car on the way to work. Right. There are robes and there are incantations. But. Okay, so what did his example. How did. Apart from one's father is very important in one's shaping of one's development and view of the world. But how specifically did his relationship to change affect. Your going to use a word you write about in this book, your journey. My journey.
- [25:57]
Benoit Denize Lewis
Yes, I do. I do concede that the word journey is overused. I. Yeah, I mean there's, you know, my father from a young age. I was raised in San Francisco, very lefty parents. My father was deeply interested in inner transformation and all that stuff. And you know, he, I just ignored it as a kid. You know, I was, I, you know, when you're a teenager, you're not interested in what your dad's interested in. And you know, so I just ignored all that. And then he tried to get me to Esalen, which is this beautiful retreat center in California. And I didn't do that because it's your dad, you know, and you know, they're blind spots. And you know, I couldn't imagine just watching him sitting cross legged on a cushion telling me how to see myself clearly. And so, you know, and then, and then life happened and I started becoming interested in inner transformation and, and what that means. And I started to actually get interested in my dad's experience of what he had written and what he had worked on and. But you know, and there's all kinds of ways that I have just mirror. I mean, my interest is much more political than his. I mean he, he wouldn't write a chapter on sort of political identity changes and all that. So I'm. But you know, there so many ways in which I've just become my father and I write about them in the book and some are a little bit embarrassing. And you know that for a while that was like really disorienting for me. I'm like, not that I don't like my father, I love my father, he's a great guy. But like the idea that like, do I have any control over who I'm becoming? Right.
- [27:38]
Mike Pesca
How much of it is baked into the cake?
- [27:40]
Benoit Denize Lewis
Yeah. And that just is very disorienting just to sort of say, well, I can do all these things and it doesn't really matter because I'm just going to turn into the person I'm going to turn into. And there's a way in which that's true. And then there's a way in which I think we can. And I've seen it in my own life and I saw it in the lives of other people, direct changes that we want to see happen in our lives. At the same time, there are all these things that we do that happen to us. We're walking through the forest and we have a spiritual or, you know, some kind of mystical experience. I was walking down the street in San Francisco when I in a flash realized I was gay. I mean, talk about an identity change. Like in the span of two seconds came to this realization. And so people have these kinds of epiphanies and moments that do shift us. And again, those are not things that we're trying to change. They just happen to us.
- [28:31]
Mike Pesca
We'll be back with Benoit Denize Lewis talking about change in a minute. Ever notice how life's best stories don't happen in your living room? They happen on the open road, out on the water. Or parked under the stars. At Progressive, they get that you want to focus on the experience, not worry about the what ifs. That's why they offer quality insurance designed for your ride, whether That's a boat, RV, or motorcycle adventure with confidence. Visit progressive.com and see how easy it is to protect your favorite way to get away. Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates not available in D.C. prices vary based on how you buy. We're back with Benoit Denize A. Lewis, who's written the book. You've changed. And I gotta say, from the first part of our interview to now, Benoit, you're a totally different person. Okay, maybe not, but I do have this question for you. You've also chronicled in the book people who have very ostentatious outward changes, from a radically different look to maybe they've joined a religious organization that some might consider a cult. I love the chapter on name changing, but there are a whole bunch of different name changing type ideas. To go from Meryl to Marlene is one thing. To go from Merrill to Starchild, maybe another. You have the gurus, Werner Earhart, of course. Would he work Paul Stevens or whatever his name is. So have you found that the people with the most ostentatious outward change really actually have changed the most?
- [30:19]
Benoit Denize Lewis
Great question. Not always. I think one of the more interesting things that I experienced when reporting the book was I spent a lot of time with convicted murderers who had to convince parole boards that they had been transformed. Literally. Have to show that you're a new person.
- [30:39]
Mike Pesca
I mean, that is, your honor, a Cornish man. That's how it starts.
- [30:42]
Benoit Denize Lewis
Yeah. And so. And fundamentally, you know, I talked to a number of these guys and I sort of followed and I read all their parole transcripts and followed them after. And there were these interesting buckets of people. Like there's guys who I met who you know. Absolutely. You talk to everyone who knows them, transformed in ways that seemed impossible. Like, there are some California prisons, not all, there's many bad ones, but there are some California prisons where if you want to work on yourself all day long, you can. And some of these men take advantage of that and do it for 10, 20, 30 years. And they come out as people unrecognizable,
- [31:25]
Mike Pesca
and
- [31:28]
Benoit Denize Lewis
then have to. To convince a parole board just these strangers that they've done that. And there's all kinds of ways that that can be problematic. Right. Like it's based on sort of how we speak and, and how we perform our transformation and do our. Does my transformation narrative lock into a transformation narrative that we value in America. There's transformation, you know, narratives that we value and others that we don't. So watching these folks. And then there's the. There's the. There's the ones that it's kind of unclear. And, you know, the person one day seems transformed and the next doesn't. And these parole commissioners have to make these decisions. And then there's the politics of it. Some of the most transformed people in California prison system, you know, if they killed a famous person, it's almost impossible for them to. To be paroled. And, you know, the governor, whatever it's a Democrat or Republican governor, is often is going to overrule what the. The parole board said. So, you know, what can. There's a lot that. That I say we can learn from the experience of people who have to change their life. Their freedom depends on changing. And so with that comes all kinds of interesting things, like the, you know, the. The DA or the victim's family is saying, well, they're only changing to get out of prison, and that's that. Okay, yes, maybe in some cases, not
- [33:00]
Mike Pesca
all point of parole. Yeah.
- [33:02]
Benoit Denize Lewis
I mean, so they're only changing, or they're saying, you know, it's all a performance. It's not real change. And so. But, yes, this idea that, like, he's only changing to get out is. Is interesting because it. But it also fundamentally misses something. Like we're changing for other people all the time.
- [33:23]
Mike Pesca
Yes.
- [33:24]
Benoit Denize Lewis
And that doesn't mean that it's not real or. Okay. Like, we change because we don't want to die alone. We change because we want to get out of prison. We change because we have family members who believe in us in some way, and we want to do right for them. So this idea that we have to change for ourselves ignores the reality that is we are changing for other people all the time.
- [33:50]
Mike Pesca
Right. The prisoner is not so different, and it's not so different from the Heraclitus notion of no man ever steps in the same river twice because it's not the same man and not the same river. And when you're taken out of society, your environment changes, and then when you're put back in, maybe decades later, that environment changes. So even if. Then there is, like we were talking about in the beginning in Schrodinger, there's the calibration between who you are. You may have changed a little, and society may have changed with you or changed against you. And so everything's measuring against some other factors, hard for the parole board to figure out what the right answer is. But in your reporting, did you find any, through lines of the kind of prisoners, former incarcerated people, who were, the kind of change that a parole board is going for, and what's the commonalities between them?
- [34:40]
Benoit Denize Lewis
Yeah, great question. So the commonality is an ability to understand your childhood trauma, but not to blame your childhood trauma for what you ended up doing. So you have to have a deep understanding of your childhood trauma, then you have to not blame it for the crime that you committed. You have to throw yourself, your previous self, under the bus in every conceivable way at the same time. So that was a different person. That was a bad person. That was a person who was selfish. And I understand that now. And here's all the work that I've done to understand that person that I was before here. I understand my triggers. I've done decades of work on this. So you have to throw yourself under the bus. You have to demonstrate the right amount of remorse, but you also cannot be overwhelmed with shame. So because shame. And there's studies that back this out, the more shame that we feel coming out of prison, like, about what we did ourselves, the more likely we are to reoffend. So we want the person to have worked through the shame. And so they. They need to show the right amount of remorse, but they can't just be like, you know, a bowed head and a person who's like, I can't. I'm so sorry for what I did, and I'm sorry. I have so much shame about it. That's actually a red flag for commissioners. So working through the shame is incredibly important.
- [36:12]
Mike Pesca
So it's very difficult. And maybe the system can be gamed, though. Listen to these contradictions that you're laying out. You have to be remorseful, but not shamed. You have to recognize trauma but not use it as an excuse. So what about the idea was that was of. That was a different person then, but also I'm culpable now. It's another one for the prisoner, a dilemma. But what about for the rest of us? Is that useful to really define yourself as a different person? Is that real and healthy? Can that lead to real change?
- [36:46]
Benoit Denize Lewis
It's such a great question, especially in the context of, you know, the idea of a dead name. So trans folks who refer to their given name as a dead name. And. And it's really interesting because that's a very powerful, strong word that for. For some people, literally means that that former person is dead and no longer. And then there are other folks that I spoke to trans folks that I spoke to who, who complicated that a little bit and who didn't see it that way and said, the person that I was is not dead, I'm just different. And that, you know, I had to be that person to become the person that I am now. So it's a really interesting question about how to speak of our former selves and you know, how much. And I ask people often, I was like, well, even folks who professed a real complete departure from their previous self. And I would ask, well, what stays the same? And people would often say, oh, my sense of humor, my hobbies. It's a really interesting question, like whether that's useful. I think it is useful for some people to see that former self as a really. It's certainly useful in parole hearings to describe yourself that way. You really have to describe yourself that way as a completely different person. I think it's a lot messier and a lot less clear for many other kinds of changes. And as we've talked about, there's things that change and then there's things that stay fundamentally the same about people. But yeah, the language we use, you know, the person I used to be, I am a new person. Yes and no.
- [38:35]
Mike Pesca
What about addiction is in that case the words you say to someone else doesn't matter. It's just whether you reuse or not is that is what we know about effective change. Similar to the person who's addicted to a substance which is different from just being a kind of person who's worthy of parole. What have you learned about effective of change for the addict?
- [39:00]
Benoit Denize Lewis
Yeah, really interesting. I mean, you know, so I'll start with like Bill Wilson who created aa, like many people who created these systems, had an experience where he was transformed almost immediately. That's his claim. He claims a white light experience in a hotel room where his urge to drink vanished. So, and then there are these help self help leaders like Eckhart Tolle and Byron Katie, who both claim. Eckhart Tolle wrote the Power of Now, who both claim to have been changed while they slept. They woke up as new people.
- [39:40]
Mike Pesca
I want to ask you, do you buy, since you came to your sexual orientation in that flash of insight in a white light, do you buy that transformation from the founder of aa?
- [39:52]
Benoit Denize Lewis
Yes, I'll say yes for his because people have, people have experience. There are some addicts who claim, and you know, I. There's enough of them that I'm not sure why I would disbelieve all of them, that their urge to Drink or to do drugs, vanished in an instant and never really returned. Now that is a small group of people. So for the most again. And so Bill couldn't say, well, just wait for a white light experience. And Eckhart Tolle can't say, just go to sleep and hope for the best. Like they had to create, they created systems for the rest of us. And the 12 steps are all about change and transformation. And if you've spent any time in them, as I have, there are again, like prisoners who are paroled. The transformations that one can see in these programs are extraordinary. And the big book of AA actually does talk about it as a kind of personality change. And here we're going to get into a debate about how we define personality, which I probably don't want to do. But this, they use the word personality change and a spiritual change is sort of alternatively used as either of those words. And so people change.
- [41:14]
Mike Pesca
And I will say early in your book you quote an expert saying, can we change our personalities? It depends what we mean by change and what we mean by personality.
- [41:21]
Benoit Denize Lewis
So that's very helpful. Yes, but now listen, like someone can be sober and still be an asshole. And so we, you know, the dry drunk claim. And so there will be a big debate about, well, has that person really changed in some ways? Yes. They've stopped drinking and doing drugs, which is maybe saved their lives and maybe they're able to keep a job and that. But on some fundamental level, they haven't done step four. You know, they haven't, you know, they haven't worked the steps and they haven't sort of had the shift that many people who are successful in 12 step programs have, which is not just I'm not doing drugs and I'm not drinking, but I'm also taking inventory of my life, working every day to help other people, which helps myself. So in 12 step programs, a change is defined. You know, the first change is stop doing the addictive behavior that's destroying your life. And then the second change is growing even deeper than that. That and helping other people.
- [42:17]
Mike Pesca
In terms of politics, I perceive that one. I know the political science will tell us that each party has drifted further to the right or left, if those are still useful designations. But I perceive that one party, the Republican Party has really massively changed. Not without precedent when you look to other countries, but there are more apostates of Republicanism who are, you know, the Mitt Romney's or the Thom Tillis or whoever shake their heads. Don Bacon, this, not that the Republican Party I knew. And they could list off the things that Trump exemplifies that the Republicans don't. In your theory of change, which is on the personal level, did you come across anything that supports what I just said, Anything that would lead us to believe that the personalities of Republican voters or the American electorate has fundamentally changed, or do you see it some other way? That maybe, like, we have one good gifted political operator who's having a moment, but let's still realize that our country is bifurcated on the normal political lines?
- [43:29]
Benoit Denize Lewis
Yeah, I don't have a great answer to that question. I think it's, it's, I think Trump has so scrambled everything. You know, this debate about which party has changed more. I tend to tend to agree with you. I mean, Trump has, has transformed party, transformed the things that Republicans often said that they were for, for years, they are seemingly no longer for. So there's often this debate and it gets, I think, a little bit confused. So, yes, parties change. You know, the, like Republicans in power have changed more. There's certainly an element of the left where people complain about the left having gone further left that is not so much right.
- [44:17]
Mike Pesca
And that, and to articulate that, that's something like, you know, this isn't the party of jfk. This isn't the party of pick a Democrat who the person expressing that view finds acceptable. I don't know if they wouldn't say this isn't the party of fdr. Maybe Democrats say we should be more the party of fdr, but continue.
- [44:34]
Benoit Denize Lewis
Yeah, well, what I'm saying is often there's a comparison between like, like something Trump or Republican senator does, their view, and then some loud lefty on social media as being like equivalent. Right. And so, you know, certainly there are people on the left who have, have, have shifted. And, and, you know, but the, but the sort of policies that, you know, Democrats have put forward, with some exceptions, I tend to agree with you that the right has shifted more. And I spoke to a lot of conservatives, former conservatives who had in the era, some blamed it on Trump. Obviously, there's many never Trumpers. And some have left the party and others actually didn't blame it on Trump. It was one young man I spoke to who I had met at CPAC when I was working on a story there years ago, and he was this very sort of outspoken young conservative activist. And he shocked me when a few years later he emailed me to say that, because at the time I was like, why couldn't you, me coming in, like, why can't you be a never Trumper. And he's like, that's absurd. And so he was defending Trump and then years later he shifted. And his shift was partly about Trump, but it was partly about the rights, what he called sort of obsession with wokeness. And he found it really distasteful, but it was combined with like moving to New York City and becoming a philosophy major. And then his friends, because he became a lawyer in New York City, his friends were saying, well, he just changed because he's a lawyer now in New York City and that is what he need, that's the identity that he needs. We don't think he's really changed. So again we see the person experiencing and giving all these reasons for the shift and then the friends sort of poo, pooing it or claiming it's not real. And we see the same thing. I write about a young, a really good friend of mine, sort of like he described himself as like a tree hugging socialist gay man who I watched over the course of the last 10 years because of his big distaste of wokeness and the excesses of the left moved right. And that was a shocking identity shift for him. And he didn't want me to use his real name partially because it was so he lost friends because of it, doesn't want to lose more friends because of it. So it was, you know, I watched him shift again in this way that was deeply, deeply surprising and really unsettling for him.
- [47:31]
Mike Pesca
Benoit Denize Lewis new book is consistently and unerringly fascinating. Ironic given that it is you've changed the promise and price of self transformation. Benoit, thank you so much.
- [47:44]
Benoit Denize Lewis
Thanks for having me. I appreciate it.
- [47:50]
Mike Pesca
And that's it for today's show. Corey Warr is the producer of the Gist, but not today. Jeff Craig produced today's show. Well, Corey helped. I don't want to get into all the inner dynamics, but it was, let's just call it a tandem job. Jeff usually produces how to Ben Astaire is the booking producer of the Gist. Kathleen Sykes runs the Gist list and Michelle Pesca oversaw that palace coup as the coo. She knows Bakus Umpuru G Peru de Peru. And thanks for listening.