Lessons from War, Tribal Societies, and a Non-Fiction Life (Sebastian Junger) (#161)

Just starting to listen to this latest podcast of yours Tim and already I have to leave a message. This man, Sebastian is very, very interesting, and I love that he topped trees and that he did get injured but not killed. My father topped trees and eventually became a ‘gypo’ logger in Oregon. He eventually owned a small logging company, which gave me a college education and a summer job fire watching and knowledge that money is earned. My father was a God amoung men, a bull of the woods, yet, the one thing that got him, and he acknowledged that it was his own fault, was a chainsaw. Like your guest, it wasn’t life threatening or maining, but to my father it was a ‘slip’, a stupid mistake. These men should be honored, they are brave men doing dangerous jobs and they are so smart in so many ways, just to understand this one thing though…if I die, it will be my own fault.

I’m listening to the podcast now, great start…

However, this podcast photograph doesn’t do him justice.

Tim, I hope you consider updating.

Thanks!

I really love the documentary The Parking Lot Movie. It focuses on an interesting societal intersection– those who work at a busy parking lot, and those who use it.

This is a really great podcast, I enjoyed the topics you both covered and the way the conversation flowed. Thank you for the entertainment and the book recommendations.

On striving for political correctness in gender, check out Delusions of Gender by Cordelia Fine; I think you’ll find it interesting, Tim.

sorry I meant I am recommending the documentaries of Laura Poitras in general to you all, as she is exclusively concerned with war reporting. Citizen Four received an Oscar, and Risk has just premiered…

amazing conversation, also recommend his google talk (on youtube) that I watched after listening to this. Junger’s ideas on tribalism is a necessary idea to bring into the modern PC discourse as it is still very much in play. (Example: the failed integration of many immigrants in Europe)

Can you try hire someone else to interview people ?

Pay a man in india to fight your wars

I’m very grateful for this interview. Your questions created the conditions for a diologue to surface that needs to be heard by the American public. Not since J. Needleman’s, The American Soul: Rediscovering The Wisdom of the Founders, have I heard such intelligent and prophetic discourse on this country’s state. I intend to set up a Vet Town Hall in my town of Oakland CA, if there isn’t already one in the works. Thanks Tim for walking your talk, making a difference and creating a platform for a great thinker.

Rites Of Passage for Boys/Men!

I was speaking with a dad about his 13 year old son about this, sharing some of what the podcast had mentioned.

I looked through, but didn’t see any of Sebastian’s books directly addressing ideas on how to fix that problem.

Is there one in the works?

Maybe it’s in a chapter?

Anyone have any good resources they’ve used & been pleased with the results?

thanks a mil!

Great podcast as usual! Thank you! You asked Mr. Junger what some types of “practice emergencies” were that people could do to get the positive effects that bond us together as a tribe in emergencies. He mentioned things like his boxing gym. I think another, which was not mentioned is the whole CrossFit movement. Like Mr. Junger’ boxing gym at my CrossFit box we have many people from all walks of life who would never consider hanging out together under normal circumstances. They come in and “suffer” together during their one hour workout doing very difficult things, which brings them together as a “tribe” most of whom would be willing to do anything for each other! It is really quite amazing! Other similar types of controlled stress that I have personally witnessed that do great jobs of the same things are GORUCK and SEALFIT. Some great podcast guest ideas for the future I believe would be Greg Glassman (founder of CrossFit), Mark Divine (founder of SEALFIT), Mike Barwis (founder of Barwis Methods) and the founder of GORUCK. Thank you for all that you do and for changing my life for the better with the “4 Hour Work Week”!

Tim, have you read “Shantaram” by Gregory David Roberts? It’s written, I think, from a very similar perspective in terms of tribal/community dynamics and what masculinity and femininity mean within a tribal context, as well as duty and justice to oneself, one’s community and whatever one considers one’s God. It’s a fictionalized memoire of the author’s transition from escaped convict/heroine-addicted armed robber in Australia to slum doctor in Bombay, India to black market hustler, to moujahidin soldier in Afghanistan. It’s phenomenal.

Dear Tim,

In a recent podcast you called “fat shaming” bullshit, then said that you wanted to help people lose weight.

While you don’t appear to shame people for being fat, you condone it or maybe just don’t reject it outright.

Either way, when someone has an issue with over eating or eating compulsively, they often do it specifically because they are constantly being criticized. The criticism itself doesn’t matter, it is simply the act of being harassed that causes them to find more comfort inn compulsive eating.

I am sure you know this and are not trying to be mean. I really like your work, and have benefited from it, but I hope your opinion evolves and on this.

Much respect

A

At about 1hr 10 minutes, Sebastian describes a condition similar to PTSD that isn’t quite PTSD, Dr Kevin Gilmartin has a book and conducts seminars on a similar thing, he describes a physiological response to stress and the “rollercoaster” effect of being in and out of stressful situations. Definitely worth a look and maybe an interview.

Tim, you have a huge positive impact on the lives of so many people.

I was eager to read Sebastian’s book “Tribe”, and found myself annoyed it launches the kindle edition only next month.

To share some books I’ve read only because of you (and probably would not have heard of otherwise): “The Art of Learning”, “Spartan-Up!”, “Lying”, “The Moral Landscape”, “Anything You Want”. Plus the 4 hour triad.

I listen to every podcast of ”Waking Up” by Sam Harris and Dan Carlin’s Hardcore History.

And I think this quality of your, of sharing openly your “secrets” it’s one the best one could hope for. Thanks, again.

Tim, this was the best episode for a while – Seb has a great voice and an even better life story – quick question, why are the books he recommended not here ? Books he would give away – he mentioned one that he was going to start giving away – I never heard properly -thought I would retrieve from The show notes ?? Thanks for all your work . Best from Scotland

Great great episode! Thank you, gents!

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Great respect for Junger, and his cultural analysis. Also, I appreciate the delicacy with which he addresses women’s and men’s roles. Adding to discussion of women’s roles: It would be a lot easier for women to jump down onto the tracks and save the child were we not wearing heels. In this way, and in many more significant ways, women’s agency is diminished, actively supressed, and passively repressed by powerful cultural forces, shaping societies, and individuals, since the agricultural revolution reorganized human grouping. Our laws enshrine our lack of gender equality, and forcibly diminish women’s agency. The prohibition on women voting seemed reasonable, at the time, because women were a dependent of their husband or father; so, their views would be dependent, as their agency was less their own. While we, as a society, no longer support this prohibition we still have a tendency towards interpreting women as possessing less agency. An example of prohibition relating to diminished agency in women is seen in the prohibition of prostitution. When considering a man performing a consensual transactional sex act with another man it is likely that this individual will be taken as, more squarely, making the choice to do so; whereas, his female counterpart’s consent is often portrayed as somehow not quite consent (Were it a woman he was undertaking to sell sex to, he would simply be seen as one lucky f**ker.). This gender disparity becomes more glaring when the Swedish Model of sex law is considered, where the discussion is around female sex workers and male sex buyers. In this model, female sex workers are not breaking the law, and thus not responsible for their choice to sell sexual services; whereas, male sex buyer are breaking the law, and so, responsible for their choice to buy sexual services. As responsibility is representative of agency, it is clear that the female sex worker is legally possessing of less agency. The fact that a single consensual act undertaken by–indeed requiring–two adults could be interpreted as legal for the female participant and illegal for the male participant reflects a bias against women’s agency’s so deeply entrenched that we are willing to overlook the logical and legal flaw of a single consensual action being both a crime and not a crime. Consensual sex with a person of diminished capacity, such as a mentally or developmentally challenged individual, or a child, would reasonably be considered to be a crime for the perpetrator but not the victim because the victim is, reasonably, interpreted as incapable of making the choice to consent. In the context of Swedish Model law, the female prostitue is considered incapable of making the choice to consent. Moreover, this strategy is described as reducing demand, in so far as it punishes the buyer, which is purported to decrease demand for sexual service, allegedly resulting in fewer sexual service sellers. Such that, the route to changing women’s behavior is to change men’s outcomes, rather than appealing, directly, to the women themselves. Economic necessity is often the driver of a decision to sell sexual services. This pressure is reflexively interpreted as invalidating the decision of the female sexual service seller but not the male sexual service seller, as a result of differences in perceived agency: Jack needs rent; Jack decides to sell sexual services; Jack pays his rent. Jill needs rent; Jill decides to sell sexual services; Jill pays her rent. In Jack’s case we may question his decision; but we don’t question he made a decision. In Jill’s case, we do. From the standpoint of legislating agency it is as important to believe a woman when she says, I consented to that sex act, as its to believe her when she says, I did not consent to that sex act. All of this is, simply, to illustrate that we have deep cultural biases against women’s agency which result in functional limitation of our freedoms and our choices. I, myself, am a jump down on the track to save the child kinda gal. That’s just how I am. I would jump down before I even thought about whether or not I would jump down. I would not be able to not jump. Am I more male? Or am I just me? Either way, the tendency for men to jump down more than women is about more than the neural hardware on which our cultural software runs.

Great interview, thanks.

A formative book for me was one called “Iron John – A Book About Men” by Robert Bly – it’s a bit self indulgent in its style, but it introduces the idea of male-specific rites of passage through a deconstructed fairy tale. It’s something we’ve struggled with in recent years I think, trying to recognize what male values are, promote and maintain them without that being to the detriment of women or society at large. Sebastian gives a couple of great examples and treads that line carefully.

Pay Attention! Here are some extraordinary resources for healing PTSD, and are relevant for everyone even if you don’t think you need them. Unless, that is, you never have suffered trauma, never will, and never will encounter anyone whom has.

1. Human Givens : A New Approach to Emotional Health and Clear Thinking . Joseph Griffin & Ivan Tyrrell

this is number one on this list for a reason. It has turned upside down concepts and practices about social/health/psychiatric care. It is the foundation for a new approach to counselling, which is already being implemented. the Human Givens approach has been tremendous in treating PTSD, addiction, domestic violence – all manner of issues, extremely succesfully. (the ‘Givens’ in the title refers to needs – the number of needs we have that must be met, or else addiction or trauma or dysfunction of some kind results) . I know a physican who went out and bought about 15 copies of this book at their own expense, to hand out to people, they were that impressed.

PS. There’s an exercise in the appendix for addressing trauma, i know people whom have said one single practice of it turned the volume way down on a traumatic episode. It’s a ‘double disassociation’ whereby one reimagines the trauma twice removed.

2. Babette Rothschild 8 Keys To Safe Trauma Recovery

She is a highly respected pioneer in this field

Also her ‘Flashback Protocol’ (not in the book) which is a spoken exercise that takes about a minute that rapidly cuts through a flashback by bringing one back into the present. It reconciles the observing self with the experiencing self. Deceptively simple but extremely powerful. And every time you practice it, it continues to build new neural pathways and continues to wear out the old pathways of trauma. So, it is literally rewiring you physiologically.

Her perspective is on the body and neural pathways, circumventing the trauma response in the amygdala as quickly as possible (the part of the brain where fight or flight response happens ) to get ones awareness back into the ‘higher brain’ and create new neural pathways into the body, into a

better place, rather than just rehashing trauma over and over like a stuck record, which is what ‘talking therapy’ and other cathartic style methods use.

Dont get caught up on my descriptions though, for better or worse – read this book!

3. Complex PTSD – From Surviving to Thriving Pete Walker

This book and the author come with extremely glowing recommendations from very wise and experienced

practitioners and therapists – and all the people whom have read it at their suggestion, also.

4. Waking The Tiger : Healing Trauma Peter A Levine

another seminal classic in this field, a bit older than the above. Highly regarded and referred to