Episode 6: Next Steps with Sean Duffy

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Dismantling the Divide episode 6 Sean Duffy

David DesRoches: Welcome to the bonus episode of Dismantling the Divide. This is a podcast about the global peace movement. I'm your host, David DesRoches, and I'm here in the Quinnipiac University podcast studio with Sean Duffy. He's the executive director of the Albert Schweitzer Institute. Sean, thanks so much for joining us.

It's a pleasure. So Sean, we're talking today, it's September, 2025, and the last time you and I sat down in the studio, it was September. 20, 24 last year. Um, the world today arguably is less peaceful than it was just a year ago. I mean, we have a person in the White House who's talking about changing the name of the Department of Defense to the Department of War.

We've got the war in Gaza, famine in Gaza, the wars in famines in Sudan. 150,000 people have died there since, since 2023. We've got Origin Ukraine and Yemen, Ethiopia. In fact, half of the world is engaged in some sort of conflict. Today. Mm-hmm. Um, so personally, I don't know how you feel about this. Uh, I am a little less optimistic than I was last year.

I mean, divisiveness seems rampant. People are digging into their silos. Um, in America. It's like the only thing we can, we can agree upon is, is this Jeffrey Epstein case. The thing that unites Americans is a convicted pedophile. Uh, and all the conspiracy surrounding, which to me says a lot about us as a society.

What about you? Do you, are you as hopeful as you were last year?

Sean Duffy: I'm not sure I was ever hopeful. Yeah. Um, in that, in that sense, I think there is opportunity now. I think what we're seeing is a fraying and a coming apart of things, which has some potential to it. Right? I mean, when, when things become less entrenched or more.

Provisional or, or contingent. Um, there's opportunity for newness, I think to creep in. I think we are living in extraordinary times where we're seeing, uh, a world that had seemed very stable even 10, 12 months ago, um, is not quite as stable as we thought it was. And, uh, and we need to think about how that, how that creates, uh, an opportunity for us.

David DesRoches: You, we talk about opportunities within the things that are happening and how it's hard to see opportunities because at least for me, at least, I, I find that looking at the state of the world and the state of the peace movement, it, there's almost two conflicting realities happening. On the one hand, we have this incredible movement of people who are awakening to the problems and then making movement towards solving them.

Then on the other hand, we have. Parts of the world that are just entrenching further into this idea of the world as a thing in which we need to exploit the growth mindset, right? We we, or not the MI growth mindset, but this industrial growth society that, yeah. That so many people have bought into. And so it almost seems like we're splitting into two different species where people are aware and making efforts to, to try to, to, to address these and taking these opportunities as they arise.

But then. Other people who are just entrenched in the traditional way of thinking, how do you think we can reach across and convince people who are so convicted to this idea of the Industrial Growth Society to change their thinking? To, to, to remove the, the value of, of profit, of growth and to, to really buy into this idea that, hey, there's another way, a more peaceful way.

That we should be thinking about how we structure our society. How could we reach across and, and convince them to to pay attention?

Sean Duffy: I'm not sure we do. I think, I think, um, maybe it's through example. It's, it's through starting to build and provide an alternative that is compelling and attractive and that people will gradually start migrating toward.

Um, I'm really, really persuaded by some of the. Perspective that's offered by, for example, Joanna Macy, and I know we were gonna talk about her a little bit today as well, a wonderful systems thinker who passed away just this past month. Um, who, who sees three realities sort of playing out simultaneously.

The one reality is that industrial growth society and the contradictions that that offers. And that, that, that the challenges that we're starting to see coming out of that, the conflict, the extreme polarization, the, uh, damage that we're doing to our environment and the, um, inequality that it's, it's generating in this particular stage of its development, um, all are.

Sources of worry. And one of the approaches that we can take to this is just to double down on it and say, well, we need to then develop ai. We need to develop new markets, we need to do all this kind of stuff. We need to double down on extraction, on building our industrial growth economy. Um, a second story that she talks about is, is that things are pulling apart and, and quite clearly many of us look around the world and we say, this is not holding together.

This is not gonna hold together for long, but we can't actually. Do anything with that. If we don't have a clear vision of where we want to go, and I think that's where we start to, um, build the alternative to start thinking differently, to start, um, acting differently, to start building in our own spheres of influence, different ways of being in this world that can then perhaps start to grow, start to add together, and start to, um, persuade people that the industrial growth.

Track that we've been on, or at least the way that we've been on it for the last several generations is maybe not the only alternative that we have.

David DesRoches: Mm-hmm. And Joanna Macy points out that the, um, the three phases, I guess, in terms of removing ourselves from this industrial growth mindset and, um, I think the most challenging one is the change of consciousness, right?

Yeah. What you're kind of getting at. Yeah. It's when people finally perceived the world differently. Don't, and are able to, uh, live their lives in a different kind of way. But we're fighting against, you know, thousands of years of evolution of, of human ways of being. Right, right. And suddenly, I, we have this, this inflection point where that requires of us that have pretty fast action to have it at least be meaningful.

I, and let's be honest. It's not the Earth that's at stake, it's humanity. Right. Earth will survive. Yeah. Once we wipe ourselves out, the earth will be probably happier. So I, I think when people talk about saving the earth, dearth doesn't need us. Right. We need it. And I feel like there's a, there's a mindset around the earth as this, even from people who are well meaning.

Looking at the earth as needing, saving, and, but we need it to be saved for our own benefit because we will not survive without it. Right. So I feel like getting to that point, this, this change of consciousness. Requires so many different things, right? It requires opportunities for people because if, if, if people are not mining, if they're not, um, constructing things, or if they're not building giant buildings, what are so many people gonna be doing?

And especially as AI is now taking over so many jobs or threatens to take over jobs, what are the opportunities gonna be? How are those opportunities rolled out? And, and how do, how do regular people. Because, you know, in, in a sense, like you and I are sitting here in this podcast studio having this, you know, conversation about, you know, the global peace movement and how we improve the state of the world when in reality so many people just wanna get food on their table.

Sean Duffy: Right. Right.

David DesRoches: You know, like, yeah. And they just need a job and then you work three jobs and, and how? There's so many layers that need to be addressed, and I guess I get overwhelmed with all that, and if you, if you just simplify it, certainly it just comes down to each individual to make individual choices that are meaningful to them.

But it just seems more and more daunting for me. You know, like, I know I'm being Mr. Debbie Downer over here, but I, I, I wonder, you know, because of the need for pretty fast action that it, it requires. Things that we haven't thought about in, in, in movements before that could either accelerate it or do something to.

To, to help it move faster, and I'm not sure what that is. Yeah. Um, but I don't know what Richard thoughts on just the, the, the, the timing and the need for it to be a little bit faster than any other past movements.

Sean Duffy: Well, I think, I mean, to go back to where we started this conversation with, uh, the, the bleak, um, sort of, uh, prospect that we look, you know, we look at our windows and look at the world today, and I think that helps, right?

I mean, not that I would say that this is a good thing, but it helps. When we see so visibly that what we have currently is not lasting, um, it kind of. Up the ante where people are going to be looking for something different. A couple of things. I mean, just that, that wonderful thing about how we need to save the earth.

And, and when we say that essentially what we mean when we say that is we need to save the very narrow bend of climate and biosphere and everything else that humans are comfortable in. We need to make sure that we're, we're in that. In that sphere. But I think, um, uh, certainly, um, when we look out at the world, and you're gonna be editing this later, right?

'cause I'm jumping around as it's all right. You heard me ramble, but I'm thinking, you know, you mentioned like we each do our own thing. We each do what we can. And I think that's absolutely right, but we have to go do it with other people. I think that's one of the fallacies that we have in our. Um, uh, culture here, at least in the United States, is that we are all each individually responsible for ourselves and for our own futures and everything else.

And I think quite clearly that's not the case. And um, I think if we all keep acting in our own behalf and in our own direction, we're not going to achieve, um, that alternative. One of the things, I mean, to go back to Joanna Macy, one of the things that I think is just brilliant about the way she sets that historical perspective, she talks about.

You know, the first great revolution, the agricultural revolution being one that took centuries. Mm-hmm. Um, if not millennia, to actually fully play itself out in terms of how it shaped human society and how human beings exist on the earth. Then the second great revolution she talks about is the industrial revolution that took about 150 years to play out.

And she says this one has to happen a lot quicker than that. Right? So this is getting to your point of urgency. Um. And I think, you know, when we, when we start thinking about the majority of people who don't have time to think about these things, um, who might be very much concerned or very much interested in them, but they're just trying to make ends meet and trying to do one day after the next, um, how can we who have that luxury reach out to them and include them in our life and us in their lives, and start thinking about how can we.

How can we chip in? How can we start making differences here? Reaching outside of our own experience, not worrying about where is my next job coming from, but thinking about what is the health of my community and who do I consider my community? And maybe broadening both of those perspectives a little bit as well.

And I think that's something that, you know, when we start talking about stretching the consciousness here at a university, we've got a really sort of unique opportunity. I think because we're working with young people who have that time. They may have very many other preoccupations and concerns with their life and their futures and everything else, but they at least have the moment to be open and receptive to seeing things a little bit differently like this.

So perhaps that's where we start. Hmm.

David DesRoches: Yeah. And I love this idea of starting with young people and also, you know, you bring up a really important point about, in America, at least in, in a lot of Western cultures, individualism is, is prized. And how, and I fall victim to this just the other day. I was, you know, I, I have this project going on in my house.

And, um, I needed a truck to move some stuff, and my wife is like, you know, we should call our friends. They have a truck. And I'm like, no, I'm gonna rent it. You know, and like I could have just easily called them, they're friends, you know? But I didn't wanna be a burden. And I feel like that mentality, and I, I feel like I'm a person that's at least at where that I need to be more community center.

And I imagine that for people that are happy being individualistic, it's really hard to jump outside that mindset of I'm gonna go this alone on everything. I feel like even when it comes to legislation in America, I mean, we, we try to reinvent the wheel every time we write something, a law, it's not even, we're not looking at other countries and what they've done.

It's just, you know, this is what we need to do and based on the problems that we have. And so I feel like it's this pervasive cultural thing that we really need to get out of, and this, 'cause we are social creatures, right? We're, we're so social. In fact that, that, you know, I don't know if we've talked about the, um.

The, uh, oh God, what's that study called? There's a, a psychologist who did a study where he, you know, took people, put them in a room. Um, it was 20, it was 20 people. They're college students and, um. And, uh, 19 of them know what's going on. They're kind of in on it. And one of them is, is is the only study participant.

The one of them is, doesn't know what's happening. Mm-hmm. So they, they hold up a chart and it has lines of different lengths and they go around and every nine, the 19 people who are in on the study, they lie and say. Uh, well, they're asked a question, what's the longest lie? And 19 of them lie and say, it's like the second longest lie.

And then the, the 20th person's like, you guys are crazy. This is, this one's obviously the longest one, but they do this over and over again, and eventually the person who is out, the one person out and, and like 60 to 70% of the cases, they will join the group and lie and say that you, I must be wrong. Like, I must, my eyes must be messed up.

Clearly you guys are right. So they'll actually go with the group. Because, because of group pressure. 'cause of group, yeah. Of our need to conform.

Asch Experiment: Three, the ash experiment has been repeated many times and the results have been, uh, supported again and again. We will conform to the group again. We're very social creatures.

We're very much aware of what the people around us think. Uh, we want to be liked. We don't want to be seen to rock the boat, so we will go along with the group. Even if we don't believe what people are saying, we'll still go along one.

David DesRoches: The conformity bias is one of the most potent biases we have and is driven by our social nature.

But we, we ignore it to such a great extent, and I think, but then it, it, it manifests itself in very crazy ways. That's why we're in these, in these very intense silos now because of this, this group mentality that, you know, if we're around people that think a certain way, we're gonna think like them, whether it's correct or not.

So we are social, we, we we're subject to these biases, but at the same time, we don't get the benefits from them very broadly speaking, right? Mm-hmm. So we had this, on the one hand, we're entrenched in these, in these cultures, in these, in these social groups that just reinforce our biases, but we don't benefit necessarily from these other aspects of being social, which is support groups or networks that can help but you up, or that you can turn to, to mutual aid.

Mutual aid and all these things that we're talking about. Yeah. So I, I just wonder. You know, we're kinda getting off track a little bit, but like we did, this is what we do. Right? We just gotta ramble. It's fine. Um, one thing I wanna talk about, and this was in your email to me, um, so Sean had suggested that we have this conversation after we did these, these five episodes.

Um, if you haven't heard those five episodes, please go back and check 'em out. Um, but Sean emailed me a great sort of outline, some ideas that he wanted to discuss and I think one of them was. This idea of, um, how we do peace. And you, you kind of like emphasized three different ways to think about it. So one of them is how do we do peace?

So I guess the action of, of doing peace. Yeah. Yeah. How do we do peace? So yeah, we're talking about 'cause collective action and how do we do peace, right? So a different kind of way to think about the action. So I, I don't know, like which one of those questions. Intrigues you more or if they all kind of intrigue, you just kind of break them down for me.

Sean Duffy: Well, I think they all intrigue me, but right now it's the how do we do peace that is, is really what is preoccupying me. Um, you know, I guess for me what comes prior to that is how do we do peace? You know, like what does it mean to. Enact peace. And you know, for so much of my career it was about, um, treaties and, um, high level functionary groups meeting to with each other and these kinds of things like coming from an international relations perspective on this question.

And I'm getting much more, um, enticed into the idea of like, how do we do peace just with one another in our communities? Um. In my field, you know, in in international relations theory, this is gonna be a little bit of a tangent, but I'll try to bring it back, um, for a long time. There's a, there's this way of like breaking down, um, theoretically, like where does action.

Start, does it start from the individual? Does it start from the society or does it start from the international structure? If we're trying to think of, of explanations for peace or explanations for war or conflict or cooperation, is it coming from the way that individuals have been socialized in their actions?

Is it coming from the structures of the societies that are involved? Like do democracies go to war with one another, that kind of thing, or is it coming from the structure of the international system? And I always poo-pooed. The individual side, right? I mean, we were just talking about individualism in a different sense, but I always thought, you know, I grew up in the 1970s and there was all sorts of stuff there about how we just need to teach our children to be peaceful individuals.

But I'm actually coming back around to that idea. I don't know if it's necessarily something that can be taught, but it is certainly something that we can do with one another, and we have that choice. We always have that choice as to whether we're going to act in our own interests. Regardless of what's going on around us or whether we're going to maybe take a step back and reach out to others and think about how can we go forward together?

And I think that's an interesting thing to do. So to think about. So if we think about how do we do peace, I think I. It opens up all of that, um, about how can we, in our day-to-day interactions with others, try to advance those goals of a, of a more perfect society, really of mutual benefit, these kinds of things.

So then what naturally follows from that is then how do we do peace? It's like, well, what is our circumstance? You and I work at a university, we have access to classrooms, to activities with students, to other kinds of things that we can engage students in. How do we turn those into the direction of how do we orient towards that goal, towards that, um, poss that possibility that comes out of our current uncertain times.

Um, and, and that. That then answers for me then, then how do we do peace? It's like, well, we have to do it every moment of the day, really. And we need to be thinking about, consciously thinking about how are we advancing these goals, um, particularly in these uncertain kinds of time. And I think,

David DesRoches: uh, underneath what you're saying is.

A real need to be first conscious of this as a thing that we need to keep in our mind. Because if you're, you're going about your day and something bad happens and you wanna react negatively or me to it, yeah. You know, if you're thinking about how I'm doing peace in the context of us all doing it, you know, you might react a little bit differently.

So being, having that in your, in your head for, uh, thinking about it is gonna help, I guess, address situations and help you. Act in a peaceful way and not in sit in an angry and aggressive way.

Sean Duffy: Yeah.

David DesRoches: But I also wonder too, like, you know, at least for, for American men and men in a lot of cultures where, you know, you know, we're going with this, right?

Like, there this idea of machismo and how, you know, men are 10 times more aggressive than women. We commit violent crimes so much more frequently than women do. Um, I say we because we're both men. Um, but. And then, and also we're taught not to really have an emotional awareness. Yeah. And you we're either mad or not, or happy, like those are the two acceptable male emotions.

And so I wonder like. In the, in for, at least in our society, for individuals and for for men specifically, because, let's be honest, like men are responsible for a lot of the violence. If we're talking about a peaceful world, men probably need to take the reins on not being so violent or aggressive. Right?

So reigning in that, that aggression. But at the same time, we don't have emotional intelligence. We, we don't, we don't know how to regulate. We may be getting a little off track here, but I do feel like this is a big part of that consciousness of peace is, is having that in your head, is being emotionally aware Yeah.

Of, of where you, of where you are, what you're actually feeling, um, and being okay with expressing that. 'cause I do feel like men really should probably take the lead on, on this piece of it

Sean Duffy: and. And being introspective and self-aware. Mm-hmm. And I think that's, that's a large part of what you're talking about in terms of emotional intelligence is knowing, Ooh, I've just been triggered.

Here's the reaction I'm feeling right now. I need to just sort of take a breath. Take a step back and recalibrate. Right? And I think that's really hard for us to do. And, and I was chuckling a little bit before when you were talking about machismo. 'cause I'm thinking, well, maybe this is becoming easier now as I get older because, you know, testosterone levels drop, they get up where you act quite as, you know, um, quite as vehemently to these, you know, sort of just really quick.

But it's, it. I think it's, it's also trainable. Mm-hmm. It's also trainable. Um, so that may be, you know, part of that consciousness raising that we need to do. And I, and you know, so many of our, our real challenges as a society right now, I think come down to, um, the challenges of what does it mean to be a man in our society right now?

I mean, you talked about some of the, the limiting of the range of possibilities in terms of emotional reactivity and emotional, um, uh. Relationships with other people. But I think also it's, it's, it comes down to work, it comes down to role in society and these kinds of things. And I'm not, um, oblivious to the fact that, you know, the signals that are being sent to our young men today are just so, um, contradictory and conflicting and, and really problematic in terms of thinking about.

So when we think about how do we. How do we train this kind of self-awareness introspection? It's not an easy thing. Um, but maybe again, that's also through practice and through example and through role modeling things. Um, maybe that's something we have the opportunity to do here.

David DesRoches: Yeah, no, I, I completely agree and goes back to the importance of, of being in university and the responsibility that we have and the, and the opportunities that I have working with so many young people.

You know, one of the things I, I learned putting this podcast together was that. In all societies, um, men are more violent than women, but rates of violence vary dramatically depending on what kind of society you live in. So in certain societies where they are more collective or there's more of a sense of community, yes, violent crimes happen, but the rates are so low.

So yes, you know, 10, uh, uh, out of 10 crimes, nine will be men, but there's only 10 crimes in the whole year. Whereas in some co like some places, like in some cities in America where the poverty is rampant. Crime is really high.

Sean Duffy: Yeah.

David DesRoches: Uh, so where you live also really matters. So it goes back to this point of, yes, there are biological things and there are, and about being a man and aggression and testosterone and things like that.

But if you grow up in a society that is, has a sense of community, that has a sense of, of justice that's not built on. Punitive reactions to mm-hmm. Transgression, but built on restoration, which we, we've talked about in the past,

Sean Duffy: right?

David DesRoches: Where the idea is we could, because when you commit in, in some cultures, when you commit the crime, it's not that you've only harmed the person that you've committed the crime against.

You've heard would harm yourself. So you need to be restored as the transgressor. You need to be lifted back up rather than feeling guilty your whole life about having committed this crime

Sean Duffy: and brought back into community, brought right, brought back into community. And I think this is maybe where some of what we've talked about overlap, the individualism that we have and also the sort of male roles that we have.

Um, maybe what, I'm just coming up with this on the spot, but maybe what, um, is helpful is having. Clear and expected and positive roles for men in community. Mm-hmm. Um, and I look at our, our society today, and I think on the one hand we're so biased towards individual, um, responsibility and individual, um, action and everything else, and individualism, and that probably goes doubly for men.

Mm. Um, uh, but. When you think about the, the problem, male examples in our, you know, the, the, the, the ones that are, the, the men that are committing crimes or who are lashing out or whatever, they are almost always ones that don't have a clear role in, in a society or in a community. Um, and so, you know, maybe that's part of the secret here is building more community and including in that community, um, real.

Possible perspective roles for everybody.

David DesRoches: Mm-hmm. I, I mean, I love this idea because I think this comes back to uncertainty, right? Yeah. If don't know your role, it leads to a sense of uncertainty, which in, in modern times, this idea of uncertainty is terrifying for so many of us because we have the entire.

Uh, collective knowledge of humanity in our pockets at all times. So we can know theoretically anything we want, whenever we want. So it's kind of the idea of not knowing something or being uncertain about a thing, I think is becoming more and more hard to deal with. But one thing that Joanna Macy points out, you, you mentioned this in your email to me, was, and this is her quote, she said, it's that knife edge of uncertainty where we come alive to our truest power.

I mean that just like spoke to me because it's, at, first of all, I didn't really know what she was saying, like what is she actually getting into? But then when you think about uncertainty as, as not a thing to, to manage or deal with, which is kind of step one, like right now, we avoid it. It's terrible, the want uncertainty.

So it's not that we need to manage it, but embrace it like fully. Like em, embody this idea of uncertainty and, and take advantage of the fact that you don't know and 'cause it's almost liberating to not be stuck in a, in a, in something being certain. 'cause now you're open to all kinds of opportunities.

Exactly. Yeah. And this opportunity that you're talking about, if we ha if we're okay with uncertainty, you can't embrace it, then maybe opportunities will surface because we will be ready to see them. We'll be more primed to, to take them as they, as they arrive. Then on the flip side, the opportunities do need to be there.

Right? Right. So there do need to be opportunities, but at least when you're embracing uncertainty, you're more, you're, you're, uh, more prime to to, to see them and grab them when they, when they present themselves, I imagine. Or to make your opportunities,

Sean Duffy: oh, there's that too, right? Yeah, yeah. To make your opportunities.

That's kind of how I interpret interpreted is that like if, if, if I'm thinking back to when I graduated college in the mid 1980s. You didn't graduate college in the eighties, Charlotte. Come on. Seriously. I did. Yeah.

David DesRoches: I thought we were like the same age.

Sean Duffy: Okay, nevermind. We're on our track. So, uh, so yeah, so I mean, there was, there was plenty of uncertainty, but there was still an idea that there were, there were, you know, for college dedicated people, there were clear paths that could go down and you might not have been happy with the paths that were available, but you.

Picked one and you went for it and you maybe had a happy life or didn't have a happy life, and now you know, when they're, when those paths have gone away, there's something liberating about that. And you, you touched on that a little bit, but, and this is something I've, um, that we may have talked about it previously as well, is that, um, I try to integrate into my conversations with students now is to think about how do we create our own paths because there are so few certain paths or certain options out there.

If we think about career paths, you know, we've just, in the last year. Seeing the example where, um, beginner computer programmers are now no longer able to get a job because AI has taken them all away. Right? So there was a career path that was seen as a certainty just five years ago. It's gone. Um, so, so how do we create, um.

In our future generations, this attitude, this understanding that this flexibility, that there is possibility and uncertainty, that that's where you can actually make a difference. Where you can take a stand, where you can say, okay, because there's no clear direction, I choose to go this way and this is why.

Um, mm. That's, I mean, I think that's such a difficult idea to really get my head around about that razor's edge, that knife's edge of uncertainty being a poss a, a a a point of infinite possibility. Yeah. Um,

David DesRoches: yeah, I agree. And I think, I mean, maybe that's why it's so intriguing is that you can kind of see where she's getting at, but at the same time it's, it is challenging to, to.

To apply it in a way that makes sense for most people. 'cause not everybody is going to make their own opportunity. I mean, we, we, and if everybody did, we'd live in a world in which, you know, we'd be sort of hyper individualized, you know, seeking our own opportunity maybe. Or maybe the

Sean Duffy: opportunity, maybe the opportunity, maybe the opportunity is you and me saying, right, where are you going?

I don't know where I'm going either. Let's actually band together and see if we can make it. Together and get some other people involved. Right. You know, let's, um, let's start our own garden. Yeah. And, hey, you're good at this. I'm good at, I'm, I have my chickens. Right. You know, we'll, we'll get together, you know, start an omelet restaurant, start, start a, start a restaurant.

We'll start feeding the neighborhood, you know, we'll, we'll take care of ourselves, take care of each other. Um, that's a lot easier to do. No one has a job. Right. So, so, yeah.

David DesRoches: Well, I love this because like even in my response to you, I was thinking individually again, like, I was like, oh, no. Opportunity opportunities.

That's my opportunity, right? Yeah. I'm seeking something for me, but exactly what you just said. Well, that can be a thing we apply in the context of seeking community. Like these are opportunities we can engage on or, or whatever pursue. And I, I mean, I, I just, and for me at least, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's a recognition of.

You know, and I think a lot of people kind of like intuitively understand the value of community, right? It's, I don't think anybody's gonna be like, community is stupid, right? Like, oh, well maybe. No. Yeah. You never know these days. Yeah. Uh, but um, but recognizing that so many things can be tied to a we mentality.

Yeah. That we don't necessarily think of generally. Like even like myself, like when you're talking about opportunity, I'm thinking about, oh, individual opportunity. But then as you, as you contextualize it, you know, opportunity for us, like Oh yeah, of course. Obviously. Yeah. So there's so many things I feel like in how we talk about anything that can be applied in a we context rather than a me, you or them context.

And maybe that's a big part of what we're talking about too, especially in, you know, in Joanna Macy's kind of whole context of, of describing, you know, life is all life, right? This kind of Buddhist idea of everything is, is, is kind of part of the same stuff. And so we are. Essentially all the same and. And that the we is ultimately the, the pronoun that we need and the pronoun wars.

Like we should just all be, we,

Sean Duffy: um, well, I'm thinking also, you know, we're, uh, this summer, this month we're, uh, recognizing the 20th anniversary or the 20th. Year after Hurricane Katrina. Mm-hmm. And one of the things I've become much more interested in is the way that mutual aid networks can get started in times of incredible hardship, you know, in, in natural disasters or, you know, uh, disruption of, of all whole social relationships.

And that might be kind of what. Joan Anna Macy's getting at as well is that in that kind of foment, there is opportunity to create new ways of cooperating and working together that can succeed or, or thrive or survive after that period of uncertainty, um, is over or maybe even create a new basis for stability in a communities.

Um, relationships and so that I think that, you know, the, so much, so much mu again, mutual aid networks come out of those kinds of really stressed communities or disrupted communities in times of great hardship and not, again, not that I wish great hardship on anyone, but we are looking at a time, um, of, of.

Considerable disruption, um, and prospects for even increasing, uh, types of disruption that if we have this attitude to look for that opportunity, for that possibility in that, um, time of, of tumult, I think it's perhaps that's no. Eventually fruitful.

David DesRoches: That's a really good point. I mean, and you think about.

I'm just thinking personally, I remember when I was in high school, I think it was like the 94 Olympics or something. I remember that because we lost power for like two weeks and it was like an ice storm and it was me and my four siblings. It was five kids and my two parents living in the living room for like two weeks and it was awesome.

It was like camping, like we had the best time and it, but it was like we had, you know, we had, um, the generator running a TV and a refrigerator and that was pretty much it. And then we had like a carrot and it was freezing, but, and you would think it was miserable. It would be miserable. And there it goes.

Um, so our signs are falling apart, but that's all right. Um, you would think it would be, it would've been. Miserable. But it was a, it was a pretty hard time, but we banded together and it, it created a sense, at least in our little small unit of connectedness around this Yes. This, this event.

Sean Duffy: Yeah.

David DesRoches: And you know, fast forward to Katrina exactly what you're saying, right.

People had banded together to come through it and survive. And then the key then is sustaining it, right. Holding onto this, the synergy and, and, and, and moving forward, I guess. And we're talking about the tumultuous happening now. What's, what's different is that it's not like a singular event, right? It's like a, a a, a cultural shift or like a, a 10,000 little pricks from years of, of all these different things happening, and so you have this a situation that's all these different things coming together to create this tumult, but in a way it's, it's harder to to, to, to pinpoint, but in, in, in another way, it's, it's, it's easier to say.

Uh, or to find like-minded people because there's so many things we can gather around. There are so many things, tumultuous things happening that we could use to, to coalesce around. But then again, how do we say we do that, right? We, we find our people, we find our community. We have this idea, we keep doing it.

And at least for me, I, I remember when I was, kind of, when I was in high schools or I mean, uh, in college, it was right before we invaded Iraq right after nine 11. And I was like very much into the anti-war movement. But I remember, you know, for like a few years and then I just remember getting very burnt out.

You know, just like, because when you're, at least for me, you know, I'm trying to do this and stuff, but I also have, you know, work and then I have school and have like all these other things that I'm doing. And it was hard and it still is hard to maintain this sense of, uh, of, of pushing or working toward positive change.

Uh, when. It wears on your soul, especially if you don't see things. Right. So I, I, I wonder like what we can tell young people who have the energy, right? Yeah. They're admitted to it. Yeah. Um. To hold onto that fire, to be committed to move past some of these challenges, because like, at least for me, I, I, I couldn't hack it, right?

Like, I was like, it's just too much for me. But we need people to not do that. We need people who are gonna be like this, I'm committed to this. I'm really gonna be in it for the long run, not just until the crisis is over, but to, to solve the crisis, but then continue to build. Something better. So I, I don't know what this is like, maybe a problem that we could never solve, but yeah.

What do you think in today, do you think there are opportunities, let's talk about opportunities, do you think in that uncertainty that there is an opportunity that, that I'm not thinking of or that that young people today might be able to take advantage of that was not available 20 years ago?

Sean Duffy: There's an awful lot of ideas in there.

Right. And I'm thinking that one of the things I'm really interested in trying to put into motion, into action a little bit this year is it also comes from Joanna Macy's example, and she, um, takes from Buddhism this idea of the three ways of acting in the world. Uh, I think in Buddhism they talk about blocking.

Building or being, and Macy kind of converts those into the blocking actions. She talks about our, she calls them holding actions. If we're, um, just trying to protect people or preserve that which is good in a world that is fraying at the edges, what are the actions that we take? Um. It could be the anti-war movements, the protest movements, those kinds of things, just trying to stop things, harmful things from happening.

It can also be the soup kitchens, the food pantries, these kinds of things that are just trying to put a bandaid on the system, A world that is broken, that kind of blocking or holding action is incredibly fatiguing. Right, because you're just going up against a situation that is not going to improve.

Mm-hmm. So the, then you move on to the building actions, the building, the world that we want to see in my translation, it's not the food pantry or the soup kitchen, it's the community garden. How do we actually find a pla. Plot of land and get our neighbors together and say, Hey, let's farm this together.

We can actually provide food that is gonna supplement all of our, all of our households if we cooperate around this thing. Also a challenge, right? But a different kind of challenge. And a challenge that actually brings rewards, it brings feedback, it brings a sense of success and, and, and worthwhile, you know.

Expenditure of an energy and, and um, activity. And then the being, that's the shifting of consciousness. It's like talking to each other. I mean, I think that's where it starts. The being, the shifting consciousness can actually also be, um, restorative I think, in the way that we, uh, confront the world around us.

And so, you know, Macy says we can't just spend our whole lives doing the blocking actions. Um. The holding actions. We need to, we need to restore ourselves, we need to provide for our own restoration and regeneration. And so maybe we switch around, maybe we do the, the holding actions for a while, and then we say, you know what?

I just can't be there. Um, right now, I, I want to just retreat to my. My neighborhood community garden and see what I can do in terms of raising a good crop of clarets that, that will nourish all of us in the neighborhood kind of thing. Sure.

David DesRoches: I love this idea. Building, blocking, blocking, building and being, yeah.

So that's, that's probably is how it would start, you imagine, right. Riding out with, you know, I gotta do something, I gotta block and Yeah. And um, and I think this probably goes back to, uh, self-care, I think too. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Like if you, and this is a, you know, I come from a family where, you know, my mom.

Her whole identity was her kids, so she never took care of herself. It was always taking care of other people. And now that, you know, everybody's gone, she doesn't know what she do with herself. Like, you know, sorry mom. You know, this is true. Uh, but like her identity is tied to being a mom. And so she never really knew how to engage in self-care.

And so in the meantime, you know, her, she's, her body is starting to deteriorate. And so now she's finally starting to, to reconcile, um, with that, with that identity. And I feel like a lot of people come from. This world in which your identity is tied to, um, your external effect on things. And you don't have this sense of, of of, okay, I need, if I'm gonna be a good person to the people who love me, I need to take care of myself too.

And so this, that's part of what you're talking about. So if you're committed to blocking something or you're committed to building a peaceful world, if you're always blocking, you're destroying yourself. And then eventually you're, you're gonna be a shell.

Sean Duffy: You're using up all your energy on something that does not have an immediate Right.

Um. Satisfying resolution,

David DesRoches: right? Yeah. And that's okay for a little while, but at some point to your point, you need to recharge, you regenerate. You need to focus on yourself, do something that you can see the benefits of recharge, and then, and then maybe you go back. Or whatever, if it's balking that, that, that you're really committed to.

So I think about lawyers, right? Yeah. Like environmental lawyers. Like that's literally all they're doing is filing lawsuits to prevent something. You know, like yeah. I feel for you guys out there, I don't know how you, you, you, maybe you have a community garden. Uh, if you don't, maybe that's, that could be something that can help keep you, you know, motivated and keep you, um, from getting burned out.

'cause I know that's, I can only imagine for the folks that are in that legal space, especially today with all the legal challenges that are happening. You know, their entire like existence is to prevent all this, these changes from, you know, the upending of democracy as we know it from happening, as it, and, and it continues to happen.

So for those folks, get a community garden right? Or something, some kind of way to keep you, figure

Sean Duffy: out some way that you can build the world that you want to see right? As, as in addition to. Or maybe as a vacation front. Right. Um, blocking the world that you're trying to prevent,

David DesRoches: right?

Sean Duffy: Yeah. Because both are important.

David DesRoches: Yeah. Like we need you to do the blocking, but we also need you healthy. Um, yeah. And I think, yeah. Wow. What a challenge. So let's, let's shift a little bit to, to artificial intelligence. I mean, only I bring that up is because clearly it's upending everything. Um, we don't know where it's going. It, the emerging research is showing is having impacts on our actual cognitive abilities.

Um, people are, uh, having interactions with AI in which. It's, it mirrors human interaction. So does that mean that we're not gonna even crave human interaction, or at least a certain subset of people? Anyway, so many things to talk about when it comes to ai, but when we're talking about building a peaceful world, certainly there are tools that are gonna emerge that could probably help us in tremendous ways.

But I, I wanted to bring out this Guillermo del Toro quote. Uh,

Guillermo del Toro: to me, artificial intelligence, I'm not afraid of. I'm afraid of, uh, natural stupidity, which is much more abundant.

David DesRoches: And I wonder if it is this sense of human beings being so focused on just the daily routine of life, that knowledge, acquisition or change, those kinds of things are just on the back burner.

Because we kind of talked about this already, right? That when you are in a position in society in which you don't have the luxury to, to even do a community garden because you're working free jobs or whatever, you know, at, at the end of an 18 hour day, you're lucky if you get a few hours of sleep. And I know that's, that's like an extreme example, but certainly, you know, a lot of people out there maybe just aren't even in that position.

But I wonder, and it doesn't necessarily mean they're stupid, but their values are different, their priorities are different. So, but when we do talk about, uh, approaching human stupidity, which is, you know, I think is more, uh, you know, I don't wanna conflate ignorance and stupidity 'cause I think there's some overlap there, but I think stupidity is more like, you know the thing that's right.

But you choose not to do it. Whereas as ignorance is, you don't know the thing. That's right. Mm-hmm. So I feel like. A lot of people kind of are stupid in that sense. Like we kind of know that it's bad to do certain things, but we do it anyway either out of arrogance or stupidity. And so, you know, is there a way that.

I dunno where I'm going with this Artificial intelligence. Could it solve all of our problems, Sean?

Sean Duffy: Well, so, so I think this is, I mean, I'd, I'd like to dwell on this idea of natural stupidity for a few minutes at home because I think I'm, I'm going back in my head to you and your family huddled during the ice storm and the aftermath of the ice storm for a week in that one room in your house with very few things and how enjoyable it was for you, right?

I think as. In our culture today, we get so connected to our things and so connected to, um, our visions or understandings of what success is that we might lose track of. As you said, we know what makes us happy and it's not more things. So if we translate this to artificial intelligence, I mean, if it's just another tool to help the electric grid function more efficiently or you know, whatever.

Application we put it to. Sure. If we get all wrapped up around, um, what can we do with this, you know, I mean, I, I, I fear that. The, the big disasters that come from artificial intelligence are gonna come from the way we apply it and the way we use it. Yeah. Right. People, not the, from the people and from our stupidity and, and, and using this great tool and I, I, I mean, I, this brings me back around in a kind of strange cir circum.

The Ian or circular way to something that you touched on in the very first episode, which is the manipulation of fear. Mm. Right. And, and I think this is maybe a way to join this with, with our, um, uncertainty, conversation about uncertainty when people are un unc there incredibly. Easily manipulable.

Mm-hmm. Um, and I wonder if artificial intelligence isn't just the latest way of manipulating people's uncertainty. Right. Um, and, uh, you know, for some people they're gonna put, they're gonna go all in on artificial intelligence. This is gonna be the, it's gonna save us all. We're gonna have self-driving cars and, and all these kinds of things.

We won't need to do anything, but if we know anything from our own lives. We like to be useful. We like to be doing something right? So, so where is the disconnect there? You know, what is, what is the purpose of the artificial intelligence? How is it being used to manipulate our uncertainty or, um, to take advantage of our uncertainty by seeming to be the solution to everything we need?

Mm. Um,

David DesRoches: no, that's a really good point. I feel like, um, you know. Smartphones that we all have. We can, again, we talked about this a little bit, how certain we can be about things with them, and now we have access to artificial intelligence through the smartphone and how I, I looked this up. Uh, so the average smartphone consumes about 55 to 80 kilograms of CO2 per device over its lifespan, which is Dr.

The equivalent about, of driving an average car about 200 miles. So that's having a cell phone, that's what it's, you know, because of the mining of the materials and then the charging of it and all those things. Mm-hmm. Um, but using artificial intelligence. Is gonna magnify that. So when you, you create an image on check GBT, that's it uses enough, the same amount of energy that did a study on this recently of charging your phone an entirely charge cycle.

So when you just create an image, it makes that charge. It uses that much energy. So as we use AI more and more, and also the water uses of these data centers, so they consume energy, these data centers, they consume water to cool the, the, the servers. There's this whole other connection to, uh, to the earth and to the world as we try to use the device in a way that maybe could be beneficial.

So, I, I, I, I worry that. The human nature of solutions is always the unintended consequences. Like we come up with this thing and then it's great, but then at the same time, this other stuff happens because it's the nature of the balance of the universe, right? Everything we, every problem we solve generally creates some unintended consequence that we then have to deal with later.

So I don't know how. If we can at least keep that in our mind as we create solutions, knowing that there could be these unintended consequences. Not to throw the solution away, but to at least realize that they could be there and,

Sean Duffy: and maybe take a more measured approach to the development. I mean, in the United States in the last six months, we seem to have decided we're gonna throw all our chips in the game over.

Mm-hmm. You know, we're building data center. I send everywhere, you know. Outstripping the ability of electric grids to, to manage these things and all for what? For this promise of beating the Chinese to the game. Right. You know, I'm not quite sure what the, what, what the rush is. Yeah. What is the rush? What is the end goal?

And um, yeah, it's, uh, and, and then when you, when you think of the resources that are being consumed and, uh, resources that we desperately need to put in different directions right now, um. You know, where are our priorities? Yeah.

David DesRoches: So I want to draw attention to the shirt that I'm wearing. So this is a Hill St.

Louis shirt that I got when I was in Ferguson, Missouri after, uh, Michael Brown was shot, um, in 2014, my police. And so I basically quit my job and went there for a week and, um, and, and got the shirt as, as part of my, uh, my trip down there reporting on what had happened. But I wear the shirt because the, the concept of healing was a theme that I heard over and over again as I was interviewing people who lived there.

Um, black people and white people talking about the need to heal a, a community that had been, it just, uh, not just from this one, one shooting, but from years of, of racism and redlining and just, um, you know, terrible things happening that the community just needed to heal. And, and we talked about this.

Throughout the, the five episodes, but this idea of, of forgiveness and how forgiveness is this kind of, it, it's easy to say, oh, I forgive you, but it's a whole other thing to, uh, well, it's not easy in some context, but to say it, but to mean it, but then to also like to live in a way in which forgiveness becomes as natural as.

As breathing because it's because to harbor any ill wills you, you mentioned this before, that's harming yourself. That is removing your own ability to enjoy your life. Because if you're unable, and, and this goes to forgiveness of self also, right? We kind of talked about this before we started recording, you know, so if I'm holding on animosity about something I did, that's the same thing.

I'm, I'm harming myself. So this idea of healing is probably so important in the context of building a peaceful world because I feel like so many people. Feel they've been harmed.

Sean Duffy: Yeah.

David DesRoches: And I think in, in, in talking about, like, when I talk about white privilege with, uh, poor white people, they're like, what privilege do I have?

You know, I'm poor. I have no, and so it's really hard for a person who seems, who feels they have been harmed by society to actually recognize that piece of it, or to, to be able to, to heal themselves in a way that. Releasing their animosity or releasing their anger about being the victim. And so I feel like that healing piece is, is really important because so many of us, I feel like we feel victimized or damaged or harmed, and we don't know who to blame.

We don't. Or if we do that person, whoever we blame is never gonna apologize. Right? Because they're either an idea or they're long gone or you know, it's never gonna happen, right? So I feel like that piece of it. Order is so important for us to be able to build peace is, is to be able to forgive each other and to also be able to heal, to nurture healing.

So, I dunno what your thoughts are on that.

Sean Duffy: Yeah, I don't know. Maybe. Maybe this is where we come back to how do we do peace? Right? And maybe it's, maybe it's all about healing. Maybe it's all about just working to heal one another. To heal ruptured communal bonds, to heal communities. To heal individually.

That doesn't, that's kind of a non-answer, but, you know, if we focus, if we focus on heal, um, maybe that's, maybe that's part of what we need to do. I, it brings us back around to, I think that introspection that we need, that we need to realize that we are damaged, that our societies, that our communities are damaged.

And then think about, well, how do we, how do we build healed communities? Mm. Um, I like the idea of forgiveness. Um. Um, but you know, I also like the idea of like, what do you do after that forgiveness, you know, how do you move forward from that?

David DesRoches: Hmm. And I guess that's what it's all about, right? Doing the piece.

Doing the thing. Yeah. This has been dismantling the divide. Uh, check us out on social media at QU podcasts. Uh, go to 20 pi podcast.com/dismantling the divide. You can also go to you q u.edu/podcast and also make sure you go to the Berg Schweitzer Center. At Quin Beak University, Sean Duffy, thanks so much for chatting with me today.

Great talking to you again.