60: The State of Resistance with CNN & Fox's Sally Kohn

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Welcome to the show. This is Jason Hartman, your host. And every 10th episode we do something kind of special, kind of different. What we do is we go off topic. So regardless of which show it is on the Hartman Media Network, whether it be one of the financial shows, economics, real estate, investing, travel, longevity, all of the other topics that we have, every 10th episode we go off topic and we explore something of general interest, something of general life, success, value. And so many of our listeners around the world in 164 countries have absolutely loved our 10th episode shows. So that's what we're gonna do today and let's go ahead and get to our guest with a special 10th episode show. And of course, on the next episode, we'll be back to our regular programming. Here we go. It's my pleasure to welcome Sally Cohn. She is a CNN political commentator and former Fox News contributor, host of the State of the Resistance PodC podcast, founder and CEO of the Movement Vision Lab, and internationally recognized feminist, liberal activist, author of the new book the Opposite of A Field Guide to Repairing Our Humanity. Sally, welcome. How are you?

Hey, I'm great. Thanks for having me on.

Good, good. It's good to have you on. And you're coming to us today from New York City area, right?

I am indeed.

Fantastic. Well, tell us a little bit about the book and kind of the general thesis and let's take it from there.

I think like a lot of people paying attention, even nominally to the world around them today, I think we can all agree that we have a problem with hate, with the ways in which we historically, in the past and habitually still today, demean and dehumanize other people or other groups of people because of their identity or their ideas. And it's been a problem for really honestly, since our nation's founding in the United States, a country that in so many ways was founded on and ever since has been shaped by hate, by acts of hate and institutionalization of hate. And at the same time, just because it's been Bad before, been maybe worse in the past, doesn't mean it's not bad enough. We have to do something about it now. And I think we can all look around and say that the level of toxicity, injustice, inequality, otherizing, incivility has reached a real boiling point and we need to stop it.

I like that word you just used, otherizing. That's, that's interesting. And you know, you're certainly right. I mean it's very fair statement that you talk about. Like, okay, so you could certainly argue that it's better than it was at many times throughout history, but that doesn't mean it's good enough. Right? I mean, especially with the advent of social media, Internet in general, you know, a lot of bullying, a lot of trolling. It's sort of weird. I remember years ago, Sally, when I was getting my driver's license, many years ago actually, and I remember, I remember seeing this hokey little film and driver's education. You just reminded me of it where it was like this Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde Persona that really is part of all of us where, you know, we'll be nice polite people when we're meeting someone in public, but we get behind the wheel of a car where we're kind of insulated in this metal box and we become a different person, more aggressive and rage oriented. And you know, this was years ago. You could argue that it's worse than that nowadays for. And the same is true, I would argue, of the Internet. The Internet allows people to do drive by shootings, you know, hit and run type commenting. Right. This is definitely part of your overall worldview on this, isn't it?

Absolutely. Look, I mean, again, you're right. We can argue or talk forever about when was it the worst and which side does it worse, which group does it worse, et cetera, et cetera. I have opinions on that. But to some extent it doesn't matter who did it first or who did it worse.

Two rights don't make a wrong.

Can we stop it? Who's gonna right Exactly.

Or two wrongs don't make a wr. Right. I'm sorry, I said that backwards.

Either way. Yeah, it works both ways because, you know, neither way, shape or form, does it cancel out what you're doing yourself in your own piece of the puzzle. And you're exactly right. Again, if you compare online trolling and bullying, or even online hate, to mass incarceration or slavery or the genocide of American Indians, it's not comparable in any way, shape or form. And at the same time it's still bad enough that we should stop doing it in addition to the more severe institutional forms of hate in our society. And the fact is that there is a way in which technology does tend to make us feel more anonymous and able to act out on those mean or hateful or uncivil impulses. And. But again, it's not just that we can't also just blame the technology because those impulses are there. They come out in other forms. They come out in more impactful forms in the way we run our businesses and teach kids in school and run courts and police systems. And so it's about taking responsibility for and noticing and addressing and having honest reckoning with hate in all those different forms online and off.

Yeah, we both agree, Sally, that the argument of it was worse in the past does not justify what goes on in today's world. Right. I certainly agree with you there. I just want to say a kind of a however to that though. When you look back around history and some of the stuff you mentioned about the US and the things that went on here and, and so forth, when you look around the world back then, I mean, I don't know, you know, there are many places around the world now where we still have slavery, we have all kinds of oppression of women, especially in the Middle east, you know, in Asian, some Asian areas. I mean, I don't know, you know, would it at least be fair to give the US some credit and the American society some credit is. I'm not saying it's perfect by any means. Don't hear that. Please don't hear that. You know, but isn't it better than a lot of places or no?

Well, I mean, on some level, yes. On some level, no. And on the third level, who cares? I mean, in other words, look, we've still never elected a head of state who's a woman. And while several Muslim countries have, it depends on sort of how we're doing the measuring. And it also depends on. To me the question is why does that matter? That I think one of the reasons we often certainly in our political discourse in the United States we tend to do this sort of well, we're better than thing is to take away any sense of responsibility for doing better on our end.

Right?

Like let's not give us the past. Why don't we be the absolute best at this in the entire friggin universe? Like let's, you know, as opposed to any sense of resting on our laurels. And again, I think when you actually scratch the surface of that, you know, look at the scandals we have with. With MeToo and with harassment and assault of women by men at all levels of industries and businesses, right? That shouldn't happen in a country that's supposedly as great as ours. Look at the epidemic of police violence against black and brown people in our country. That shouldn't happen in a country that has our values and that says we're as good as we are. So we've still got our own work to do.

So, I mean, you would have to argue that that is institutionalized, right? Because there's always a one off, there's always a Rodney King, right? It's always gonna. You get 320 million people together or 7 billion, and there's always gonna be bad apples, right? There's gonna be some bad cops that do some bad things, but we have to be saying this is institutionalized, right? Is that what you would say?

Well, yeah. I mean, I think the problem, by and large is that hate, inequality, injustice, whether it has to do with race or sexuality or gender or religion or immigration status, is indoctrinated within and infect our institutions, our systems, our structures, our policies, our politics, our culture. When we run businesses, the way we raise kids. I mean, that in a larger sense of institutionalization, that it becomes sort of the air that we breathe and that then gets exhaled into every facet of our existence. And at the same time, that's done by people. And the danger, again, this is where, you know, I think these things do matter. And the idea that there are bad people is a very interesting idea, right? And not to get too spiritual about this, but it is also. It has political ramifications. But, you know, for example, one of the things I did in the book was I looked at examples of people and stories of people who had left extreme, extraordinary lives of hate behind. One of those examples about both people and then a larger place, situation, institution, even that had managed to make that transformation is in Rwanda, where in 1994 they had the fastest genocide in history.

Pathetic.

800,000 people killed in 100 days. And one of the things that sort of took my breath away, that someone said to me in the book, as a philosopher who says to me, you know, we don't have mass atrocities because of a handful of psychopaths. There weren't enough psychopaths in Rwanda or in Germany or in Serbia or, you name it, we have mass atrocities because masses of people participate in them. The truth is, if we understand the institutionalization of hate, we understand that hate. This is where we have to get beyond a Sort of superficial notion of hate as the overt bigot or the overt racist or what have you, that if we understand hate at its more extensive and nefarious, conscious and unconscious, big and small ways, then we understand that this isn't about good people or bad people. That's the way we push out the implications of this. And we say, okay, I'm a good person, so I have nothing to do with this. Well, the truth is, the reason we have the kind of extensive inequality and injustice we have in our world and in our country isn't just because of bad people. It's also because of good people. And when we're talking about the institutionalization of hate and inequality and injustice and we're talking about what good people are doing, whether they mean to or not.

Yeah. Well, there's certainly a dangerous mob mentality. I don't know that that's specifically what you're talking about here at all, but, you know, I just want to point that out. The mob mentality is always a dangerous thing. There are just sort of subtleties in life that, you know, like the worldview that people have that they don't even know why they do things always. I mean, I certainly don't. I'll talk about myself, you know, because, you know, we just come from a worldview and that's the context in which we think and live and everything comes out of that. Right. But, you know, maybe I probably should have asked you this at the beginning. Can you define hate? Because your book is called the Opposite of Hate. So maybe by telling us the opposite is also a way to define. Just define that, if you would. I know it may sound like a very basic question, but.

No, no, it's a great question. And I'm not defining it in a sort of colloquial sense of you hate brussels sprouts, or you hate country music, or you hate your ex girlfriend or your ex boyfriend. That what? That's fine with me. That's your own business. What concerns me is, as I alluded to before, that the history in the past and habits in the present that we have individually and as a society of demeaning and dehumanizing people, and especially certain groups of people because of their identity or their ideas, that to me, is what we should be concerned about. And the fact is, there are ways in which all of us are the victims of hate and also the perpetrators of hate. We all fall on some end of both sides of that, and we therefore all have. We're all part of the problem. We need to all figure out a way to be part of the solution.

So give us some examples of, like, which groups and, you know, maybe don't give us the totally obvious examples that everybody probably should know if they don't. But, you know, maybe some of these more subtle things we talked about. I'd love to ask. Well, I think.

I mean, one example is definitely partisanship right now in the United States. Right. So, and this is one I think we can all locate ourselves in right now is not just, you know, okay, I'm on this end or that end of sexism or this end of that end of Islamophobia or whatnot, but we think about partisanship. And the reality is that in the case of extreme partisanship, which more and more and more and more and more of us are falling into, whichever side you're on, you tend to not just disagree with the other side, but have a desire to destroy the other side and a certain glee even at the prospect of their destruction or any evidence of their destruction. So you end up with situations where you're questioning, you know, where the right questions the patriotism or even belongingness in the American experiment of the left. You have the left characterizing the right as stupid as all hateful baskets deplorables. Right. So, yeah. So you. That, to me, is also a kind of hate. It's in this other kind of. As to use that word again, other. Rising this extreme, otherizing and writing people off, not based on any particular personal interactions, not like your ex who did whatever to you and you're mad at them. This is. I've written off groups of people who I don't even know because they belong to this political party or viewpoint or voted for this person, and it's making them just that and then demeaning, dehumanizing, attacking, condemning them based on that narrow understanding of who they are.

Yeah. Yeah. So you agree that this happens on both sides of the aisle? Certainly. It sounds like you do. Right. Okay. Now, just out of curiosity, and I'm sure you have an opinion on this. Sort of maybe. Depends which administration is in office right at the time, you know, which force or eight years were on. But does one side do it more than the other? Is it worse on one side than it is on the other?

Yes, it is. I happen to believe it is. I also happen to believe it doesn't matter, in other words, who started it or who did it first. You know, as I alluded to before. We could argue about that till the cows come over. You know, listen, what matters is that we stop it, that we take. And the part of the dynamic here. Listen, I'll tell you how hate.

When I.

One of the things I found out from this book, how hate Works, is that most people, by and large, don't wake up in the morning intending to be hateful. Most people don't think that they're hateful. Most people, though, think that that other side, those other people, they're hateful. And anything that you do that maybe is, you know, less than kind is nonetheless justified because those people were hateful. They started it. And we feel that way about them, they feel that way about us. Right. I mean, there's even research, by the way, that this is true of people we would think of as obvious members of overt hate groups like neo Nazis and current terrorists, that.

So ISIS and Al Qaeda.

Right.

Or radical Islam.

Right, right. I mean, I talked to a woman who worked in the army, was a terrorist interrogator for the US army in Afghanistan, and she said, look, most people believe that their motivations are good. They see their own motivations as good. And so when we're always fixated and focused on the other side and what they've done to us and how hateful they are or how much they've wronged us or et cetera, et cetera, that they did it worse than first, then we never take responsibility for whatever our piece is of the problem, even if it's a smaller piece. Right, Whatever you believe. Because if we're only ever pointing fingers, we're never actually solving problems.

Yeah, definitely. Definitely. Talk to us a little bit about feminism, if you would. I think one of the things that people really fail to distinguish, they sort of throw that word around and they don't distinguish the differences between first, second and third wave feminism. And I love you to talk about that because you're probably an expert, I assume. You know, I'd just love to hear a little bit more about that, because I think our culture really just sort of, you know, I mean, we throw a lot of words around that. I'd just love to get your thoughts on that.

In a way, terms and definitions are one thing. What they mean to us and what they come to mean in society is another.

Yeah.

But I have always thought of feminism as a core idea, that women are equal to men and should be treated equally. I'm not saying equal doesn't mean the same. Right. But, you know, it's like saying religion should be treated equally doesn't mean they're the same. Right. But they should be treated equally. And the recognition that as society and feminism stems from the recognition that as a society, in our culture, our business, politics, etc. We have not done that. That we have failed to do that. That. For instance, the reason that every single president we have elected in the entire history of the United States is not just because they were the most qualified of all the human beings, but because they were men. Right. That that was in fact, deemed to be. That they were. We live in a society where we have historically in the past and still today acted as though men are superior to women.

But you just don't think maybe we just haven't had. Maybe we just haven't had the right female candidate yet. That's kind of like saying we haven't elected a libertarian president either, regardless of their gender.

I mean, right.

Or no.

But wait, so you don't think that the 45 presidents we've elected in the history of the United States were elected not exclusively, not solely, but certainly in part because they were men?

I don't know the answer, but they're the ones running. I mean, there's a lot more that happens before the election. Right. There's the primaries and going way down to the whole political career. And it's only been a fairly recent phenomenon that women have really risen up in politics and public life. And, you know, I mean, we certainly had one that most of the country thought would win Hillary Clinton last time around. Right. You know, she won the popular vote by a fairly small margin, but she still won it. You know, if the campaign had maybe strategized a little differently, she'd be president. I mean, there's no doubt about that. Everybody thought she was going to win pretty much. I, I know that's a figure of speech, everybody, but you get the idea. It's not like there's a institutionalized conspiracy to bar women from participating in the system. Or is there? I mean, I don't know that there's one.

For most of the United States history, more of our history than not, women weren't allowed to vote. So that's as.

That's. We fixed that a long time.

It hasn't even been a century in this country that women have been allowed to vote. So that's, that's not. But for more of our country's formal history than not, women couldn't vote. That's a fact. So that we could call that sort of overt institutional discrimination. Right. Certainly. And at the same time, look, what we're getting to here is when we talk about. And you were alluding to it before, when you asked the question about sort of institutionalized hate, hate in its institutionalized forms. And that is to say that you're right that there may not be as many. Thankfully, hopefully there may not be as many people today, men and women, by the way, because when we talk about sexism, we talk about. That's something, as I said, was the air that you breathe. It's the air we all breathe. It's the air I'm gonna breathe and you're gonna breathe so that we're both gonna end up walking into a voting booth as products of this long history and culture in the United States, where we've been taught men are leaders, men are better leaders. We've been taught it by history. We've been taught it by what we see. We've been taught it by who runs the businesses, who is in positions of power. It's what we've been taught. And so you and I both breathe in that air. We're gonna exhale that air. We're gonna. It's going to affect who we vote for. And I'm not saying it doesn't mean that I won't sometimes vote for a woman. You might not sometimes vote for a woman. But the pattern, that history, it takes some toll on us individually and as a society. You don't just snap your fingers.

History is context saying only men can.

Be leaders, then we all believe otherwise. That's why. And you need to actually hear something about that.

Okay, so history provides context. You're right. I mean, like you said, you gave. I love the metaphor you just gave about we breathe in the certain air and we breathe out the certain air, and that's context. So I get that. But isn't that just like going back to the example you gave before of it sort of doesn't matter who started the fight or who's more right or who's wrong? I mean, yes, that is history. We all know that history is there. So it's been a long time. What do we do now, though? You know, what do we do now? Do we vote for, you know, a woman to be president, even if she's not the best candidate? Like, should people feel guilty about that, that Hillary didn't win? I don't know. You know, I just kind of don't know exactly where to go with that. It's certainly. Women are not barred from the system today, are they?

Or are they? I think. No, no, I think you're right, that it shouldn't sort of hamstring us and we shouldn't Be sort of lost in just lamenting how things have been. I agree with that.

Yeah. Okay.

But look, I also think that a realistic. I mean, there's. This is much more complicated. We're going to run out of time on my end. But there's not much.

I get it.

But it begins with. To me, it begins with, look, I would like us to get to a place where we didn't argue as a whole. Not just you and me, I mean, in general, where we didn't argue about the reality of the hate and discrimination and inequality and injustice that has gotten us to this place. So that we can look at, for instance, people running for office and who we're more or less likely to vote for, just as one tiny example here. And we can say, huh, that is not. Just like we don't get to start fresh at every moment. That reality is in fact contextualized by history. So the fact that, for instance, we know from research, we don't have to speculate on this. We know from research, you take the exact same resume, exact same resume, put a man's name on top of. Put a woman's name on top, send them out the resume, exact same resume with man's name on top, we'll get twice as many calls for interviews. Now, that is because of that air that we all breathe that has been pumped through history and funneled into each of us, that we all then exhale in various different ways, not always consistently, not always exactly the same way. But to me, it would be great if we could get to a place where we acknowledged, look at this, this inequality and injustice is hate is continuing to replicate itself whether we mean it to or not. And instead of arguing about that reality, let's get to a place where we're debating how to solve it.

I would absolutely love to have a debate with you sometime on the pay gap issue, because I think that issue, although it's, you know, the 77% concept, they miss a lot of points in that debate. I don't know. There's just a lot of. And I know you don't have time, but I would just love to talk to you about that sometime. I really appreciate a lot of your points. I very much do. And I think you are right on so many things. I just think the only thing about this concept of okay it was the way it was idea that you brought up before does not mean it's okay now just because we're doing better than other places or other times in history. You're right. It's not an Excuse. I just think that it deserves a little credit, though. It's kind of like a kid, you know, you got to reinforce the positive sometimes. And I don't think America's a bad country. I think it's a good country. I think it's been supremely open. I mean, in the civil rights movement with mlk, there were tons of white people supporting that, you know, and sometimes it just doesn't feel like they get any credit, you know, like they're all made out to be bad, evil people, you know.

Hang on a second, hang on a second. See, I'm not making out anyone to be bad or evil, right? That's the thing here is I'm not actually saying any of this is necessarily conscious. And by the way, look, in the, you know, 1940s, 1950s, a majority of white people opposed integration. A majority of white people supported segregation. That's the truth. Now today, majority of white people are opposed to segregation and to racial discrimination. That is progress. There is no question that's progress. So, yeah, we can pat ourselves on the back and now let's move forward. Because I also don't think, by the way, there are good countries or bad countries. Right? We all have the capacity, just like people and countries and institutions and families. We can all do good things and bad things. The question is, do we rest on our laurels, however many of them we think we have, or do we push ourselves to do better?

Very good discussion. And I think that's a good wrap up to it. So. Yeah, absolutely. Sally, give out your website. Tell people where they can find out more about you and the book courses on Amazon.

Sure. It's Sally Kohn K o h n.

Dot com that's sallykon k o h n dot com and thank you so much for joining us today. Appreciate it.

Hey, thanks for the great conversation. Appreciate it.

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