Stop Making Monsters!
IMPROMPTU MONOLOGUE, in which I break our summer break to talk about the response to the attempted assassination on Trump
Summary :: Bad Hijabi discusses the dehumanization and polarization happening in society, particularly in relation to Donald Trump and Karen Pinder. She highlights the media's role in creating a narrative that Trump is a threat to democracy and the dangers of labeling individuals as human monsters. Roxanne emphasizes the need for individuals to take responsibility for their own behaviours in reactions to difficult events, to find their emotional centre, and to respond to conflicts in a more constructive and empathetic way.
Keywords :: dehumanization, polarization, Donald Trump, Karen Pinder, media, threat to democracy, human monsters, responsibility, emotional centre, constructive response
Takeaways
Dehumanization and polarization are prevalent in society, with individuals being labeled as human monsters based on their beliefs or actions.
The media plays a significant role in creating narratives and shaping public opinion, often portraying individuals like Donald Trump as a threat to democracy.
It is important for individuals to take responsibility for their own actions and reactions, to find their emotional center, and to respond to conflicts in a more constructive and empathetic way.
Labeling and dehumanizing others only perpetuates the cycle of hatred and division, and it is crucial to find alternative ways to address disagreements and conflicts.
Titles
The Media's Role in Creating Narratives
Moving Away from Labeling and Dehumanization
Sound Bites
"Donald Trump, there was an attempt on his life Saturday and the whole world is talking about it."
"The media is really trying to create this story, this narrative that Donald Trump is a threat."
"The way we respond to things is really a lot about how we are."
Chapters
00:00 The Dehumanization and Polarization in Society
03:21 The Media's Role in Creating Narratives
10:26 Taking Responsibility for Our Actions and Reactions
20:52 Moving Away from Labeling and Dehumanization
Transcript
Hello, it's Monday, July the 15th and it is 1400 hours Vancouver time. So I am supposed to be taking a break from this stuff and trying not to overthink, but Donald Trump, there was an attempt on his life Saturday and the whole world is talking about it.
And there's some interesting reactions to it. So because this is a podcast about dehumanization and of what I'm observing right now is a fair amount of dehumanization, just all around, just generally speaking. So I'm just going to talk about that. First off—
If you go to, I'm going to speak from a Canadian perspective because I'm in Canada. If you go to the CBC, which is the publicly funded national broadcaster, so it is like the Canadian equivalent of BBC. If you go there and if you type into the search thing, Donald Trump threat to democracy, you'll get 159 hits on that. If you just type in threat to democracy and search, you get like 600, you get like 595. And the first things you get are like Trump represents the greatest threat to democracy, August the 2nd, 2023. You have, is Trump a threat to democracy? And it's a picture of Madeleine Albright from October the 20th, 2020. You have former ambassador. I don't know this guy's name, I don't recognize him, but he's the former ambassador to or from the United States. Donald Trump is the greatest threat the US has had to its democracy October the 14th, 2020.
And you know, you can just scroll down here and Trump represents a threat to democracy. And because this is the CBC, they do this thing where they like repeat the stories in the search results to make it look like it's more than it is for certain things. And you know, just a threat to democracy, a threat to democracy has failed to protect democracy, a threat to democracy…you know, if you look at this, you see Donald Trump, greatest threat to democracy, and you see Trump threat democracy. And you know, you see this over and over again.
And if you go to like the BBC, and if type in Donald Trump threat to democracy, you get like 37 pages of hits. You know, if you go to like CNN, Donald Trump is a threat to democracy, I think get like 42,000 or something like that hits…my point is that, like, the media is really trying to create, create this story, this narrative that you know, Donald Trump is a threat.
You know, we are trying to associate him as a threat, you know, with a danger cue, right? Trying to set up that narrative in society. And, you know, in Canada, we have every single thing, you know, there was like the Cass review was coming out and the conservative premier of, know, Alberta is, you know, trying to instill some sanity and have some safeguards for all of the stuff and which is in line with the Cass review. And, know, Poilievre who is the federal conservative leader, is supporting that, right? The conservatives support that and most Canadians do. And the response is not to take responsibility, you know, the response of like Trudeau and, whatever, it's not to take responsibility and be like, okay, you know, maybe we were wrong or whatever.
This is radicalism. This is far right. You know, this is like they're white supremacists. This is like, you know, Tucker Carlson and, you know, all of the stuff like that. Right. And there has been this ongoing, like, assault on truth coming from mostly the progressive left wing side, you know, castigating, you know, conservatives as like evil white supremacists and like the biggest threat. You know, and in Canada we have like the federal government is like paying like, like, you know, dissident nonprofits who target dissidents. So the federal government is paying nonprofits to target dissidents and calling that fighting hate.
You know, and they've concocted this big narrative that there's like these Trumpian people and you know, there's this far right conspiracy and all of this stuff. And that's why, you know, the trucker freedom convoy and all that stuff, everyone had their bank accounts frozen and all this stuff. Cause apparently there was this big narrative. It was like, you know, the Nazis were coming and shit. And you know, that's really interesting because for the past nine months we've been watching actual Nazis, like people calling for the mass extermination of Jews and Intifada, et cetera, et cetera. You know, for the past nine months, we've been watching every week, people call for that and nobody's bank account's been frozen. know, police have barely done anything, know, charges have not really been successful and sticking and stuff. So we have like this massive problem of dehumanization.
Like this has just made it worse, you know, this Donald Trump almost getting shot has made it worse. Everyone's talking. Everyone's gotta line up to be the first, you know, one to share the information and stuff, right? And so, you know, we have in Canada, we have this. you know, professor of medicine at UBC. Her name is Karen Pinder. She is, her background is biomedical sciences. She's like, appears that she's studied or specialized in cell biology, histology, you know, she did some postdoc work in viral oncology. And she is the director of histology and she is like a professor of teaching and she is an instructor of foundations of medical practice one, which is like a course in the undergraduate medical program. So she is a full professor. She's not a medical doctor. She teaches med students.
Okay, so that's this woman and she said, damn, so close. What a glorious day this could have been. That was her response to Donald Trump almost getting shot. Like almost getting killed. To him getting shot in the ear and almost getting killed, you know, if it would have been just a few millimeters, like he would have killed him, right? That was her response. Damn, so close. It could have been a great day.
Okay, so.
People are obviously upset about this, rightly so, right? And now we have, everyone is piling on Karen Pinder and she's being made into this evil monster, right? Because that's what we do now whenever somebody makes us really upset and you know, don't have the emotional resilience to handle our feelings in a socially appropriate way, we make a human monster. So now apparently Karen Pinder is this, you know, evil, you know, person, this evil, you know, academia person who wanted to call the cops on people who weren't wearing masks during COVID and she wanted to fully enforce vaccine mandates and put people in jail who didn't submit to the mRNA shot, blah, blah. And then we have people that are like, just everyone's freaking out about Karen Pinder. Karen, there’s—.
Canada's full of Karen Pinders and you know, this is like, academia is evil and you know the medical school, you know, it's like People are just not okay like obviously this triggered a lot of like fear and stuff and people are just sliding sideways and there's not really any like leadership to say hey like you guys can we not do this and so—You know, we're doing that thing where, you know, okay, somebody's like, damn, that's too bad. It could have been a great day. But then everyone's like, wow, look, she's evil and she's a monster. And we got to this point because people were okay with monstrifying Donald Trump. I mean, he's not my favourite person. Okay. But like, I don't really think we need to like, you know, lament the fact that some that an assassin missed, would be assassin missed And I also don't think like we need to like be calling for like, you know, the social media like lynching of anybody who said, you know, she's mad because, you know, Donald Trump survived. I just think, you know, the way we respond to things is really a lot about how we are.
And it does come from leadership. mean, if you go back and if you look at some of the things that, you know, Trudeau has said about, you know, like several years ago about Trudeau and about Trump, you know, when there was like the January the sixth thing and, you know, the whole like narrative that was being concocted about whether he incited a riot and the whole thing about that and the response to that. And, you know, everyone, you know, making a narrative about him. And it's like, you know—
We've just, we were stuck in this pattern of creating human monsters and we do it with everything. We're doing it with, you know, conservatives versus the socialists in North America. We're doing it with Israel versus Palestine. We're doing it with, you know, the trans thing and refusing to embrace the reality of the Cass report, you know, and the whole WPATH files and the whole, you know, absolutely inappropriate, unethical interference of Rachel Levine.
You know, that whole community, the way they engage, the whole, what I'm going to call, Wokerati community and the way they engage is largely responsible for ratcheting up antagonism in the public discourse in North America for making it normal to express ourselves using extreme language. know, 15 years ago, we didn't have like everyone talking about genocide and everyone going around calling everyone Nazis and shit. didn't have we didn't need to use these extreme words to describe our feelings, to describe our displeasure with things. So, but we didn't have leaders that were constantly like finding the wedge angle and that kind of thing, you know? So I just think this is not like, let's find a boogeyman and let's make a human monster. Like, I'm not sure what's our first clue that that strategy is not working anymore and we need to find a new strategy.
Remember what the definition of madness is, everyone? Repeating the same mistakes and expecting a different result. So I think the way that Donald Trump has just been vilified and dehumanized and, you know, castigated as this evil white supremacist monster who is a threat to democracy and blah, blah, blah, I think that's manipulative. And I really resent when I see the fear mongering and the fear farming, as somebody who has done a lot of work to survive domestic violence and relationship abuse and just generally violent men menacing me and stuff like that, as someone who has had to survive, people trying to scare me on purpose for sport, I really, really resent being the way of public discourse.
And I really resent, you know, people who write opinion pieces and people who are influencers and people who are talking heads and stuff and politicians deliberately choosing their words, using the most extreme words to like drive up the intensity, to drive up the rage, to drive up the fear, to make it so people are so emotional that they cannot find their cognitive space where you need to be feeling safe socially without all these danger cues flying around you so that you can think about solutions. I really, really resent that. I resent the deliberate, you know, fear -mongering and manipulation and mobbing and stuff.
Okay, what Karen Pinder said was really dumb. Maybe she was joking. I'm not laughing and nonetheless, it calls into question her judgment. She's a full professor in a position of responsibility. So I think that her words carry a lot of weight and maybe some people just should think twice before they decide to have social media accounts. And if you're going to have a social media account and you have an important position like that where people are going to notice, then maybe you should just post pictures of your fluffy cat and your knitting projects and what book you're reading and not be political. And if you do want to be political, then be smart and have a sock account. I mean, you know, come on, really? So that said, she—
What she said was inappropriate. Okay, we know that. Like it's Monday, okay? This happened Saturday. I'm not exactly sure what world everyone lives in where they think that they should just get answers like Sunday morning. Okay, like it's to the middle of July. Like really, are you all okay? If you need, you know, I think some of you need, I don’t—
So anyway, she said a stupid thing. It wasn't funny. And this is like, you know, there's several stories now that point to, you know, people in academia and professional life and stuff really needing some guidance around social media because that is really not clear. And the other thing about social media is very tied to emotional health and like emotional intelligence and spiritual intelligence. What I mean by spiritual intelligence is your relationship with yourself. So like if you're not right with yourself, if you have trouble within yourself managing all of your various, you know, conflicting feelings and feelings of ambivalence and all of these things that are coming at you, like that's going to come out in your social media behaviour.
So if you are some important person whose words carry weight, who has a professional designation and professional reputation and you are having all of these human experiences, then maybe you need to think about how you're handling your social media time. You know, maybe you don't, not every thought that enters your mind needs to make it into a tweet. If you just need to, you ban yourself from certain platforms if you don't trust yourself to behave.
You're an adult. I mean, for heaven's sakes, she's capable enough to have achieved professional excellence enough to become a professor. So to have achieved science, accomplishments and publication accomplishments and and stuff like that okay so we're not talking about people who are dumb we're talking about people who can achieve things it's just like what is wrong with their social emotional area you know i don't know and then on the other side we have people trying to make her into this big monster and everyone mobbing her and—And making it seem like, okay, well, know, it wasn't that bad. Hey, you guys chill out and it's like, okay, you're all wrong. Can you all just stop talking about it? you get hobby or get like a new topic of discussion? Like I think we the thing with these social media thing is like we beat a dead horse. Like people have made their opinions known.
You know, Donald Trump is not this big evil monster. He's a human being. And if people didn't like the choice, well, maybe there should be some other choices. But you know, we've got like one guy who puts rapists in female prison who thinks that men can be women. And there's all sorts of stories about him. And he probably has Lewy Body Dementia and everyone's lying about it. And on the other side, we have Donald Trump, who is, you know, the apprentice of Roy Cohn.
So like, I don't know what to say about that. That's not my deal. I'm a Canadian and I'm just over here trying to do my thing. I shouldn't talk. I'm not one to talk. You know, we've been led by Mr. Radical himself, Justin Trudeau for almost 10 years. So whatever. My point is, I think we need to respond differently to these things that happen. Obviously, this is like something that's really shocking to people. I mean it shouldn't be when you think about it because this is what happens when you normalize violence when you normalize dehumanization when you normalize making anyone who disagrees with you into a human monster when you make comparisons with conservative people or whoever You know to Hitler and all of these things that is making human monsters.
Okay, and there's only one solution to a human monster.
So when you've decided that your remedy to the conflict is to start to create human monsters, that's a path that you're choosing. Okay? There's only one solution to a human monster. We've had this discussion before when I have been on here with Lee, when I have been on here with Lee and David, you can go and read the—David's book is called Making Monsters. Okay. There is one destination where that leads to when you start to make people into human monsters. Okay. So think very carefully if you want to go down that path. Think very carefully if you want to go down that path. doesn't matter. Karen Pinder, Donald Trump, Justin Trudeau, Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, whoever is your scapegoat and your big evil boogie person, think very carefully about where the line is and when you start to make people into human monsters.
For those people who are familiar with the Talmud and the Torah and Jewish thought and all of that stuff, that story, that story about bar Kamtza and know, Sinat Chinam and all of that stuff. That's very instructive and people who are familiar with Jewish thinking and, all of this stuff, you know, or have access to it. it's kind of a blessing because there's a lot of lessons in there. There's a lot of history of Jewish thinking of this kind of thing where people, you know, are, just gratuitously hating and just, you know, engaging in cancel culture and just being dickheads on purpose. There's all sorts of examples that, you know, of stories and of commentary and of, you know, the sages warning against that. And, you know, simple things like the Torah on one foot that don't do to others what you hate having done to yourself. I don't want anyone.
You know making me into a human monster and thinking that like I need to die because I am not worthy of you know being a part of human society so I'd like I I don't want to do that to anyone else and it doesn't matter if I disagree with them or think they're loathesome humans or whatever People are alive if for some reason that I don't control or know and You—There has to be other ways to deal with disagreements. Ultimately, it's about your disagreement with your inner self. It's about being angry and upset and fearful and still following the moral code that you follow. So I just thought that it was kind of important to...interrupt the break that I'm supposed to be doing and just come and remind people that this is like a process of the way we engage with information and the way we engage with like a human story that we attach to it. And usually we, you know, like to blame things because instead of, you trying to take the grace of understanding, we, you know, choose to give blame and shame. And it's a spiralling down thing. And then, you know, once we start that, we can't stop it.
And the further we go into it, you know, sometimes you might see yourself, I know I often do, I'm like, wow, this, you know, like, and then sometimes if you're like, you know, if you don't want to face that, often accusations are confessions, right? A lot, sometimes a lot of this stuff is so you know, projection based and, and, you know, we do this dehumanization thing because we want to distance ourselves from that, that awful thing. We're like, my goodness. Wow. It's a good thing I didn't do that thing. Right. So I don't know. I just want to remind everyone that it really, it's up to you to look at the information, you know, now some of the stuff that you're going to see about Karen Pinder at this point.
If whatever is being presented about her if it's making you mad it's because that is the intent you're being manipulated at this point So whoever can make a decision about it has the information. It's Monday Okay, it's Monday at like 2 30 in the afternoon in the middle of fucking July In Vancouver, okay, because this is based in Vancouver. Okay So think about the context. It's fucking July. It's off season. Okay. So I'm not sure what people expect. I don't know what people expect. Just, you know, making her into this monster and just like, you know, being a bully and an asshole is not going to get the results any faster. It's just going to make you more angry and less able to see the...the situation, what led to it.
And I don't know what else to say, except that dehumanization is becoming a real, it's becoming the contagion. And if everyone wants to talk about, you know, the pandemic and, you know, this kind of thing. Well, the idea that any human being is you know, a threat to humanity, you know, and like that we need to like isolate them and, you know, put a monster label on them and somehow, you know, have come up with some kind of solution to deal with them. That's really, that's a really, that's a really dangerous social disease, social poisonous thing that's happening right now. And, you know, it's very easy to get sucked into it. A lot of people, if they're honest with themselves, and I'll be honest, I've said this before in conversation, I'll say it again, after October the 7th, many of us did get swept into the dehumanization rhetoric, and we totally bought into the whole, you know, human animal thing and let's level Gaza and watching all of these people in the streets of Gaza. The way the photography was presented was however, deliberately with the angles, making the crowds of people that were cheering what happened look like lots of people. mean, in retrospect, there's ways that there's techniques that can be done and there's post -processing things that can be done to these.
You know, images to make it look, you know, like there's more people than it is to create an impression. And that was done. You know, that was definitely done. Okay.
So at the same token, that's happening on the other side because now, you know, suddenly everyone who, you know, wears an Israeli flag is like evil and, know, is like, you know, a warmongering, whatever. Like we can't be objective anymore because we've just gotten so used to like assigning like extremist labels to things we disagree with that, you know, now everyone who thinks that the state of Israel should agree, you know, is like an evil bigot and anyone who thinks that, you know, Palestinians should have like a freer society is also an evil bigot who wants to blow up a plane.
So. I don't know, I mean, do we want to live in this world where we just are our go to strategy for every single conflict and every single uncomfortable social situation is going to be making a human monster? So, you know, we don't have reasonable Jewish people who feel like they have an ancestral attachment to the Israeli land. We have everyone who's a genocidal ethnic cleansing racist. We don't have Palestinians who feel like there should be some solution and self -determination for Palestinian people. We have Nazis who want to blow up planes.
We don't have conservative minded politicians. We have far right white supremacists. Everyone's joining Diagonal on or proud boys or whatever. We can't have like some kind of reasonable anti -racism because everything is Marxist and the commies are coming to eat your hamster. We can't have peaceful coexistence with Muslims because all Muslims are hateful extremists who want Sharia law and everyone, you know, she thinks that we should have like the Ayatollah, you know, like this is like, how can we like get along if people aren't willing to put those narratives down and admit that maybe those stories you're carrying around are fucking bullshit? Like if you really are concerned about the Muslim community, stop fucking listening to people like Ayaan and listen to people who fucking have figured out out of practice Islam without being raging radical Weirdos I can guarantee you there are though there are those people you know it didn't work out for me because the Because for different reasons that I don't need to talk about right now, but there are people who are trying.
And you know, the more you listen to Ayaan and the more you listen to, you know, people like Ali Sina. And I appreciate that book and I appreciate the perspective. But I don't know what the point is. If you know, we have people going around like that and I understand the trauma of being an ex -Muslim, you know, me being one myself. OK, my trauma is like really nothing. But I understand that perspective. But, know, if you're going to listen to people who couldn't make it work for them, who like have already made a choice that they like that approach and they're not going to do anything further to try to make it work, then I think you've already made your choice about the fact that you don't believe in peaceful coexistence. So, you know, I appreciate, you know, the Ali Sina and the book about the prophet. You can go find that if you want to. It's online. It's, you know, it's interesting and it's an important perspective. You know, you can go and listen to the son of Hamas and I've seen him in person. I've listened to him. His perspective is important. You can go listen to all of these things. Okay. They're all really important. You know, all of the ex -Muslims, Ayaan, whoever, I don't really care for that much, but a lot of these people are clout chasers. A lot of these people are not really making an effort to try to make it better. They're not making an effort to try to, you know, have some kind of peaceful coexistence or try to be an example or whatever.
And to be very honest, is a lot of, there's a lot of a need in the West to have Islam be an extremist boogeyman. And so to deliberately not really make as much of an effort as could be made in the West to embrace people who are trying to do an Islam without extremes. Mustafa Akyol is a Turkish guy who like he lives in Washington. He's known in the Muslim, you know, some Muslims know him. He's a Muslim scholar, written several books. He was arrested for in, I think in Malaysia because he was lecturing on an Islam with extremes and the morality police were upset because they didn't think that that was cool and his dad is some kind of known in public figure and so pulled some strings, got him out. But there are people who are risking their lives trying to Islam without extremes.
And you don't, you know, the people who are critical of Islam, you don't even know that you are like, Ayaan Hirsi Ali my hero. I mean, I appreciate that. But you know what? What about like, or Irshad Manji? She's a gay woman who's still practicing Islam. She's like needs like, you know, bulletproof glass. She's like, you know, she said some shit and people are mad at her forever. What about her? She's still practices. What about other people I could mention you never even heard of them before? You don't even You're not even making an effort You know, there's somebody who like also, you know sort of risked his his well -being who was living in Saudi Arabia Translating the Quran without permission into everyday regular language and you know had some other people come and help him you know and like do this like on the low down right.
No there are all sorts of people like that taking risks routinely in the Muslim and Arab world to try to get freedom and in the West I think we sort of have a bit of a responsibility because you know we have no idea however much we think we're you know hard done by and shit we don't have an iron dome. We don't have a safe room where we need to go when there's rockets flying overhead. We're not surrounded by people who are like, you know, digging out water pipes from the ground to make fucking rockets to try to kill us. Okay. I mean, whatever violent experience that I've had or witnessed my mother had is not a comparison to somebody who's living in a fucking war zone constantly.
Okay. So I think we have a bit of a responsibility to pull our fucking heads from our ass and stop acting like adult cry-bully babies and really like find our emotional centre. However that is, if that's religion, if that's meditating or yoga, whatever, I don't give a fuck how it is. Find your emotional centre and get into that place in your nervous system where you can access your brain and figure out like where to go from here because it is up to all of us. No one's coming to save us. You know, Donald Trump is not going to save you. Pierre Poilievre is not going to save you. Okay. No fucking person is going to fucking save you. It's each of us are going to save us.
And if there is a road to peace, it's the Vagus Nerve So why don't you look that up? Steven Porges and the Polyvagal theory. Or if you're Jewish, well, you have like gone to Hebrew school, and you have access to all sorts of shit. There's all sorts of educational things for Jewish people. Like it's so easy to learn. Like it's like the best thing. The Torah is like seriously and all of the commentary and stuff.
Okay. So there's resources. You have to just stop acting. Like the person that is upsetting you is a human monster and, and find a bit, a different way, to manage these things. And that goes for me too. And it's really hard when there's lots of information and all of the information is coming at you so fast. You know, when you're driving down the highway really, really fast and you pass a certain point where when you pass that point, like things come at you differently and your perception changes and it sort of feels like that. Okay. So imagine that is how the information is.
And at some point, like knowledge, the access that we have to all of this knowledge, the wisdom can't even keep up. like, I don't know, I feel like when I spend like a few hours studying the Torah and commentary, if I poke around Sefaria or whatever, I feel like if I do that, it does something to my brain, it gives me some clarity and it makes me a bit smarter. And I've heard, teaching rabbis and stuff say that that is like not just something I just made up. It's like an actual phenomenon. So, you know, whatever. If it's the Bible for you, if it's the Koran, if it's like whatever, if you're a Buddhist and there's some other, you know, like Pema Chodron or whatever, like I don't need you to join my herd. I am not even in a herd, whatever. I just need people to just take responsibility for themselves.
Like use your intellect use whatever if it's you draw or if you like have kids and you go play or just find something, this making human monsters thing is really not working. It's really not. And I don't know. I hope that, you know, what happened and the way we're watching ourselves respond to it, I hope that all of these things we can catch ourselves and we can catch, you know, the ways that we can stop it and we can see, you know, that there, you know, there's moving parts to this. There's media, there's, you talking heads, there's spiritual leaders, there's influencers, there's whatever, opinion writers and stuff.
And ultimately it's you. You're a grownup and presumably you are listening to this on a device. So you have the intelligence to have made an internet account and to figure out how to work the device. So have enough capability to take responsibility for deciding what information you don't want to hear. And at some point, you know, like having access to information all the time, does it really make you more effective in, you know, responding to things? I don't think it does. think at some point, like obsessing over all of the information, over-thinking is a block. I know it is. It's definitely it's one of my struggles I struggle with. I'm a terrible over-thinker, horrible, horrible over-thinker. It's like one of the things I struggle with the most. And it does. It blocks me from God, blocks me from spiritual peace and stuff. So, you know, I'm honest with myself and I'm here and I'm fairly entertaining and a lot of people like to listen to me.
So, you know, it's been 40 minutes. I think I've talked enough.
Lee says by 45 minutes people are not listening anymore. So I just wanted to you know remind you that you you have a choice. You're not helpless. You're not you know this little like mouse in a corner. Like stop that. Stop listening to those narratives and stop listening to that stuff and think for yourself and ask questions. And if there is some piece of information that you know provokes in you or evokes in you a really intense emotional response. Stop and think about the fact that whoever crafted that content or piece of information probably intended you to react that way and think about why that is. Okay? So there are no human monsters.
Karen Pinder said a really dumb thing. She's just a human being. She doesn't have a medical license of any kind. She is a professor. She's a full tenured professor at the University of BC School of Medicine. Her specialty is in histology, cell biology. She teaches undergraduate medical students foundations of medicine. And whatever the powers that be decide to do with her is, you know, is up to them. I just remember Steve Galloway and the whole way that UBC treated Steve Galloway. I remember that. So, you know, there is a history of how people are treated and hopefully there is some kind of standard that we have established so that there is fair treatment for this person. I don't know. I've said what I said and I'm not the person to make this decision. I know what it's like when somebody's livelihood is cancelled. It's not a joke. It's somebody's life. And that's what I'll say about that.
So everyone just needs to put that down and move on. Whatever you're mad about. I'm sure you're mad about something more than just the fact that she said, this could have been a really great day. So figure that out for yourself and just what else can we do? Move forward. Respond to things differently. You can't control what anyone else does. You can only control what you do. So how about you do that? It's Monday, July the 15th. It's 1444 Vancouver time. It's a whole new week. It's summer. Go outside and play and stop making human monsters. That’s all.