“We don’t know our own biases.”
Russel Brand, an English comedian, actor, radio host, author, and activist, claims this idea in the midst of a 3-hour 20-minute conversation with Joe Rogan on Joe’s podcast: The Joe Rogan Experience. This episode was The Joe Rogan experience #1283. Throughout the episode, Joe and Russel have conversations on many topics, from Russel’s book to his life experiences, choices, ideologies, etc. In the midst of a conversation about society’s judgment of individuals, Russel begins to talk about our biases as human beings. During this, he brings up an interesting point:
“You know of being a person that goes to sort of 12-step support groups is you recognize that everyone’s individual experience is valuable… I’ve got over the idea that there’s some external thing can be imposed… like you know whilst there are many people that we could say are not using their 50 years to maximum effect because they are pursuing odd material goals there are many many more people that have never been introduced to the idea of freedom because from the moment they’re born they’re economically tyrannized and told that if you are not economically valuable to this system you are not valuable at all and that’s only an idea but… if you can’t become a lawyer or whatever f*ck you” (1:37.56-1:38.43)
In this quote, Brand talks about the idea that society focuses too much on material things rather than the ideological things. I personally agree with this as well and think it relates to all of us, especially the culture at highlands. We focus so much on our grades, and our scores, and the college we’re going to, how much money we make, etc. We don’t care about living a happy life anymore. I think this is a result of the immense societal pressure being placed on all of us, and Russel verbalizes it perfectly: if you can’t contribute to the system, you are useless. Brand talks about this idea in very broad generalizations in order to get his point across, but then also uses the example of parental pressure of how “you must become a doctor/lawyer” in order to succeed.
Works Cited
“Joe Rogan Experience.” Wikipedia, upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/4/4b/The_Joe_Rogan_Experience_logo.jpg/220px-The_Joe_Rogan_Experience_logo.jpg.
“Materialism Makes You Miserable.” Nj Life Hacks, http://www.njlifehacks.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/materialism-makes-you-miserable.jpg.
PowerfulJRE. “Joe Rogan Experience #1283 – Russell Brand.” YouTube, YouTube, 20 Apr. 2019, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rY5jCvRHEFk.
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