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Bonus Episode on Snitches, Tattletales, and Whistleblowers

2026-03-22T16:59:08Z

Admin: /* Opening Quote */

{{Episode_Infobox
| title = Bonus Episode on Snitches, Tattletales, and Whistleblowers
| image = [[File:Stop-snitching.jpg]]
| caption =
| episode_number = 14
| release_date = February 08, 2013
| listen = [[File:Episode-14-bonus-episode-on-snitches-tattletales-and-whistleblowers.mp3]]
| quote_source =
| opening_subject =
| beat_break_song =
| main_subject =
| guests =
| previous_episode = [[Beanballs, Blood Feuds, and Collective Moral Responsibility (With Fiery Cushman)]]
| next_episode = [[The Burning Bridges Episode (Pt. 1)]]
}}'''{{PAGENAME}}''' is the 14th episode of the [[Very Bad Wizards]] podcast, released on February 08, 2013.

== Show Notes ==

{{VBW_Show_Notes
| content = In a break from tradition, we recorded a 25-minute episode on the morality of tattletaling, snitching, ratting, and whistleblowing. We discuss why these people seem especially despicable (except for maybe "Bubbles" from "The Wire" and the guy from "The Insider"), and David gets Tamler to agree that he'd never turn him into the police. We also puzzle over the existence of porn theaters, and the origins of the expression "flip a bitch."
| links = * [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stop_Snitchin' Stop Snitchin' campaign] <br>
* [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bubbles_(The_Wire) Bubbles (character from "The Wire")] <br>
* [http://www.time.com/time/covers/0,16641,20021230,00.html Time Magazine Persons of the Year: Whistleblowers] <br>
* [http://verybadwizards.com/s/childrens-tattling.pdf Children's tattling: The reporting of everyday norm violations in preschool settings.] <br>
* [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XksRxuBoAZ8 Snitch] <br>
* [http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=dry%20snitching Dry Snitching] <br>
* [https://www.patreon.com/verybadwizards Support Very Bad Wizards]
}}

== Opening Quote ==

{{Opening_Quote
| text = Yeah, but this kind of junk make real junk look bad
| speaker = Fred G. Sanford
| image = Fred g sanford.webp
| source = Sanford and Son
}}

{{#ev:youtube|https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7mvE3tFBayE&t=1m31s|400px|center|Sanford and Son}}

[[Category:Episodes]]

== Transcript ==

{{TranscriptBox|{{PAGENAME}}/transcript}}

File:Fred g sanford.webp

2026-03-22T16:58:26Z

Admin:

Bonus Episode on Snitches, Tattletales, and Whistleblowers

2026-03-22T16:56:06Z

Admin: /* Transcript */

{{Episode_Infobox
| title = Bonus Episode on Snitches, Tattletales, and Whistleblowers
| image = [[File:Stop-snitching.jpg]]
| caption =
| episode_number = 14
| release_date = February 08, 2013
| listen = [[File:Episode-14-bonus-episode-on-snitches-tattletales-and-whistleblowers.mp3]]
| quote_source =
| opening_subject =
| beat_break_song =
| main_subject =
| guests =
| previous_episode = [[Beanballs, Blood Feuds, and Collective Moral Responsibility (With Fiery Cushman)]]
| next_episode = [[The Burning Bridges Episode (Pt. 1)]]
}}'''{{PAGENAME}}''' is the 14th episode of the [[Very Bad Wizards]] podcast, released on February 08, 2013.

== Show Notes ==

{{VBW_Show_Notes
| content = In a break from tradition, we recorded a 25-minute episode on the morality of tattletaling, snitching, ratting, and whistleblowing. We discuss why these people seem especially despicable (except for maybe "Bubbles" from "The Wire" and the guy from "The Insider"), and David gets Tamler to agree that he'd never turn him into the police. We also puzzle over the existence of porn theaters, and the origins of the expression "flip a bitch."
| links = * [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stop_Snitchin' Stop Snitchin' campaign] <br>
* [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bubbles_(The_Wire) Bubbles (character from "The Wire")] <br>
* [http://www.time.com/time/covers/0,16641,20021230,00.html Time Magazine Persons of the Year: Whistleblowers] <br>
* [http://verybadwizards.com/s/childrens-tattling.pdf Children's tattling: The reporting of everyday norm violations in preschool settings.] <br>
* [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XksRxuBoAZ8 Snitch] <br>
* [http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=dry%20snitching Dry Snitching] <br>
* [https://www.patreon.com/verybadwizards Support Very Bad Wizards]
}}

== Opening Quote ==

{{Opening_Quote
| text = Yeah, but this kind of junk make real junk look bad
| speaker = Fred G. Sanford
| reciever =
| source = Sanford and Son
}}

{{#ev:youtube|https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7mvE3tFBayE&t=1m31s|400px|center|Sanford and Son}}

[[Category:Episodes]]

== Transcript ==

{{TranscriptBox|{{PAGENAME}}/transcript}}

Bonus Episode on Snitches, Tattletales, and Whistleblowers/transcript

2026-03-22T16:54:41Z

Admin: Created page with "{{Dialogue |eliza=Eliza Sommers |tamler=Tamler Sommers |dave=Dave Pizarro |fred=Fred G. Sanford |oz=Wizard of Oz |dorthy=Dorthy |eliza|"Very Bad Wizards" is a podcast with a philosopher, my dad, and psychologist Dave Pizarro, having an informal discussion about issues in science and ethics. Please note that the discussion contains bad words that I'm not allowed to say, and knowing my dad, some very inappropriate jokes. | mood1=disclaimer |fred|Yeah, but this kind of jun..."

{{Dialogue
|eliza=Eliza Sommers
|tamler=Tamler Sommers
|dave=Dave Pizarro
|fred=Fred G. Sanford
|oz=Wizard of Oz
|dorthy=Dorthy

|eliza|"Very Bad Wizards" is a podcast with a philosopher, my dad, and psychologist Dave Pizarro, having an informal discussion about issues in science and ethics. Please note that the discussion contains bad words that I'm not allowed to say, and knowing my dad, some very inappropriate jokes. | mood1=disclaimer
|fred|Yeah, but this kind of junk make real junk look bad. | mood2=quote
|action| Begin Music
|action| End Music
|dave| Welcome to "Very Bad Wizards." Today we're doing something a little different. Since it's taking us some time due to technical error and the busyness of life and currently snowpocalypse to get a full-length episode out there, Tamler and I thought we'd do a little one-off short podcast.
|tamler| Snowpocalypse?
|dave| Yeah, that's—
|tamler| You have like 6 inches. You have like a dusting.
|dave| It doesn't mean that it's not going to be more. It's a claim about the eventual magnitude of the storm, not about how much snow is currently on the ground.
|tamler| But how is that preventing us from putting out a podcast right now? It just—
|dave| It's actually enabling us to put out a podcast. Exactly. That's the only reason we're talking right now is because you have this free time. That's because I can't go in I'm actually outside watching like the Sisyphean snow shoveling of Canadians.
|tamler| Because you can't get to your local Canadian porn theater. Can you believe that people used to go to theaters? And I think they still do.
|dave| I was just showing my daughter Pee-wee's Big Adventure for the first time. And I thought to myself, one day she will realize that Pee-wee was caught jerking off in a porn theater and she will have so many questions about why this is the case.
|tamler| But I mean, it's not just her. I have questions about why that's the case. Like, that was even then, that was at the time of videos. Like, what—
|tamler| That just shows you how desperately horny men are that they would actually go— this is before the years of VHS, you know?
|dave| No, it wasn't before the years of VHS.
|tamler| Well, it started before, right? I mean, it was a throwback. Like, it continued into the—
|dave| But when Pee-wee Herman did it, there were—
|tamler| Yeah, there were definitely VHSs.
|dave| There were definitely VHSs, which means he actually made the choice to go out into a theater—
|tamler| Is it like an impulse buy? Is it like, you know, how like Times Square used to be filthy? And is it just that you're walking down the street and you see like an adult theater and you're like, you know, I haven't jerked off to porn in a while. Like, why not?
|dave| I mean, that's fine. Like, I, you know, I've had that thought probably. And it's very simple. You go back to your house and where you're in the privacy of your own home.
|tamler| Yeah, no, I— if you cannot— if your imagination is not powerful enough to allow you to do something like that without having to walk or drive or take public transportation—
|dave| No, you don't need an imagination. You have a screen.
|tamler| No, no, no, I know, but I'm saying like, suppose that you didn't have access to any porn currently. That's what I still think that the wrong answer to current state of sexual arousal is to drive to a theater in which there— the other thing is, I mean, there are—
|tamler| Completely cleared out.
|dave| He had made a bank run the week before.
|tamler| Here's the two greatest expressions: spank bank and flip a bitch for making a U-turn.
|dave| See, I've always been intrigued by the origins.
|tamler| I have no idea. I get spank bank. I get the origins for spank bank. That's not hard. But flip a bitch, I don't know why that means a U-turn.
|dave| I don't either. But it's very funny. Like to just say when you're— I'm going to flip a bitch right here.
|tamler| I wonder if Urban Dictionary has something to say about it. Actually, I just turned to Urban Dictionary, which is to look up the topic that I wanted to discuss today.
|tamler| So today we want to talk about snitching.
|dave| Yes. We've been wanting to do an episode on this and we may still do like a long episode, but this is—
|tamler| Yeah, we may still do a long episode, but I just had to get these thoughts out. So I actually was talking to a grad student of ours, Emily Rosenzweig, about doing some studies and we did collect some data on the topic. But the only other psychologist who I know who's done research on anything like snitching is my friend Jesse Bering.
|dave| Oh, he has?
|tamler| Yeah, so he actually did a study on tattletaling in kids.
|dave| Awesome.
|tamler| So I'll put a link up to that, yeah. But so—
|dave| And I want to just get it out there, I want to write like a philosophical treatise on snitching.
|tamler| Do you want to say the conditions under which it's appropriate or not?
|dave| To call someone a snitch, to snitch.
|tamler| Yeah, or when you should properly express the emotion of gratitude and when it should be resentment.
|tamler| Yeah, what's it go— snitching versus whistleblowing.
|dave| Yeah, well, so, okay, that's actually gives— that leads me to a set of distinctions that I think that we should make. So snitching obviously is telling on somebody who's done something, presumably done something wrong. So there are at least 3 ways in which I think snitching comes up in everyday discussion, and one is when kids tattletale. So I'm actually curious, Tamler, to hear what you would think if your daughter came up to you and said, you know, I saw this boy, he hit his friend, and so I went and told the teacher. Right. So in this case, I think that qualifies as tattletaling.
|tamler| Yes, that's correct. Or snitching.
|dave| Or snitching. And now I don't— yeah, you know what?
|tamler| No, let's see.
|tamler| Let me just say, because I've had this conversation with my daughter. Right? And what I always tell her is, if somebody does something that's mean to you, right? Like, if somebody does something that's mean to you, the first thing you do is you talk to that person if you think you can. You know, unless it's like a 6th grade sleazy boy with like a beard or something like that. Then you just talk— the first thing you do before going to a teacher is talk to that person. And I'm thinking, you know, in her school, this issue is more like a girl is being mean or something like that. You know, it's not like she's getting picked on or bullied or something like that. And then if that doesn't work, then you go to the— then you go to the teacher. But what you're saying is somebody else, right?
|dave| Yeah. And then I tell her if she can, she should go in and tell that person to stop it if she thinks that that person really should stop it. And then if the person doesn't, then you could tell the teacher. But again, the idea is to go to the person first, then to—
|tamler| Right, right.
|dave| Yeah.
|tamler| And certainly— I think that in the case, like if a kid is like lighting matches next to a garbage can or something, and like, that's like, you know what, swallow whatever trepidation you might have about telling on someone and that's actually putting people in danger. So go ahead and do it. There is a way in which I think tattletaling— and so here's what I want. I'm gonna use the term snitching to refer to all kinds of telling on other people. And then I wanna distinguish between tattletaling, the kind of snitching that you would do as an adult for, like, if you were— if the cops wanted you to be a snitch, right? That, or if you want to reduce your own prison sentence, or if you just live in the community and part of your gig is to tell the cops whenever you see something that goes wrong. And then there are whistleblowers, people who are actively in, in like a company and they see bad things that are going on and they— nobody's saying anything, so they go and say it. So one of the things that I think is relevant to determining whether— so to me, the interesting question is, under what conditions is it actually wrong to tell on someone, and under what conditions is it actually obligatory to tell on someone, and in what conditions is it just permissible? So I actually think that—
|tamler| You really should be a philosopher.
|dave| I know, I know.
|tamler| And at what point— you forgot to add when it's supererogatory.
|dave| Supererogatory, that's right.
|dave| By snitching, I refer to this, this, this, and this.
|tamler| Right, well, so what are—
|dave| In this paper, I will examine.
|tamler| So here are my intuitions.
|dave| Yeah.
|tamler| When self-interest is clearly involved, so suppose that you actually tell on another inmate because it might reduce your sentence.
|dave| Right.
|tamler| I see that as just being a snake, like being a rat, a ratfink. Actually, that's an old term for— When you tattle, when you become a tattler in elementary school because you're trying to gain points with the teacher—
|dave| Those are the worst kids in the school.
|tamler| Those are the worst kids, right?
|dave| Bullies are better than those kids.
|tamler| Yeah, exactly. So this is some attempt to acquire power in this weird elementary political kind of way.
|dave| In this like slave morality kind of way.
|tamler| Right, right. So I think those are just— wrong. So I would try to influence my daughter not to tell on people unless there was really nothing, as you say, there was no other way around it. It was putting people in danger. It was harming her. It was harming somebody else. Right. So, you know, in hip-hop, a snitch, it probably just in general, in whatever sort of criminal underworlds, being a snitch is the worst of the worst, right? Yeah, and you save the hollow tips for the snitches. Yeah, because it really violates the code of honor that they have. So I think at least—
|dave| But there's a— I mean, yeah, the worst— and then there's the worst kind of snitch, which is doing it to just reduce their sentence, or they're going undercover to help the cop, or like the cop is paying you $20 to tell them when a crime occurs. But even a snitch that doesn't get any benefit from it is still a snitch. And even a snitch that like goes to the cops because he was like beaten up, or something like that, because an actual crime was committed against him, right, is still a snitch, right?
|tamler| That's right. And they get punished. It's a dangerous thing to do. You know, there's a great— in The Wire, it's great when— I can't say this without talking about a spoiler, but there's a character who just by dint of being seen with the cops, pretty much gets punished.
|dave| But then there's one of the most lovable characters, Bubbles, right? Who's just a professional snitch.
|tamler| He's a professional snitch.
|dave| It's funny, it's funny how nobody has any bad feelings against Bubbles for doing what he does. And he's doing exactly— and he's doing exactly like what you said and what we both said was the worst thing, right? He's snitching for a personal benefit.
|tamler| He is like this— he's introduced to such a lowlife. I think one of the things that prevents him from being despicable is that one of the first times that he tells the cops is because his friend, that guy who ends up getting AIDS— yeah, sorry, spoiler alert— gets beat up so badly that he— at least we see him fighting with himself about like whether or not to go to the cops. And in that scene when he finally does, and then he visits his friend in the hospital, he's like, "Bubs, you went to the cops?" You remember that?
|dave| Like, we don't do that.
|tamler| He's laid up in the hospital. He was an inch, like close to death. And he's like, "Bubs, what did you do that for?"
|dave| Here's what— if I had to guess why we don't hate Bubbles, it's just because that's his hustle, right?
|tamler| Yeah.
|dave| Like, you know, it's like, and that almost trumps anything. Like if you're down and out, you do whatever you can to scrape your way up to the top. That's why we like the drug dealers. That's why we like—
|tamler| And he's not claiming any allegiances either, right?
|dave| Right.
|tamler| It's pretty much, you know, it's not like he's in the organization.
|dave| Right. He's not betraying anybody.
|tamler| Right. That is a big thing. tension because on the face of it, if you see something very, very, very wrong being done, it should be the case that I feel like my intuition should be, okay, preventing that wrong thing from being done is the right thing to do. And then this is why the case of snitching really interests me because it's like, no, even if— Like even if somebody murders somebody else, to take an extreme case, and that person is like part of your crew or your friend, you just keep quiet. And that just seems like a weird tension. Like, don't I believe that you should stop bad things from occurring.
|dave| But the point is— here's the thing, it's like you should handle your own business. I mean, that's the thing that it's driving. Like, if somebody murders your friend, you don't go to the police, you go out there. And this is where, like, it's like an act of cowardice to snitch, right? It's like, I don't want to take the chance of avenging what happened.
|tamler| So, right, it very much gets to your point about the impersonal nature of third-party justice. Right.
|dave| Yeah.
|tamler| Okay, so now the most interesting case I think are whistleblowers.
|dave| Yeah. Because there seems to be this weird thing where— so these, you know, big evil corporations, multinational corporations stealing money and doing horrible things. Like, let's just assume that that's true. Okay. Now finally, somebody within the organization gets the—
|tamler| In some weird possible world, like these corporations are doing bad things.
|dave| Yeah. I just don't want it to sound like I think that profit is evil or whatever. But you know, what are you, Obama running for president? No, I just need money.
|tamler| All right, you're like bound to these business people. School.
|dave| I know. Um, so a whistleblower tells on all of the sort of shady things that are going on in the organization. And they're championed as a hero, right? Publicly. Yeah. I don't think that we actually really think that they're heroes.
|tamler| Oh, I disagree. Like, did you see The Insider?
|dave| I didn't see The Insider. Yeah. But this is a real special case where tobacco companies are seen as so evil that— but like, take the, I don't remember the name of the woman. She was like on the cover of Time for like ratting out one of these big corporations. Like, I don't know. She's just like a famous whistleblower. I should probably look this up before I talk about it. I actually think— I kind of am like, okay, that's fine. Somebody had to do it. But I don't know that I would hire her.
|tamler| Right.
|dave| Well, why don't we take a quick break and keep talking about this when we get back?
|dave| Okay, here's why I think whistleblowing— here's what I think distinguishes whistleblowing from snitching is that there's a huge power imbalance between the whistleblower and who they're blowing the whistle on, right? And this is maybe why we forgave Bubbles, right? If he was just snitching on some other, like, down-and-out heroin addict, we would have had no sympathy for Bubbles.
|tamler| That's right. That's right.
|dave| But he was—
|tamler| In fact, it's courage because they're putting themselves at serious risk. Like, what if you whistle blew and no one believed you and they squashed you? You are now for sure going to be fired and maybe not hired by anybody else.
|dave| No, that's exactly right. That's exactly it. It's essentially— we measure it by courage. And the cases of whistleblowing that we love are the ones where they took a lot of courage. That's why The Insider, the guy, you know, like, that took a lot of courage. And the whole movie is about all the sacrifices and all the risks that he took to make that point. Whereas the worst cases of snitching are when it's an act of cowardice, right?
|tamler| And when you don't snitch out of courage, my intuition is it gets rewarded. Like in Goodfellas, when he gets nicked for the first time, and he doesn't say anything, and they just like throw him a party, like, congratulations! Like, they're so proud of him that he took it like a man and didn't say a word.
|dave| Yeah. Yeah.
|tamler| You popped your cherry.
|dave| Yeah, exactly. So, but what's interesting about Goodfellas is why is it that we forgive him what he does at the end? That was pure cowardice. That was purely self-serving. I mean—
|tamler| I don't know that we forgive him. Well, I think that my feelings about him at the end are really, really much more mixed then he becomes— he becomes like a— he becomes pathetic at the end. And at the end it's like, this one move will be, you know, whatever. At least he brought some bad people down. But like, he's a sort of a pathetic man.
|dave| And at that point, Jimmy, the De Niro character, was pretty much out of his mind, just killing people and, you know, paranoid. And also, here's a big thing too, which I bet can get you off the hook: threatening family. Like there's that long scene where she's walking down the alley and stuff like that. And it's like all bets are off if somebody's threatening—
|tamler| It's true. Yeah, that's true. That's, you know, that's a master of a movie, you know, and it really— you— to construct it that way so that you're not hating Jimmy at the end. Or is it whatever?
|dave| No, not Jimmy. Uh, yeah, um, Henry.
|tamler| Henry at the very end. is just, to me, it's good storytelling. So—
|dave| Yeah, it is. While I actually think that whistleblowers sometimes are acting courageously, I still can't shake my feeling that they are a source of betrayal. I guess it would change if I knew that they had tried really hard to confront all of the people in the organization. And that this was their last way out. But like, I don't feel good when we champion the people who just sort of come out and turn everyone else in.
|tamler| Well, I mean, it just— I think it's— again, this is going to be something that I would think resists systematization and theories and is more of a case-by-case basis where the best you're going to be getting is some trends. But like, I think it really depends on, A, how much harm this company is doing. Yes, how much risk the person is taking and also to what degree they tried to resolve it internally, I think is also an important question.
|dave| Right. So resolving internally, there has to be, to me, no real motive of self-interest. Right? Like, you're not trying to get something.
|tamler| Although it can be in your family's interest, under some circumstances.
|dave| Right. Well, you know, presumably, yeah, yeah, yeah. And indirectly.
|tamler| But not your family's interest, like, if you do this, they'll be able to go to Aruba for 2 weeks.
|dave| Right. Right. Is it preventing harm— that gets to your preventing harm, right? Yeah, preventing harm. To me, it can be the lesser of two evils, I guess. That's as far as I am willing to go. That's kind of extreme because obviously when somebody is doing a really bad thing, I think that it's your duty to— so, so here, let me pull your intuition. So, okay. You are walking down the street, you see a car swerve around the corner, hit somebody. Or let's say hit a car. Let's say hit another car and then continue going. You actually got a really, really good look at the license plate because let's say it was like a personalized license plate. So there's no problem that you had memorizing. So do you— and the person left and the car was really damaged. Do you call, pull out your cell phone and call the cops?
|tamler| I mean, do I— or should I is the question.
|dave| No, do you?
|tamler| Okay. I'm not sure. So they just hit the car and it's the person's— there's nobody in the car.
|dave| Nobody in the car.
|tamler| So it's just property. It's just physical property damage. And the guy drives off.
|dave| And the guy drives off. I mean, maybe somebody—
|tamler| Why, I'm not sure. I kind of hope that I would in some ways because— Oh, yeah. But I also— I mean, so a couple of things that's interesting about this. There's no loyalty. I have no loyalty to some guy that's driving recklessly.
|dave| That was going to be my next example. And then runs into my kid again. My next example was— My next example was you see the personalized license plate and it says Pizarro and you know it's me.
|tamler| Oh, well then I definitely wouldn't. Right. What I would say— it's like, it's obvious, right? Like, dude, you gotta go back there and, uh, right. You have a personalized license plate?
|dave| No, I don't. I don't. But just assume that— Let's assume that you knew it was me, right? Um, yeah. So you would confront me—
|tamler| Is there any other way— the only way I would know that was you is that I saw the personalized license plate.
|dave| Well, let's say it was dark. Um, so, okay. So now it's a person. Okay. I hit a person. Do you turn me in yet?
|tamler| Again, I would first go to you. Yeah. And if you're like, dude, I'm not doing it. I'm not. Then I don't know. That's a good question. Probably not. I hate to say it, but probably—
|dave| I know, I know. It's— I think that I wouldn't. I think that I would really, really plead hard for you to like go to the police, but I don't know that I could turn you in.
|tamler| What about the other cases?
|dave| The other case, I feel like I might call the police if I don't know who it is and I got a good look, just out of being a good citizen. So the interesting thing to me is sometimes I think that as a policy, maybe it should be true that everybody ought to call the police when they see somebody do that, and they can— except for I want to reserve the right to not do it if it's somebody I have any loyalty to. So in a weird way, I think that I would want to do what I think is wrong, you know?
|tamler| Yeah. Well, that's an interesting— you know, this is— I think, you know, sometimes there are other values besides moral values. Right? This is a great Susan Wolf article, "Moral Saints." Oh God, I'm fucking up.
|dave| Oh yeah, that is great.
|tamler| Where she says there are other values besides moral values, and loyalty is a huge value. And sometimes loyalty trumps morality. And so this might be a case of that.
|dave| It is. I want to point to one last case that I think really, really makes your point about courage being central to your evaluation. And that is, there is a slang term called dry snitching. Dry snitching means when you snitch without really saying— you don't— not actually calling out names, but you're saying enough stuff to like get someone in trouble. So you're not—
|tamler| you don't even have the courage to like—
|dave| Exactly. You're even worse than a snitch. Like, cuz if you actually said someone's name— But imagine like on this podcast, I was like, well, you know what? I saw this guy, like I won't name him, but he's a philosopher at University of North Carolina. And I saw him cheating on his wife. And people would be like, oh my God, you know, it's like, I didn't even have the courage to say his name. But nonetheless, I'm trying to get whatever crew, whatever credit for actually—
|tamler| It's like gossip cred too. No, that's a— yeah. So why is— Here's what I don't understand. Why is it called—
|dave| Why is it called dry snitching?
|tamler| Explain to our listeners.
|dave| I believe that it's because you don't get the full pleasure of both parties.
|tamler| The full contact.
|dave| You don't get the penetration of real snitching.
|tamler| Yeah, I dry snitched until I was about 16. And then I started really doing it for real.
|dave| All right. That was our 25-minute take on snitching in our one-off episode. Maybe we'll talk about something in a longer episode.
|tamler| Thanks for joining us.
|tamler| For more information about this episode, including show notes and links, and to listen to other episodes, please visit us at www.verybadwizards.com.
}}

You Ain't So Smart (Flannery O'Connor's "Good Country People")

2026-03-22T16:49:24Z

Admin: /* Transcript */

{{Episode Infobox
| episode_number = 327
| release_date = Feb 24, 2026
| image = Good country people.jpg
| length = 01:32:33
| quote_source = Norm Macdonald
| opening_subject = sexsominia
| main_subject = Flannery O'Conner's "Good Country People"
}}== Wrapping ==

=== Title ===

May be an allusion to Mase's ''You Ain't So Smart'', but straightforwardly a reference to the ending of "Good Country People."

<div style="overflow: hidden; margin-bottom: 1em;">
{{#ev:youtube|mkag5slkFGI|400|center}}
</div>

=== Opening Quote ===

{{Opening_Quote
| text = The only thing an old man can tell a young man is that it goes fast, real fast, and if you're not careful, it's too late. Of course, the young man will never understand this truth.
| image = Norm macdonald.webp
| speaker = [[Norm Macdonald]]
| source = ''Based on a True Story: Not a Memoir''
}}

=== Show Notes ===

{{VBW Show Notes
| content = David and Tamler return to the Southern Gothic well and talk about Flannery O'Connor's short story masterpiece "Good Country People." A nihilistic atheist philosophy PhD named Joy or Helga (depending on who you ask) lives with her mother and some tenants on a farm in rural Georgia. One day 19-year-old aw-shucksy Bible salesman comes to the house and shakes up her philosophical convictions. Plus a case study of a sexsomniac who masturbates (and more) in his sleep.
| links = * [https://seedandspark.com/fund/boxed-in-ut-thesis-film#story Support Eliza's film project] <br>
* Brice, M., Gales, A. Z., Attali, V., Chauvin, M., & Arnulf, I. (2026). [https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1389945726000626 Left hand sleep masturbation in a right-handed male patient with sexsomnia.] ''Sleep Medicine'', 108823. <br>
* [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Good_Country_People Good Country People by Flannery O'Connor] <br>
}}

== Opening Segment ==

=== Conceptual Analyses ===

==== Self-Masturbation ====

''Self-maturbation'' is a redundant term, since masturbation implies an act done to oneself. This may be a product of overly cautious writing or it may be the author's intent to imply the existence of masturbation not done to oneself.

==== Mutual Masturbation ====

There are at least three candidate meanings.

# '''The Symmetrical Parallel Reading''' — two people each masturbating themselves, simultaneously, side by side. Grammatically the most literal: mutual as "each doing it to themselves, together."
# '''The Reciprocal Reading''' — each person manually stimulating the other. This is probably the dominant colloquial usage.
# '''The Metaphorical Reading''' — often used figuratively (empty flattery, etc.)

===== The Incoherence Argument and the Eliminativist Conclusion =====

The conversation gestures at but doesn't fully articulate: if "mutual masturbation" (in the reciprocal sense) is a coherent and accepted usage, then "masturbation" does not inherently require that the agent and patient be the same person. But if that's true, then "masturbation" just means manual genital stimulation by hand — and the "self" component is not definitionally built in.
Now you can run a ''reductio'': if masturbation doesn't require self-application, and if "mutual masturbation" is just two people doing it to each other, then "masturbation" collapses into a subset of ordinary sexual touch, and the category loses its distinctiveness. You could argue from this that masturbation as a standalone coherent category doesn't really exist — it's either redundantly self-specified, or it bleeds into general manual stimulation.

== Interlude ==

== Main Segment ==

== Transcript ==

{{TranscriptBox|{{PAGENAME}}/transcript}}

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You Ain't So Smart (Flannery O'Connor's "Good Country People")

2026-03-22T06:27:13Z

Admin: /* Title */

You Ain't So Smart (Flannery O'Connor's "Good Country People")

2026-03-22T06:26:30Z

Admin: /* Title */

{{Episode Infobox
| episode_number = 327
| release_date = Feb 24, 2026
| image = Good country people.jpg
| length = 01:32:33
| quote_source = Norm Macdonald
| opening_subject = sexsominia
| main_subject = Flannery O'Conner's "Good Country People"
}}== Wrapping ==

=== Title ===

May be an allusion to Mase's ''You Ain't So Smart'', but straightforwardly a reference to the ending of "Good Country People."

<div style="overflow: hidden; margin-bottom: 1em;">
{{#ev:youtube|mkag5slkFGI|640|center}}
</div>

=== Opening Quote ===

{{Opening_Quote
| text = The only thing an old man can tell a young man is that it goes fast, real fast, and if you're not careful, it's too late. Of course, the young man will never understand this truth.
| image = Norm macdonald.webp
| speaker = [[Norm Macdonald]]
| source = ''Based on a True Story: Not a Memoir''
}}

=== Show Notes ===

{{VBW Show Notes
| content = David and Tamler return to the Southern Gothic well and talk about Flannery O'Connor's short story masterpiece "Good Country People." A nihilistic atheist philosophy PhD named Joy or Helga (depending on who you ask) lives with her mother and some tenants on a farm in rural Georgia. One day 19-year-old aw-shucksy Bible salesman comes to the house and shakes up her philosophical convictions. Plus a case study of a sexsomniac who masturbates (and more) in his sleep.
| links = * [https://seedandspark.com/fund/boxed-in-ut-thesis-film#story Support Eliza's film project] <br>
* Brice, M., Gales, A. Z., Attali, V., Chauvin, M., & Arnulf, I. (2026). [https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1389945726000626 Left hand sleep masturbation in a right-handed male patient with sexsomnia.] ''Sleep Medicine'', 108823. <br>
* [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Good_Country_People Good Country People by Flannery O'Connor] <br>
}}

== Opening Segment ==

=== Conceptual Analyses ===

==== Self-Masturbation ====

''Self-maturbation'' is a redundant term, since masturbation implies an act done to oneself. This may be a product of overly cautious writing or it may be the author's intent to imply the existence of masturbation not done to oneself.

==== Mutual Masturbation ====

There are at least three candidate meanings.

# '''The Symmetrical Parallel Reading''' — two people each masturbating themselves, simultaneously, side by side. Grammatically the most literal: mutual as "each doing it to themselves, together."
# '''The Reciprocal Reading''' — each person manually stimulating the other. This is probably the dominant colloquial usage.
# '''The Metaphorical Reading''' — often used figuratively (empty flattery, etc.)

===== The Incoherence Argument and the Eliminativist Conclusion =====

The conversation gestures at but doesn't fully articulate: if "mutual masturbation" (in the reciprocal sense) is a coherent and accepted usage, then "masturbation" does not inherently require that the agent and patient be the same person. But if that's true, then "masturbation" just means manual genital stimulation by hand — and the "self" component is not definitionally built in.
Now you can run a ''reductio'': if masturbation doesn't require self-application, and if "mutual masturbation" is just two people doing it to each other, then "masturbation" collapses into a subset of ordinary sexual touch, and the category loses its distinctiveness. You could argue from this that masturbation as a standalone coherent category doesn't really exist — it's either redundantly self-specified, or it bleeds into general manual stimulation.

== Interlude ==

== Main Segment ==

== Transcript ==

{{TranscriptBox|You Ain't So Smart (Flannery O'Connor's "Good Country People")/transcript}}

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2026-03-22T06:23:20Z

Admin:

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2026-03-22T06:22:05Z

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2026-03-22T06:18:35Z

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2026-03-22T06:00:05Z

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You Ain't So Smart (Flannery O'Connor's "Good Country People")

2026-03-22T05:59:04Z

Admin: /* Transcript */

You Ain't So Smart (Flannery O'Connor's "Good Country People")

2026-03-22T05:58:40Z

Admin: /* Transcript */

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2026-03-22T05:58:33Z

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2026-03-22T05:55:04Z

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You Ain't So Smart (Flannery O'Connor's "Good Country People")

2026-03-22T05:52:55Z

Admin: /* Transcript */

You Ain't So Smart (Flannery O'Connor's "Good Country People")

2026-03-22T05:51:10Z

Admin: /* Transcript */

You Ain't So Smart (Flannery O'Connor's "Good Country People")

2026-03-22T05:49:26Z

Admin: /* Transcript */

You Ain't So Smart (Flannery O'Connor's "Good Country People")

2026-03-22T05:47:29Z

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You Ain't So Smart (Flannery O'Connor's "Good Country People")

2026-03-22T05:45:38Z

Admin: /* Transcript */

You Ain't So Smart (Flannery O'Connor's "Good Country People")/transcript

2026-03-22T05:43:17Z

Admin: Created page with "{{Dialogue |eliza=Eliza Sommers |tamler=Tamler Sommers |dave=Dave Pizarro |norm=Norm Macdonald |oz=Wizard of Oz |dorthy=Dorthy |eliza|"Very Bad Wizards" is a podcast with a philosopher, my dad, and psychologist Dave Pizarro, having an informal discussion about issues in science and ethics. Please note that the discussion contains bad words that I'm not allowed to say, and knowing my dad, some very inappropriate jokes. | mood1=disclaimer |norm| The only t..."

{{Dialogue
|eliza=Eliza Sommers
|tamler=Tamler Sommers
|dave=Dave Pizarro
|norm=Norm Macdonald
|oz=Wizard of Oz
|dorthy=Dorthy

|eliza|"Very Bad Wizards" is a podcast with a philosopher, my dad, and psychologist Dave Pizarro, having an informal discussion about issues in science and ethics. Please note that the discussion contains bad words that I'm not allowed to say, and knowing my dad, some very inappropriate jokes. | mood1=disclaimer
|norm| The only thing an old man can tell a young man is that it goes fast, real fast, and if you're not careful, it's too late. Of course, the young man will never understand this truth.
|action| Begin Music
|action| End Music

|tamler| Welcome to Very Bad Wizards. I'm Tamler Sommers. Dave, the listener response to last episode's tier ranking of academic fields was fierce. Did you know chemists were that sensitive?
|dave| I did not. I didn't think they had emotions, to be honest.
|tamler| I know, right? Otherwise they wouldn't have gone into chemistry.
|dave| No, I know. Like, should we just say, like, this— it was gonna be an intro. Like, it really does seem like people took us a little more seriously than we intended. Like, this was not, like, our, our definitive value, uh, judgments.
|tamler| If we do a slight peek behind the curtain. That discussion took an hour, and then the subsequent discussion, which will appear on this episode, uh, took a very long time as well on Flannery O'Connor's, uh, Good Country People, which everyone will hear. And I think it was a good discussion.
|dave| Yeah, but a long one. And, and so we just have like to sleep, you know, we have to sleep. That's true.
|tamler| But yes, they— we heard almost exclusively from chemists and the stray economist.
|dave| But, and I heard from my philosophy of feminism teaching wife, as I predicted, that ranking gender studies so low is a personal insult to her. And then, and then I said, no, no, no, no, but you're a philosopher of feminism. And she was like, oh, okay, okay, maybe I'll—
|tamler| We made that distinction, you know.
|dave| [CROSSTALK] It's not like she listened. It's not like she listened.
|tamler| She was just sobbing a tear. Yeah. —puts my job at risk, my family at risk.
|dave| [CROSSTALK] Of all the shit we've said.
|tamler| Yeah, it was surprising because I really think even though it carried over into a main episode, like, I felt like we were pretty upfront about our ignorance, like—
|dave| And nobody wants to hear— nobody wants to hear that we rank their entire life a C. But we also made it just about majors too. Like, we were real measured.
|tamler| It's weird because it would never have occurred to me, like, if I was a fan of a podcast and they put philosophy low, like, to get really upset by that. So maybe it's your issues, listeners, and not our issues.
|dave| 6.022 times 10 to the 23rd.
|tamler| [CROSSTALK] piece of paper in the— to see if it's acidic or basic.
|dave| We love chemistry.
|tamler| As many listeners pointed out, chemistry is where you get the drugs, and we all— we appreciate the drugs, and we appreciate the medicine, although, you know, some of it. So, uh, so yeah, we're gonna talk about a really great story, and I hope our discussion did it justice. Flannery O'Connor's Good Country People. I fucking love that story. I thought it was— it kind of blew me away, and in a specific way where, like, I thought it was great while I was reading it, and then the ending just also, like, uh, gobsmacked me. So yeah, um, but first, uh, we're gonna lay off the chemistry people and talk, uh, shit about the sexsomniax. Sex— sexsomnia. This is a paper that you— you know, I found, uh—
|dave| Well, it was— it was our, our good friend Neuroskeptic on Blue Yes.
|tamler| And God bless that man, whoever he is, or woman, or—
|dave| I think he's outed as a man.
|tamler| Left-hand sleep masturbation in a right-handed male patient with sexsomnia. Yeah, so this is, yeah, how would you describe it?
|dave| This is the twist.
|tamler| This feels like a Law Order: SVU. Like, how do you know he always masturbates with his right hand when awake? You know?
|dave| Yeah.
|tamler| Columbo's great, by the way. Like, that's one of the most fun things you can do is just plop yourself down and watch a Columbo.
|dave| I only ever watched like a few episodes. It was like slightly before like, my maturity levels.
|tamler| Yeah.
|dave| So, all right. So they describe this man in all of like the technical ways, like his weight and his sleepiness. Um, and they say that, look, like nothing seemed wrong. He didn't have to pee during the night, which is, you know, like a problem for some men. Um, he had some snoring, but for the last 6 years his partners would report nocturnal sexual behaviors. And yeah, the not funny part is that one of them was his girlfriend who reported to the police that she had been sexually assaulted. He sleep-talked, but he didn't sleepwalk. He didn't have sleep terrors. And so the thing that he has is basically not during dream sleep, so not during rapid eye movement sleep when we dream. Before that, we go through 3 stages of sleep before getting to REM. So stage 1, 2, and 3. During stages 2 and 3, he would have what's called these arousal— But some people, I've heard of this before, do these sexual behaviors when they have these wakeups. Um, you know, nobody donates to charity or anything when they have these. Nobody's like helping old ladies across the street. Like, they're not like engaging in any other like nice behaviors, you know? It's just like raping.
|tamler| They're not like going on to like, uh, 1-800-Flowers to like— exactly.
|dave| It says something about you. Men are scum, you know? Yeah. [CROSSTALK] Yeah.
|tamler| I mean, I'm not saying he's lying about this, but I'm saying it's weird that they make such a big deal big deal about that.
|dave| So, you know, maybe he's like, you know, like, just faking it completely to get out of the rap.
|tamler| Well, no, even if he's not, like, I just think, like, that's a normal thing. I don't want to get into any personal confessions, but I don't know. Like, I thought kind of—
|dave| He's not even really masturbating.
|tamler| He's just kind of putting his hand in his pants, which we all do. It's just like the Al Bundy move, it looks like.
|dave| But you know, like he might be He might be jostling it a little bit. Like, I can't— it's kind of dark.
|tamler| Can't tell. But he's not like jacking it.
|dave| No, no, no, he's not. He didn't have to. It's all underneath the clothing. He's only like getting to second base with himself, basically.
|tamler| Yeah. Which I feel like I'll do like during seminar, you know? [LAUGHTER] I hope. [LAUGHTER] No, but you know what I mean? Like, not during seminar, but if I'm watching a movie and like I have like a cover or whatever, you know, I mean, you put it in there just like, just for warmth and comfort.
|dave| Fuck. You know, like I have like an infant child, man-child, and it's a behavior that starts very early.
|tamler| Let's just say.
|dave| [CROSSTALK] So yeah, like they tried to treat this with gabapentin. They put him on Paxil. The Paxil apparently helped. And they report that the girlfriend dropped the charge, which seems like a little, like maybe not the scientific part of this case study. Also, they talk about self-masturbation in a way that's very confusing to me. Like, I would think that if you say masturbation, it's understood that you mean self, right?
|tamler| Like, this is actually a conceptual analysis question, but like, can there be like, uh, other masturbation?
|dave| Or is— I feel like we could talk— yeah, we could talk about this for a lot, because when people talk about mutual masturbation— yeah, I think they mean fondling each other, they don't mean I'm sitting there jerking off and she's sitting there jerking off, right?
|tamler| Uh, okay, I'm not sure actually, because I think like, well, mutual masturbation is often used metaphorically, and then it does mean you were kind of jerking each other off. But I feel like in a— if I was gonna hear that in a porn or sexual context It would be— well, it would be two women masturbating.
|dave| [LAUGHTER] Side by side.
|tamler| Yes.
|dave| simultaneous masturbation.
|tamler| But do you remember in the article, like, if you— you could have like a card.
|dave| Yeah. If you have like a whatever.
|tamler| That means someone can just like reach around and like—
|dave| Yeah.
|tamler| Right. But then, so then I think mutual masturbation. So, oh, you're saying it's impossible. It's like incoherent.
|dave| Or, or Yeah, I think people mean it in the incoherent way, because I feel like if they were talking about side by side, they would say it.
|tamler| That's right.
|dave| That's right. All right, so you don't buy the, like, what this says about free will. Well, no, what—
|tamler| here's what I'm not sure I buy is the story. Like, so, like, what's your credence? What's your priors? What's— you know, you run it through your Bayesian formula. [CROSSTALK] Like, that this guy isn't— like, he got handsy with his girlfriend and then just kind of invented all this.
|dave| I assumed this is a fake journal where you can pay to have, like, exonerating journal— scientific journal articles written about you.
|tamler| So you don't know about sleep medicine, this journal?
|dave| I don't know about it. I'm sure it's fine. And I have heard of parasomnias. Like, I have— I mean, of sexsomnias. Like, that's true. This all just seems like— like, the left-handed thing just seemed too convenient to me. I mean, I believe if these are real scientists, like, they do— they did observe him, and they did record the wave function, like, while he's sleeping. And, you know, that's how we determine what stage of sleep sleep you're in, like, which waves. And he does appear to be touching himself during these, you know, stage 2 and 3 of sleep. So—
|tamler| But I just feel like you could take a video of me while I'm sleeping, and I might do what this guy's doing in the video. And like—
|dave| Like, during these stages of sleep, you shouldn't be moving with, like, any kind of —like volition or whatever.
|tamler| Yeah. Unless you have sexomnia.
|dave| Yeah.
|tamler| Uh, I like that they tried a lot of different drugs too.
|dave| Yeah, like, he obviously had sleep apnea too, so you can— you don't want to give— it's like, apparently the gabapentin made the sleep apnea worse.
|tamler| So, uh, yeah, yeah, that sucks for the girlfriend also.
|dave| Absolute worst combination. Like, I—
|tamler| is this a real thing? I guess, like, what's your credence, like, that everything is straight here? Like, gun to your head.
|dave| What I don't know is, because, like, even if this is real, what we don't know is whether the assault is an instance of this, you know, because you can imagine he really has this, right? And yet—
|tamler| oh, the fucker. Yeah, like, he's just like, oh, I can just— is that what you think? If you had to guess?
|dave| No, I'm inclined to believe it all, um, oh, but really only because I've heard of people attempting, like, and being— doing sexual assault while they were actually sleeping. But then, then again, it's not like I have a lot of evidence for that stuff. It's just what sleep researchers have said.
|tamler| Like, you know, they have typically more tolerance for sexually problematic behavior. I don't know.
|dave| God, you guys should cut so much out of this.
|tamler| I don't know, there's something about this that strikes me as weird. I guess it's a real journal though, like given that they're from the Sorbonne, if that's real. Like, I wasn't sure if this was like a James Lindsay thing, like, or—
|dave| I mean, it is, it is dated May 2026. So make of that what you—
|tamler| I, I, I, I'm say, gun to my head, there's something fucked about this. I don't know what. Well, literally.
|dave| Um, sexsomnia behaviors, by the way, I wanted to say this before, include— this is the first, uh, the second sentence— include self-oriented behavior such as masturbation, spontaneous orgasm, sexual vocalization, genital touching, and coital-like pelvic movements.
|tamler| Like, in my day they called that wet dreams.
|dave| But if you're— if you're thrusting your pelvis while you do it—
|tamler| yeah, well, nobody's like— yeah, nobody saw us when we were doing it. We were 12 years old.
|dave| Those were the days.
|tamler| But I like when they— here we present a case of a right-handed man who masturbated in his using his left hand, as if that's just, like, unheard of. [LAUGHTER] That's the thing that raises the red flag for me.
|dave| I mean, this is why I was interested in this especially, because it raises questions of identity, you know? And volition. This is— who is this man? Is he right-handed or is he left-handed? Is this— what does this say of his character when non-volitionally he's jerking off with his left hand?
|tamler| [CROSSTALK] Yeah, so—
|dave| Well, we will—
|tamler| we will come back to this, I think. This is part 1 of a long series of sexomnia segments. All right, any last— any last things to say about this?
|dave| No, other than maybe we've just given everybody an out for very bad behavior. Don't do—
|tamler| I don't think this is gonna work, like, especially not now.
|dave| But, you know, I'm glad to know that men find every occasion to masturbate that they possibly can— buses, ballparks, and the middle of sleep.
|tamler| All right, we'll be right back to talk about Good Country People by Flannery [MUSIC] —this is kind of the capstone of your career. What is this short film about?
|eliza| The truck slams shut, they're in darkness, and it starts moving forward. We meet these two small-time crooks who think that they just robbed these people and stole a truck, but actually it's now a kidnapping, and Janie and Mason have to find a way to escape.
|tamler| because you're too scared?
|eliza| Yes, I do. And one of the great things about this whole production process is it's really helped me work through that trauma, so.
|tamler| link in the show notes for anyone who might want to do that. Any final words, Lye?
|eliza| No, it's not time for that.
|tamler| [CROSSTALK] And now let's get to Flannery O'Connor's "Good Country People." So I trusted her, and you wanted to do it. I don't think you had read it by then either, right?
|dave| Yeah.
|tamler| —fantastic story. I agree with my daughter on this one. It's funny because, like, I read it for the first time this morning and was totally enjoying it. You know, it's kind of a satire at first of Flannery O'Connor country, like rural South. I guess it's Georgia, which didn't even come across to me. [CROSSTALK] Then we hear about this traveling salesman who is a 19-year-old kid named Manly Pointer, who is a Bible salesman, and he comes to their house. And at first they're trying to get rid of him, but in the end he stays for dinner and surprisingly arranges a date with Joy, or Helga, the next day. So they go out on a date and— and then it takes a turn that honestly, I don't know if this is true of you, I did not see coming at all, and I was kind of a little bit floored by it. Not like I had to put the book down or anything, but I was like, "Oh! Oh, okay." But before we talk about that, I do want to say, read the story, because part of the power of the story to me the first time was just really not expecting it to go where it goes. Like, there's not some M. Night Shyamalan twist, but it just went somewhere that I didn't expect, and that really makes the story extremely powerful. That's how I felt. What did you think?
|dave| For some reason, that has made me keep thinking about it, because like you alluded to this, but like, what is Mrs. Freeman?
|tamler| Yeah, what's the point?
|dave| Yeah.
|tamler| Should we talk of generally speaking before we go through it in more detail about what your kind of general thematic thoughts are?
|dave| just dying to talk about what these themes are.
|tamler| What do you think?
|dave| That's right.
|tamler| And also kind of oversimplifies the world, cuts the world up into different categories. Trash or good country people.
|dave| Yeah.
|tamler| And without really having any idea, like, what those things are. And, you know, it is a house of clichés. Like, they— [CROSSTALK] Well, yeah.
|dave| So I'll wait to hear your second interpretation, because I do also agree with you that it goes deeper. And I think that it is a story that has optimism at its core. But you have to dig— at least I have to dig through to find it.
|tamler| And at first I was like, wait, what? But there's a lot in there. So just to put that in your mind, that this is a retelling of Odysseus going to the Cyclops, And just to give a tiny bit of plausibility before— think of what the Cyclops is. Someone who says, "Oh, I don't believe in the gods. I do what I want. All that stuff is bullshit." And then somebody comes and somebody takes advantage of their disability.
|dave| Maybe even a complicated man.
|tamler| [CROSSTALK] Maybe a complicated man. So I thought that was kind of interesting.
|dave| But yeah. Like, very interesting. Of course, not told at all from the perspective of the complicated man.
|tamler| —villainous character. So yeah.
|dave| Yeah, disabled with one eye, you know?
|tamler| He even says at the end that one of the things that he's stolen is a glass eye.
|dave| That's right. Yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah, because the Vulcan shout-out is in, like, Holga herself.
|tamler| —Yeah, it does. All right, so you want to dive into it? Do you have any other kind of general thoughts?
|dave| —in a way that I found was just a really effective way of giving us insight into each of those— the internal life of each of those.
|tamler| —is, I think, a part of that. I didn't track that, but I definitely thought of that.
|dave| —as grace or salvation. But as I was reading, I was like, how much of the Christian stuff for you, having not been raised— like, it's so—
|tamler| I'm reading it and I'm like, "Oh yeah, okay, Jesus said that." Oh yeah, I probably caught like a fraction of it, so definitely point them out to me. It seems very Catholic to me, and maybe that's influenced by— I know that she was a Catholic.
|dave| It's funny because, yeah, she was Catholic, She's writing about Protestants, so she's kind of infusing Catholic ideas, but it is interesting that she's not writing about Catholics.
|tamler| Is it a Catholic critique of Protestant Christians?
|dave| That's a good question. I didn't read it as that. I felt it to be her exploring themes of salvation and grace just by using these characters.
|tamler| Never.
|dave| And you get the feeling that there's gonna be a story about Mrs. Freeman. And it's not really. So it switches.
|tamler| The whole first paragraph is about her.
|dave| Like, I get it. I get the— like, I know what she's talking about. I don't know how to say it, but—
|tamler| You can picture her right away.
|dave| And then the observer would see that Mrs. Freeman, though she might stand there as real as several grain sacks thrown on top of each other, was no longer there in spirit.
|tamler| Yeah.
|dave| So Mrs. Hopewell, we learn, has the 32-year-old daughter named Joy. And we learned that she hired Mrs. Freeman to work on her farm. That she's divorced also. Which I don't know if it means anything. Like, we never learned why or what the divorce was. But Mrs.
|tamler| Hopewell—
|dave| like, in the South, in whatever this was, the '40s or something, that would be weird. Like, head of household, divorced woman.
|tamler| So maybe it wasn't weird.
|dave| I don't know. Like, maybe this was common. Yeah.
|tamler| Especially the 15-year-old. [CROSSTALK] Who's already in the family way.
|dave| Yeah. Like Hopewell, Freeman, Manly.
|tamler| A Manly pointer. So the 18-year-old has many admirers. The 15-year-old is already married and pregnant and throwing up constantly.
|dave| She loves gossiping, getting into things. And yet she has some sort of third eye, maybe.
|tamler| Dude, yeah.
|dave| And like you were saying— yeah, like you were saying, the clichéd Hagrid phrases that they use, where they have, like, entire— they string together, like, 3 of them into, like, an utterly meaningless sentence.
|tamler| This is what it is at first, you know, before you even know anything about joy being beyond her thing. You learn about the daughters. It's kind of interesting that the daughter is already pregnant at 15. And yes, she's married, but you get the sense that that was not necessarily the plan. And maybe it didn't happen before the pregnancy.
|dave| Who is the farmer.
|tamler| Yeah. Manly pointer.
|dave| It's almost a dick joke.
|tamler| Mrs. Hopewell would tell people that Gleneaze and Caramel were two of the finest girls she knew. Mrs. Hopewell is— if she decides somebody is good country people, then they're good country people.
|dave| —stick to her guns.
|tamler| Right.
|dave| And then it's just like this sort of superiority, like, hidden by, like, superficial kindness. "That woman, we can't stand her. Like, we can't have another minute with her. She's, like, always getting into everything." And so she's like, "Okay." She's gonna make it her personal project to be the kind of person who can actually turn "Turn this weakness into a strength, and here's how she's going to do it. She's going to make her in charge of it. If she wants to get into everything, like, let me make her in charge of everything." And so she really thinks that she's the puppet master, able to control— like, there's a sense of superiority that she has over the Freemans, that she's not just being charitable and nice, she's being superior.
|tamler| Exactly.
|dave| Yeah, totally. It's She's like, "Well, yeah, on the one hand, they were good country people.
|tamler| On the other hand, nobody else—" [CROSSTALK] And yeah, and then you see how they kind of speak in clichés, and then you get introduced introduced to Joy.
|dave| And her parents, like, spoiled her. Like, they let her get away with everything. They bought her everything. And I think she might have died in her middle age, but it was way later than anybody thought. But it ended up that they did not do the kinds of things that you— like the tough love that you need to give a child to develop their character. She had a really bad character. And so when I was reading about this, I was like, yeah, that's the same vibe. She feels so bad about what happened when she was 10 and that she's going to die that she never really raised her in the way that you would.
|tamler| [CROSSTALK] She probably does spoil her, certainly puts up with her in the same way with the Freemans. It's like, I am going to take this charity case, and in this case, my daughter, and I'm going to make their life fulfilling. Right.
|dave| But she's so proud of her patience with people. Yeah. Yes. That's like her— she's like, yeah, that's one thing I'm awesome at. I'm really patient.
|tamler| Yeah. And then she's also quite deluded about it because she really thought she kind of pulled it off until Joy went and changed her name legally from Joy. [CROSSTALK] —to Helga.
|dave| Yes.
|tamler| Yeah, that was the point.
|dave| That's so emo.
|tamler| Exactly. She considered the name her personal affair. She had arrived at it first purely on the basis of its ugly sound, and then the full genius of its fitness had struck her. She had a vision of the name working like the ugly, sweating Vulcan— that's Hephaestus— stayed in the furnace and to whom, presumably, the goddess, who's Aphrodite, had to come when called. She saw it as the name of her highest creative act. One of her major triumphs was that her mother had not been able to turn her dust into joy, but the greater one was that she had been able to turn it herself into Helga.
|dave| So she's saying that she's Hephaestus? Or Vulcan?
|tamler| Yeah, like a— what do you call that? Ironworks or whatever. And he famously in The Iliad creates Achilles' shield, which gets his own book in The Iliad. So he's also a creative person.
|dave| So she's saying basically, like, with this name, she's turned her crippled self into, like, a creative— creative, powerful, like, God.
|tamler| [CROSSTALK] Or she's created like one of his creations, you know? Like—
|dave| That's what I wasn't sure. Yeah.
|tamler| Like, what is the metaphor? I don't know. And how do you, like— one of her major triumphs was that her mother had not been able to turn her dust into Joy. Like, I don't totally understand what's being said there.
|dave| And then taking on the name Holga, once again, like, names have power. Like, the self-determination She's identified herself as something ugly. And the world is ugly, and life is ugly for her.
|tamler| She crafted her name.
|dave| Yeah. She's a blacksmith who crafted the name in the depths of the furnace with her crippled body. She made this name. And this name is maybe like the shield, is like her amulet. This is her identity and her protection.
|tamler| Yeah. And then there's an interesting touch where Helga is very, like, proud of having done that, proud of having changed the name. But then— and I don't know what to make of this— Mrs. Freeman started to call her Helga, we learn. And that was— she didn't like that.
|dave| Yeah, it's weird. And only when Mrs. Hopewell isn't around, because she wouldn't put up with it.
|tamler| Yeah, which is all extra kind of eerie, you might think. Yeah. But it's interesting that that's something that actually gets to her. Like, she's figured out how to build enough of an arm humor around herself to deal with her mother and all her silliness. But there's something about Mrs. Freeman that just kind of picks at something, like picks at a scab that she thought had already healed, you know, pierces the shield.
|dave| That's like a source of frustration for her.
|tamler| people she can't have.
|dave| I just don't know what is making her upset, because it's not the thing that seems to work on everybody else in my life.
|tamler| Right.
|dave| We didn't say, by the way, Helga is described as a very sort of homely person. She's, you know, described as large —like, you take it, overweight— and very plain, and purposefully dresses herself in, like, bad clothes. She wore the same shitty outfit all the time.
|tamler| Yes, but also you get the sense that she could be pretty, at least from the way Miss Hopewell—
|dave| [CROSSTALK] I mean, Mrs. Hopewell is hoping.
|tamler| Exactly, which happens later, as she does have her glasses taken down. The other weird thing about Mrs. Freeman, just before we move away from that— and now we're getting it imperceptibly from Holga's perspective here. And that's why I think it's using the name Holga, I think, is to signal that. But I didn't get it. But it says, "Something about her seemed to fascinate Mrs. Freeman. And then one day, Holga realized it was the artificial light." Mrs. Freeman had a special fondness for the details of secret infections, hidden deformities, assaults upon children.
|dave| I love the next sentence too: Of diseases, she preferred the lingering or incurable. Yeah, actually, and then right before that, when she's still— she's talking about Miss Freeman creeping her out, she says, however, Mrs. Freeman's relish for using the name only irritated her. It was as if Mrs. Freeman's beef —steely pointed eyes had penetrated far enough behind her face to reach some secret fact.
|tamler| Yeah, this is what I was saying, where she's pierced the shield.
|dave| Yeah. And there is something about Mrs. Freeman focusing on her leg that's making Holga vulnerable in the same way that I think Manly is gonna pick up on the same thing.
|tamler| And in the way that she thought wasn't possible. And I think that's the— you know, that's a kind of her own delusion. She thinks she has steeled herself with her just honest way of reckoning with the nothingness of the universe from these kinds of things. And it's such a kind of plain and ordinary thing to be a little vulnerable about, the fact that you have an artificial leg. So you could see why that would really dig at her, you know?
|dave| Like, it might actually be impossible for her to walk around without—
|tamler| There's something you said that I hadn't thought about.
|dave| I was saying that Miss Hopewell prides herself on her patience, and you said she's sort of deluded herself. You know, the other way that it's obvious that she's deluding herself was when she's talking about how the Freemans are good country people because she's had plenty of experience with trash. And so she's hired 4 different people in the last 4 years, and they were trash, so she had to get rid of them. Now that I think about it, there is no guarantee that she won't eventually come to the same conclusion about the Freemans. This is like— [CROSSTALK] She might have thought at the beginning of each of those things that they were good country people.
|tamler| Right. So this is a cycle.
|dave| And then she actually loses her patience.
|tamler| Had no idea to this day what brought that on. It's just so funny.
|dave| It's so funny. And, you know, it made me look up what Malebranche thought. And there is like a little bit of irony here, because Malebranche was like deeply theistic. He thought that like God pervaded everything. And, you know, talking about Spinoza's rock, like that's kind of what he thought about every action was just God acting. It wasn't really you moving your leg. It's God moving through you, which is just opposed to, like, the metaphysics of joy explicitly.
|tamler| Right. You get the sense she's— and I'm not a Malebranche scholar, but I knew that he was theistic and a big believer, at least on paper. And I believe that he might have said, "We are not our own light," but probably, if I had to guess, saying it's because God is our light, you know?
|dave| That's how actually I —Yeah, but it's like very ambiguous.
|tamler| The girl had taken a PhD in philosophy, and this left Mrs. Hopewell at a complete loss. You could say, "My daughter is a nurse," or "My daughter is a schoolteacher," or even, "My daughter is a chemical engineer." You could not say, "My daughter is a philosopher." That was something that had ended with the Greeks and Romans.
|dave| It's so funny that, like, you would boil down, like, the most significant choice of, like, your daughter's career to your ability to talk to other people in a sentence and describe it.
|tamler| Yeah, no, totally.
|dave| I was wondering— interesting how much of this was an explicit statement on the ability of graduate school to stunt emotional growth. Because I feel like you can extend your adolescence or your early 20hood very easily by going to grad school.
|tamler| It says that these words worked on Mrs. Hopewell like an evil cantation in gibberish.
|dave| I love that.
|tamler| And this is Heidegger. But apparently, if she's seeing this as kind of a perfect description of the nihilistic condition that we all live in, I think, again, it is a misreading of Heidegger according to what I read, but I don't know. But it would be interesting if she's just misreading all of these figures that she takes herself to be the only person who can understand.
|dave| Yeah, I read it as just the interesting metaphysical point that what nothing is is outside of the bounds of the discipline of science that can only be concerned with what is. Like, the question of nothing is terrifying and certainly not something science is equipped to or would like to deal with.
|tamler| Yeah, I mean, I guess it's that line, "How can it be for science anything but a horror and a phantasm?" It might seem like methodologically it's difficult to deal with nothing because science is about the physical universe. But, like, why does it have to be a horror and a phantasm for science?
|dave| It's hard to conceive of the absence of everything. It can induce true terror in me to think too long about why is there something rather than nothing.
|tamler| Yeah. —like, that's a big question.
|dave| Yeah, and it is in a non-cognitive way an evil incantation in gibberish.
|tamler| Yeah, you know the Jewish joke about that where someone goes up to this famous rabbi and says, Rabbi, why is there— I don't understand, why is there something rather than nothing? And the rabbi says, if there was nothing, you'd probably still be complaining. That's good. What's interesting, just structurally is we now are having this fully from Mrs. Hopewell's perspective, talking about Joy. And this is where we're first introduced to Joy, Helga, and the details about her life and the hunting accident.
|dave| It was blown clean off, and she was never unconscious. So, like, that she had to deal with the pain, I think, is scarring to Mrs. Hopewell, and another reason why she's so sort of protective or babying her.
|tamler| Dude, I just thought too, that blown clear off is nothing.
|dave| That wooden leg— [CROSSTALK] —is a Band-Aid on nothing.
|tamler| That's right. Yeah. So there is where first she had a leg, she has nothing.
|dave| not human.
|tamler| goes farm to farm selling Bibles. He just seems like kind of a hapless young kid trying to sell Bibles, and Mrs. Hopewell tries to kind of get rid of him.
|dave| Yeah.
|tamler| As one would a Bible salesman. Yeah, you're totally right.
|dave| I— and, like, I feel like my subconscious picked up on that attitude, but I hadn't thought explicitly. But that's totally right. It's a tolerance that borders into relativism.
|tamler| But instead of saying, "I'm just a caveman," he says, "I'm just a country boy, and I— like, I understand. You don't want to fool with country people like me." Which is the perfect thing to say to Mrs. Hoagland.
|dave| Exactly. Manipulative. And you wonder in retrospect, like, is he just very good at manipulating? I think that's— he picked up on that she has this, like, savior syndrome to the good country people.
|tamler| So then we find out that he's Manly Pointer. Yeah, it could be a dick joke.
|dave| [LAUGHTER] And he says he's from out of the country near Willowhobie. Not even from a place, just from near a place.
|tamler| Yeah, which is— so, I mean, we could throw this out right now. Is this a satanic figure?
|dave| —by his actions, which was kind of what we were looking at last time when it's like, yeah, he's bad, but like, through him—
|tamler| He definitely feels like a—
|dave| chaotic god, like a trickster, but more malicious maybe than a trickster, like a bad trickster.
|tamler| Yeah. Joy says, "Let's get rid of salt of the earth and let's eat." But no, she's hooked now, Mrs. Hopewell, and so invites him to dinner, and they have dinner.
|dave| Right?
|tamler| 12 tribes of Israel.
|dave| 12 tribes of Israel. Like, these are definitely numbers with meaning that he's throwing out.
|tamler| So weird.
|dave| He's a chiropractor that's dating her daughter? Daughter. And the way he cured her stye is by, like, adjusting her neck.
|tamler| Because you've used—
|dave| you got Merlot Pointy in your head.
|tamler| That's right. That's exactly what it is.
|dave| Think about it Stick. Manly pointer.
|tamler| She was rubbing one out, dude.
|dave| She was totally like—
|tamler| Yeah, she's thinking she might have seduced him. She's thinking, like, "True genius can get an idea across even to an inferior mind." Yeah, she thinks she's toying with an inferior person.
|dave| She's like, this is this innocent Bible salesman whose worldview is so misguided. And she essentially, by saying she wants to seduce him and have him come face to face with his transgression, that he acted against his own beliefs, she wants to use that to throw cold water on his face, wake him up from his dogmatic slumber. She wants to shake him up.
|tamler| She puts the Vapex on her collar. That's so kind of sad, but I think that shows that, oh no, this isn't about educating a young man about the truth, about the reality.
|dave| For sure.
|tamler| Because when they kiss a little later on, even though it had this surge of adrenaline, She's like, "Oh, this is no big deal anyway. I'm so glad I was right about that." No.
|dave| Yeah, it's like it's all just a unwillingness to be vulnerable, or like a fear.
|tamler| Yeah, and opposed— opposed to herself, like, because it's not even opposed to anybody else at this point.
|dave| And her defense mechanisms, like, clearly intellectualizing. But the other thing that, that I just thought of is that this is, like you said, the apple doesn't fall far from the tree. Both Joy, Holga, and her mom use other people as projects. Like, they view other people as their personal projects.
|tamler| And she says in that bombshell, barn. So it's like he makes it so that she suggests that they go to the barn.
|dave| Totally. Yeah. Because, you know, she's enacting her plan to seduce him.
|tamler| Totally.
|dave| And there is some foreshadowing/insight that the narration provides that presumably Holga notices, but doesn't really put it together, where it says, "Nothing seemed to destroy the boy's look of admiration." He gazed at her now as if the fantastic animal at the zoo had put its paw through the bars and given him a loving poke.
|tamler| Yeah, that's her perspective.
|dave| That's her perspective. But what she doesn't realize is, yeah, she is the animal that he's in control over.
|tamler| He's the zookeeper. and in fact, they are not at all. So they go up to the barn.
|dave| Exactly.
|tamler| [LAUGHTER] And he's just like, "You gotta say it.
|dave| You gotta say it." Like, he's a sucker.
|tamler| Yeah, yeah.
|dave| He says, "I don't care. I don't care about all you've done.
|tamler| I just want you to know if you love me or don't." And I—
|dave| so I, on the second time, I just read it as like him insisting that she say that is again him sort of like manipulating the situation in such a way that she'll feel committed in some way to like going through with it.
|tamler| That hadn't even crossed my mind.
|dave| I think you're right.
|tamler| That's true, but it's not him that's innocent. It's you.
|dave| childish kind of thing, which is very different from the sort of lumbering, yelling, loud person that we've been told she is.
|tamler| The next line, "When after a minute she said in a hoarse, high voice, 'All right,' it was like surrendering to him completely. It was like losing her own life and finding it again miraculously in his. So very thing she thought she was going to do to him is happening to her right now there.
|dave| Yeah, flipped it.
|tamler| Yeah, so now comes the twist. Even now, I wasn't expecting it. I thought there was something weird going on, but—
|dave| Yeah, I thought, okay, he's just trying— now he's just trying to—
|tamler| [CROSSTALK] But then, so then he just kind of takes it off and he's like, you know, in the kind of boyish way, like, ooh, look, I can do it. I can put it back into the— it's like Legos. And then he takes out his— he opens up his kit case, and this is kind of funny, right? He has two Bibles. One of them is hollow, and in it is a whiskey, a pack of cards, and condoms. And the cards are like those, like, dirty cards. Yeah.
|dave| That's right.
|tamler| It's great. And then she's like, "Aren't you just good country people?" [LAUGHTER] "Yeah, but it ain't held me back none. I'm as good as you any day of the week." And then she asks for her leg, She's like, "Nope." And then he says, and I think this is— it's almost a little bit on the nose where she's like, you know, yelling at him, "Give me my leg." And he says, "What's the matter with you all of a sudden? You just said a while ago you didn't believe in nothing. I thought you was some girl." I mean, yeah, like, we should back up. Like, what do you make of, like, what you said, "touch the truth about her"? What's the truth there?
|dave| She gets to a real vulnerable place. And then he takes his leg, her leg, which is, again, her life, her identity, in a way, making her lose her life in a way that I think will help her actually find out who she is. Like, that act that he's doing, making her sacrifice herself in order to find herself, is what I think is going on.
|tamler| So that's the truth about her, is that—
|dave| [CROSSTALK] That's what it's hard for me to put my finger on, because what is the truth? Because I think Mrs. Freeman has seen this truth too. That's what makes her so uncomfortable about Mrs. Freeman.
|tamler| Yes, right.
|dave| And it's all about the leg. And what is it? Because it's just a stupid leg, but it is the thing that she has infused, like, all of what life means. Like, this absence, it's this nothingness that is represented by this artificial limb that's, like, patching up the nothingness. And it's like as if they're giving her the true sense of nothingness by taking it away, or by whatever it is. They— they both, the dumb, uneducated country folk, are aware aware very clearly of what she is.
|tamler| Yeah.
|dave| Good. That desperation that she shows, like, when he takes it away—
|tamler| oh God, she's just—
|dave| it's so, it's so visceral. Give me my leg! He pushed it farther away with his foot. Come on now, let's begin to have us a good time, he said coaxingly. We ain't got to know one another good yet. Give me my leg! she screamed and tried to lunge for it, but he pushed her down easily.
|tamler| Yeah, you just said you didn't believe in nothing. Like, that's what's like— I think, yeah, if anything, is a little heavy-handed. It's, you know, maybe it's that. And then she says, "You're a Christian." She's so indignant. And then she tries to put it back into her categories. It's like, "Oh, of course, 'cause you're a Christian and you're a hypocrite." And you say one thing, you preach one thing and do another. And I love his response here. He says— and he's kind of actually pissed. He's like, "I hope you don't think I believe in that crap. I may sell Bibles, but I know which end is up and I wasn't born yesterday." 'And I know where I am going.' That seems like a reference to the opening line, you know, like, about Mrs. Freeman. They are.
|dave| And I think this is, you know, also just a commentary on, like, your condescending doesn't, like, allow you to see— —what a complicated man he is.
|tamler| She saw him grab the leg, and then she saw it for an instant slanted forlornly inside of the suitcase with the Bible at either side of it. That's why he brought it, you know, like the—
|dave| Yep, he brought that big case.
|tamler| Totally.
|dave| But also, to get back to the Odysseus, like, yelling, talking shit as he's leaving the Cyclops and saying, "You know, I'm not no Yeah.
|tamler| You thought you could eat my men and do the thing. Yeah, no. Yeah. What he doesn't do is give his real name. He doesn't give his real name.
|dave| Yeah. He learned—
|tamler| he learned from the Odyssey. He learned from the Odyssey.
|dave| So I remember in the briefcase in Pulp Fiction that glows, that, you know, it's just the MacGuffin. I remember early on people would have these theories about what was in the briefcase. And one of the theories was was that it was Marcellus Wallace's soul, and that's why he was so interested in getting it back. And they said, like, yeah, the Band-Aid that he has in the back of his neck is like where they—
|tamler| [CROSSTALK] They took out his soul.
|dave| —removed his soul. Yeah. This strikes me as like him, like an evil, like whatever, Satan, demon, trickster, going around collecting souls, putting them in his briefcase. He got the glass eye, which is also, you know, like, the eye is the window to the soul. it's also an artificial appendage.
|tamler| Material, like not biology. It's not infused with spirit. It's just a— it's a marble, you know.
|dave| It's a marble, and there's a hole when it's gone. And it's easy to believe that this was another person who thought that he was the naive one.
|tamler| Yeah, totally.
|dave| And I think this is just like the story "A Good Man Is Hard to Find," when at the very end, you could argue that there's a moment of grace given, purely as a result of this horrible man's actions, right before he murders Grandma. She sort of, like, has this moment where she transcends what she was before. And here, I'm again struck by the— you got to lose your life before you find—
|tamler| Yeah. To die before you can rise again.
|dave| Yeah.
|tamler| Mrs. Hopewell, in very Mrs. Hopewell fashion, says, "He was so simple, but I guess the world would be better off if we were all that Then she returned her attention to the evil-smelling—
|dave| all one word— evil-smelling onion shoot she was lifting from the ground. "Some can't be that simple," she said. "I know I never could." It really is—
|tamler| they are two peas in a pod, Mrs. Hopewell and Holga. Like, they just don't get it, right? And Mrs. Freeman knows that's not right, you know?
|dave| Yeah, she saw that there was something there. And I wonder if Mrs. Freeman got a sense that something was going to happen like this, that this kid was actually not who he it seemed that he had the power of doing something bad to Holga, or at least doing something that she wouldn't expect. And maybe Mrs. Freeman sees that it's good for her. Maybe she sees that she will be freed.
|tamler| She will be a free man when— [CROSSTALK] After this, maybe. Yeah. Maybe she summoned him, you know?
|dave| Yeah. All right.
|tamler| Yeah.
|dave| You know, there's this, like, in one of the, like, Paul's letters in the New Testament, he has this passage where he says that, like, God's grace covers our, like, saves us from our sins. And, like, because of our sins, grace was necessary. And then he says, "Shall we sin that grace abound?" And his conclusion is no. Don't think that you should do bad things so that God's grace might infuse the world, because that would be like a misuse. But in both of the stories that we read of Flannery O'Connor, I feel like grace just came from— [CROSSTALK] Yeah, confronting evil.
|tamler| Yes.
|dave| Yeah. And that's the only way that it could have happened to these people. People. Like, if these people were just surrounded by the good people, maybe the ones that conformed to their categories or whatever, or— or, um, they had figured out they could predict, it just wouldn't happen. They need to be existentially rocked to their core by the face of badness.
|tamler| Is to be confronted with this and to be be so thoroughly exposed and kind of undressed, basically, and literally, and, uh, in a way. So yeah, what a story. It's like even like greater just thinking about it. I mean, what a genius. I know, I know.
|dave| Yeah, if her other stories are even close to these two, uh, we should just do that only. She's, she's in my like fucking Mount Rushmore of short story writers.
|tamler| Yeah, yeah. Oh, just, just great. All right, we should wrap up. Any final words? We should send the Grace Abound Yeah, we should see—
|dave| —go around doing evil.
|tamler| The Great Oz has spoken.
}}

File:Good country people.jpg

2026-03-22T05:36:07Z

Admin:

You Ain't So Smart (Flannery O'Connor's "Good Country People")

2026-03-22T05:33:05Z

Admin:

You Ain't So Smart (Flannery O'Connor's "Good Country People")

2026-03-22T05:30:52Z

Admin:

{{Episode Infobox
| episode_number = 327
| release_date = Feb 24, 2026
| image = Good country people.jpg
| length = 01:32:33
| quote_source = Norm Macdonald
| opening_subject = sexsominia
| main_subject = Flannery O'Conner's "Good Country People"
}}== Wrapping ==

=== Title ===

May be an allusion to Mase's ''You Ain't So Smart'', but straightforwardly a reference to the ending of "Good Country People."

<div style="float: center; clear: left; width: 50%; margin-bottom: 1em;">
{{#ev:youtube|mkag5slkFGI|400|center}}
</div>
<div></div>

=== Opening Quote ===

{{Opening_Quote
| text = The only thing an old man can tell a young man is that it goes fast, real fast, and if you're not careful, it's too late. Of course, the young man will never understand this truth.
| image = Norm macdonald.webp
| speaker = [[Norm Macdonald]]
| source = ''Based on a True Story: Not a Memoir''
}}

=== Show Notes ===

{{VBW Show Notes
| content = David and Tamler return to the Southern Gothic well and talk about Flannery O'Connor's short story masterpiece "Good Country People." A nihilistic atheist philosophy PhD named Joy or Helga (depending on who you ask) lives with her mother and some tenants on a farm in rural Georgia. One day 19-year-old aw-shucksy Bible salesman comes to the house and shakes up her philosophical convictions. Plus a case study of a sexsomniac who masturbates (and more) in his sleep.
| links = * [https://seedandspark.com/fund/boxed-in-ut-thesis-film#story Support Eliza's film project] <br>
* Brice, M., Gales, A. Z., Attali, V., Chauvin, M., & Arnulf, I. (2026). [https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1389945726000626 Left hand sleep masturbation in a right-handed male patient with sexsomnia.] ''Sleep Medicine'', 108823. <br>
* [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Good_Country_People Good Country People by Flannery O'Connor] <br>
}}

== Opening Segment ==

=== Conceptual Analyses ===

==== Self-Masturbation ====

''Self-maturbation'' is a redundant term, since masturbation implies an act done to oneself. This may be a product of overly cautious writing or it may be the author's intent to imply the existence of masturbation not done to oneself.

==== Mutual Masturbation ====

There are at least three candidate meanings.

# '''The Symmetrical Parallel Reading''' — two people each masturbating themselves, simultaneously, side by side. Grammatically the most literal: mutual as "each doing it to themselves, together."
# '''The Reciprocal Reading''' — each person manually stimulating the other. This is probably the dominant colloquial usage.
# '''The Metaphorical Reading''' — often used figuratively (empty flattery, etc.)

===== The Incoherence Argument and the Eliminativist Conclusion =====

The conversation gestures at but doesn't fully articulate: if "mutual masturbation" (in the reciprocal sense) is a coherent and accepted usage, then "masturbation" does not inherently require that the agent and patient be the same person. But if that's true, then "masturbation" just means manual genital stimulation by hand — and the "self" component is not definitionally built in.
Now you can run a ''reductio'': if masturbation doesn't require self-application, and if "mutual masturbation" is just two people doing it to each other, then "masturbation" collapses into a subset of ordinary sexual touch, and the category loses its distinctiveness. You could argue from this that masturbation as a standalone coherent category doesn't really exist — it's either redundantly self-specified, or it bleeds into general manual stimulation.

== Interlude ==

== Main Segment ==

== Transcript ==

[[Category:Episodes]]

You Ain't So Smart (Flannery O'Connor's "Good Country People")

2026-03-22T05:29:23Z

Admin:

{{Episode Infobox
| episode_number = 327
| release_date = Feb 24, 2026
| image = Good country people.jpg
| length = 01:32:33
| quote_source = Norm Macdonald
| opening_subject = sexsominia
| main_subject = Flannery O'Conner's "Good Country People"
}}== Wrapping ==

=== Title ===

May be an allusion to Mase's ''You Ain't So Smart'', but straightforwardly a reference to the ending of "Good Country People."

<div style="float: center; clear: left; width: 50%; margin-bottom: 1em;">
{{#ev:youtube|mkag5slkFGI|640|center}}
</div>
<div style="clear: left;"></div>

=== Opening Quote ===

{{Opening_Quote
| text = The only thing an old man can tell a young man is that it goes fast, real fast, and if you're not careful, it's too late. Of course, the young man will never understand this truth.
| image = Norm macdonald.webp
| speaker = [[Norm Macdonald]]
| source = ''Based on a True Story: Not a Memoir''
}}

=== Show Notes ===

{{VBW Show Notes
| content = David and Tamler return to the Southern Gothic well and talk about Flannery O'Connor's short story masterpiece "Good Country People." A nihilistic atheist philosophy PhD named Joy or Helga (depending on who you ask) lives with her mother and some tenants on a farm in rural Georgia. One day 19-year-old aw-shucksy Bible salesman comes to the house and shakes up her philosophical convictions. Plus a case study of a sexsomniac who masturbates (and more) in his sleep.
| links = * [https://seedandspark.com/fund/boxed-in-ut-thesis-film#story Support Eliza's film project] <br>
* Brice, M., Gales, A. Z., Attali, V., Chauvin, M., & Arnulf, I. (2026). [https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1389945726000626 Left hand sleep masturbation in a right-handed male patient with sexsomnia.] ''Sleep Medicine'', 108823. <br>
* [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Good_Country_People Good Country People by Flannery O'Connor] <br>
}}

== Opening Segment ==

=== Conceptual Analyses ===

==== Self-Masturbation ====

''Self-maturbation'' is a redundant term, since masturbation implies an act done to oneself. This may be a product of overly cautious writing or it may be the author's intent to imply the existence of masturbation not done to oneself.

==== Mutual Masturbation ====

There are at least three candidate meanings.

# '''The Symmetrical Parallel Reading''' — two people each masturbating themselves, simultaneously, side by side. Grammatically the most literal: mutual as "each doing it to themselves, together."
# '''The Reciprocal Reading''' — each person manually stimulating the other. This is probably the dominant colloquial usage.
# '''The Metaphorical Reading''' — often used figuratively (empty flattery, etc.)

===== The Incoherence Argument and the Eliminativist Conclusion =====

The conversation gestures at but doesn't fully articulate: if "mutual masturbation" (in the reciprocal sense) is a coherent and accepted usage, then "masturbation" does not inherently require that the agent and patient be the same person. But if that's true, then "masturbation" just means manual genital stimulation by hand — and the "self" component is not definitionally built in.
Now you can run a ''reductio'': if masturbation doesn't require self-application, and if "mutual masturbation" is just two people doing it to each other, then "masturbation" collapses into a subset of ordinary sexual touch, and the category loses its distinctiveness. You could argue from this that masturbation as a standalone coherent category doesn't really exist — it's either redundantly self-specified, or it bleeds into general manual stimulation.

== Interlude ==

== Main Segment ==

== Transcript ==

[[Category:Episodes]]

You Ain't So Smart (Flannery O'Connor's "Good Country People")

2026-03-22T05:28:38Z

Admin:

{{Episode Infobox
| episode_number = 327
| release_date = Feb 24, 2026
| image = Good country people.jpg
| length = 01:32:33
| quote_source = Norm Macdonald
| opening_subject = sexsominia
| main_subject = Flannery O'Conner's "Good Country People"
}}== Wrapping ==

=== Title ===

May be an allusion to Mase's ''You Ain't So Smart'', but straightforwardly a reference to the ending of "Good Country People."

<div style="float: left; clear: left; width: 50%; margin-bottom: 1em;">
{{#ev:youtube|mkag5slkFGI|640|center}}
</div>
<div style="clear: left;"></div>

=== Opening Quote ===

{{Opening_Quote
| text = The only thing an old man can tell a young man is that it goes fast, real fast, and if you're not careful, it's too late. Of course, the young man will never understand this truth.
| image = Norm macdonald.webp
| speaker = [[Norm Macdonald]]
| source = ''Based on a True Story: Not a Memoir''
}}

=== Show Notes ===

{{VBW Show Notes
| content = David and Tamler return to the Southern Gothic well and talk about Flannery O'Connor's short story masterpiece "Good Country People." A nihilistic atheist philosophy PhD named Joy or Helga (depending on who you ask) lives with her mother and some tenants on a farm in rural Georgia. One day 19-year-old aw-shucksy Bible salesman comes to the house and shakes up her philosophical convictions. Plus a case study of a sexsomniac who masturbates (and more) in his sleep.
| links = * [https://seedandspark.com/fund/boxed-in-ut-thesis-film#story Support Eliza's film project] <br>
* Brice, M., Gales, A. Z., Attali, V., Chauvin, M., & Arnulf, I. (2026). [https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1389945726000626 Left hand sleep masturbation in a right-handed male patient with sexsomnia.] ''Sleep Medicine'', 108823. <br>
* [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Good_Country_People Good Country People by Flannery O'Connor] <br>
}}

== Opening Segment ==

=== Conceptual Analyses ===

==== Self-Masturbation ====

''Self-maturbation'' is a redundant term, since masturbation implies an act done to oneself. This may be a product of overly cautious writing or it may be the author's intent to imply the existence of masturbation not done to oneself.

==== Mutual Masturbation ====

There are at least three candidate meanings.

# '''The Symmetrical Parallel Reading''' — two people each masturbating themselves, simultaneously, side by side. Grammatically the most literal: mutual as "each doing it to themselves, together."
# '''The Reciprocal Reading''' — each person manually stimulating the other. This is probably the dominant colloquial usage.
# '''The Metaphorical Reading''' — often used figuratively (empty flattery, etc.)

===== The Incoherence Argument and the Eliminativist Conclusion =====

The conversation gestures at but doesn't fully articulate: if "mutual masturbation" (in the reciprocal sense) is a coherent and accepted usage, then "masturbation" does not inherently require that the agent and patient be the same person. But if that's true, then "masturbation" just means manual genital stimulation by hand — and the "self" component is not definitionally built in.
Now you can run a ''reductio'': if masturbation doesn't require self-application, and if "mutual masturbation" is just two people doing it to each other, then "masturbation" collapses into a subset of ordinary sexual touch, and the category loses its distinctiveness. You could argue from this that masturbation as a standalone coherent category doesn't really exist — it's either redundantly self-specified, or it bleeds into general manual stimulation.

== Interlude ==

== Main Segment ==

== Transcript ==

[[Category:Episodes]]

You Ain't So Smart (Flannery O'Connor's "Good Country People")

2026-03-22T05:28:11Z

Admin:

{{Episode Infobox
| episode_number = 327
| release_date = Feb 24, 2026
| image = Good country people.jpg
| length = 01:32:33
| quote_source = Norm Macdonald
| opening_subject = sexsominia
| main_subject = Flannery O'Conner's "Good Country People"
}}== Wrapping ==

=== Title ===

May be an allusion to Mase's ''You Ain't So Smart'', but straightforwardly a reference to the ending of "Good Country People."

<div style="float: left; clear: left; width: 50%; margin-bottom: 1em;">
{{#ev:youtube|mkag5slkFGI|640|center}}
</div>
<div style="clear: center;"></div>

=== Opening Quote ===

{{Opening_Quote
| text = The only thing an old man can tell a young man is that it goes fast, real fast, and if you're not careful, it's too late. Of course, the young man will never understand this truth.
| image = Norm macdonald.webp
| speaker = [[Norm Macdonald]]
| source = ''Based on a True Story: Not a Memoir''
}}

=== Show Notes ===

{{VBW Show Notes
| content = David and Tamler return to the Southern Gothic well and talk about Flannery O'Connor's short story masterpiece "Good Country People." A nihilistic atheist philosophy PhD named Joy or Helga (depending on who you ask) lives with her mother and some tenants on a farm in rural Georgia. One day 19-year-old aw-shucksy Bible salesman comes to the house and shakes up her philosophical convictions. Plus a case study of a sexsomniac who masturbates (and more) in his sleep.
| links = * [https://seedandspark.com/fund/boxed-in-ut-thesis-film#story Support Eliza's film project] <br>
* Brice, M., Gales, A. Z., Attali, V., Chauvin, M., & Arnulf, I. (2026). [https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1389945726000626 Left hand sleep masturbation in a right-handed male patient with sexsomnia.] ''Sleep Medicine'', 108823. <br>
* [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Good_Country_People Good Country People by Flannery O'Connor] <br>
}}

== Opening Segment ==

=== Conceptual Analyses ===

==== Self-Masturbation ====

''Self-maturbation'' is a redundant term, since masturbation implies an act done to oneself. This may be a product of overly cautious writing or it may be the author's intent to imply the existence of masturbation not done to oneself.

==== Mutual Masturbation ====

There are at least three candidate meanings.

# '''The Symmetrical Parallel Reading''' — two people each masturbating themselves, simultaneously, side by side. Grammatically the most literal: mutual as "each doing it to themselves, together."
# '''The Reciprocal Reading''' — each person manually stimulating the other. This is probably the dominant colloquial usage.
# '''The Metaphorical Reading''' — often used figuratively (empty flattery, etc.)

===== The Incoherence Argument and the Eliminativist Conclusion =====

The conversation gestures at but doesn't fully articulate: if "mutual masturbation" (in the reciprocal sense) is a coherent and accepted usage, then "masturbation" does not inherently require that the agent and patient be the same person. But if that's true, then "masturbation" just means manual genital stimulation by hand — and the "self" component is not definitionally built in.
Now you can run a ''reductio'': if masturbation doesn't require self-application, and if "mutual masturbation" is just two people doing it to each other, then "masturbation" collapses into a subset of ordinary sexual touch, and the category loses its distinctiveness. You could argue from this that masturbation as a standalone coherent category doesn't really exist — it's either redundantly self-specified, or it bleeds into general manual stimulation.

== Interlude ==

== Main Segment ==

== Transcript ==

[[Category:Episodes]]

You Ain't So Smart (Flannery O'Connor's "Good Country People")

2026-03-22T05:27:46Z

Admin:

{{Episode Infobox
| episode_number = 327
| release_date = Feb 24, 2026
| image = Good country people.jpg
| length = 01:32:33
| quote_source = Norm Macdonald
| opening_subject = sexsominia
| main_subject = Flannery O'Conner's "Good Country People"
}}== Wrapping ==

=== Title ===

May be an allusion to Mase's ''You Ain't So Smart'', but straightforwardly a reference to the ending of "Good Country People."

<div style="float: left; clear: left; width: 50%; margin-bottom: 1em;">
{{#ev:youtube|mkag5slkFGI|640|center}}
</div>
<div style="clear: left;"></div

=== Opening Quote ===

{{Opening_Quote
| text = The only thing an old man can tell a young man is that it goes fast, real fast, and if you're not careful, it's too late. Of course, the young man will never understand this truth.
| image = Norm macdonald.webp
| speaker = [[Norm Macdonald]]
| source = ''Based on a True Story: Not a Memoir''
}}

=== Show Notes ===

{{VBW Show Notes
| content = David and Tamler return to the Southern Gothic well and talk about Flannery O'Connor's short story masterpiece "Good Country People." A nihilistic atheist philosophy PhD named Joy or Helga (depending on who you ask) lives with her mother and some tenants on a farm in rural Georgia. One day 19-year-old aw-shucksy Bible salesman comes to the house and shakes up her philosophical convictions. Plus a case study of a sexsomniac who masturbates (and more) in his sleep.
| links = * [https://seedandspark.com/fund/boxed-in-ut-thesis-film#story Support Eliza's film project] <br>
* Brice, M., Gales, A. Z., Attali, V., Chauvin, M., & Arnulf, I. (2026). [https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1389945726000626 Left hand sleep masturbation in a right-handed male patient with sexsomnia.] ''Sleep Medicine'', 108823. <br>
* [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Good_Country_People Good Country People by Flannery O'Connor] <br>
}}

== Opening Segment ==

=== Conceptual Analyses ===

==== Self-Masturbation ====

''Self-maturbation'' is a redundant term, since masturbation implies an act done to oneself. This may be a product of overly cautious writing or it may be the author's intent to imply the existence of masturbation not done to oneself.

==== Mutual Masturbation ====

There are at least three candidate meanings.

# '''The Symmetrical Parallel Reading''' — two people each masturbating themselves, simultaneously, side by side. Grammatically the most literal: mutual as "each doing it to themselves, together."
# '''The Reciprocal Reading''' — each person manually stimulating the other. This is probably the dominant colloquial usage.
# '''The Metaphorical Reading''' — often used figuratively (empty flattery, etc.)

===== The Incoherence Argument and the Eliminativist Conclusion =====

The conversation gestures at but doesn't fully articulate: if "mutual masturbation" (in the reciprocal sense) is a coherent and accepted usage, then "masturbation" does not inherently require that the agent and patient be the same person. But if that's true, then "masturbation" just means manual genital stimulation by hand — and the "self" component is not definitionally built in.
Now you can run a ''reductio'': if masturbation doesn't require self-application, and if "mutual masturbation" is just two people doing it to each other, then "masturbation" collapses into a subset of ordinary sexual touch, and the category loses its distinctiveness. You could argue from this that masturbation as a standalone coherent category doesn't really exist — it's either redundantly self-specified, or it bleeds into general manual stimulation.

== Interlude ==

== Main Segment ==

== Transcript ==

[[Category:Episodes]]

You Ain't So Smart (Flannery O'Connor's "Good Country People")

2026-03-22T05:22:55Z

Admin:

{{Episode Infobox
| episode_number = 327
| release_date = Feb 24, 2026
| image = Good country people.jpg
| length = 01:32:33
| quote_source = Norm Macdonald
| opening_subject = sexsominia
| main_subject = Flannery O'Conner's "Good Country People"
}}== Wrapping ==

=== Title ===

May be an allusion to Mase's ''You Ain't So Smart'', but straightforwardly a reference to the ending of "Good Country People."

{{#ev:youtube|mkag5slkFGI|450|left}}

=== Opening Quote ===

{{Opening_Quote
| text = The only thing an old man can tell a young man is that it goes fast, real fast, and if you're not careful, it's too late. Of course, the young man will never understand this truth.
| image = Norm macdonald.webp
| speaker = [[Norm Macdonald]]
| source = ''Based on a True Story: Not a Memoir''
}}

=== Show Notes ===

{{VBW Show Notes
| content = David and Tamler return to the Southern Gothic well and talk about Flannery O'Connor's short story masterpiece "Good Country People." A nihilistic atheist philosophy PhD named Joy or Helga (depending on who you ask) lives with her mother and some tenants on a farm in rural Georgia. One day 19-year-old aw-shucksy Bible salesman comes to the house and shakes up her philosophical convictions. Plus a case study of a sexsomniac who masturbates (and more) in his sleep.
| links = * [https://seedandspark.com/fund/boxed-in-ut-thesis-film#story Support Eliza's film project] <br>
* Brice, M., Gales, A. Z., Attali, V., Chauvin, M., & Arnulf, I. (2026). [https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1389945726000626 Left hand sleep masturbation in a right-handed male patient with sexsomnia.] ''Sleep Medicine'', 108823. <br>
* [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Good_Country_People Good Country People by Flannery O'Connor] <br>
}}

== Opening Segment ==

=== Conceptual Analyses ===

==== Self-Masturbation ====

''Self-maturbation'' is a redundant term, since masturbation implies an act done to oneself. This may be a product of overly cautious writing or it may be the author's intent to imply the existence of masturbation not done to oneself.

==== Mutual Masturbation ====

There are at least three candidate meanings.

# '''The Symmetrical Parallel Reading''' — two people each masturbating themselves, simultaneously, side by side. Grammatically the most literal: mutual as "each doing it to themselves, together."
# '''The Reciprocal Reading''' — each person manually stimulating the other. This is probably the dominant colloquial usage.
# '''The Metaphorical Reading''' — often used figuratively (empty flattery, etc.)

===== The Incoherence Argument and the Eliminativist Conclusion =====

The conversation gestures at but doesn't fully articulate: if "mutual masturbation" (in the reciprocal sense) is a coherent and accepted usage, then "masturbation" does not inherently require that the agent and patient be the same person. But if that's true, then "masturbation" just means manual genital stimulation by hand — and the "self" component is not definitionally built in.
Now you can run a ''reductio'': if masturbation doesn't require self-application, and if "mutual masturbation" is just two people doing it to each other, then "masturbation" collapses into a subset of ordinary sexual touch, and the category loses its distinctiveness. You could argue from this that masturbation as a standalone coherent category doesn't really exist — it's either redundantly self-specified, or it bleeds into general manual stimulation.

== Interlude ==

== Main Segment ==

== Transcript ==

[[Category:Episodes]]

You Ain't So Smart (Flannery O'Connor's "Good Country People")

2026-03-22T05:22:36Z

Admin:

{{Episode Infobox
| episode_number = 327
| release_date = Feb 24, 2026
| image = Good country people.jpg
| length = 01:32:33
| quote_source = Norm Macdonald
| opening_subject = sexsominia
| main_subject = Flannery O'Conner's "Good Country People"
}}== Wrapping ==

=== Title ===

May be an allusion to Mase's ''You Ain't So Smart'', but straightforwardly a reference to the ending of "Good Country People."

{{#ev:youtube|mkag5slkFGI|450|right}}

=== Opening Quote ===

{{Opening_Quote
| text = The only thing an old man can tell a young man is that it goes fast, real fast, and if you're not careful, it's too late. Of course, the young man will never understand this truth.
| image = Norm macdonald.webp
| speaker = [[Norm Macdonald]]
| source = ''Based on a True Story: Not a Memoir''
}}

=== Show Notes ===

{{VBW Show Notes
| content = David and Tamler return to the Southern Gothic well and talk about Flannery O'Connor's short story masterpiece "Good Country People." A nihilistic atheist philosophy PhD named Joy or Helga (depending on who you ask) lives with her mother and some tenants on a farm in rural Georgia. One day 19-year-old aw-shucksy Bible salesman comes to the house and shakes up her philosophical convictions. Plus a case study of a sexsomniac who masturbates (and more) in his sleep.
| links = * [https://seedandspark.com/fund/boxed-in-ut-thesis-film#story Support Eliza's film project] <br>
* Brice, M., Gales, A. Z., Attali, V., Chauvin, M., & Arnulf, I. (2026). [https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1389945726000626 Left hand sleep masturbation in a right-handed male patient with sexsomnia.] ''Sleep Medicine'', 108823. <br>
* [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Good_Country_People Good Country People by Flannery O'Connor] <br>
}}

== Opening Segment ==

=== Conceptual Analyses ===

==== Self-Masturbation ====

''Self-maturbation'' is a redundant term, since masturbation implies an act done to oneself. This may be a product of overly cautious writing or it may be the author's intent to imply the existence of masturbation not done to oneself.

==== Mutual Masturbation ====

There are at least three candidate meanings.

# '''The Symmetrical Parallel Reading''' — two people each masturbating themselves, simultaneously, side by side. Grammatically the most literal: mutual as "each doing it to themselves, together."
# '''The Reciprocal Reading''' — each person manually stimulating the other. This is probably the dominant colloquial usage.
# '''The Metaphorical Reading''' — often used figuratively (empty flattery, etc.)

===== The Incoherence Argument and the Eliminativist Conclusion =====

The conversation gestures at but doesn't fully articulate: if "mutual masturbation" (in the reciprocal sense) is a coherent and accepted usage, then "masturbation" does not inherently require that the agent and patient be the same person. But if that's true, then "masturbation" just means manual genital stimulation by hand — and the "self" component is not definitionally built in.
Now you can run a ''reductio'': if masturbation doesn't require self-application, and if "mutual masturbation" is just two people doing it to each other, then "masturbation" collapses into a subset of ordinary sexual touch, and the category loses its distinctiveness. You could argue from this that masturbation as a standalone coherent category doesn't really exist — it's either redundantly self-specified, or it bleeds into general manual stimulation.

== Interlude ==

== Main Segment ==

== Transcript ==

[[Category:Episodes]]

You Ain't So Smart (Flannery O'Connor's "Good Country People")

2026-03-22T05:22:11Z

Admin:

{{Episode Infobox
| episode_number = 327
| release_date = Feb 24, 2026
| image = Good country people.jpg
| length = 01:32:33
| quote_source = Norm Macdonald
| opening_subject = sexsominia
| main_subject = Flannery O'Conner's "Good Country People"
}}== Wrapping ==

=== Title ===

May be an allusion to Mase's ''You Ain't So Smart'', but straightforwardly a reference to the ending of "Good Country People."

{{#ev:youtube|mkag5slkFGI|450|center}}

=== Opening Quote ===

{{Opening_Quote
| text = The only thing an old man can tell a young man is that it goes fast, real fast, and if you're not careful, it's too late. Of course, the young man will never understand this truth.
| image = Norm macdonald.webp
| speaker = [[Norm Macdonald]]
| source = ''Based on a True Story: Not a Memoir''
}}

=== Show Notes ===

{{VBW Show Notes
| content = David and Tamler return to the Southern Gothic well and talk about Flannery O'Connor's short story masterpiece "Good Country People." A nihilistic atheist philosophy PhD named Joy or Helga (depending on who you ask) lives with her mother and some tenants on a farm in rural Georgia. One day 19-year-old aw-shucksy Bible salesman comes to the house and shakes up her philosophical convictions. Plus a case study of a sexsomniac who masturbates (and more) in his sleep.
| links = * [https://seedandspark.com/fund/boxed-in-ut-thesis-film#story Support Eliza's film project] <br>
* Brice, M., Gales, A. Z., Attali, V., Chauvin, M., & Arnulf, I. (2026). [https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1389945726000626 Left hand sleep masturbation in a right-handed male patient with sexsomnia.] ''Sleep Medicine'', 108823. <br>
* [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Good_Country_People Good Country People by Flannery O'Connor] <br>
}}

== Opening Segment ==

=== Conceptual Analyses ===

==== Self-Masturbation ====

''Self-maturbation'' is a redundant term, since masturbation implies an act done to oneself. This may be a product of overly cautious writing or it may be the author's intent to imply the existence of masturbation not done to oneself.

==== Mutual Masturbation ====

There are at least three candidate meanings.

# '''The Symmetrical Parallel Reading''' — two people each masturbating themselves, simultaneously, side by side. Grammatically the most literal: mutual as "each doing it to themselves, together."
# '''The Reciprocal Reading''' — each person manually stimulating the other. This is probably the dominant colloquial usage.
# '''The Metaphorical Reading''' — often used figuratively (empty flattery, etc.)

===== The Incoherence Argument and the Eliminativist Conclusion =====

The conversation gestures at but doesn't fully articulate: if "mutual masturbation" (in the reciprocal sense) is a coherent and accepted usage, then "masturbation" does not inherently require that the agent and patient be the same person. But if that's true, then "masturbation" just means manual genital stimulation by hand — and the "self" component is not definitionally built in.
Now you can run a ''reductio'': if masturbation doesn't require self-application, and if "mutual masturbation" is just two people doing it to each other, then "masturbation" collapses into a subset of ordinary sexual touch, and the category loses its distinctiveness. You could argue from this that masturbation as a standalone coherent category doesn't really exist — it's either redundantly self-specified, or it bleeds into general manual stimulation.

== Interlude ==

== Main Segment ==

== Transcript ==

[[Category:Episodes]]

You Ain't So Smart (Flannery O'Connor's "Good Country People")

2026-03-22T05:21:44Z

Admin:

{{Episode Infobox
| episode_number = 327
| release_date = Feb 24, 2026
| image = Good country people.jpg
| length = 01:32:33
| quote_source = Norm Macdonald
| opening_subject = sexsominia
| main_subject = Flannery O'Conner's "Good Country People"
}}== Wrapping ==

=== Title ===

May be an allusion to Mase's ''You Ain't So Smart'', but straightforwardly a reference to the ending of "Good Country People."

{{#ev:youtube|mkag5slkFGI|640|center}}

=== Opening Quote ===

{{Opening_Quote
| text = The only thing an old man can tell a young man is that it goes fast, real fast, and if you're not careful, it's too late. Of course, the young man will never understand this truth.
| image = Norm macdonald.webp
| speaker = [[Norm Macdonald]]
| source = ''Based on a True Story: Not a Memoir''
}}

=== Show Notes ===

{{VBW Show Notes
| content = David and Tamler return to the Southern Gothic well and talk about Flannery O'Connor's short story masterpiece "Good Country People." A nihilistic atheist philosophy PhD named Joy or Helga (depending on who you ask) lives with her mother and some tenants on a farm in rural Georgia. One day 19-year-old aw-shucksy Bible salesman comes to the house and shakes up her philosophical convictions. Plus a case study of a sexsomniac who masturbates (and more) in his sleep.
| links = * [https://seedandspark.com/fund/boxed-in-ut-thesis-film#story Support Eliza's film project] <br>
* Brice, M., Gales, A. Z., Attali, V., Chauvin, M., & Arnulf, I. (2026). [https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1389945726000626 Left hand sleep masturbation in a right-handed male patient with sexsomnia.] ''Sleep Medicine'', 108823. <br>
* [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Good_Country_People Good Country People by Flannery O'Connor] <br>
}}

== Opening Segment ==

=== Conceptual Analyses ===

==== Self-Masturbation ====

''Self-maturbation'' is a redundant term, since masturbation implies an act done to oneself. This may be a product of overly cautious writing or it may be the author's intent to imply the existence of masturbation not done to oneself.

==== Mutual Masturbation ====

There are at least three candidate meanings.

# '''The Symmetrical Parallel Reading''' — two people each masturbating themselves, simultaneously, side by side. Grammatically the most literal: mutual as "each doing it to themselves, together."
# '''The Reciprocal Reading''' — each person manually stimulating the other. This is probably the dominant colloquial usage.
# '''The Metaphorical Reading''' — often used figuratively (empty flattery, etc.)

===== The Incoherence Argument and the Eliminativist Conclusion =====

The conversation gestures at but doesn't fully articulate: if "mutual masturbation" (in the reciprocal sense) is a coherent and accepted usage, then "masturbation" does not inherently require that the agent and patient be the same person. But if that's true, then "masturbation" just means manual genital stimulation by hand — and the "self" component is not definitionally built in.
Now you can run a ''reductio'': if masturbation doesn't require self-application, and if "mutual masturbation" is just two people doing it to each other, then "masturbation" collapses into a subset of ordinary sexual touch, and the category loses its distinctiveness. You could argue from this that masturbation as a standalone coherent category doesn't really exist — it's either redundantly self-specified, or it bleeds into general manual stimulation.

== Interlude ==

== Main Segment ==

== Transcript ==

[[Category:Episodes]]

You Ain't So Smart (Flannery O'Connor's "Good Country People")

2026-03-22T05:21:24Z

Admin: Replaced content with "{{Episode Infobox | episode_number = 327 | release_date = Feb 24, 2026 | image = Good country people.jpg | length = 01:32:33 | quote_source = Norm Macdonald | opening_subject = sexsominia | main_subject = Flannery O'Conner's "Good Country People" }} == Wrapping == === Title === May be an allusion to Mase's ''You Ain't So Smart'', but straightforwardly a reference to the ending of "Good Country People." {{#ev:youtube|mkag5slkFGI|640|center}} === Opening Qu..."

{{Episode Infobox
| episode_number = 327
| release_date = Feb 24, 2026
| image = Good country people.jpg
| length = 01:32:33
| quote_source = Norm Macdonald
| opening_subject = sexsominia
| main_subject = Flannery O'Conner's "Good Country People"
}} == Wrapping ==

=== Title ===

May be an allusion to Mase's ''You Ain't So Smart'', but straightforwardly a reference to the ending of "Good Country People."

{{#ev:youtube|mkag5slkFGI|640|center}}

=== Opening Quote ===

{{Opening_Quote
| text = The only thing an old man can tell a young man is that it goes fast, real fast, and if you're not careful, it's too late. Of course, the young man will never understand this truth.
| image = Norm macdonald.webp
| speaker = [[Norm Macdonald]]
| source = ''Based on a True Story: Not a Memoir''
}}

=== Show Notes ===

{{VBW Show Notes
| content = David and Tamler return to the Southern Gothic well and talk about Flannery O'Connor's short story masterpiece "Good Country People." A nihilistic atheist philosophy PhD named Joy or Helga (depending on who you ask) lives with her mother and some tenants on a farm in rural Georgia. One day 19-year-old aw-shucksy Bible salesman comes to the house and shakes up her philosophical convictions. Plus a case study of a sexsomniac who masturbates (and more) in his sleep.
| links = * [https://seedandspark.com/fund/boxed-in-ut-thesis-film#story Support Eliza's film project] <br>
* Brice, M., Gales, A. Z., Attali, V., Chauvin, M., & Arnulf, I. (2026). [https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1389945726000626 Left hand sleep masturbation in a right-handed male patient with sexsomnia.] ''Sleep Medicine'', 108823. <br>
* [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Good_Country_People Good Country People by Flannery O'Connor] <br>
}}

== Opening Segment ==

=== Conceptual Analyses ===

==== Self-Masturbation ====

''Self-maturbation'' is a redundant term, since masturbation implies an act done to oneself. This may be a product of overly cautious writing or it may be the author's intent to imply the existence of masturbation not done to oneself.

==== Mutual Masturbation ====

There are at least three candidate meanings.

# '''The Symmetrical Parallel Reading''' — two people each masturbating themselves, simultaneously, side by side. Grammatically the most literal: mutual as "each doing it to themselves, together."
# '''The Reciprocal Reading''' — each person manually stimulating the other. This is probably the dominant colloquial usage.
# '''The Metaphorical Reading''' — often used figuratively (empty flattery, etc.)

===== The Incoherence Argument and the Eliminativist Conclusion =====

The conversation gestures at but doesn't fully articulate: if "mutual masturbation" (in the reciprocal sense) is a coherent and accepted usage, then "masturbation" does not inherently require that the agent and patient be the same person. But if that's true, then "masturbation" just means manual genital stimulation by hand — and the "self" component is not definitionally built in.
Now you can run a ''reductio'': if masturbation doesn't require self-application, and if "mutual masturbation" is just two people doing it to each other, then "masturbation" collapses into a subset of ordinary sexual touch, and the category loses its distinctiveness. You could argue from this that masturbation as a standalone coherent category doesn't really exist — it's either redundantly self-specified, or it bleeds into general manual stimulation.

== Interlude ==

== Main Segment ==

== Transcript ==

[[Category:Episodes]]

Dishonesty, Character, and Dan Ariely

2026-03-22T03:07:56Z

Admin: /* Opening Quote */

{{Episode_Infobox
| title = Dishonesty, Character, and Dan Ariely
| caption =
| episode_number = 8
| release_date = November 12, 2012
| length = 01:11:04
| listen = [[File:Episode-8-dishonesty-character-and-dan-ariely.mp3]]
| quote_source =
| opening_subject =
| beat_break_song =
| main_subject =
| guests =
| previous_episode = [[Psychopaths and Utilitarians Pt. 2 (Now with more poo poo)]]
| next_episode = [[Social Psychology, Situationism, and Moral Character]]
}}'''{{PAGENAME}}''' is the 8th episode of the [[Very Bad Wizards]] podcast, released on November 12, 2012.

== Opening Quote ==

{{Opening_Quote
| text = Get them suckas off the stage. They wack. They wack.
| image =
| speaker = Maybe from ''Wild Style''
| source =
}}

== Show Notes ==

{{VBW_Show_Notes
| content = In a Very Special Episode of Very Bad Wizards, Dan Ariely joins David to chat about cheating, character, teling your significant other about kissing someone at a conference, and the importance of moral rules. Tamler and David sandwich the chat with a discussion about the US Presidential election, the irony of moral psychologists making people do bad things, and end with a full-blown argument about what it means to say that something is morally wrong, and whether that's an interesting question.
| links = * [http://buffyfest.blogspot.ca/2009/04/buffyangel-episode-watching-guide.html Buffy/Angel Crossover Viewing Guide] <br>
* [http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2yrp6_ian-mckellen-on-extras_shortfilms Sir Ian McKellen on Ricky Gervais' "Extras] <br>
* [http://www.libertarianrepublican.net/2012/11/the-end-of-liberty-in-america-only.html Democrat Boycott.] <br>
* [http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2012/11/eric-dondero-boycott-democrat-libertarian.html who he would save:] <br>
* [http://danariely.com/tag/arming-the-donkeys/ Arming the Donkeys] <br>
* [http://www.amazon.com/Honest-Truth-About-Dishonesty-Everyone-Especially/dp/0062183591 The Honest Truth about Dishonesty] <br>
* [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gettier_problem favorite kind of epistemology] <br>
* [http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/moral-motivation/#IntVExt debate about moral wrongness] <br>
* [https://www.patreon.com/verybadwizards Support Very Bad Wizards]
}}

[[Category:Episodes]]

Psychopaths and Utilitarians Pt. 2 (Now with more poo poo)

2026-03-22T03:06:17Z

Admin: /* Opening Quote */

{{Episode_Infobox
| title = Psychopaths and Utilitarians Pt. 2 (Now with more poo poo)
| caption =
| episode_number = 7
| release_date = November 04, 2012
| length = 01:07:01
| listen = [[File:Episode-7-psychopaths-and-utilitarians-pt-2-now-with-more-poo-poo.mp3]]
| quote_source =
| opening_subject =
| beat_break_song =
| main_subject =
| guests =
| previous_episode = [[Trolleys, Utilitarians, and Psychopaths (Part 1)]]
| next_episode = [[Dishonesty, Character, and Dan Ariely]]
}}'''{{PAGENAME}}''' is the 7th episode of the [[Very Bad Wizards]] podcast, released on November 04, 2012.

== Opening Quote ==

{{Opening_Quote
| text = It is so painful that they have to take drugs, but they enjoy it.
| image = Ssempa.jpg
| speaker = Martin Ssempa
| source =
}}

https://knowyourmeme.com/sensitive/memes/eat-da-poo-poo

== Show Notes ==

{{VBW_Show_Notes
| content = After a clip from The Third Man, Dave and Tamler continue their discussion from Episode 6 on Ted Bundy, utilitarians, and trolley problems. They also talk about Tamler's TED talk envy, inappropriate acts with trees, and make a plea for more listener feedback. The second segment begins with the long-awaited return of the 'eat the poo-poo' clip, but this time in a somewhat relevant context. Dave and Tamler then discuss the role that emotions play in moral judgment and the role they should play. If we feel disgust at someone's behavior, does that mean the behavior is morally wrong? Tune in to find out…
| links = * [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YuEm03Ko0J8&playnext=1&list=PL7E8242649270DC96&feature=results_video Tamler's TEDx talk] <br>
* [http://www.amazon.com/Yuck-Significance-Disgust-Philosophical-Psychology/dp/0262015587/ref=tmm_hrd_title_0?ie=UTF8&qid=1352052640&sr=8-16 Yuck] <br>
* [https://www.patreon.com/verybadwizards Support Very Bad Wizards]
}}

[[Category:Episodes]]

File:Ssempa.jpg

2026-03-22T03:05:58Z

Admin:

Trolleys, Utilitarians, and Psychopaths (Part 1)

2026-03-22T02:35:42Z

Admin: /* Opening Quote */

{{Episode_Infobox
| title = Trolleys, Utilitarians, and Psychopaths (Part 1)
| caption =
| episode_number = 6
| release_date = October 20, 2012
| length = 01:01:40
| listen = [[File:Episode-6-trolleys-utilitarians-and-psychopaths-part-1.mp3]]
| quote_source =
| opening_subject =
| beat_break_song =
| main_subject =
| guests =
| previous_episode = [[Revenge, Pt. 2: The Revenge]]
| next_episode = [[Psychopaths and Utilitarians Pt. 2 (Now with more poo poo)]]
}}

'''{{PAGENAME}}''' is the 6th episode of the [[Very Bad Wizards]] podcast, released on October 20, 2012.
== Opening Quote ==

{{Opening_Quote
| text = '''Fry''': How can I live my life if I can't tell good from evil?
'''Bender''': Ah, they're both fine choices. Whatever floats your boat.
| image = Fry and bender.webp
| speaker = Fry, Bender
| source = ''Futurama''
}}

== Show Notes ==

{{VBW_Show_Notes
| content = Tamler contemplates ending it all because he can't get 'Call Me Maybe' out of his head, and Dave doesn't try to talk him out of it. This is followed by a discussion about drones, psychopaths, Canadians, Elle Fanning, horrible moral dilemmas, and the biggest rivalry in Ethics: utilitarians vs. Kantians.
| links = * [http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2012/09/why-i-refuse-to-vote-for-barack-obama/262861/ Why I Refuse to Vote for Barack Obama.] <br>
* [http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2012/10/why-i-refuse-to-refuse-to-vote-for-obama/263116/ Why I Refuse to Refuse to Vote for Obama] <br>
* [http://www.peezer.net/s/bartels-pizarro-mismeasure-of-morals.pdf The Mismeasure of Morals] <br>
* [http://www.economist.com/node/21530078 Goodness Has Nothing to Do With It] <br>
* [https://www.patreon.com/verybadwizards Support Very Bad Wizards]
}}

[[Category:Episodes]]

File:Fry and bender.webp

2026-03-22T02:34:18Z

Admin:

Revenge, Pt. 1

2026-03-22T02:30:29Z

Admin: /* Opening Quote */

{{Episode_Infobox
| title = Revenge, Pt. 1
| caption =
| episode_number = 4
| release_date = September 20, 2012
| length = 51:35
| listen = [[File:Episode-4-revenge-pt-1.mp3]]
| quote_source =
| opening_subject =
| beat_break_song =
| main_subject =
| guests =
| previous_episode = [["We believe in nothing!" (Cultural diversity, relativism, and moral truth)]]
| next_episode = [[Revenge, Pt. 2: The Revenge]]
}}'''{{PAGENAME}}''' is the 4th episode of the [[Very Bad Wizards]] podcast, released on September 20, 2012.

== Opening Quote ==

{{Opening_Quote
| text = As for you, my fine friend, you're a victim of disorganized thinking.
| image = wizard_of_oz.jpg
| speaker = [[The Wizard of Oz (Character)]]
| source = ''The Wizard of Oz''
}}

== Show Notes ==

{{VBW_Show_Notes
| content = Dave allows Tamler to rant about Sam Harris's strawman attacks on moral relativism before launching into discussion about revenge, justice, True Grit, and Michael Dukakis. Though they differ on many issues, Tamler and Dave agree that it's hard to satirize a guy with shiny boots.
| links = * [http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sam-harris/a-science-of-morality_b_567185.html Sam Harris in the Huffington Post.] <br>
* [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BCb2Le3wtIk Brute force is better with Nazis.] <br>
* [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DF9gSyku-fc The answer] <br>
* [http://www.imdb.com/video/screenplay/vi142710809/ This ain't no coon hunt.] <br>
* [http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/experiments-in-philosophy/200806/justice-and-honor Justice and Honor] <br>
* [http://agencyandresponsibility.typepad.com/flickers-of-freedom/2010/08/can-there-be-partial-as-opposed-to-impartial-desert.html Partial Desert] <br>
* [https://www.patreon.com/verybadwizards Support Very Bad Wizards]
}}

[[Category:Episodes]]

"We believe in nothing!" (Cultural diversity, relativism, and moral truth)

2026-03-22T02:30:09Z

Admin: /* Opening Quote */

{{Episode_Infobox
| title = "We believe in nothing!" (Cultural diversity, relativism, and moral truth)
| caption =
| episode_number = 3
| release_date = September 08, 2012
| length = 01:01:35
| listen = [[File:Episode-3-we-believe-in-nothing-cultural-diversity-relativism-and-moral-truth.mp3]]
| quote_source =
| opening_subject =
| beat_break_song =
| main_subject =
| guests =
| previous_episode = [[The "Dangerous Truth" about Free Will (Free Will and Morality, Pt. 2)]]
| next_episode = [[Revenge, Pt. 1]]
}}'''{{PAGENAME}}''' is the 3rd episode of the [[Very Bad Wizards]] podcast, released on September 08, 2012.

== Opening Quote ==

{{Opening_Quote
| text = As for you, my fine friend, you're a victim of disorganized thinking.
| image = wizard_of_oz.jpg
| speaker = [[The Wizard of Oz (Character)]]
| source = ''The Wizard of Oz''
}}

== Show Notes ==

{{VBW_Show_Notes
| content = Tamler and Dave discuss recent work in philosophy and psychology about the differences in moral values and practices across cultures. We talk about the implications of moral diversity: does it mean that we cannot criticize that practices of other cultures? How should we regard moral disagreement? Are there objective "truths" in ethics? Somehow we need to play clips from The Big Lebowski and Pulp Fiction in order to resolve these questions.
| links = * [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7AEMiz6rcxc No Donnie, these men are nihilists, nothing to be afraid of.] <br>
* [http://www.believermag.com/issues/200508/?read=interview_haidt Interview with Jon Haidt.] <br>
* [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZA_Tl1kvlQU Pigs are filthy animals] <br>
* [https://www.patreon.com/verybadwizards Support Very Bad Wizards]
}}

[[Category:Episodes]]