Totally Classic

Totally Classic

By shinfainSociety & Culture
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Totally Classic episodes

  • Should SEL Be Taught In Schools?

    This week, Andy & Brendan - both parents of young children - address a topic with notable Venn diagram overlap with many of their previous topics that's gone strangely unaddressed! Especially with Andy's extensive experience in social-emotional learning, across multiple ventures & platforms and Brendan's acting training & history!


    SEL - the particular teaching program that endeavors to teach a specific itemization and goal set of Social Emotional Learning. While neither host has an issue with Social Emotional Learning, in and of itself, SEL itself is another matter altogether.

    Is SEL a means of winnowing out sociopathy in a screen-laden, increasingly virtual avatarian age... or a means of emotional weaponization for an increasingly authoritarian age?


    Recorded 10/24/2026

    1 hr 13 min
  • "Is There a Trans Genocide?" (part two)

    Is there a Transfemicide Emergency in Chicago? Is there a Trans Genocide, ongoing? Is one being planned?


    In part two of exploring this question, with curiosity, reason, emtpathy and nuance, Andy & Brendan ask the questions behind the questions, hold the claimants to their own standards and try to understand both the inflow and outflow of these claims.

    Is Lily Wachowski correct when he says JK Rowling is funding a Trans Genocide? Is Rowling, as he claims, a "literal nazi?"

    Does absolutist or extreme language benefit anyone? The speaker? The hearer? Trans-identifying persons? Or does it cause harm to all of the above?

    It is ethical or unethical to speak in this manner?

    Is it... most relevantly... TRUE?


    recorded on 9/16/2026

    1 hr 13 min
  • "Is There a Trans Genocide?" (part 1)

    Sparked by politicians and comedians alike this week, the Transfemicide Emergency Declaration by Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson and the podcast comments by Margaret Cho converged to create a curiosity: are we living through anything like a Trans Genocide or even an epidemic of anti-transgender bias? Is there anything to this or is it pure rhetoric? Is that rhetoric appropriate or inappropriate? Ethical or unethical? Do we save the G Word for particular circumstances or is it an inevitable consequence of the normalization of Godwin's Law?


    What do YOU think? And Why?

    53 min
  • Should We Smash the Matriarchy? (Part Two)

    This week, Andy & Brendan are joined by Brandon Peele - author and facilitator of purpose-centered leadership and communities - to press further into whether The Matriarchy is underserved in the bumper sticker and T-shirt "Smash ______" category:)


    They dig into the differences between belonging & conformity, between feminine and masculine energies, and between the arguable strawman of Patriarchy & steelman of Matriarchy. 

    We didn't smash the Patriarchy... BUT will the Matriarchy survive? 

    What do YOU think?

    1 hr 27 min
  • Is Odysseus a Hero?

    This week, Andy & Brendan use Christopher Nolan's recent adaption (the space that launched a thousand thinkpieces) of Homer's The Odyssey to examine whether the archetypal hero Odysseus is, indeed a hero or, as some of those thousand think pieces have posited, not a hero at all, perhaps a villain? 


    What makes a hero? What unmakes a hero? Does storytelling require contextual interpretation, in the cultural/moral setting it was composed in? Do mores shift definitions of foundational concepts? How do different cultures classify HERO? Is Odysseus a cultural hero type or a universal hero type? And has Nolan provided the keys to his own undoing, in the striking translation liberties he took? 

    Joining the thousands of years tradition of analyzing Homer's work... is two best friends doing a podcast. 

    What do you think about this question? And, most relevantly, what can you prove or disprove about either answer? 

    1 hr 16 min
  • Should We Smash the Matriarchy?

    In the inevitable companion piece to "Should We Smash the Patriarchy?" Andy & Brendan look at how one would coherently define modern society (with especial focus on the U.S., where they live) and what does that mean, in terms of net harm or net benefit?


    Are we living in a Matriarchy?

    If so, for how long? 1970s? 1990s?

    And is this novel or a reverse of the speculative global queering of the Agricultural age?

    Having achieved Gender Parity across positive and negative outcomes (pay gap, education gap, domestic violence) 30 or so years ago, we certainly have to ASK this question as often if not MORE often as the previous inquiry...

    But WHAT ARE the answers? What do you THINK? recorded on 7/14/26

    1 hr 14 min
  • Does the Body Keeps the Score?

    How far will one go to WIN if the body keeps the score?


    Andy & Brendan, this week, try to avoid winning whilst still chasing TOGETHER the rabbit of truth around the track:)

    A recent article by four authors (one of whom is amongst the premier neurologists in the world, Karl Fristen) laid out the mechanisms by which the popular "the body keeps the score" premise is untenable as anything more than metaphor. "The body does not keep the score: trauma, predictive coding, and the restoration of metastability" (April 2026) had Totally Classic asking the question being debated in the culture and digging below the surface to IF Fristen & his co-authors are correct, what FOUNDATIONS does this destabilize, across culture (turns out, DOZENS!).

    Had you heard of or held this theory to be true? What does knowing it is unstable if not entirely false, objectively, change in your understanding of the human social family?

    Recorded 6/17/26

    1 hr 23 min
  • Is LGBTQ a Social Construct?

    This week, inspired by our "Is Gender a Social Construct?" episode (both progressive bias Andy & independent bias Brendan voted yes by the end of the dialogue), we turn to Pride-month-centric examination of the potential social construct "LGBTQ!"


    Gender was NOT, but IS this acronym?

    Andy & Brendan explore the mixed set acronym and attempt to ascertain which aspects are rooted in objective fact and which in subjective interpretation and which (Q!) are so fully vague they MAY include every human on the planet (except GARY - you know who you are, NORMAL GARY from Albuquerque, NM*!!).



    Normal Man? Normal Mean? Median?

    51 min
  • Is Voting Rigged?

    This week, Andy & Brendan discuss the electoral process, ground-level, in the democratic republic of the United States. VOTING!


    Is voting rigged?

    If so, in what manner of "rigged?"

    They explore re-districting & gerrymandering, voter suppression & disenfranchisement, packing & cracking, conspiracy theories & conspiracy truths (confessed) and more!

    Do you vote? Why? Do you believe that voting is rigged? For good or evil? Let us know!

    1 hr 10 min
  • Is Gender a Social Construct?

    This week, Andy & Brendan examine a popular claim - is it aphorism or shibboleth? "gender is a social construct."


    Um... but IS THAT TRUE?

    From ancestral wisdom to modern medicine, from German to Sanskrit, from tautologies to taxonomies, it's all here in this week's Totally Classic!



    originally recorded by 5/5/26

    1 hr 14 min

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