Totally Classic

Within the swirl of winter, within the season for giving, within the happy holiday vacation run... how much attention to we pay to actual rest? 

Do we give ourselves... rest? And what is rest? 

As a culture, what are we lacking? Are we OBSESSED with rest or with productivity? What are we, individually, lacking? OR should we be turning our focus away from lack altogether?

This week, Andy & Brendan, themselves lacking rest in the midst of holiday mayhem and illness, try to cogently examine what rest means to us and when it is vital and when it is sloth. 

Can we find our way to an amnesty for the pandemic thus far? Does that question even make sense to you? Do you wonder what an amnesty is already being proposed for? Do you wonder if it's a legitimate claim? And can one have amnesty without first trial and conviction? What are the crimes we're talking about!?

The Atlantic published a think piece that launched a thousand think pieces with the title "LET’S DECLARE A PANDEMIC AMNESTY."

Do we have more to fear than fear itself?

This week and next, Andy & Brendan were wondering... Is Fear Dangerous? Is fear simply an essential emotion, a fundamental survival instinct? Or was Mr. New Deal spot on when he spoke "the only thing we have to fear is fear itself?"

This week, Andy & Brendan further range into the quagmire of presupposition, science, ethics, semantics, kindness & niceness AND "WHY AREN'T WE ALL TALKING THIS THROUGH?" of whether pronouns (or gender itself, for that matter) are subjective/malleable. Have these noun simplifiers ceased to simplify? Have these ceased to correspond with material reality as we understand it? All this and more on this week's Totally Classic!

In light of the recent imprisonment of a teacher in Ireland over accusations of “misgendering” and recent Twitter addition of “misgendering” as HATE SPEECH, it appears a moral and legal battleground has been established and shots are being fired on a daily basis over not only speech, but a basis upon which truth is established. And it all circles the drain of pronouns. 

Who knew a noun simplifier would be at the crux of a potential reinvention of human congress? 

Today on Totally Classic, Andy & Brendan BEGIN to ask the question “Pronoun or anti?”

In this week's episode, Andy & Brendan use speech to talk about speech, words and pauses and verbal punctuation to talk about the same.

How free is speech? How important is free speech to our, or any, society? What are the limits on free speech? What SHOULD the limits be? What are the harms of speech? Of restricted speech? Where are we at right now with censored speech a daily occurrence and self-censored speech at an all-time generational high?

IS SPEECH FREE? And was it ever even meant to be?

A continuation of the previous conversation (see Episode 14) on this topic, this week Andy & Brendan look more closely at the Power & Privilege claims popularized by modern Intersectionality ideology & look back to the origins of the term from within the nest of Critical Race Theory & other Critical pedagogies. 

"Intersectionality" was coined in 1989 in regards to discrimination lawsuits that could be regarded as overlapping in the Venn diagram of mere SEX and RACE discrimination.

This week, Andy & Brendan try to examine whether this way of viewing discrimination allegations OR EVEN THE WHOLE WORLD is helpful or harmful? Or, as most things are, how it is BOTH!!