Totally Classic

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!?This week, Andy & Brendan ask and answer and re-question all that and more. You're welcome. 

The Atlantic published a think piece that launched a thousand think pieces with the title "LET’S DECLARE A PANDEMIC AMNESTY."What does this statement mean? What would an amnesty require beforehand? What crimes would be forgiven? What criminals would be acquitted? Are we trying to skip accountability and jump straight to forgiveness without apology or are we trying to find a path of healing out of the thick of it all? Andy & Brendan try to navigate the question and find the questions behind the question that greet a statement as bold as this!

Do we have more to fear than fear itself?This week Andy & Brendan seek to navigate how to move away from fear and disgust towards empathy, how quickly one can become convinced to fear, whether or not your intuition has affirmed this response... and where fear becomes concrete reality.What do you think? IS fear dangerous?

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?"They question this question and try to find the line were fear goes from damage control to damage creation. What do YOU think? 

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. And try to figure out if white people exist:) 

"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.Flash forward decades and now it's a comprehensive theory relating to myriad aspects of purported identity. 
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!!

Spoiler Alert: This is the first episode where Andy & I actually have the same answer to the question, when all the conversation is through. Which is remarkable. Hence this remarking upon it. Now the remarks have been delivered and re-remarked, here's what we're trying to ascertain - is Woke a Religion? It obviously satisfies some of the metrics. But does it satisfy enough that it would be helpful to all to consider it as such? Come on along on the dialogic voyage!