Joe Rogan Experience #975 — Sebastian Junger Transcript

Transcript

0:00 All right, we're live. What's up, man? How are you? something that I didn't know about, which was the European settlers that had been kidnapped and were living with the Native Americans. And then when they were rescued, many of them wanted I didn't anticipate that. A more varied diet, and a much, much more egalitarian society than colonial society.

2:13 It was very, very egalitarian. goes down Wow it's just it's almost like society as we've created over the last couple of hundred years is almost totally incompatible with with human We are designed, we evolved to live in But all day long, you encounter strangers and you don't recognize anybody. So you can be alone in So you can only accumulate as much wealth as you can carry, which isn't much.

5:35 those two are in a dynamic tension with each other and in balance. In modern society, in a sense, but you were on your feet all day long in the sun or whatever. He knew I wasn't going to. want to do well i mean the irony about modern society is that it has removed hardship and And the English government was prepared for mass psychiatric casualties for the Blitz for those days,

8:37 after September 11th, there was a very clear difference in the way people were behaving. people act well. The lack of adversity, safety and comfort allow people to act selfishly. bad human behaviors, we wouldn't be here today. Another way to say that is we are the descendants First of all, when I was a young man, I had a surrogate uncle figure in my life,

11:13 And the Indians never ran off to join the white people. dirt. They got shot at every day. We got shot at every day. There was no women out there. There was nothing but combat and tarantulas and pallets of water and MREs and ammo. to America. They wanted to go back out to Restrepo. And it reminded me of what Ellis had said. And I Oh, my God, a platoon in combat effectively reproduces our human evolution, right?

12:58 but a strange sense of well-being out there lot of combat. I almost, almost killed a couple of times. So I had some sort of trauma issues. I couldn't hear them. I couldn't touch them. My marriage ended. for a certain amount of time, for some weeks or months, maybe a year or two, in the world. I mean, financially, no, it just sort of happened, you know, financially, emotionally.

16:21 And that, drinking alcohol, drinking alcohol made me feel good drinking alcohol, I mean, drinking alcohol made me feel And, you know, my ex-wife and I are like quite good friends now. to accept a life that isn't really working very well. some sort of a chemical imbalance But even that kind of depression, I don't know why. And when you say you started putting positive things in your life, good, solid things in your life, what kind of things?

18:53 One of the things that I've been dwelling on a lot lately is how important struggle is. If you're presented with a challenge and you get a little dose of endorphins, of dopamine, or some feel-good chemicals when you do a task well, is you don't get this sense of mastery over your circumstances. You actually don't feel about the consequences of their behavior.

21:24 And psychologically, yeah. Yeah. And we get our safety, our protection protection from the fact that we work very, takes a downturn, as it did in 2008, and the unemployment rate goes up, the suicide rate immediately goes up. professional people and, um, of, of all, of all classes. And, um, and the, uh, and I realized There's a great documentary that I always recommend to people called An Inside Job.

25:23 Yeah, it was stunning. We were attacked by, in some ways, we were attacked by those people economically, right? And we didn't defend ourselves. And so you saw in the recent election this sort of the confusion in the population about what it means to be an American. Like, what is it that we belong to? troublesome little group. Oh, totally. Yeah. They have a sense of purpose. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely.

27:39 They're amazing, right? I mean, people wouldn't, you know, they wouldn't have an answer. that genetics essentially were riding on the same genetics that were 10,000 years ago from Well, okay. So, yeah. have a trait that allows you to raise more children to maturity, they carry your DNA and rates. Is something happened to us then? There must be some way where human beings are going to

31:12 It's almost like it's priming us Most of humanity lives in a pretty simple and very, very poor way. I mean, who knows what's coming down the pike? not urban. But what I would say is that there's something I would describe as a kind of disappointment to have the— So it's a relief but it's around 25% of them get profoundly depressed. division and all kinds of stuff. None of that mattered after Hurricane Katrina. Everyone

34:59 There's a group of friends that I have that are bow hunters. Yeah. and i'm sure a terrifying endeavor um but you're doing it for your people and so you you come back It's like constantly and consistently being well fed. our appreciation or enjoyment of the things that make life what it is. And there's a real irony or there's no solution i don't know which it is yeah i think there's some things we can do around

38:30 twos. We'd probably be happier if we did, but we're not going to do it. So, but what can we do? of feeling like, wow. If you're feeling like you're a child in a family that might where the And that's terrifying. I mean, I think it's fear mongering in a lot of ways. as well. You can act in that tribal way all you want, as long as you define your tribe as the

41:09 necessarily accept the decision. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, that was completely antithetical to Yeah, exactly. I mean, he's totally irresponsible. You know, I think Donald Trump is a very damaged and unhealthy person. I think he causes a lot of I mean, it's a really simple rule, right? is such a failure that it gets the GOP to reevaluate its policy of partisan politics as a

44:50 So liberalism and conservatism, basically liberalism is concerned with fairness within the group and equality within the group and acceptance of outsiders as possible for possible inclusion in the group. in our evolutionary past, which means that the argument, And that maybe it wasn't necessarily a genetic thing, but it was a circumstantial or a nurture thing?

46:37 Right, sure. They're fraternal. So the twins that shared identical DNA were far more likely to have the same political beliefs than the fraternal twins. enemy, but it would be a heartless and brutal society, right? Where the poor weren't taken So, you know, courage or whatever, generosity, sensation-seeking is a genetic trait. they are completely whatever they are, they've created themselves. And, uh, certainly something

49:32 10,000 meters marathon, whatever. I ran 412 for the mile, which is a pretty decent time. Yeah, there's no doubt about it. of the shoulder, like how wide your shoulders are in terms of the hips to waist ratio. Which is probably connected to the speed you can throw a baseball at. I don't think it changes the shape of your pelvis. And just the sort of muscle, I mean, explosive power of the muscles.

51:47 mile with some people, it's the, the ability to hit hard. It's some people it's just speed. And his eyes never blinked. Yeah, yeah. nothing amount of training you would have to do to overcome the end. It's one of the more, learning how to strike and move and explode with combinations. Oh, exactly mimic a foreign accent. And if you learn French or whatever, any language at eight, nine,

54:23 their memory banks that say this is an issue, whereas a stuffed animal on the ground is not an issue. Right. Yeah, Wow. Arachnophobia, phidiophobia, fear of spiders and snakes. exposed to a frightening spider at the wrong moment in my insecure little life. So we're all nervous around barking dogs, snakes, spiders, heights, those kinds of things, right?

57:05 Yeah. so keep in mind I've been terrified of I saw fear factor and there was, and so keep in mind, I've been terrified I mean, she couldn't take it. We don't totally understand genetic memories. where people can download it? I think eventually, yeah. I haven't even thought that far ahead. I And we found some very, very brave people who documented their lives under ISIS, their

1:00:20 I mean, people protest in the street, and they're met with machine gun fire, all this footage and categorizing it like here this is a section about you know this material The equivalent death toll in this country would be, I think, 7 or 8 million Americans, He just didn't do it publicly like they did. He's the leader of Syria, I mean, he's a complete criminal and sadist and, um, uh, he's horrible, but it was the

1:03:47 we won't try to topple you, but let's stop fighting. like on the tape but that doesn't seem like a solution well it's a solution to the violence and starting to see connections between things. totally intoxicating to me and likewise when you're making a documentary you suddenly start It's the point of all intellectual endeavor. There's this thought, like, could I live in the woods?

1:06:54 And to the extent that we depart from that, we lead lives of dissatisfaction and frustration. It has downsides, obviously, get in wealthy neighborhoods. So you do it on purpose? People are quite poor. And a lot of the people left, and they were worried about being robbed. Yeah. to live in a community like that because of those factors. Well, my wife lived there and I moved in

1:10:19 sort of poor community. They want to get out and live in that big house, the big yard. is a totally healthy one in a situation where nature doesn't offer that very often. Right. that impulse to eat and eat and eat and the food's there to do it with and we don't have the mechanism Because you're right. I mean, I get it, right? And he started doing well.

1:13:45 He goes, I used to know everyone on the block. So you, regardless of how much money you would make, No way. I mean, I crash. Yeah. apart. You know what I mean? Like, dude, unless you're a fisherman, you know, you're going out So when you're an 18-year-old boy, In my opinion, like that's, seemed unattainable. Look, I mean, I think athletes have the same problem too, you know,

1:17:45 And she looked at me really sheepishly and said, like something's missing. Yeah. Well, there's a struggle that's missing for sure. You know, You're just choking each other intense athlete when I was young and I was sort of smoked cigarettes and drank for a while. And I'd never done anything like that. Everyone's in there, right? against the young black kids that are in there,

1:20:12 You're judged by how you act I mean, what am never gonna win a championship. And through that struggle, also, was in a lot of psychic pain and I needed it yeah I really feel like which of course is our evolutionary past. I mean, that's what we are designed to do, is something like two hours of hard walking per day. Like on average, men and sedentary you are. And there's a corresponding decline in testosterone levels in males,

1:23:02 testosterone allows for it, but that activity actually keeps those levels high. What time is it? I really enjoyed this conversation. It was really, really nice, great conversation. All years, man. So it was a real pleasure to sit down and talk to you. Thank you. I really enjoyed this conversation.