Rogan has comedian Jimmy Dore on the show, and they are reminiscing about times gone by.
Rogan gets into the magnitude of the incredible cultural change that occured in the 60s, and some of the darker aspects that went along with it, the supression by the government:
The psychadelic act of 1970 was passed to go after the Black Panthers, and to go after the anti-war movement, cause those people were all taking drugs.
They were eating mushrooms and trying to come to some sort of an understanding of our place in the universe, and they said okay we are going to take all these psychadelic compounds, they are literally creating a cultural revolution.
You go from the 1950s, you get...I always say that music is the best representation of that, and comedy as well, but really music. If you look at like Buddy Holy, great music, great stuff...and Jimmy Hendrix is 10 years later. What the fuck is that?! That's like a revolution. Like out of nowhere.
Something is insanely different, like it's not even from this earth. That’s all psychadelics.
And it‘s true and certainly worth noting. The change in music around that period was profound. It's really worth listening to music from that period, really getting into it. When I went down that rabbit hole a number of years ago, I found it incredible to learn about all the influences of the musicians of my generation. The history is literally embeded in the music. You get a real sense of where we've come from culturally.
But the thing that really stood out for me is his next bit, a few minutes later, where he outlines why he thinks we live in the best times now.
These are the best days. These days right now, these are the best days. By far. By far for everybody, because we get all the other stuff, from those other eras, we still can listen that too. We still can watch that too.
But we have a bizarre time where the world is waking up, where people are so much more aware of the corruption, and just the way the world works, it’s more highlighted than it’s ever been before, and I think it’s more fun.
It’s like some of the things that are stupid, are SO stupid. Like when you see Biden "We beat Medicare", and they go "Thank you mister president", and they smash cut, like how the fuck is that real? How the fuck is that real? The guy locks up like Windows 95, stammers for 15 seconds, and then he says "We beat Medicare".
I think he's right, and it’s important to remember it because it’s too easy to get caught up in the trap of believing that stuff was way better before. Stuff is really great now, and there will be awesome things that will emerge out of this era that will totally blow our minds too, probably even more than before. It’s just that because we are in it right now, it’s difficult to see it. If course it’s easy to see the great stuff looking backwards, but the really great thing is to find it as it’s happening, and take part in it.
The whole episode is really great, Jimmy goes into this excellent description of some of Carl Jung’s philosophical thoughts. How people project their secret inner selves onto others without realising it, creating love but also hate, this strange state where conscious and unconscious parts of our mind encounter each other in a real physical way. I found that quite profound.
Also a bunch of pretty intense conspiracy stuff.
Great episode.