Recipe for a North American Action Film
[00:00:00] Degan: Recipe for a North American Action Film. Talk over each other. Everyone is boss. At least once. Everyone else? Pussy. Be smug. That is, be godlike. Want your corpse on CNN? Eject male lead. Parachute him into the dark zone. Cut to black. Leg raining blood on red sand in Swat Valley. No man's land. Sharia law like a heat. Shrapnel wound. Bad. Choose some all of the following. Downed hero A holds flashlight in mouth B conducts own surgery C fishes bullet out with incisors D winces in bedroom voice Producer C cuts in muses the CIA makes you dream of immortality.
Here is forever, in a severed, below the knee, tibelius anterior. Man in control of his own blood, his own death, an outmaneuvering of the odds. Producer G. Right, sure. It's called adrenaline. Have the plot snort a line. Flashback. Grant Arab villain terrifying levels of non empathy. Came through the civil war in Kosovo.
Plays by the rule of no rules. Speaks in grunt. Inflicts upon broken champion an orgiastic sequence of torture from deep down in the sub dom impulses of Bible belt unconsciousness. Make sure the hero endures, raising his bloody leg with a shy smile, like a submissive john asking for a boot. He's getting it bad, his gun skittering away.
When relief finally comes, it's in the whine of a drone, the song of America. America. The song of berserk, the soundtrack to Call of Duty, the hum of revenge salty on your lips, an airplane in your throat.
[00:02:08] Chris: 
The Hero's Journey: Shame and Revenge
[00:02:22] Chris: Hello and welcome to What Kind of Man Are You the podcast about men, masculinity and our deep shame. Degan, are you proud or ashamed to be on this podcast? 
[00:02:39] Degan: I'm very proud. I'm very proud. Okay. Yeah. That poem Recipe for North American Action Film. It's the, these are the tropes of a lot of, a lot of action movies, the hero is shamed in some way, often, and it's played out. In stories for, thousands of years. Was thinking, I was going over movies in my head about this. Do you remember Rambo the first, Rambo First Blood or Rambo? Oh, I'm thinking the the original one in sometime in the eighties.
[00:03:11] Chris: So First Blood was the first movie. So Rambo was the sequel, and I haven't seen either of them. , 
[00:03:17] Degan: Okay here's the scene I'm remembering. And I think I snuck into the cinema when I was like, I don't know, 10 or 12 or something. But what I remember is. Rambo, right? Sylvester Stallone, the warrior, American warrior, has been captured, I think, by the Vietnamese, by the Vietcong.
And he is, talk about shame, he's literally up to his neck in manure or some disgusting substance, and he's chained or whatever he's trapped here. And so you have this sense of him being like absolutely victimized, right absolutely. And so he escapes, of course, and he is now going to show his revenge 
whatever happens it, that sets him up as a character who has been shamed and the dominant way to transform shame, certainly in action movies is to beat the crap out of whoever shamed you.
And he becomes in a way he goes from the shame to the kind of heroic. This poem plays with that idea. 
[00:04:24] Chris: I'm going to bring a little thesis.
I would argue that shame is the primary motivator of men. I think about the quote that Margaret Atwood said, which is men are afraid that women will laugh at them, and women are afraid that men will kill them.
And her point was different from what I take from her point was the latter, right? Like men are afraid of being embarrassed. Women are afraid of dying. And I think that's a real important thing that she said, but they're connected too and a lot of men's violence comes from shame. And your analysis of Rambo indicates like literally, if you were to ask me.
Would you rather be humiliated or dead? I would find that a hard question. Yeah. And I find that kind of weird, but also very true. 
[00:05:29] Degan: Yeah, it's ancient too, right? If you think back to the times of Greece. Or times of Norse societies, it was a death to be humiliated on the battlefield.
[00:05:44] Chris: It literally was. You didn't gain entry to Valhalla without without courage on the battlefield. And in a way, I think that's remained. That's right. Honour a central. of so many societies, all of the ones I can think of. And it's opposite, shame is going to leave you literally out of eternity.
So though shame is perhaps may seem like the downer of a topic. I think it's a really important one that we have to talk to. 
[00:06:21] Degan: Yeah. And 
I, I'd 
Understanding Shame: Definitions and Distinctions
[00:06:22] Degan: to define it first. I'm doing a doing a Master's of Fine Arts in creative nonfiction and fiction.
I had to write a paper on a subject last year, and I chose shame in literature and the transformation of shame, right? And in the midst of that, I asked a lot of people. What is your definition of shame? And I asked colleagues in therapist colleagues, and I asked about eight of them, and only one of them had a clear definition of shame.
The others all said, I know it when I see it. I know it when I feel it in a client or when someone, when I feel it in myself, but they had a hard time defining it. 
I guess one thing I'd say first is to differentiate it from guilt. Guilt is when you do something to another person that you feel bad about. You lie about your age, or you tell your boss you're sick when you're not, or whatever, you feel certain levels of guilt.
It's very much, you feel it because of something you have done. But shame is really different. It's when someone or some outside force judges you publicly. And says in one way, shape or form, you are not good, right? You don't fit in. You are not one of us. 
And I want to make a distinction too. I think there's a societal shame around pride and heroism, which is for men in the general sense.
And I also think there's chronic shame, someone who has been repeatedly shamed or ostracized in some way. But let me just say a couple of these definitions here. Salman Rushdie, his second novel is called Shame. And in it, he writes shame, a short word, but one containing encyclopedias of nuance.
So here's a couple of these encyclopedia Webster says a painful feeling of humiliation or distress caused by the consciousness of wrong or foolish behaviour. And then there's immodesty or dishonourable conduct. So there we have honour again. But there's always got to be a shamer.
There's always got to be someone who makes this, right? You don't, we don't shame ourselves.
[00:08:38] Chris: We don't? 
[00:08:38] Degan: At least at the beginning. Okay. 
I think if we're shaming ourselves, it's because someone has done it first. And we have that voice in our heads. 
[00:08:48] Chris: Right. 
[00:08:48] Degan: I think at the very beginning, we don't come out of our mother's womb and have the ability to shame ourselves.
Someone has to say, there's something off with you. To be able to then to carry that. 
[00:09:01] Chris: Right. 
[00:09:02] Degan: A couple more of these. Sylvan Tompkins is a researcher and a writer who, who has specialized in emotions and affects. And he calls shame a sickness of the soul. And there's something about that definition that really rings true that sense when you're, outside of society or you feel like you don't have worth or you've been witnessed and publicly judged for something. I think that sickness of the soul, that feeling of like in your gut oh my, I just want to disappear. 
[00:09:34] Chris: Right. 
[00:09:35] Degan: Yeah. So those are so those are some of the definitions of shame I found.
[00:09:39] Chris: Generally what I hear is, guilt is you've wronged someone and, there may or may not be a need to make amends. You are guilty of something.
Whereas shame has more to do with, not belonging and you are not worthy. What you said but can we get clear on, I think about things like guilt trips when someone tries to make you feel guilty, is that actually shame if it's don't know, some sort of passive aggressive way of making you feel bad for not doing something that they want you to do, even though, you haven't done anything wrong.
[00:10:22] Degan: Yeah that's interesting. A guilt trip. You don't visit me. Let's say, like classic case of a family member saying you never the father's saying you never come around here. Don't be a stranger. 
But that's not saying, that's a behaviour, that's saying you didn't act in a way I wanted you to, but it's very different than being ostracized by the person.
I'm being told that there's something profoundly wrong with them or at least that's the, it's a behaviour. 
[00:10:51] Chris: Okay. So what I'm getting from what you're saying is a guilt trip is trying to elicit a sense of being guilty of something. Whereas shame is you suck. You don't belong. 
[00:11:05] Degan: Exactly.
And it's a power move, right? For a, let's say, just to stay there. Both power moves for sure. I think shame is a very kind of I don't know. I always think it's like radioactive. Like it burns, guilt pisses people off, I think the interesting to just say, okay, what does it actually feel like in the body when you're guilted or when you're shamed or when, someone gives you a guilt.
But I think shame. This, these are examples from therapy, but there was a father who used to put down an empty plate in front of one of my clients, one of my students that I worked with, and say you get food when you lose weight. Yeah like terrible things. And and so there's this sense that.
That's the sense that person has acted so poorly that there's something so off with them that they demean them in that way. That's an extreme example, but right. But versus yeah, that last example, you never come around much, it's a. 
[00:12:09] Chris: Says the guy who's being a good boy and visiting his mother right now.
Exactly. My mother is in the other room and taking care of my twins, which is wonderful. Yeah. Okay. That makes a lot of sense. And I think it's safe to say that guilt can actually if applied regularly and strongly enough can lead to a sense of shame. Sure. 
[00:12:29] Degan: Yes. Repeated guilt trips.
Think about that, churches or the history of Christianity, Judaism, there's a huge amount of guilt a huge amount of guilt inherent. 
These. Oh, yeah. Christianity, original sin, like we're born into sin. Absolutely. 
[00:12:47] Chris: Yeah. 
Shame in Pop Culture and Personal Experiences
[00:12:48] Chris: Okay, one more thing I want to say,We can't not mention the game of throne scene with the woman being walked naked through the town and everyone yelling shame at her as much as I've, she deserved to be ashamed in that show, but I think there's a real sense of
I guess what I would, a distinction I want to make is if you hurt somebody and you're guilty of hurting someone, there's a certain amount of shame you should feel for that. That's not really the topic we're trying to get at. The other shame is like, being shamed, feeling like being walked through the town and having shame yelled at you, but you don't actually know what you did wrong, or you didn't do anything wrong.
Can 
[00:13:40] Degan: I just unpack that piece a little bit? 
[00:13:42] Chris: Yeah, please. 
[00:13:44] Degan: I think, Sylvan Tompkins, who I spoke about earlier, talks about shame not as it's not it doesn't necessarily have .Inherently a negative quality to it. It's a force that actually can guide behaviour in a civilization. 
[00:14:05] Chris: Okay. 
[00:14:05] Degan: In this case, that was Circe right in the scene.
And, and in that way, you can say, okay, in this scene, she transgressed this civilization, right? That the mores of this civilization, and it's very dramatic and intense. We talk about people being tarred and feathered in the past these are very public examples of shame and shaming. 
 If we flip that for a minute and say, look at a politician who says something outrageous, I'm sure no one's coming to mind here right now, then 
[00:14:39] Chris: Unfortunately, there's more than one coming to mind. 
[00:14:42] Degan: So then that idea of shaming, okay. It's also the ability to be able to say, can you it's like a societal force saying we think what you've done is wrong here and we want to call you out on it in a public way.
And the idea then that shamelessness is dangerous. If you can't actually feel it, if you can't actually say, okay, what I said there was really out of place, really hurtful, whatever it was then there's the danger there of being almost like completely cut off right from empathy.
Right? 
[00:15:20] Chris: Yeah. But I will also say that public shaming like that can easily and we can look at examples in our and our politics and our social media right away can easily turn toxic and become a pile on or become sure, where, instead of it being like, someone said something wrong, shame on them.
It becomes let's shame them to get them completely out of the public discourse. 
[00:15:52] Degan: Or tar and feather them with words, right? 
 Thinking about right now, the Democratic Convention is on and Kamala Harris is, of course, being nominated to run for president, and I was just reading through news sites last night. And on Fox, this is the third comment down there was a comment where, oh she, quoting here, spread her legs for Willie Brown that's how she got to where she's going, right?
And that and the other comments she slept her way to the top from the beginning. So if you think about that, they're not trying to get her out of the discourse. They're trying to paint her literally as a whore, right? And that's an interesting piece. If we think about what we'll, we talk about women, we can compare it to men's shame and women's shame because they think they're very different 
in 
Donald Trump's case, he celebrates publicly what, his lack of control and is grabbing women and sleeping with women and all that kind of thing.
And yet he really doesn't seem to be called on that by his supporters, but then we have someone attacking Kamala Harris for, a relationship that was what, 20 years ago. Yeah. 
[00:17:03] Chris: And it was a relationship, right? Like she was dating him. It wasn't like some sort of craven move to advance her career. 
[00:17:13] Degan: But because the ground is set through religion to say a woman is a whore or she's an angel or she's the Virgin Mary, at least in that Christian sense, the foundation is set.
So it's very easy to touch that and say, she's one or the other. Yeah. 
[00:17:30] Chris: Yeah, and, that's it is a different topic because I think women are also motivated by shame, as you say, but in different ways. And there probably is a conversation to have on our podcast about men's shaming of women and the effect that has.
But, but I think we'll stick to men's feelings of shame for this particular
[00:17:53] Degan: I say that just to contrast them, in a way, then, and if we look at just this generic sense of shame, it's between how you appear, man or woman it's radically different. It's radically different to be in a woman's body or a man's body and women it's very much this idea that you have, you're pure or you're fallen or on a lesser sense your appearance matters so much. Yes, how you appear where men it's your actions. All right. How invulnerable are you?
How in control are you? How tough 
[00:18:25] Chris: Heroic, and yeah, 
[00:18:27] Degan: right. Yeah. I just want to make one other distinction for a moment. Go ahead, Chris. 
No, I was, I didn't have another point. I just want to make another distinction between those societal shames or shaming pieces and chronic shame and chronic shame, which I did experience for about two and a half to three years, which I've talked about in other podcasts, feeling ostracized.
Being ostracized in large part in the ages of grade four and grade six and seven. That, to me, has a different feel to it because it's basically repeated. It's repeated and repeated. And when shame comes to that level, that's where it erodes a sense of worth in a way that I think is very destructive.
Shame is destructive, can be destructive in any way. But there's a number of characters from books and novels and non fiction that detail what that kind of shame can do and the kind of eating away of this sense of worth can do to a boy or to a man.
[00:19:32] Chris: 
Yeah so there's accountability, right? Where you take an action, it's outside of our societal expectations 
People. People. You're guilty of it, and you feel shame about it. That's a nice little, that's how we would like it to be, right? You you misbehave, you feel bad, you make amends and you move on. But with this chronic shame that you're describing, it's more I am inherently made of badness.
[00:20:04] Degan: It feels to me like that must have a chemical effect on you, like the way you see yourself actually is literally toxic on your body. Yeah, it's interesting working in when I've worked with people with chronic shame and I've experienced this myself, there's a time where people will actually feel incredibly nauseous as they begin to speak about, some of the poison in a way that they've ingested.
And sometimes people will, be physically sick. And so the body, it's like both a metaphor and a reality that they're experiencing . You're throwing up something that has been so toxic for them. 
[00:20:41] Chris: Yeah. So I think we've introduced the idea. I think we've tried to make our distinctions and have an understanding.
Why don't we take a break? And then we can get into a little pop culture, some examples . Sounds great. Okay. 
 Okay, welcome back. We're talking about shame. And Degan, you were talking in the previous segment about how you experienced shame in childhood. And chronic shame for what sounds like a very long time. Like you said, two and a half years, I think I do want to talk about
making boys feel accountable versus making boys feel ashamed. 
 I'm going to go into pop culture quite a bit, I think, for this, but also personal experience. You and I have both talked about having been bullied as children and the impacts that's had on us and I just remember early, early Simpsons episode and talking about, Bart getting bullied and his father telling him the law of the schoolyard I don't remember the actual quote, but it's essentially very what's the word? I don't want to say Darwinian, cause that's not the right word, but it's the strong survive kind of thing. And sure. Sure. Yeah. And the idea that if you can't win. Kick him in the nuts, which, I wish I'd thought of a few times in my public school years. But this idea of bullying and I think about because Chris Rock almost all of one of his Netflix specials talks about the importance of being bullied as a kid and so it's this whole idea and it's a very common idea that you need to toughen up, right?
And what his idea was and his whole thing, Chris Rock repeats things a lot and he repeats. We need bullies, man. We need bullies. The world needs bullies.
 How else are we going to get toughened up without bullies? 
[00:22:47] Chris: Exactly. And he actually, he feels, and I don't disbelieve him.
I'm sure it's a true thing for him that the bullies forced him to stand up for himself and my guess is he thinks that those bullies were key to his success. And I have no doubt that's true. Now, I don't think that we can all be Chris Rock. And in fact there's a lot it's very easy to pull this argument apart.
But the first thing I think about is this just an endless chain of bullying that we just do? Is that what we're supposed to do? Cause did the bullies get a bully? Is that so each person takes their turn as a bully? Are you both? 
[00:23:32] Degan: Just to say most bullies are bullied, right?
Most bullies have someone, usually a parent figure or an older brother or someone who's exercised power over them. 
[00:23:41] Chris: Yeah, absolutely. I think. I think so. I guess if you believe that cruelty and violence in childhood is valuable to help you face the world as an adult then, yeah that's a good thing.
 
Bullying and Chronic Shame
[00:23:57] Chris: I do not subscribe to that as you can guess. And in fact, I think that for every person who got toughened up by their bully, there are people who live with chronic shame because of bullying. And chronic shame doesn't do anything good for anybody. And furthermore, bullying isn't like Nelson in behind the school pushing you into the mud or stealing your lunch money.
That could be part of it, but the whole point of bullying is to make you feel bad so that the bully can add to their social capital to add to their sense of self worth. Not sure it works, but but there's this idea that by taking you down, I am lifted up, right?
My status goes up. I feel better about myself. I divert attention, negative attention away from myself to someone else. And that doesn't just involve shoving someone into a locker. It doesn't just involve pushing someone into mud or stealing something from them. It also involves I think of bullying as terrorism, man.
My experience of bullying was chronic, daily, and based on abuse of my sister. And so my job was to protect my sister. I'm not complaining here. I'm just saying this is where I think I had a right to complain at the time, but, I've gone through, I've gone 
[00:25:29] Degan: Through a very difficult situation.
Yeah, 
[00:25:32] Chris: but I'm not saying this for people to feel bad for me. I'm saying this is straight up facts. For the same amount of time as you, I had to go to school every day and face bullies on the way to school who would torment my sister, not just by violence was included, but also by utter shameful comments about her and me, and those sorts of things did not toughen me up.
They made me weaker. 
The Role of Schools and Teachers
[00:26:07] Degan: Yeah I think the distinction is absolutely true between, moments where someone plays with power and pushes you around and then moments of being consistently, chronically bullied and shamed, in front of others, and it's interesting when I told my story to a good friend of mine, actually, who was a year older than me, she became a principal in Northern Ontario, in this, in the town that we both grew up in, and she said, after hearing my experiences, she changed her and she was a principal and then was teaching other teachers and she instituted an anti bullying policy because of what I shared with her.
And there, yeah, there is something, of course, to learning to stand up for yourself in one way, shape, or form, there's something about that, about whether it's language, whether it's whether it's your body but there's another thing about, the complete lack of observation by adults in an institution like a school that allows something like this to continue.
And teachers are smart. You can walk into a classroom and know very quickly who has power and who is diminished or, who's in trouble. There's no excuse for teachers who observe classrooms. And in that way, I think we have been failed certainly in the 70s and 80s and to a lesser extent now but not always, I'm still working with people that have been bullied up to, five years ago relentlessly.
And the impact it has on their mental health is huge. 
[00:27:37] Chris: Yeah I would actually, I would add administrators and I would add policymakers into that because teachers are basically given an impossible task in their jobs And so they're expected to teach our kids and manage behaviour and deal with parents.
And anyway I other thing I will say about bullying is bullies are clever. They're good at their job. And they love finding new ways to
separate someone from the herd. And that's what this, that's what bullying is about as far as I'm concerned is feeling if you described it as ostracized, right? Is feeling like you are unsafe. Without support and alone, right? So what they do, that's why the trope is always like behind the school, right?
Because it's out of sight of teachers. It's out of sight of your friends and the adult support. still is not an excuse for the adults and children's lives for not doing something about it. And I, I feel like we only in the last, what, 10 to 15 years, even started acknowledging it as an issue. And it was mostly around gay straight alliances, right? Whereschools were banning these things, and it's this is our first protection against bullying and specifically bullying gay kids but but, a nice start in the general acknowledgement of what bullying is and how having a group like a Gay Straight Alliance can actually I think it's documented that it could save lives, right?
It's really important for the adults, not just directly in kids lives, but who have an influence over what happens in kids lives to play a role and not get in the way of good solutions. 
Transforming Shame Through Friendship
[00:29:40] Degan: Let's talk about transforming shame. One of the most important pieces for me in school in those years was having friends. And you can transform shame after it happens, right? You can share with therapists, you can share with a friend or family and begin to feel like, yeah, okay I was unfairly treated in that way.
What was really important to me, who I honestly thank God for, is I had two particularly very close friends that just simply stood by me the whole way throughout those years. And there's something normalizing. There's something just so human it's like I had part of me that was absolutely human that wasn't that didn't feel ostracized and alone and isolated and I feel without them, I wouldn't be sitting here.
I don't think I would be a therapist. I feel like a balanced whole individual, not perfect but pretty damn good. And I think, I thank those two people so much. What about you? What helped you come through, heal these years?
[00:30:51] Chris: I would actually say the bullying was longer than the two and a half years. The walk to school was like the sort of crystallization of all that, but my parents were at a loss as to know how to help me I can look back and say, here's how you could have helped me.
That's not really that's not useful to them. It might be useful if I give advice to parents today. But but they were at a loss and they always said, punch him in the nose. They'll get the message. And I knew at that young an age that violence begets violence. And I knew that if I was like, I've said this previous episodes, but I was a scrawny little kid.
I think part of the reason I was picked on was because I was easy to beat up. And so this idea of punching someone in the nose comes from that whole approach to fighting bullying. And I think in some cases, I'm not saying that's not a good approach. I'm saying it's not a universal approach.
In certain cases where you throw someone off, it can really change the dynamic. And I think that's true. But that didn't work for me the one or two times I tried it and it wasn't a solution for me. And, even in friendships, because of the, I'm not trying to make my childhood seem terrible, but just in the context of shame a lot of this stuff does sound terrible.
Cause even the friendships I had all the way through even high school, there was a lot of cruelty in the way we talk to each other and a lot of shaming the other person for having something wrong with your body. I was too skinny. Another friend of mine was too fat and we would do it to each other.
I wasn't innocent of this, right? And so in terms of what changed there were a couple things in high school, I started to get a better sense of myself. I got a job outside of school where I met people who, I met people who were like that, but I also met people who saw me differently from the whole narrative that I guess existed in my own head and in other people's heads about me.
But I think really going away leaving my hometown and going away to I was able to start again and, a good friend of mine who listens to this podcast. I met him in my first year of university. We're still friends now. And he gives great commentary on the podcast every episode.
And so thank you, Neil. And. I don't think that I suddenly became a perfect person, but I got to reinvent myself. I got to look again at how other people saw me and that also enabled me to look at myself with a little distance as well, because if once I got out of that soup of whatever school was for me in childhood and teenage years, and I saw how other people saw me, I could say, Oh, there are different ways of looking at me.
And it allowed me to have a sense of humour about myself. See that maybe something I was doing, because I could get moody and I could get probably still can. I know I still can. But I could, and I could get angry and upset but I, with a little with a, with an opportunity to see myself through 
different sets of eyes, I was able to have a little more what's the word? It was lighter, it was a less sort of being stuck in this idea of where I fit in and didn't fit in and more of, being just a whole person and seeing that I could belong and it didn't have to be in these crazy, cruel spaces that I seemed to get involved in, 
[00:34:50] Degan: Working with students, often their shame place is often the home place of trauma or their place of just not feeling worthy.
And so much of the work is literally that how can you make your way out in the world on your own away from this environment that even if you're reminded by friends by support that you're good and whole you go back into this house's living room that you've been in for so long that is saturated with this sense of shame or, abuse or whatever it is.
And and so getting out of there is absolutely crucial. So you can, you see yourself, you're in, different walls around you and that sense of who you can be, 
[00:35:33] Chris: Yeah. And as soon as you started talking like that, I got the cheers theme song in my head, you want to be where everybody knows your name and they're always glad you came and
 in that show, that character, Norm, everybody shouted his name when he came in and there was a weekend that you had for your birthday one year and and it was in the winter and it was guy's weekend, a bunch of your friends and including me. And there was going to be a big snowstorm the next day and I didn't want to drive home in that.
I decided I was going to leave early. And one of your friends said to me, Oh, it's, it's too bad. It's too bad you're going. And I said yeah, I know I'm a big chicken or whatever being self deprecating. And he's no, it's just you're a nice guy. And it's, it's. Be nice to have you around, right?
It was such a small thing to say, but it really turned it upside down because I was feeling, not a lot of shame, but it was a little embarrassed that I was the only one who seemed to be worried about driving in the snow. But, he flipped it over and said, no, we want you to stay because you belong here.
You, we want you to be here. 
Healing and Redefining Male Friendships
[00:36:50] Degan: It's interesting to think about being at a guy's weekend. I always, it feels very different to be, I was my 40th and I think 41st birthday or something. I, we, I got us all together. 
[00:37:02] Chris: Yeah. 
[00:37:03] Degan: And And I just, it feels very different when you're with a group of guys in that sense.
It's almost even though I don't engage in a lot of kind of hazing or, poking all the time, when we're together, 
[00:37:13] Chris: there's something that comes up in the, in the air when there are a group of guys together that there's a little more, so it's almost like to me, you were almost responding to this idea of a bunch of guys being together oh, you're going to go home early because it's going to snow. Yeah. You're responding to unsaid words, but that can be part of a male camaraderie. And yeah, and 
 I think you did it twice. And those 2 weekends redefined what a guy's weekend could be for me, because the first time you did it, I was like, I do not want to do this because my idea of a guy's weekend was going to be a bunch of guys getting together, talking about stupid bullshit.
And I don't know, maybe there was some talk about that, but it actually felt like a bunch of guys getting together, just doing things that guys want to do when they get together. We didn't do anything all that out of the ordinary. I think we, we did. 
[00:38:20] Degan: We rented the gym at a local high school. 
[00:38:22] Chris: Now that was really fun. Yeah, we played some sports. We were, and you, it was, that was really cool because we were all better at different sports.
And we played different sports. And, there was we played some poker, I think and some of you had instruments. So there was some music and, 
[00:38:41] Degan: we had a big barbecue. We did, we totally did the man thing with our barbecue. Sure we. Enormous amounts of meat. Yeah. Enormous 
[00:38:48] Chris: amounts of meat.
But I will say, someone there was really good at presentation of food. And so our plates look gorgeous. And but there was also yeah, there was beer and there, it was all of that, but it was, there was very little locker room talk. That's right. Yeah. Talk of women was almost non existent actually
[00:39:09] Degan: Make it sound like we're a bunch of monks.
Yeah, we were. 
[00:39:13] Chris: No. I felt like we were having a blast actually. Yeah. Yeah. We were drinking beer, we were playing poker. We were playing music. We're playing sports. But I'm 
[00:39:22] Degan: glad Chris, I'm really glad about that. That's it's, and think about shame, like if you think that when a lot of guys get together, there, there are you, there's a lot of one-upmanship.
A lot of groups of guys and I was just just listening to someone talk about working on a construction site with a guy who had long hair and when the guys regularly, I'm jokingly, but are just like, Hey, must be shitty to have to sit down when you pee, Yeah, I'm a girl.
There's something wrong with that. Yeah but just but the constancy of it. And I think and construction sites are pretty they're intense, right? They're intense for a misogyny and just like everyday, micro shaming or whatever. And, and just something nice to think about guys coming together from your perspective, they're like, I hadn't thought of that birthday like that, but that, that we can just be, I know we listen to music, I know we, I don't know, I'm sure we chatted about our partners or who we wanted to sleep with or whatever but not in a, we're not, we're just not assholes, we're not being derogatory. 
[00:40:20] Chris: And we weren't like, now, one thing I did notice is that your longer time friends like friends from high school and that kind of thing.
There was a dynamic there that I felt like I didn't fully understand. And sometimes there was some, I wouldn't say shaming, but some some intensity that I didn't understand. And but it wasn't in general I think we were like, it was respectful without being some sort of ritualistic monks weekend, as you're saying.
Yeah. It was a lot of fun. It was really quite fun. 
[00:40:55] Degan: I like this idea about how we heal shame in various ways, and we talked about friendship at the time or friendship afterwards, and just the shame there the, almost like that societal shame can be healed simply by, by redefining, just to go back, this idea that being with a group of guys where we don't have to one up the other all the time can heal that, heal in this deep sense these settled ideas about how guys should be together.
How they, in a way, like you can, you could look at that sort of Greek battlefield in a way and say, what's showing up in a construction site there. If you've got to say, ah, I must suck to have to sit down sit down and pee, with your long haired faggot, that kind of thing.
Yeah. Multi layered, 
[00:41:44] Chris: Yeah. I what, we've talked a lot about the inner journey and the and therapy and all that sort of thing. And it's just nice to know that maybe just the guy's weekend that is respectful and committed to each other having fun rather than, fighting for status and shaming other people.
Sure can be every bit as healing as your sort of deep inner journey and your and any sort of therapy you might get. I 
[00:42:14] Degan: mean, in that way, and I know I've talked a lot about that, the idea of healing in that, therapy sense. But I think, therapy is like a rehearsal for life.
Like the big societal healing is literally going to be just how we are with each other, you know outside an office for sure. And so what do we bring in? What you know, do we as men how do we mentor, other men? How do we call out men for being assholes, talk about like bullying the other side of that is we need strong clear men that are gonna say you're out of line I think that's where we end up really redefining this idea like to you know, tear out the roots of that literally ancient kind of shame culture and just to say how real that shame culture is and how much of a need there is to redefine it.
There's a book i'm reading right now 
 called Aggression, Time and Understanding by Frank M.
Stamler, and in it there's a talk of, or study that looks at when men have been incarcerated, short term incarcerations, what the instigating factor was the percentage is something like 90 percent of men that are in for violent acts were there because one was shamed. By the other and so just to say how this culture is saturated in this still.
And I was thinking about this, for me, I can get caught in this too, where, I was, and I think, and my way, just to say a couple of things about how I've responded in a way to being shamed, there were times where I became the bully more verbally I was more, yeah, more verbally than physically, but it's just as destructive, if not more you use words like a knife and and just tone of voice and everything else. And I certainly, had some friends that I could see weaknesses in. Like you said, bully can see a weakness. You can see it because you've been trained in it. Because someone has been has found yours.
And yeah, I could smell it. And I would it could be vicious at times, which I feel guilty about not ashamed. That's my actions, on someone else, but just to say in the present, because, you think about we live in Toronto and Toronto, as we know, as in terms of being a driver in Toronto.
It's an insane city. If you're ever going to want to create a situation where you can see what shame on it. And do and what heroic but the hero shame kind of dynamic, cut somebody off in Toronto and see what happens. Or even just take one second at a light when it's turning green and then you get the honk behind you.
And there's so much intensity in Toronto at the moment, but I was thinking myself. I have to remind myself if i'm feeling tired if i'm feeling like I haven't had a great day it's very easy for that old shamed part of me to come out so when someone honks, I literally go into a fight mode. You know can give them a finger when really it's like it's a honk, let it be just to say that sense of like how that chronic shame can come back and how destructive it can be.
And that's, we don't all experience that sort of regular sense of shame. And as a man trying to be the one who's in control is enough. But if you add that to it then we see just so much destructiveness. 
[00:45:47] Chris: I honestly believe that getting behind the wheel of a car or whatever changes you and it's amazing how that honk is a trigger for that sense of self worth, right?
It can't be me who's in the wrong. It's got to be somebody else. And fascinated by that because even if you did do the wrong thing and someone honks at you, it's very easy to get enraged. I don't know, probably goes back to the days of chariots in Greece and
Absolutely. 
[00:46:18] Degan: I really like that we're moving toward this. I know joy is going to be our last one, which we should mention.
And that we're talking about healing shame, transforming shame, how we can heal ourselves and be different, be outside of that medieval way of you. 
[00:46:34] Chris: You brought it in with just the idea of friendship and I literally had to redefine friendship because I didn't realize I would see, depictions of friendship and pop culture and be like, that's not real, right where people really cared about each other.
 
[00:46:51] Degan: Let's take a little break.
We'll come back in a few minutes and wrap up the conversation. Okay. We're back. 
 
[00:47:07] Chris: Was there anything else you wanted to talk about around this? 
The Hero's Journey and Healing
[00:47:10] Chris: I had a quick comment about the hero's journey. 
[00:47:15] Degan: No you do the comment about the hero's journey. And then I think we should talk about a little bit about joy.
So I just wanted to make a quick comment because a lot of what we've been talking about is culture and pop culture and lot of these ideas, a lot of popular culture is built on this idea of the hero's journey and this kind of 
[00:47:38] Chris: Rambo idea where a single person goes and solves the problem. It's messy. It's violent. It's difficult. But they overcome it. And these days I used to be more into that. These days, all I can think about is all these people are going to have post traumatic stress disorder.
They're not solving anything, but I think the idea when I think about the hero's journey as an older adult now, I think about it more as what we've talked about in previous episodes, that internal journey, which is in some ways, the hardest one to do of all to understand who you are the, is it Aristotle Socrates, who said the unexamined life is an unlived one. Anyway, it's a Greek philosopher said that. And, just thinking about the guys weekend, we talked about, I feel like there's a role for the hero's journey. And, but I think it's, I don't think it has to be a man's journey. It can be a woman's journey. And there are times when an individual has to go and save the day or whatever.
But we could benefit from a lot more community, I think, and, guys weekends or clubs or these sorts of opportunities where, that 3rd space outside of the home and the, job where you get together with people and people, it can be the Cheers bar or it can be it can be your place of worship.
It could be social club or whatever. But I think that a lot of the future lies in us getting together and not shaming ourselves for our differences, but shaming each other for our differences, but celebrating difference and lifting each other up totally.
[00:49:28] Degan: Okay, I got a joke. Okay. All right. A man wakes up in a hospital and he sees a doctor standing over him and the doctor says, I got bad news and I got good news. Bad news. You've been in an accident and you've been castrated. The good news is that you are in the only hospital in Canada, which does penis transplants and the transplant has to be done quickly like today and you have to pay.
Now, small penis costs $1, 000, medium one costs $5, 000, and we can get you a large one for just over $10, 000. And the guy says, look, I gotta talk to my wife before you go ahead. She's gonna be affected by this. Fine, says the doc. Get her on the phone now, and we'll come back in a little while, and we'll get going with the op.
Half an hour later, the doc returns. The guy says, we're gonna get a new kitchen.
All right. That's joke.
[00:50:23] Chris: Oh my God. I love that. So rather than I would like to ask you and I would like to set up the next episode. Sure. Perfect.
Perfect. Let's do that. 
Concluding Thoughts and Next Episode Preview
[00:50:37] Chris: I would like to also ask our listeners, our last episode, let's talk about joy. What's great about being a guy? What brings you joy as a man? And how do you find joy in, in your life? From that perspective? 
[00:50:55] Degan: Love it. Love it. And I feel if we trace the trajectory of these podcasts this season, we began very intimately with our personal experiences and moved through love and friendship and the rest of it.
And I know a lot of what I looked at was, my bread and butter comes from therapy, that's my life. And I think what I feel like the door I've come out of is that was the interior life. It's wonderful stuff. Let's launch with joy into what we can do out in society, right?
 How can we be out there beyond this office? What can we, I'd be curious to talk to people, talk to you just about how we can be in the world. And yeah, be our joyous, good selves. 
[00:51:38] Chris: And that'll be our last episode of season one.
Sweet. So again looking forward to hearing about that. Great to talk to you as always, Degan and, 
[00:51:48] Degan: Absolutely. Great to talk to you. Do you got a question for me? 
[00:51:51] Chris: That was the question. What brings you joy? So bring that next week and we'll, beautiful, 
[00:51:57] Degan: beautiful, Chris, 
[00:51:58] Chris: we'll talk to you then. Okay.
See you next week. 
 
What Kind of Man Are You is hosted by Chris Garbutt and Degan Davis. Produced by Chris Garbutt at VQC Media. You can support us at buymeacoffee.com slash Chris Garbutt. Music composed and performed by Degan Davis. You can buy Degan's book at brickbooks.ca. 
 Thank you to all our supporters and listeners.