Robert will continue to look at the TV series 24 for its unique elements which highlight the struggle between being loyal to family and loyal and dedicated to supporting the world. In addition to that struggle, the show exemplifies the heroism of being a humanitarian and having your heart open to what is best for humanity. Beyond the glitz and the excitement of 24, we are looking to see what the deeper meanings are through the lens of psycho-politics, the 3 principles of which will be covered in the podcast. It is important to note that the themes explored isolate torture as being the one weakness of the show because torture doesn’t work and is inhumane.
Robert and Dave talk through the themes of 24 as it relates to taking care of our families and being more generous to the world. The show encourages you to imagine how this does and could apply to your life. If a sincere part of you wants to find a balanced way to love both your family and the world, then this episode is for you.
Mentioned in this episode
TV series 24
The Global Bridge Foundation
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Transcript
Announcer: (00:00)
The Missing Conversation, Episode 68.
Robert Strock: (00:04)
If you have a sincere part of you that can’t find the way to contribute and want to, if you have a part of you that can see that the world is imperiled, that our country is imperiled, that poor people are imperiled and wants to help, but can’t find a way then this episode is for you
Announcer: (00:23)
In this podcast, we will propose critical new strategies to address world issues, including homelessness, immigration, amongst several others, and making a connection to how our individual psychology contributes and can help transform the dangers that we face. We will break from traditional thinking. As we look at our challenges from a freer and more independent point of view, your host Robert Strock has had 45 years of experience as a psychotherapist author and humanitarian, and has developed a unique approach to communication, contemplation and inquiry born from working on his own challenges.
Robert Strock: (01:01)
Welcome back again to The Missing Conversation where we really work hard at addressing the most pressing issues that the world is facing today and where we look for the most practical, inspiring programs and innovative ideas to support survival on our planet. Today, we’re gonna focus on continuing the TV series 24 and look for the unique elements in 24 that highlight psycho-politics and do our best to really have you identify with the struggle between being loyal to your family and loyal and dedicated to supporting the world. In addition to that struggle, it’s also to highlight the heroism of really being humanitarian and having your heart open to what is best for humanity. And when we look beyond the glitz and the entertainment and the excitement of 24, we’re looking to see what the deeper meanings are. And today we’re going to conclude what we started in the last couple of episodes focused on a broader range of entertainment shows that we’ll be highlighting in the next episodes.
Robert Strock: (02:27)
So I wanna briefly, very briefly this time, because we did it last time as well that psycho-politics is based on three principles. The first principle is recognizing the naturalness of loving our family and looking at how much energy we wanna devote to our family, how much energy it makes sense to also devote to the world. The second principle is seeing how natural it is to want to give our money if we have any to our family and looking at the question of, does it make sense to have it be the same high percentage of money to our family versus giving opportunities to people to work that are poor and take care of our planet and seeing that it does make sense to give a higher percentage of our money and energy to the planet and people that are needing work to have a chance to survive.
Robert Strock: (03:23)
And the third principle is asking for the rest of our lives, the question what’s the balance for me uniquely to care for my family, both emotionally and financially and care for the world. What’s the balance and concretely looking for steps that would indicate that balance. So I’d like to start off by introducing Dave, my closest friend for over 50 years, which is easier to say glibly, but it’s extremely profound. And I wish I could see more examples of that in the world. And I wish that for all of you and my partner at the Global Bridge Foundation.
Dave: (04:01)
Thank you, great to be here, and to continue on with what we see as iconic entertainment that we relate to identify with. And in the case of 24, are terrified by in the moment or intensely involved in the plots, but yet at the same time, as we see life around us, act out similar things, we just can’t really see it and really, uh, look forward to this.
Robert Strock: (04:31)
Thanks. Uh, I wanna highlight again at the beginning of this show, because in case anybody didn’t listen to the prior two shows, especially the last one. From this point of view, we are not condoning terrorism. We are not idealizing terrorism. We highlighted the fact that the lead character, Jack Bauer made decisions because he had in that context informed intelligence that was a decision. Do I torture this person or do I save a hundred thousand to millions of lives? We’re not gonna be in that situation realistically, so it’s very important that you see the themes beyond that direct highlight of torturing. So please see this as we’re going through this and don’t use the torturing as the thing that you’re really looking at. So we highlighted in the last episode, how the main characters had to make a decision that was exactly the same theme as psycho-politics.
Robert Strock: (05:32)
How much do I take care of my wife, my husband, my child, how much do I take care of hundreds of thousands of people that might die and what the carryover is? What’s so important is that you’d not imagine it in that context, but you imagine it in your context, how much do I take care of? How much do you take care of your family and how much do you really let it in that the world is going to die? Almost for sure if we aren’t more generous with the world, how much are we gonna take care of the people that don’t have a chance to work and disregard them? And how much are we gonna give our energy and our money to give opportunities to work. And also I’ll add potentially to have a chance of living in a sense of community that has a sense of integrity or a sense of enjoyment.
Robert Strock: (06:30)
Now, as I ask you this question, if you really let it in and you look at your life, does it create a conflict at all? And I ask you to pause because if it doesn’t create any conflict, it makes me concerned, cuz I’m directly talking to you. This is not dominantly about 24. It’s about 24 as it reflects on you, do you have a conflict? Whether you are making enough of a contribution to humanity. Again, not based on guilt, not based on a moral standard, but based on your own sanity and sensitivity. Now, if the answer is no, no conflict at all, you might as well turn the show off because if you aren’t in a place where you have a part of you that wants the world to survive and you’re not in denial and this isn’t waking you up at all, then it really will be a waste of time.
Robert Strock: (07:25)
But if you have a sincere part of you that can’t find the way to contribute and want to, if you have a part of you that can see that the world is imperiled, that our country is imperiled, that poor people are in periled and wants to help, but can’t find a way then this episode is for you. And it’s to look at this from, can I find the part of my heart that can find a link that can make a difference. As Dave pointed out in the last episode to vote, to see the importance of voting on a candidate that could make a difference in whether our country is going to be a potential beacon of light for creating a togetherness in the world to solve global warming, to be able to give opportunities to work for the poor, to lessen the chances for isolation and creating breeding grounds for terrorism, by having poverty reign, as it has for, for the past millennia that we know of.
Robert Strock: (08:28)
So if this conflict is there, this is a very good sign. And even if you haven’t done anything, that’s not the point. The point is looking honestly at where you are and using this as a catalyst to wake up and to support you to have the conflict with innocence, not guilt. I innocently was not raised to be considering the world as central. Virtually none of us were raised to have that be central with a possible exception of many indigenous communities and rare families. So as you have that conflict, then you start to ask yourself, okay, how am I gonna support this conflict to live inside me? Which is where psycho-politics comes in and where 24 comes in. As you’re watching it, you’re seeing the real depth of love in the characters towards their loved ones and their real love of creating the greatest contribution possible for humanity.
Robert Strock: (09:40)
One of the most moving parts of 24 was the scene between the lead character, Jack Bauer and the president of the United States and their love and sharing together, both their love of their family and their love for creating the survival or fostering the survival of humanity and their love was a unity of that. And to me, that’s the epitome of a mature evolved love, where you love both and you’re just endlessly refining. What’s the balance, how do I make my next moves? Now, some of the people that have represented this in our life were people like Mandela and Gandhi and Zelensky–president Zelensky–and Gorbachev who just recently died. And the point is not to have to be a grandiose figure like that. It’s much more akin to what we’re talking about today to do with absolutely taking seriously the vote. Who’s gonna give humanity the best chance to survive.
Robert Strock: (10:54)
Who’s gonna give our country the best chance to survive as a democracy. As we mentioned in the last episode, I’m gonna mention it again to counter the sensationalism of torturing and the horror of torturing that there’s a movie called The Report and The Report gives the exact opposite message. So I really would highlight that as much as I would, 24, where it, it led to the revealing that we tortured prisoners in Guantanamo, and we got no benefit from it. And we violated our oaths and we confessed that to the world and that Senator Feinstein and Senator McCain admitted that to the world and then pledged that we would not do that again. So we brought ourselves into the innocence of honesty. We faced our guilt and then we pledged to have the integrity to move forward again. So as we’re looking at 24, we’re looking at the characters and how they reflect you.
Robert Strock: (12:01)
So as I did in the last episode, I’m gonna ask you again, look at your own life. Where does this most apply to you? What situation in life are you in conflict about whether it’s money you leave and your will, if you have any wealth, whether it’s money you use while you’re alive to give to people that you most respect that are doing something that’s a benefit to global warming, that’s a benefit to the politics, that’s a benefits to something that you believe is gonna give the world the best chance to survive, to have you be balanced, where is your conflict? And to keep that question alive for life. One of the other features that was in 24, that’s another character that I just wanna highlight because of the complicated nature of a character was a character named Chloe. And Chloe was someone that was in one way, you could say a mixture of mentally ill and completely brilliant and gifted.
Robert Strock: (13:06)
She was the most developed person in the whole counterintelligence agency, and she was able to be able to go on the computer and find out information that nobody else could find. And she was psychologically imbalanced and they showed her again and again, and again, being inappropriate and revealing or feelings emotionally at times when it was totally inappropriate to do it. And if we see somebody like that in our life, look at our tendency to judge them. And yet we don’t know that they may have another gift that could save the world. And what it helps reveal is that we’re all very complex characters. She was the best example in the show to really see that we could appear to be like one person very much like what happens when we go on the streets and we see a homeless person and we think, ah, this person was not motivated.
Robert Strock: (14:05)
They did this to themselves. And we don’t really ask every time we see a homeless person, like we would, if we were living and aspiring to live up to the ideals of a psycho-political life, we aren’t really looking at what’s our best way of understanding the other and not demonizing them, cuz we see a side of them we don’t like and how can we look deeply enough at a homeless person or someone that we judge and say, you know what? We can’t judge a person based on just an appearance. We’re all much more complex than that. We’re all multidimensional. We all have double characters. Even our heroes have parts of themselves that are almost invariably very undeveloped. So 24, in the showing of the complexity of characters, helps us understand that we’re all human beings, our tendency to judge Russians or Chinese or North Koreans or Saudi Arabians or Iranians as something that we disdain is utterly naive.
Robert Strock: (15:15)
Our tendency to judge other religions is utterly naive. And so, the more we can see us all as human beings and that we need to move toward some kind of unity. Some kind of sanity starts with our family, starts with our country. It starts with our, our extended family. It starts with our relationship to the world, but most of all, it really starts with our most challenging emotion. So we start with our most challenging emotion. We move to an intention to heal and then we move from there to all aspects of life, which is why we’re covering entertainment and the key parts of entertainment that can really reflect in a tangible story where we can learn the importance of certain values that maybe we can learn through the head, but entertainment and the arts and music, all of those reflect so well how we can learn the principles of psycho-politics or more importantly, the principles of caring for those we love and seeing if we can stretch to love beyond those that are just closest to us,
Dave: (16:31)
Just would like to add to your naivete list about assumptions: race, sexual preference, and maybe I’ll be honest, uh, the hardest for me, people who are Republicans.
Robert Strock: (16:45)
Well, thank you for that very much. And I know you well enough to know that you mean MAGA Republicans. You mean Republicans that are Trump, hardcore Trump supporters. I’m sure you would agree with me that that probably only relates to 30% of Republicans. Yeah, maybe there’s another 30 or 40% that are weak and are still going along with it, that we would have a different feeling for. Uh, you can correct me if I’m wrong, but I have a extreme reaction to the ones that are absolutely aiding and abetting Trump. I have another reaction to those that are still supporting him. And then I have really very little reaction to people that are genuine conservative Republicans that are operating independently.
Dave: (17:29)
Fair enough. Sometimes it’s hard to tell the difference. And again, uh, I still have a hard time with the ones going along and being silent. And I know part of that is, you know, we have history. We have history showing that if good people don’t stand up and say something, the bad stuff happens. And to personalize it, I have a whole side of my family that died in the Holocaust.
Robert Strock: (17:54)
Yeah, I have two levels here. At one level I agree with you. And at another level I really, really do dissect it into three separate sections. And I think I know you do too, but, but, I have a hard time with anybody that would vote Republican right now knowing they’re supporting Trump. That makes it even harder. But I also really in my heart of hearts, believe that there’s close to half, if not more, that really are looking forward to post-Trump. And I remain cautiously optimistic that that is going to occur, uh, sooner or later, I hope sooner. But part of the point of why we’re doing this show and every show we’re doing is to try to highlight the importance of everyone voting and being active in any way they can, from individual circumstances, to bring sanity to our country.
Robert Strock: (18:50)
And we are absolutely stating that we believe that Trump and all the people that have directly supported him, not only are really the epitome of danger, uh, for the world in our country, but deserve to be jailed and, and stopped. And I, for one am shocked that the law doesn’t cover people that have aided and abetted it and that with all the evidence that’s just been showed publicly that we haven’t taken more of a stand. But returning to the theme, the main theme of 24 and psycho-politics. What we’re really emphasizing is that you, we all have a role to play, that we all matter. And that if billions of us take a proactive world, the world will change. And right now billions of us are being passive. And I believe the majority of humanity agrees that they would rather have people that are poor have opportunities to work.
Robert Strock: (19:52)
They would rather have the earth survive. They would rather have freedom. They would rather have collective responsibility where everyone has that opportunity. And 24 is a good example. If we take out the sensationalism or the, the let’s say conditional nature, that’s not realistic in the real world for any of us mere mortals that have ordinary lives, that they are trying to show the importance of having this greater responsibility to the world. But it’s meant to be coming and it’s very important that everybody hear the psycho-politics and the emphasis of all the podcasts is trying to hit the sweet spot of our hearts and not bring a coattail of pulling your tail out of guilt. So may you contemplate, how can I be my best self and how can I best take care of my family? How can I best take care of the world?
Robert Strock: (20:49)
What’s the balance? And maybe see that 24 reflected that, as well as, really helped us understand we’re all very much the same. Even if we have a part of our character that shows itself as not good, that all of us are more complicated than that. So it’s not simple, but we all can see that it’s important that we play a role that is balanced in our own eyes, and we take the time. Take a timeout from our life to go into inquiring what’s our best way of being balanced towards those that I love, and the greater world, and those that are in the greatest stress and the greatest hardship on our planet. Thank you all for taking the time to contemplate this and preferably the rest of all of our lives.
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