Rep. Dan Crenshaw and Joe Rogan: We’re Elevating Victimhood

What's your organ experience? Yeah, I feel that resilience is almost like a muscle. It's something that you can build and it's also something that can get soft. And I think that I, look, I love comfort. Don't get me wrong, but I don't appreciate it unless I've done something difficult. You know, if you look at like all the different things I do and say, oh, you're real productive and that's nice. Dude, I also like to watch TV. I like to put my feet up. I like to kick back. I like to have a beer. I like to relax. But I don't like to relax if I'm not doing shit. I know me and I get mad at me if I'm not doing anything. I don't like me when I'm not productive. But when I am productive, I also can enjoy to relax. I enjoy relaxation and I don't enjoy it unless I've earned it. And I think that's what people need to do. They need to earn their comfort. You have a proper sense of shame, which is what you're describing. That's chapter six. It's called the right. It's called the right. It's called the right. You're describing this stuff because you already know this. Like when you read my book, like you'll be like, I already know all this. But because it's true. All right. Now I'm trying to give these lessons out in a clear and coherent and kind of fun way. But these things are just true. You feel bad when you don't act the way you envision yourself to be. Like you have this hero archetype and I talked about hero archetypes before. You have this idea of like what you think is the right way to be. And you're trying to live up to that at all times. You really often fail and you've built that archetype over time. Maybe looking to others as like the right kind of hero. Maybe you've seen how successful people are and you're like, I want to be like that. And I'm sure maybe you do it in comedy or fighting or whatever it is. Like you're like, they have a way of doing something that maybe I should mimic. And so you've built this over time and you know, when you, you know, only you know, really, when you, when you don't meet that standard, when you don't meet that standard, there should be a degree of shame that you feel. And I, and I, again, this is a problem I viewed in society where I don't know that people are feeling that shame anymore. It's almost the opposite. And when you, when you don't feel that shame, you can't feel a sense of duty to be that citizen that we talked about earlier. And I find this to be a big problem, even with the small stuff, like, and I use examples in the book, like you should feel shame when you're that person who doesn't put the shopping cart in the little shopping cart section. And it leaves it in the parking space. Absolutely. No, it's easy. And you're like, ah, somebody will do it. They have people, they have people who take care of this. Well, but like, why, why don't you just, why don't you just put it away and worsely. And if you don't put it away because you're in a rush, you know, because your kid is screaming and maybe you have a good reason not to put it away. But the question to ask yourself is, did you feel bad about it? Right? Did you feel bad about it? And if you didn't feel bad about it, what the hell is wrong with you? Yes. These are very simple lessons. We have to start small, have to start small. The shopping cart one is a great example. That's such a good one. It's such a classic. It's so good. This makes you mad. It's like, ah, I've found the greatest parking spot in that damn cart. It's so easy to do. Just just put it back, bitch. Just walk it over there, put it in the little stall and you feel better. You're like, look, I did it. You know what I do? I bring it all the way the fuck back to the supermarket. Comp with something. I put it back in the thing right in front. Yes. I don't even put it in the stall. I walk those extra steps and it doesn't take much time. But I feel like I did something, even if it's just a trick. The grocery store doesn't even have to put those little sections out in the parking lot. They could just tell you to put it, walk it all the way back. Walk it back, bitch. But the reason why I like the little stalls is because of people that do have kids. If there's a mom and she's got her baby with her, great, give her a way out. Or hire some kid to gather those things up while people are walking out with them. Fine. But if you're just a guy and you're shopping for yourself and you don't put your car back, fuck you. And that sense of shame that you're talking about, that really is important. People need to feel shame if you've come up short like that. Because you can do better. You can do better and you should want to do better. The way to get ahead in life is to do everything that way. The way you do everything is the way you do anything. The way you do anything is the way you do everything. That's really what it is. Just do the right thing. Do it the way you're supposed to do it. You can do it. And you'll feel better. If you're supposed to get a workout in today, you're like, oh, fuck, I'd rather just sleep in. No, just fucking get your ass up and do it and you'll feel better. When it's done, you're like, damn, I did it. I can do this tomorrow too. You can. And it's momentum. And just developing that momentum. It's a skill. It's like everything else. It's like learning how to be polite. It's like learning how to be cordial, learning how to be a nice person. These are learned things. You can't just accept that you're a piece of shit and this is just the way you are. No, just look at yourself as if you were another person judging you. As if you are a person who's like a life coach judging you. What would you tell you to do? Yeah, that's exactly right. And the reason I wrote about this was because throughout this book, I'm identifying a problem and then trying to come up with a solution. So the solution is effectively saying what you're saying. And I write a lot about it. I write about the psychology behind it. But the problem is, is like we've, I feel like we've removed shame in our culture to a huge extent to where it's almost celebrated to do these wrong things. We started to change the definition of what's right and wrong in this sort of kind of post-modern society. And we think of some examples of what I mean by that. Well, in one part, I do bring up the example of how we view assistance, like government assistance. There's the movie Cinderella Man, where Russell Crowe plays the whatever the name is, the boxer. Yeah, that's it. And he gets a welfare check at the beginning of the movie. By the end of the movie, he's pulled himself back up and he returns it. And that's sort of like our classic heroic thing to do. You know what? We believe in helping people to need it. But we also believe that you shouldn't take it if you don't need it. It seems like a pretty good, good piece of civic duty to live by. And then I went to my own experience leaving the Navy, where we were actually encouraged to get on Social Security Disability Insurance as I was leaving the Navy. And so I was in a classroom full of fellow Navy service members, none of which were SEALs, none of which had been in combat, none of which appeared injured in any way. I was the only one with a visible injury, where it's obvious as to why I'm being medically retired. And so we're all getting medically retired. And by nature of getting medically retired from the military, it's guaranteed that we have some kind of benefit on the back end of that. And what I would call a very generous benefit. People would disagree with me on that. But I think we get a generous benefit. And to say on top of that, that we should also take money out of the Social Security Trust Fund for Disability Insurance, even though every single person in there walked right out of that classroom and is perfectly capable of working, was so frightening to me. That it is so ingrained in our new culture that it was actually in the curriculum at a government classroom. And this kind of stuff is cheered on. And I see this a lot. People will tell a story of victimhood and be cheered. But we're not supposed to cheer for them. We might feel compassion for them, but to cheer for them? And this explains why we're seeing these sort of hoaxes that we've seen. Why did Jesse Smollett feel that he had to say that two MAGA guys in Chicago beat him up? Why did... We didn't ask enough what the underlying psychology behind that was. Why do that? And I think the reason is because we started to elevate victimhood. We started to elevate this sort of shameful behavior. And this is what I mean by we sort of changed the definitions of what it even means to feel ashamed. It means to feel like you're doing the wrong thing because we've changed the definitions of right and wrong. And I see a need to get us back to some traditional definitions before we all just lose our freaking minds. Yeah, I think that's a very good point. I think what you're saying is absolutely correct. I think victimhood should be... Look, if you are an actual victim, I mean, I feel for you. It's terrible. But if you're not a victim and you're playing up victimhood, it's disgusting. It's one of the grossest things that you see in our culture, especially when we're talking about how easy society is. And now when you have a person who is affluent and successful and famous, like Jesse Smollett who does that, and you're like, Jesus Christ, man. Like, boy, did you miss the point. That's why it's so foul for us. When we see someone who's just trying to, for their own personal gain, they're trying to game the system and make it out like they're a victim. It's one of the grossest things that you could see in a successful culture. I mean, there's people out there that really are injured like yourself from combat. There's people out there that really are sick. There's people out there that are really victimized by violent crime. And to fake it, it's such a disgusting insult to people that actually are injured. Yeah. And that's like the most extreme, I think, that's the extreme consequence of this victimhood culture. Because there's definitely a difference between real victims and victimhood culture. We have to distinguish between those two things. And we have to respect somebody who's actually a victim. Yes. In my case, in the disability insurance thing, I didn't take it. But what concerns me is that if I had taken it, and if I had gone on and said, and proudly exclaimed that I got this and I needed it, shouldn't somebody call me out for that? And the reality is, I don't think people would. I don't think I would be called out for that. Even though I'm a perfectly capable of work. Yes, I'm kind of blind and I can't see even out of my good eye. But I can work. I mean, I've shown that. I can work. Why would I take that? That wouldn't be just. I think that would go against our classical definition of what is fair and just. And yet, in our current culture, I don't believe that anybody would call me out for that. And I should be called out if I had taken that money. I really believe that. Just because I was already getting benefits. I'm not saying I shouldn't get anything. I was blown up and then had to get out of the Navy as a result. But I feel our culture is a little bit backwards on this.