The eighth installment of Matthew’s Five Big Questions Posed to an Extremely Thoughtful Person.
Friend of the pod Blair Hodges joins Matthew to talk about how he’s transformed the teachings of his Mormon upbringing into inspiration for social justice, how he grapples with the limits of the nuclear family as he thinks about community building, and why James Baldwin is so important to him.
Blair has degrees in journalism, religious studies, and disability studies from the University of Utah and Georgetown University. He’s currently working on a research project on the history of intellectual disabilities in Mormon thought.
Show Notes
Relationscapes—with Blair Hodges
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Hello, everyone. everyone.
Welcome to the Conspirituality Relief Project.
This is your regular timeline cleanser, featuring interviews with folks reflecting on hope, faith, resilience, and building community in hard times.
You know, all of the things that conspirituality itself cannot do or doesn't want to do.
So these are short, personal visits in which I ask my guests the same five questions about their life wisdom, at least as it is in this moment, because everything changes.
My name is Matthew Remsky.
My guest today is friend of the pod and my friend, Blair Hodges, who you've heard on here helping me understand the thought of James Kars and the tech bro Mormonism of Brian Johnson, the dude who wants to live forever.
Blair joins me today to talk about what he's brought with him on his journey, but also transformed from his Mormon upbringing.
And how he grapples with the limits of the nuclear family as he thinks about community building, and why James Baldwin is so important to him.
Now, two notes before we begin.
We recorded this before the election, and so his answer about what he fears most off the top of the show is now sadly validated.
Secondly, and completely unrelated to that, Blair got me to start watching Severance, and that...
This incredible show is providing some diversion or relief, I guess you could say.
So thank you, Blair.
And here's our conversation, everyone.
Blair Hodges, welcome to the Conspirituality Relief Project.
Thanks, Matthew.
It's good to be here.
So I sent you the same five questions that I've been sending around to everyone.
My job is just to really ask them and mostly stay out of your way.
There might be a few follow-ups, who knows?
But I'll try to keep that to a minimum because it's really about your life's wisdom.
The first question is the grim one, but I think it sets the stage for the relief part.
So here it is.
What terrifies you most in this time?
What terrifies me most?
There are many things that terrify me most.
Right.
And I thought about sitting down and trying to rank them, and it actually just sent me down a rabbit hole of despairs.
So that's kind of what I was thinking about.
But the things that came to mind with this question right now in this moment center around the upcoming presidential election.
And it's issues like if one administration gets in, it could be catastrophic.
If another administration gets in, there's still going to be some issues, but it's...
It's something I can work with.
So immediate policies that pertain to me are things like regarding trans issues, trans rights, ongoing racism in America and how to reckon with that, especially living in Utah where I live, which is predominantly white and witnessing that racism and having that be a part of my own upbringing which is predominantly white and witnessing that racism and having that be a part of my own So the things that really keep me up at night are just worrying about practical things like are trans kids going to be able to access healthcare?
Will bullying increase the more that trans kids are part of the culture war discourse about...
Ginning up voters and using them as societal scapegoats around gender issues.
So I think those issues in particular keep me up, especially gender identity issues.
It's really difficult right now.
We're seeing an uptick in legislation and attacks on gender nonconforming people, and it's really scary.
In light of that, what is the most meaningful and supportive idea or story that you return to for reliable wisdom and relief?
So I was brought up Mormon, Latter-day Saint, and I'm still a member of that church, though I don't participate as much now.
But we talked a lot growing up about the idea of repentance.
And I think for people who have a religious background, especially a Christian background, the idea of repentance might...
It might be upsetting to think about because it can be associated with really negative memories or really negative self-perception or worries or the idea of God as a vengeful person who's going to punish people if they don't repent or whatever.
But the repentance process in Mormonism was pretty straightforward and it was around this idea of the four R's.
The four R's of repentance.
Recognition, remorse, restitution.
Wow.
And thinking about these in turn.
So the first one, recognition, right?
This is, we first have to recognize our situation.
What's going on?
What have we done?
Or what are we dealing with?
And that means we have to pause and think about it.
We have to actually recognize the circumstances.
And for me, growing up like white, heterosexual, cisgendered, middle class, the world was kind of built.
me and to even elevate me.
And so I didn't have much in the way of forcing a recognition of that fact.
But the more I started listening to people of color, the more videos I saw on social media of people being murdered by police, the more people I met in my own life that talked about how their experiences are as people of color or as queer people, that brought recognition the more people I met in my own life that talked about how their experiences are as people of color or as queer people, that brought recognition to me that there are these other perspectives in the
So that was step one is like recognizing actually my benefits benefit and complicity in those kind of systems.
And then remorse feeling sorry about that.
And then restitution actually undertaking work to address that, whether it be through how I vote, or how I create my podcasts, or the books that I read, the people I listen to.
But then also, it's not just about the restitution.
It's It's also the renewal.
So finding ways to be able to continue that work, not being burnt out by it, letting it change me, committing to do better, to keep trying, and also learning how to rest in the process.
So the idea of repentance for my upbringing has been really valuable in this time.
It gives me a sense of a locus of control.
What can I do?
What am I responsible for?
How can I renew myself?
So yeah, it's been a really helpful concept to think about.
And just to be clear, when you grew up, you probably weren't directed to recognize the, I suppose, the sinfulness of being engaged in an oppressive social structure.
So you have changed the meaning of this over time for yourself, right?
Oh, yeah, certainly.
Before, I would apply the four R's to things like, did I have lustful thoughts about somebody or did I swear?
Or did I, like, watch a rated R movie or maybe, like, drink caffeine?
Right.
And I would have to recognize that, have remorse about it, like, make up for it.
Or did I steal something from the store or whatever, right?
So yeah, like it's come later on that I've started plugging into social justice conversations that I've seen how this idea of repentance can be applied to societal change.
I mean we can apply this to climate change.
We know how to recognize what we've done.
We've got to feel the pressing nature of it.
We need to start making restitution.
We need to resolve to renew.
So yeah, you're right that this concept, I wasn't necessarily directed to apply it in these kind of social justice oriented ways, but it was right there for the taking.
I find it extraordinary that a kind of post-religious echo like that can take on a new meaning.
The way in which that's happened recently for me is just on the verge of sleep one night, one of the lines of the Our Father popped into my brain and it was given.
I think it trailed off after that, but...
It was very clear to me that what I needed that to mean in that moment, whatever my trespasses were, they weren't about doctrine or dogma or behavioral teachings.
They were about moments in which I am simply...
Less than I could be in terms of interpersonal generosity.
Moments in which I'm mean, moments in which I'm venal or selfish, or I can't really take ownership of the fact that I feel bad, and so I'm going to spread that around.
And I find that extraordinary, that this echo that used to be applied to a list of sort of naughty things or sinful things that I wasn't meant to do can take on this utterly different meaning.
This is, and I think this is how, when I think of religion more broadly, that everyone lives religiously in the sense of having a value system, in the sense of thinking of stories that make sense of what our lives are like.
And so even though my Mormonism has changed over time, it's still definitely informed by those stories.
And those stories get renewed in my new contexts.
And yeah, like that line comes, it's like a mantra for you.
It came to mind for you.
Yeah.
Not in that same old way, but it's renewed.
And I think there's a lot of power in that for people that have left religions or are feeling disconnected from religions to bring great stuff with us.
Like, let's keep going.
Speaking of post-religiousness, the third question is, what is the greatest obstacle you face in forming community relationships and how do you work to overcome it?
I was talking about this with my partner, and we both hit the same idea, and it really boils down to time.
Time's hard.
When we live in a capitalistic society that demands a 40-hour work week, and we also have kids, and we're both working, the idea that we can squeeze a family life into that situation is hard enough.
Let alone an extra, whether it be church engagement or civic engagement, volunteering.
There's just so many hours in the day.
And the other thing is coming out of COVID when things got so disconnected for so many people and some of the old connections that we had atrophied because we weren't getting together anymore because maybe the libraries closed or all of those things.
So those are the big obstacles for me are having the time to actually do it and then feeling enough energy after having worked all day or dealing with kids or all of that stuff to be able to connect.
But it's possible, and I think starting simply is the path forward.
Find an easy volunteer opportunity.
I work for Ronald McDonald House Charities.
People come in and serve meals.
That's easy.
Come in for two hours and serve people whose kids are in the hospital.
Or go down to the food bank on Sunday mornings.
There's a group here in Utah that puts up LGBT flags on people's lawns for folks.
So I think these kind of connections can matter.
Find a community choir that practices once a week.
Or that community can also just be renewing your relationships with your immediate family.
Maybe you do need to just spend some more time with the kids or get away from social media more often or turn the screens off and spend some time together.
I feel there's a strong connection between the oftentimes claustrophobia of the nuclear family and its time constraints and the demands of capitalism and the fact that family often tends to sort of barrier itself and become almost private to the rest of the world.
I often feel like I'm crossing over a boundary when I enter into the broader community.
I feel like I have to step across a threshold.
Now, that might be tied into lifelong feelings of introversion that I'm dealing with in all social situations, but I think there's something structural there as well, that what we do with families is often bubbling and it creates barriers.
No, I completely agree.
The invention of the nuclear family...
I think did a lot of damage to the kind of communal engagement with children that society did before, and that some communities still do.
The kind of alloparenting is the term that specialists use, the idea that there should be multiple grown-up people in kids' lives to help mentor them and shape them.
Hillary Clinton's famous, it takes a village to raise a child.
That's absolutely true.
And when we set up this very cloistered nuclear family unit, It's like, yeah, we're down in our bunker and we're not making these community connections.
And it not only, I think, harms us as adults, but I don't think it's very healthy for kids either to be...
I mean, the more cloistered you are, the less comparison you can make.
Like, abuse can flourish in a situation where that's all a kid ever knows.
And if a kid can know that, oh, actually, families don't have to work like this.
There's something wrong here.
Even if abuse continues, that can give them some kind of hope that life could be different than what it is.
So, yeah, I think we're really over-incentivized to stay isolated in these sort of nuclear family cluster units.
And, of course, it disconnects us from people who don't have kids and from people who aren't married or for so many other people that we could have so many great times with and learn so much from.
We're just not making those connections as much.
I think at least I'm not.
Question number four.
If you were responsible for comforting and guiding an eight-year-old terrified of climate catastrophe, how would you do it?
What would you say?
I think the first thing I would do is ask them what they think about it and really plug into what they're saying.
They could misunderstand the circumstances and we might be able to have conversations about what to expect.
Or they could have very just...
Vague fears about it.
And so we can address those.
So letting them talk, even just giving kids an opportunity to talk, is a really important first step.
And then secondly, before I rush in with, oh, we won't have to worry about that, or instead of trying to make it okay in that moment, to just validate the real fear and anxieties that they have and let them know that they're not alone in those and that I even share some of those.
So connecting with them, this is a...
Opportunity to bond with them and say, hey, I completely hear you.
That's scary.
That is scary.
And then to talk with them about what kind of solutions they might have.
I go back again to this idea of the locus of control.
What can we do, my little friend?
what's within our power that we can do now.
And it could be things like, hey, you know what?
Let's maybe we'll drive less or maybe we'll start using our bikes more.
We're going to change our consumption habits.
Like, you know, you keep asking me for stuff at the store.
Maybe we don't need to buy all this stuff.
So, you know, we can like tie it to like very real and see if the kid at that point is like, you know what?
Not so worried about climate change anymore, actually.
Like I do need those Legos.
But yeah, so hearing them out, validating.
It's an interesting line to walk because when you, you know, it would seem like it's a very effective, almost sleight of hand of the neoliberal green order to focus on those self-empowering things, almost sleight of hand of the neoliberal green order to focus on those self-empowering things, which are actually comforting and they might
And then there comes the point where you graduate into, well, you know, recycling actually, it didn't really do the thing, dad.
You told me it would do the thing.
We're still burning a lot of plastic and sending it to other countries.
I'm concerned about that bridge actually between the thing that you say to give hope and the moment that that aspiration inevitably sort of exhausts itself because, you know, It was age-appropriate, and now something more challenging is probably needed, right?
Yeah, and this is why I will have conversations, and I have with my kiddos, now they're 9 and 11, but we have been having conversations about political systems with them all along as well, so that they know, like, hey, we're part of this bigger thing.
There's individual things that we can do, but we can only do so much.
And that's also why we're engaged civically.
That's also why we vote.
That's also why we pay attention to the debates.
And to politics.
Because, yeah, I mean, me not using plastic straws anymore isn't going to really cut it in the face of giant corporations, whatever.
So I do like to think about those smaller things, but also leave breadcrumbs and also introduce them to that broader context that they're going to grow into as they age.
And this has been hard talking about gender identity issues with my kiddos to have it be age appropriate.
And also kind of a little protective of them.
They don't need to know everything that's being said and they don't need to live in fear.
But they also do need to be aware that, you know, outside of this bubble, this protective home that's accepting, there are people that don't.
And so it's walking that fine line of keeping it age appropriate, but yeah, not setting them up for disillusion if you give them sort of band-aid solutions and they later find out like...
Band-Aid solutions aren't going to do jack squat.
So yeah, you kind of have to do both.
Yeah, I mean, the tendency, especially in the teenager, is going to be towards disillusionment anyway.
And it's like we don't really want to add fuel to that particular fire.
Yeah, they'll get cynical plenty.
I don't need to tell them.
Okay, last question.
If your wisest ancestor...
Came in a dream to offer you one piece of advice about living in difficult times.
What would that be?
So with this one, I couldn't, I didn't think of a direct ancestor in terms of like some kind of relative of mine, but I did think of someone who has changed my thinking and who I think about fairly regularly, the civil rights activist and writer James Baldwin.
And for Baldwin...
He lived in a similar moment to us, right?
This is after the civil rights movement has kind of peaked and things were looking pretty optimistic.
And then Dr. King is shot and Malcolm X is murdered and the wheels start to come off.
White America is not buying into the vision that Dr. King was laying out and that other people were striving for.
And so he had to reflect on what you do.
When things are falling apart, what do you do in the face of this kind of disillusionment?
And one of the things he said was this.
He said, not everything is lost.
Responsibility cannot be lost.
Responsibility can only be abdicated.
And if one refuses abdication, one begins again.
Wow.
And that phrase, begin again, Eddie Glaude...
A really great American academic wrote a whole book on Baldwin, on this idea of beginning again.
I can't recommend it enough.
And it talks about this idea of the very last thing we have when everything's fallen away is still some kind of responsibility to do something.
And we can abdicate that.
We can throw our hands up.
And I see some people do that.
I see some people of color, especially, they're just like, I'm done.
I've been dealing with this for years.
And I get that.
I feel like because of my place of privilege, I have more stamina to be like, okay, I'm going to continue to engage and to listen to.
You bring up ancestors.
For me, all my ancestors are white and we're participating in these larger systems of power that are super problematic.
So I'm going to look to black voices.
I'm going to look to people who have been in this crap for years.
The fact that it took 2020 to wake me up to.
The reality of my own complicity in structures of oppression and to see inequality kind of for the first time.
That's an indictment of me.
And so that means I'm not going to bring my wisdom to black people and to queer people and say, hey, I've got the answers for you.
I'm going to save you.
I'm going to come to them and say, how the hell have you still been surviving?
I'm here.
What do you need?
Like, what can we do?
I'm not here to save.
I'm here to learn.
So I look to voices like people like James Baldwin, people like Audre Lorde, and these other incredible figures who have been in this fight for years.
And the fact that, yeah, that I'm only realizing now that my despair and worry is fresh and new to me, but I'm only starting now to swim in these waters that people have been drowning in for years.
Now the flood's reaching me.
I'm like, oh, there's a flood.
Oh, no.
So, yeah, I'm going to jump in the water.
I'm going to be here and try to learn and not abdicate my responsibility in this moment.
I haven't heard Baldwin's concept of responsibility before as being the last thing that you have left, but it sounds like it has an almost metaphysical quality that I wonder if it displaces for you.
As a Mormon, you might have been brought up with the idea that when all else is lost, I have my faith or I have my soul or I have my relationship with God.
It sounds about as strong as that, that responsibility is some sort of eternal call.
Yeah, it doesn't go away.
And I think, for me, so much of my Mormonism was pointed to the afterlife, to eternal reward, or to filling a certain amount of obligations that would then lead to better things, especially in the afterlife.
My religion much more turned to the everyday daily things.
Like you mentioned the Lord's Prayer.
That's a perfect example.
Give us this day our daily bread.
Like this is where we are.
And what was important about that in my sort of twilight state was, oh, that's an anti-capitalist phrase.
Yeah.
That phrase is saying, don't store up.
Well, first of all, I have the dignity to ask to eat, but I also don't have the right food.
Yeah, and I want to connect this back to the earlier question about community relationships because, you know, we focus mostly on sort of real people in our lives, stuff we can do.
For me, I think the community relationships need to involve people from the past, people like Baldwin.
So I would recommend to people, go visit your civil rights museum in your city.
Go visit the Holocaust Museum, the nearby Holocaust Museum.
Go visit these places and hear the voices and see the artifacts and breathe in the air.
And look at the stories and don't look away.
Read books on civil rights.
We need to listen, especially white folks, need to listen to the voices of people who have been feeling the press of this battle long before we knew it came to our door.
And then realize that we can become part of that beloved community that already exists and has a huge storehouse of wisdom.
And we bring our humility to that.
Again, we're not here to save.
We're here to learn and to help.
And so, to me, that community...
That we're seeking.
It needs to be real people in our lives, people that we can shake hands with and hug and sit with and talk with.
But it also needs to include these wise folks from the past who have been in the fire for so long.
And they're basically like, hey, welcome to the fire.
We've been here.
So yeah.
Blair Hodges, thank you so much for taking the time.
