Sam Harris and Ricky Gervais discuss the infamous Oscar slap. We’re excited to announce the launch of the Absolutely Mental app for iOS users. All three seasons of Absolutely Mental are available for purchase on the app. Subscribers to the Making Sense podcast will hear the episode in its entirety in their subscriber feed. If you’d like to hear this entire episode for free, you can access it by downloading the Absolutely Mental app. This bonus episode is listed in Season 3. Note: If you’ve previously purchased any Absolutely Mental content on the website, you will be able to access it in the app. Please check the FAQ for more info. If the Making Sense podcast logo in your player is BLACK, you can SUBSCRIBE to gain access to all full-length episodes at samharris.org/subscribe.
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Okay, this is an episode that we were very slow to release due to events outside of our control.
We've created an app for the Absolutely Mental podcast.
Which is currently available on iOS only, and it's now in the App Store.
Except that got delayed because, strangely, the powers that be at Apple thought that we were impersonating Sam Harris and Ricky Gervais and stealing the intellectual property of those esteemed gentlemen.
So it took some time to actually get the app situated.
And that's why it took so long to release this conversation, wherein I get Ricky's reaction to the infamous Oscar slap.
Obviously, we're a little late to the party here, but I think the conversation has aged well.
And it was great to get Ricky's take on all this.
He was actually trending on Twitter immediately after the event itself.
He seemed to be the third person on Earth people most wanted to hear from at that moment.
And I don't believe he has said anything at length since.
So, for better or worse, here's our conversation about Will Smith, Chris Rock, and all things related to the ethics and psychological weirdness of that moment.
As always, it's great to talk to Ricky.
If you want more of us, you can find us at absolutelymental.com, where we have now three seasons of that podcast.
Also, if you're on iOS, you can download the Absolutely Mental app.
Where this conversation can be heard in its entirety for free.
And also, if you're a subscriber to Making Sense, you will now hear the full conversation.
Enjoy.
Hey, how you doing?
Uh, yeah, good.
Well, I mean, if you really want to know, it'd take a while.
Give me the first pass.
I'll give you the minor one.
The minor one on my side, which I think we've talked about, but this will show you what a hard-headed fool you're collaborating with.
I think I've discovered for the hundredth time that red wine is not good for me.
And this is the way I do science.
I perform this experiment 99 times and doubt it.
I can't.
I'm dealing with that.
I don't know what it is, but it's just, you know, I understand what alcohol does to me.
I understand how to avoid a hangover, but red wine gives me a headache reliably.
That's how I drink now.
I drink as much as I can, but avoiding the hangover.
I know my limit.
I tried to start drinking less in lockdown, so I thought I'd just have two glasses of wine a night, right?
But all that happened was the glasses got bigger.
It was like some sort of game!
Yeah, you have to talk to the bartender.
Your right hand, who's the bartender, needs to be in on the secret.
I never go out.
I think I go out about once every two months now.
I didn't go out at all in lockdown, obviously, so that was drinking at home, watching Netflix.
But yeah, it's also I'm older now.
It's like you can't do the things.
Like even tennis now.
I play tennis every week and I can't walk for 24 hours afterwards.
I wake up and it feels like I've been in a car crash.
Like I'm doing warm-ups, gigs.
And you don't notice it.
Like, if I do two in a row, again, the second, it's like, what have I done?
The adrenaline, and you don't notice at the time.
It's just like everything, everything has a bigger effect.
Now I've got like, I've got shin splints in my one shin that I've just got to stop running.
But I don't stop doing it.
That's the thing, I think.
I don't stop doing what's bad for me, because why should I?
Just because I can't walk the next day, that's no reason not to play tennis the day before.
Yeah, so just getting worse and worse, really, isn't it?
Yeah, well, you're five years ahead of me, I think, but the view from here is already bad.
I can't wait.
I can't wait until you're like this.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Also, you get heavier as well.
You just creep up.
I just stopped weighing myself because it's like, Just every month you put on a pound.
Well, I don't know, it's metabolism and you work out less because it aches.
No, it's all muscle.
You're putting on a pound of muscle every month.
Yeah, well, that's right.
I had the idea.
That was my latest way to beat the system.
I read that muscle weighs more than fat, but you burn more calories at rest.
So I thought, I'll just work out.
So I just got fat and muscly.
At least you're strong.
If you're going to be fat, you might as well be strong.
That's another thing.
You're not as strong.
You ache more.
Your tendons are not as good.
If I do squats now, I think I'm not going to be able to get up after this.
You lose your nerve as well.
I don't know why it happens.
It just does though.
You just feel You just feel weaker.
And it is.
I'd say it's in the last two years.
I thought of 58.
I don't like to hear that.
58.
Yeah.
But 60 is like, no, that's it.
That's it.
I do have the solution for you.
The near term solution.
You can do your squats as long as you're just picking up cases of wine.
Yeah, exactly.
I do count things as exercise now.
If I have to run up and down the stairs, I think that's... If you've done it for the day, yeah.
Yeah, but I think you've got, you know, a certain amount of, you know, heartbeats and breaths and steps in you.
And so, as you do more exercise, it wears you out.
I think it's 3 billion.
I forget, I think the number's 3 billion heartbeats, something like that, yeah.
Really?
Well, that's good, because my resting heart rate is really low.
It's about 58 to 60.
So if you work out, it goes up.
Your clock's ticking down much, much faster.
So, you know, anyway.
Yeah.
So, yeah, I'm all right.
Thanks for asking.
Okay, so we have something to talk about, and I think we're both a little sheepish about talking about it.
There's a bandwagon that we don't want to jump on.
Yeah.
But in reality, I think you of all people can be forgiven for talking about this at any point, and the comments will age well, because honestly, from the looks of my Twitter feed, you were virtually the third person on earth people were thinking about when this episode
So, I'm referring to the famous Oscar slap delivered by Will Smith to Chris Rock, and now we're talking five days, six days later.
So, let's just take a pass at it.
Well, I woke up that Monday morning, 7.30, and I had The odd email and message and DM from friends and colleagues in America going, you know, things like, what the fuck?
I feel so sorry for Chris.
What would you have done?
That's disgusting.
I went, what?
I don't know.
I didn't know what they were.
So I put it together and I thought, oh, Chris Rock, what's that then?
A Will Smith Oscar.
Oscars, right.
So I Googled it and, you know, immediately I watched the clip.
Yeah.
Can you recapture your immediate reaction?
I was angry.
I thought no one should hit someone for hearing something they don't like.
This wasn't a bar.
This wasn't a hockey field.
It was two men in tuxedos.
It was strange and it was shocking.
And obviously, initially, it looked It looked like the world agreed with me that this shouldn't have happened, and he shouldn't have done it.
And I stand by that.
And that's my first and last assessment of it.
He shouldn't have done it.
But I also saw there were people saying, well, Chris Rock deserved it.
And I think, well, what?
What do you mean he deserved it?
And they had lots of reasons that he deserved it.
The joke was offensive.
He shouldn't say that about his wife.
Not valid reasons in my book, but I could see that it wasn't a slam dunk.
There were some people that thought that Will Smith was in the right, and I never did and I still don't, even though I think I'm, I feel a bit sorry for him, to some extent, because we don't know what he's going through.
But we'll get to that.
But I yeah, I was, I was sort of outraged.
But I didn't want to join in.
I didn't, I didn't want to add my voice.
Everyone was there.
But then I then I saw I was trending.
Yeah, it was suddenly all about me.
And everyone was saying, you know, what What would Ricky Gervais have done?
Or, oh my god, that's nothing to what Ricky Gervais said.
Yeah, that was the most common take.
Yeah, exactly.
And I resisted it.
And we spoke and I didn't really want to, you know, do anything.
And I just thought, you know, it's not my thing.
And I actually had a new material night the next night.
And when something happens that's so big, you have to address it straight away.
So they stopped thinking about it.
So they stopped thinking about Is he going to mention it?
So I went out there and I went, I haven't got any Will Smith material.
And they laughed that big laugh of recognition.
He said something.
Right.
And, uh, and I said, I said, it was ridiculous.
I trended, I was number one trend, nothing to do with me.
I wasn't even there.
And I said, um, people saying, Oh, what would have happened if Ricky Gervais had been doing it?
I said, well, nothing would have happened because I wouldn't have made a joke about his wife's hair.
I'd have made a joke about a boyfriend.
And that was the big laugh, and that was the end of it, right?
And I got on with it, it was great.
But there was someone from the press on a new material night that they tweeted that, and then I trended again!
Right.
I trended again with that quote!
So that's why, people don't realise this, but I desperately try to keep my mouth shut when it's not to do with me.
But you get sort of, you get drawn in.
And suddenly, now I've got to mention it.
But yeah, I was worried on principle.
I thought it was bad on principle.
I thought Chris Rock didn't deserve it and no one does.
And certainly not with that joke, because I didn't find the joke... I don't even know how anyone could find that offensive.
You know, one people saying it's about a medical condition.
Well, a medical condition was nothing to do with the joke.
The joke was her appearance.
And I don't think Chris Rock even knew she suffers from alopecia or, you know, any medical condition.
I think he, you know, he saw...
There's so many.
Let's just linger on.
Let's take this piece by piece because there's so many layers to this.
So just that point about the nature of the joke, yes, whether he knew or not the source of her baldness, that's probably relevant to his intentions.
But even if he knew, it's not a hard-hitting joke because of the basic reality of her appearance, which is one, She's a beautiful woman who happens to look beautiful bald, you know, whatever she thinks.
And the comparison to Demi Moore and G.I.
Jane was not an unflattering one because, you know, famously she looked great bald too, and she was super fit, and she's this awesome first woman Navy SEAL.
And so it's like, it's not a comparison that is denigrating her.
No, I didn't think it was an insult.
I didn't think he was going for it.
I didn't think he was trying to embarrass her.
There was nothing nasty about it.
There's nothing unflattering about it.
It was, it was a really tame, you know, you could, you could say that to a kid at a barbecue.
Oh, you look like G.I.
Jane, you know, there was no, there was no, nothing to embarrass her.
Yeah you know and then people were bringing up you know like history or he's mentioned her before again which I think is it is is irrelevant unless it's unless it's you know because I didn't know that I didn't know he'd mentioned her before or that they were friends I don't know any of that true if you look at it if you look at the cut in the cold light of day that joke There was no need for outrage.
And Will Smith laughed.
He laughed.
A polite laugh.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I get it.
Oh, yeah, I look like, yeah, funny.
Yeah, whatever.
There was no, you know, and then she rolled her eyes and he obviously thought he had to do something.
And, you know, I'm obviously I'm not a psychologist or a body language expert, but it seemed to me like he'd, He started strolling up there and he didn't know what he was going to do.
I think he regretted it almost immediately thinking, Oh, I've got to do something now.
And Chris Rock thinking, what's he going to do?
You know, you know, he could have run away and made a joke or begged, you know, had a laugh, but because he did nothing and stood there now, Will Smith's got, Oh no, I've got to do something.
Right.
And I think if you look at it, Will Smith doesn't want to hit him.
He doesn't want to hit him hard.
He sort of leans back so he nearly misses and just touches his chin.
Well, that's what I initially found quite confusing.
And that's why the thing that most interests me here is to kind of put ourselves in the room because the room was powerfully confused.
I mean, the room was an alternate universe.
I mean, the behavior of the people in the room is genuinely startling to me.
So I want to talk about what people thought they saw and how they processed all that.
But just watching on TV or on the computer, I saw it looked like he barely made contact given Chris Rock's reaction.
I mean, if he had slapped him with any force, given the way Chris was standing, he would have had to have taken a major step back or fallen back.
A slap delivered hard could have just knocked him flat, right?
Well, that's the other thing about it.
Whatever the stat was, again, my initial thought was this was a six-foot-three man hitting a guy.
I think he weighs probably about 140 pounds, Chris Rock.
He's slight.
He's a tiny guy.
That's a bad look optically, yeah.
Yeah, it didn't look fair.
It looked like bullying.
Whatever you think jokes are and what words are, they're not bullying compared to, you know, physical violence.
That really started to annoy me when people started saying, no, but words are actual violence.
No, they're not.
No, they're not.
But given how tenuous the slap was, I think people in the room could be forgiven up until that moment for thinking, oh, this must be a bit they've worked out.
I thought it was.
I knew, although I'd seen the controversy before I saw the thing, and I still had to watch it a few times thinking, is it a bit?
And then Chris Rock said, Will Smith just slapped the shit out of me.
I thought, this isn't a bit.
Even there, the only place it became crystal clear, I would say, to the people in the room that it wasn't a bit, was when he got back to his seat and yelled, keep my wife's name out of your fucking mouth.
It took the second time for the reality to dawn.
I think, yeah, that looked like a man who was adrenalized.
That looked like a man who's enjoying being a warrior.
He enjoyed the violence because he felt that he'd sort of won and he was angry and he was frustrated.
I think he knew he shouldn't have done it.
And I think that what made me do that?
Why did I do that?
What have I done?
Well, I would question that because his behavior for the rest of the night did not seem like somebody whose conscience was settling, especially hard.
No, because he'd got away with it.
Yeah.
Oh, yeah.
But he thought he'd got away with it.
Don't forget, a few minutes later, he just won Oscar.
It was without that slap.
This was the greatest night of his life.
This was the greatest night of his career.
He couldn't believe it.
So all that other stuff, it was still Without the slap.
This was amazing, of course.
And they had all that adrenaline.
And he's thinking, Oh, it's okay.
I've won an Oscar.
It's okay.
It's like when a kid thinks, Oh, I didn't get caught.
They didn't see me.
They didn't.
I'm I've got away with the sweets.
They didn't see me.
It was like that sort of feeling he must have thought and he was dancing and is is I think he thought he'd done well.
I think he thought he was chivalrous.
I think he thinks his wife and family were proud of him.
So it's like he got some sort of affirmation and reward.
You slap a man on stage.
That's never happened before.
I've never seen anything like it.
As I say, it happens in bars around the world every night, and it happens in sport, and it happens in the playground, but it doesn't happen on the greatest entertainment, arguably, in the world, in tuxedos.
It was weird.
And in particular, I mean, let's maybe hit this point now because at minimum we need to get it out of the way.
I mean, the norm that was violated here was crystal clear.
I mean, the role of a comedian in that context is understood, right?
And you have occupied this role, that precise role, many, many times at award shows with much more of a lacerating effect on the people in the audience.
And you are the court jester who's given full license to roast people in the audience.
Yeah.
But also more than that, Chris Rock isn't just A presenter or an actor going up there and saying stuff.
He's a comedian, right?
And this is hard to explain, but when you're on stage, that's your home, right?
That is, that is not, that's a psychological and a physical barrier.
If someone gets on the seat and gets on your stage, that's a massive thing.
That's a massive effect.
That's like someone's just let himself into your house.
Yeah.
And he must have thought, oh my God, but I can't act like I do when I'm on stage.
So I haven't got the power.
And there's no doubt that in that room, Will Smith had the power and he stepped on the stage.
He was alpha.
He was not only a bigger man, but he'd broken down all those barriers.
He'd broken down all those You know, unwritten laws, he should not have stepped on that stage without permission.
So Chris Rock, his world was shattered.
He didn't know.
I mean, he did amazing.
I can't believe, I mean, he fluffed his line a little bit.
He didn't know what was going on.
And I think that I saw a thing where he said that he was, I think he was bullied and, you know, he was in therapy for it.
So this wasn't, this wasn't good for him to go through that, you know, that, I think it really, I mean, I can't imagine it.
Maybe we'll come back to that.
I mean, I think he handled himself totally impeccably, despite him getting flustered is totally understandable.
And he was barely flustered given the situation.
But, and this is what I do want to get to, I think he was totally betrayed by The Academy and The Room, really.
I mean, it was just amazing to me that just the way the rest of the event unfolded.
What should have happened... I agree, but don't forget those people were a bit in shock and they wanted it to go back to normal.
It's like they were in slight denial and I think they had some sort of deferred responsibility like that happened.
We don't know what to do.
Oh, this is normal again.
Will Smith's winning an award and he's crying.
It's all normal.
Everyone, there's nothing to see here.
It's okay, everyone. - The world is not out of joint. - Yeah, I know, yeah.
So, you know, and I don't know what happened.
I've heard two opposing reports.
The first was they asked him to leave and then people said that isn't true.
They didn't ask him to leave.
In fact, I heard the producer asked him to stay.
Although I heard a quote from the producer saying that he poured concrete on the room.
And I think that's a lovely way of putting it because they must have been just, it must have been weird.
It must have been so strange because, you know, again, let's get it in context.
He didn't punch him.
He didn't kick him.
He didn't stab him.
He didn't headbutt him.
He didn't do anything that would be traditionally, you know, a terrible assault of violence.
But I'll tell you, getting a slap In front of everyone, from a bigger man, it is violence.
Let me just linger on that point for a second, because it does matter what he attempted to do.
I mean, because, yes, a slap of any degree is violence, and it's designed to, obviously, assert your power over someone and humiliate them, and it is bullying.
All the ugliness is contained Even in the mere grazing gesture there, but if he tried to slap him hard and he just failed because Chris moved to the degree he did, it could have been a very different outcome because you can knock someone senseless with a hard slap.
Yeah, and I genuinely think that he didn't want to hurt him.
I don't think he even wanted to slap him.
I think he regretted it walking up there, but he wanted to look like He wanted to look like John Wayne.
No one insults my woman.
I can be a hero here.
I think he felt some sort of weird pressure to do it.
He was in two minds.
I don't think he is that guy.
I don't think he's a violent person.
I think it was like he wanted to be like that for a minute to impress someone.
I think it must have felt really weird for him.
But about the slap, right?
I was talking to a security guard once.
And, um, I don't know if it's true for everyone, but he said, oh, you know, you know, if it goes to it, a slap is really good because it shocks them.
And he said, um, it looks good in, it looks good in court, right?
You don't, you don't break your hand as one often does, punching someone in the head.
And he said, most people don't press charges because they're embarrassed to say I was slapped by a man.
Oh wow, that's interesting.
So there is a sort of this like, you know, machismo using, you know, using that embarrassment and that dominance.
But the reality is, I mean, if you slap them on the ear, you know, you break their eardrum with good contact and you will completely lay them out, right?
Oh, if you can, of course, you can knock someone out, you can really hurt someone, you can break their jaw, you can do anything.
There is absolutely no way he wanted to do that.
And he showed it.
That slap wouldn't have hurt.
But that's irrelevant.
He wanted it to look like a slap.
He wanted him to shut up Chris Rock.
He wanted it to look like a hero.
He wanted it to look like he had dominated and shut someone up.
And he wanted it to be justified.
And to some people it was.
And to some people it still is.
I've heard so many conspiracy theories that they won't back down.
But now it's been going on a week.
I mean, I don't know how, you know...
Much longer to do, or what his punishment is or will be.
Right.
Well, so let's just nail down the objective fact that many people gave voice to, and I think Kathy Griffin might have put it in a tweet that was most visible, but she said something like, you know, oh great, now every comedian has to wonder whether someone wants to emulate Will Smith and jump up on stage.
It's like our job just got more dangerous.
Yeah.
And I do think that is, whatever the extenuating circumstances, whatever you think about Will Smith and whatever the cause of this, or the nature of Chris Rock's joke, that norm violation is just bad, right?
Yeah.
If there isn't some sort of, you know, comeuppance or agreed distaste, then it would be dangerous.
And it's more dangerous because, even though it would be very rare, If a man with everything to lose is willing to do it, what's people with nothing to lose willing to do?
You know, people want to get famous for anything.
People do anything to be famous.
So for this week, Will Smith is the most famous man in the world this week.
He has been the most famous man in the world.
And some people will go, well, I can do that.
That's exactly right.
Yeah, that's exactly right.
An analogous situation, which is different, but it reveals the same problem here.
I don't know if you've seen it.
I think this has happened internationally, but there was this group of people that were hitting famous people they didn't like with pies, like just fake pie, like shaving cream in a pie dish.
Yeah, they did it here with milk.
They threw milk over.
Oh, that's right.
That's right.
Yeah.
So that, I think we may have even spoken about this at one point, but people who don't really think it through think that behavior is totally innocuous.
It's just a social protest.
You're just kind of embarrassing the person.
It's just shaving cream or milk.
What's the problem?
Yeah.
It's a mock assassination, and you're showing the real lunatics of the world just how easy it is to go up and hit Bill Gates or Boris Johnson or somebody in the face, even when they have security around them, right?
So it's a bad meme to be putting out there, and it makes the lives of famous controversial people just more dangerous.
I hadn't even thought of the extreme version of that.
Even without that, I think it's still an affront.
I think that is like a slap.
It's done something to you.
It's embarrassing.
You've covered in something.
You might have ruined your clothes.
You're stuck in it.
It really is inconvenience, whether they've got a loophole around violence.
One of our famous politicians years ago, John Prescott, he was a northern sort of working class guy in the labor, right?
And he was walking along and someone egged him, threw an egg at him, and he just turned around and punched him straight in the face.
I like that.
Because just because the egg leaves your hand, it gets him in the eye.
Doesn't mean it's not an extension of your fist, yeah.
No, exactly.
I talked about this with you before, that dumb practical joke in school where they'd put a drawing pin, a tack, on your chair and if you sat on it they'd laugh because you did it.
I go, no, no, that doesn't count.
No, no, no.
You haven't got to absolve yourself of responsibility because I sat on it.
That's a sharp object that you put there for me to sit on.
That's still your fault!
So, you know, I think you can play games all you like and try and get round, you know, it's not as bad as a punch or whatever.
You can't do that.
You can't do that.
If that was paint on someone's house, they'd be done for criminal damage, vandalism.
Okay, so let's jigger some of the variables here.
If Will Smith had not been Will Smith, if he had been far less famous or just some anonymous creature in a tuxedo, the outcome would have been Obviously different, right?
Well, I assume he wouldn't have made it to the stage.
If he was a seat filler, who looked like he was walking on stage, and people were looking at their notes going, what's this?
This isn't in the script.
And Pissed Rock went, uh oh, I don't think he'd have made it.
Well, one would hope.
I'm not so sure, but one would hope.
But given that it was Will Smith, and given that he's that famous, and people have so many positive associations with him, that's what made it so difficult to process, right?
Yes.
The moment you dial down his fame sufficiently, then it's just a straight up illegal act in plain view of millions of people, and this is Completely anathema.
Yeah.
You know, the guy is immediately arrested and has legal problems.
Yeah, but that's a very good point as well, because I think that's what allowed him to do it as well, because it was Will Smith.
I bet even producers thought, this is going to be funny, he's going to tease him, or they've done a bit, they've worked it out in the car park, we're not in on this, or what's he going to do?
It's all right, it's Will Smith.
What could go wrong?
I know, exactly!
And then he slaps him and walks away, and they're going, ah, OK, he did do something.
It's too late.
He's gone back to his chair.
OK, Chris Rock's covering, good.
Ah, now he's swearing.
Oh, he's swearing again.
So, I mean, I let them off.
I let all the organizers off for not acting quickly enough up to that point.
Then, I think, then we don't know.
Then what happens?
Well, he wins an award!
He wins an Oscar!
Well, okay, so the place where it goes completely off the rails for me just tonally and just existentially is Him winning the award, the contents and spin of his speech, right?
I didn't watch it because I didn't want to watch it.
I didn't like the fact that he was winning an award and he was getting a standing ovation.
So I didn't watch it, I'm afraid.
I saw him crying.
I saw a clip of it.
So what did he say?
How long was it?
I think it's five or six minutes.
Well, I mean, the first thing I want to say is that I think it's appropriate to view... I mean, again, I don't know all the details of Will Smith's life and what has come before this.
I mean, I just heard rumors of how complicated his relationship is with his wife and how colorful that has all been.
Yeah.
But I think when you look at how much he had to lose, right, and what he decided to do in front of tens of millions of people, I think it's appropriate to view that whole episode as a kind of mental health crisis, right?
Well, I saw the clip I saw of him crying and making it about the guy he played was the William sisters dad.
I haven't seen the film either.
But didn't he make it about sort of protecting family?
Didn't he try and make what he just did?
That's all I saw.
And he made it all about love, that he wants to be like a vessel of love and he's a river to his people.
So the text of it, he was obviously winging it in the moment because he was connecting it to what had just happened.
The broad strokes was that he apologized to everyone on earth apart from Chris Rock, and he cast it all in terms of he's a protector of women, and he's a river to his people, and it was the most self-aggrandizing, delusional... Well, he couldn't apologize because that would ruin it, because then he'd have to say he did something wrong.
But it was just you would think he was Gandhi, you know, he was Gandhi who just had to be tough Gandhi that one time, right?
That's like a superhero says, sorry, you had to see that.
Yeah, yeah.
It's like he wasn't apologizing for the violence he was doing.
Yeah, it's it's all in a day's work.
I'm used to it.
That might be a shock to you, but not to me.
And he and he just takes off.
He just takes off and flies away.
Yeah.
Now, I know it was all about But it did, again, it did look of a piece with a kind of mental health crisis, you know, so I don't want to, I guess that could be, that's totally exculpatory on some level, just to say he's, the guy's having a breakdown, cut him some slack, but I did sort of view it that way because The question is, do you locate the problem purely in his brain, or do you locate it in a kind of cultural confusion surrounding him?
Because there's definitely some confusion, because I mean, you know, his son tweeted out, you know, that's the way we do it, you know, just like nothing but pride, and his dad.
So there's a part of the culture that just didn't get how wrong the behavior was and is.
And that's a kind of delusion that if you share it is just morally confusing.
The guy was just studying.
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