Catherine
Welcome to the Loved Called Gifted Podcast. This is your place to come for musings about spirituality, identity and purpose. I'm your host, Catherine Cowell.

For this episode of the Love Called Gifted podcast, I'm really chuffed to be joined by Rebecca. Chamien Robardo. So welcome Rebecca.

It's really good to have you with us. Would you like to tell everybody kind of where you are and introduce yourself a bit?

Rebecca
Uh yeah, so again it's Rebecca Chamian Ribaudo, and I've just finished "Crossing Division Street", my book, and I'm living in downtown Chicago, right in the city in the United States here, and you might hear some of the city sounds in the background.

Catherine
Yeah, fantastic. So I've just finished reading your novel. Very much enjoyed that. So do you want to give us a bit of a synopsis or a a teaser, shall we say? uh into what it's about.

Rebecca
Sure, sure, yeah. Yeah. So the novel opens in nineteen ninety nine with an independent woman.

She's a high powered attorney, just coming home from work, driving through the middle of Chicago. on her way home and she stopped at a stoplight in the middle of these massive housing projects called Cabrini Green, which are were located in the middle of the city. And she stopped there waiting.

A little girl jumps into the her back of her car and says, Go, they're gonna kill me. She takes off with the girl instinctually. And this sort of moment sets off this kind of midlife reckoning for the main character of Saddam where she must grapple with her own identity and history in Cabrini when it was called Little Sicily.

And so the novel then goes back into her family's history back to 1890 and it goes through the struggles of her own family dealing with sort of how they manage their heritage with trying to assimilate and become part of American culture and society. And it really traces various groups and her and her family in America. And it The story parallels her own as she gets to know this little girl and has to again sort of grapple with a lot of secrets and um parts of her heritage she was forced to leave behind.

Catherine
Yeah. So what prompted you to write this story, Rebecca? What was your sort of starting point?

Rebecca
So, I mean, it was like a perfect storm of of things. So I've always been a writer. I've loved stories.

It's kind of my way of exploring questions I have or just s interesting individuals, how people interact, love, heartache, death, you know, things you try to work through. And writing has always been a way for me to sort of delve a little bit deeper into other worlds that aren't necessarily my own. So that that's sort of I've always loved that just since I was a child.

I've written short stories, longer stories. But at that time, um, we were at a time in our country and history when individual and group identity were becoming kind of sort of increasingly inseparable. And so that's sort of the backdrop and you know, I had been driving through Cabrini Green when I first moved here about thirty years ago.

And I sort of look back on that time and remembered how I felt at that moment, stopped at that crossroads and I was really fascinated by why why are these housing projects here? And how did they get here in the middle of the city? They're just a couple blocks from sort of luxury stores and residences of Michigan Avenue.

And so, you know, I had started to look into the history of Cabrini and learn that it had been Little Sicily. And so all these things came together where I I started to imagine well what was it like for these Sicilians who came over here and then how how did that crossover work when when we had the Great Migration and black Americans coming up and living in the same neighborhood with these Sicilians? Did they get along?

Was there racial strife? Was there cultural difference? How did that time go for in this country?

And and how could that possibly help us inform kind of lots of questions we have today? So that's how this whole story came to be. Um lots of research, lots of history, and sort of using characters to sort of tangle with a lot of the issues again that are enduring in this country.

We're an experiment, shall we say in in various groups coming together and how do we come together around a shared value system versus sort of an ethno state or a theocracy? So a big answer to a quick question.

Catherine
That's great. So th you said as we were ch chatting before this that actually your name kind of encapsulates some of that diversity. Do you want to tell us a bit about your sort of generational identity

Rebecca
history? Yeah, so interestingly my my own, I would say, DNA doesn't cross over a lot with those those in in the book itself. However I am from an incredibly, I would say, diverse background.

I have a a grandmother who was from Ireland, her family Irish, staunch Irish Catholic. She married a man at a time when it was sort of not not looked upon positively to she married a Jewish man, his family from from Poland, and then the other half of my family is Armenian. And my grandparents l left Turkey during genocide, a very difficult time.

Um my grandfather lost his family, so that part of the family tree sort of cut off My grandmother came here a little bit slightly later, but um again faced some very difficult times. So I have sort of this incredibly mixed identity, right? We have the Jewish part, we have the Catholic part, the Armenian Christian part, we have two genocides really in the roots.

The question really of of like genocide, right? A lot of times little groups say, well, you know, we are always the ones who are, you know, targeted or whatever. And it forced me because it's on kind of both sides to say, hey, maybe this maybe those types of things are more has to do with the human condition, more than one group in particular, right?

And what is our tendency there? How do we get there? Right, what are the stages to get there?

And I know there's a lot of academics who've studied that, but I wanted to study it from more of like a personal character standpoint. How do we get to the point where we other someone and dehumanize someone enough? that we end up with extermination.

Catherine
Yeah, yeah. As you were growing up, Rebecca, when did you first begin to kind of understand this diversity of your own family?

Rebecca
So interesting, right? So, you know, you you don't really know as a child, you know, it's just kind of in the ether, right? But as you grow older in society you start to hear th certain things, you know, you you start to understand a little bit better.

So My mom, I remember there sort of a bit of Jewish holidays worked in even though she was um Catholic, which was sort of strange to me, like, why are you talking about Passover? And then You know, we had sort of the Armenian side and there was a lot of silence on the Armenian side and it took me a while to understand what that was and I thought that was really interesting to me. There was a lot of struggle.

I felt for my grandmother. My grandfather passed a long time ago. I never met him, but how both sides sort of dealt with that very differently.

Um the Holocaust was studied in history and and through my middle school and high school. but the Armenian piece was never uh studied or discussed and that to me I didn't know if I f feel feel shame in that or confusion. So It was a very sort of interesting way as you grow up to sort of be introduced to your own heritage through the outside world.

And then how does that conform with what you've lived internally with your family and how they've dealt with their different pieces of their heritage.

Catherine
So I did not know until you said it just now that there had been an Armenian genocide.

Rebecca
Yeah, well I mean it's it's I'm not saying it's debated, but the word genocide's very loaded And there's many countries, you know, France, US, England, I think that recognize that there was a it was wartime and over a million Armenians perished. There was a march through the desert, right? So And, you know, you could say, well, that's just wartime or, you know, this particular group had intellectuals who were being seditious.

So there's there's a lot of narratives. I mean, we see this today. But the fact is that mass numbers of Armenians perished.

Again, I don't have my grandfather's side of the family. His his parents and his his siblings perished. So And he he got out, but it's difficult.

It's a difficult topic. There's a great movie called The Promise and there's o obviously lots of Benny Morris has um who's a historian that's pretty well recognized has studied the the genocide pretty carefully. So there's some great books.

Um and he's he's one of one of the thinkers that has studied this pretty carefully.

Catherine
Yeah. Gets a lot of people, isn't it? It's a huge number of people.

Rebecca
Yeah, yeah. For the and a percentage for the time. I mean, there's a lot of Armenians in Turkey.

I mean, now I don't think there's there's very few. I mean, it's very difficult to live together and you know, practice different religions and, you know, we we've gone through this over and over again. So anyway, that's that's on on both you know, both sides.

Catherine
Yeah, yeah. But I think I think it's it's germane to your point that you're saying, well, the the Armenian genocide was not talked about, particularly in your family and but the Jewish one you was kind of everywhere and I think just the fact that I'd not even known that it was a thing. Um

Rebecca
Right, right, right. And it wasn't talked about because it was much closer to home. You know, my grandfather's family on my Jewish side had come here earlier, yes, they had extended family, but he wasn't a direct, you know, he did not suffer in the Holocaust personally.

But my grandmother, my grandfather did, and I think when it's so close sometimes people do shut down. I mean later we were able to talk a bit about it and I have I found a Bible and her her letters in there are just absolutely incredible from when she was very young. So again, it's how we deal with trauma.

Some people, and that's in the book. What do people pass on? That's a choice, you know, and that's why our identities, our inherited identities.

that are passed down through narratives and stories are incredibly imperfect because the people who came before us choose how they want to frame things. Right? They choose what they want to tell and what they don't want to tell and how they talk about um their families, you know, grandpa was a war hero, you know, this group hates us.

So those things get passed down. And again, it's a question of what do you share, what do you hold back and how do you frame things.

Catherine
So where did you see the marks of trauma kind of in your own family? And you don't have to answer that question if that's not appropriate, but I wonder how did you see that kind of coming through the generations

Rebecca
Yeah, I mean that's that's interesting. I mean I've again it was more on the Armenian side. I mean, I would hear my my grandmother in her study crying when I was young.

I didn't know why. I and I don't know I don't know exactly what happened in her life and back in Turkey to have that happen and have those tears. My grandfather was a apparently a very quiet man, but again, he didn't have parents and his siblings and So I understand that why he was quiet and you know, this the stories of my dad telling me that he had a very gentle soul.

Um, so you you hear things, right? So I the trauma it was it was more about sort of a a gravity. Now my grandmother was an incredible woman.

She just loved America. And I think, you know, when you have people have gone through something like that. that they come out of it and if if you know America took them in.

And, you know, she went on, she didn't speak English when she came to here. Um she spoke, you know, Greek, she spoke Turkish, you know, she spoke uh various languages, Armenian, French. But she ended up she had a dream to go to Harvard and she went to their extension school in her late fifties.

and ended up getting her undergraduate degree, I think, when she was a little close to sixty years old. So she was a quite a remarkable story. So there's trauma, but there's also that motivation to sort of start anew that rebirth and that part of it is is something we've seen in this country over and over again.

People who sort of come from difficult situations, whether it's the Irish and famine and you know, y you can go back to every group was escaping something, even today. And how they choose to deal with that is very interesting. And the rebirth part of it and reinvention is is absolutely part of that.

Catherine
That's a really interesting observation that every group that went to the States was escaping something.

Rebecca
Yeah. And nowadays it's a little different, Kathy. I mean some people are, you know, with sort of this I don't know, the embracing of this multiculturalism and don't forget your past.

And that's that's again in the ether. You know, there's there's two sides to that because some people do want to let go and start over, right? And others do want to sort of hold on to their flag, hold on to their heritage.

and somehow sometimes glorify it, right? Like they did leave something for a reason, but yet they don't want to leave the good parts behind. The culture, the foods, the family, the that feeling of being grounded and rooted.

And I think you understand why people hold on to that 'cause it's very scary to start over. It's scary to start with no roots and not have that grounding in a common, whether it's language or culture. So you you can see why people kind of respond in various ways.

Catherine
Yeah, absolutely. I'm not sure you can start with no roots. you c which I which is interesting 'cause I think you see that pattern m in your book, 'cause your central character is even your description of her very post Chicago flat. I I imagine as I was reading it this very kind of quite quite stark, quite bare, sort of incredibly opulent but but bare sort of flat with this incredible view. And yep she is not rootless

Rebecca
No, not at all. Not at all. It's very in fact, you know, she chose to put all that behind her and create this world for herself that is It's definitely a l a luxurious world, but it's through her hard work.

But yes, very cleansed. It's very cleansed of the past. It's this world of I think in the beginning it's marble and white you know, it's this sort of sta stainless steel and marble, this very pristine environment very luxurious.

Her view only view right is she has the she has the lake and then her office is, you know, the Chicago skyline. So there isn't there isn't that grounding and it's both literal and figurative. I mean, she's way up.

She's got a penthouse, right? So she's not literally grounded, right? She's chooses to live and work in the clouds, right?

And that is kind of you know, referenced um a little bit, but but I think you m you make a really good point that, you know, she is she she tries. She tries to to disconnect, which a lot of people do. They need to put that old neighborhood behind the ways behind, if they come from a a culture or group that is either struggling or there's a criminal element or whatever it is, a lot of people, you know, do try to sort of physically and emotionally separate.

So her situation's a little more complicated, but it's endemic to what a lot of people do do.

Catherine
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. There are huge gifts for her, aren't there? in reconnecting with all of those really quite diverse roots. And I I'm wondering what what you would feel for you have been the gifts of your various heritage.

Rebecca
Yeah, so in terms of of the main character and then into and back to me, I mean I think, you know, for her there was an event that sort of forced her to say, forget it. I have to just put all that behind me and s start over, just what we were talking about. But she she does it at a little younger age and she I call it uses college as a time to explore what she really believes and She comes out of college saying, Okay, my communities really don't matter and I'm going to move forward really without religion even though she grew up in an Italian Catholic environment very rich and I need to move forward without that.

And that was first of survival in many ways. And also because she'd been abandoned in some ways by those who really should have been there for her in a way. So that's that's the character.

Um, and she did it more for survival. Um, how I tied that back to my own roots. I mean I I I enjoy learning about them.

There's a gravitas to it. There's a a gratefulness to the country because of it, because they did take in my family. But there's also a humility in that.

I think it's interesting that a lot of times we tend to to wear the heritage the history, ancestral history as it's definitely part of our identity, but some people they carry it with them as this victimization of themselves currently. And I am I do not have that. I benefited from it in many ways.

And that there's a guilt there as well. But I by no means can relate to my great-grandparents and what they went through. I cannot say I was a victim of a genocide by any means, personally.

In fact, like I said getting to this kind if it hadn't happened, I wouldn't be here. And I think there's that sort of tension too, right, of how we use our identities and how much of it we can claim honestly and earnestly you know, discrimination does, you know, pass down from generations. So I'm not sort of discounting that piece of sort of American history for sure.

But when you're talking about me personally, I think it's my duty and honor to to study it, to understand it as best I can. But from there I I don't wear that as as an id as part of a part of me as a victim personally.

Catherine
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You said that you know you'd written this and then there'd been a pause and you said, no, this needs to this needs to get out there. And I I'm wondering what it is about your book that you feel speaks to this present moment.

Rebecca
Yeah. Um I mean the book is is is you know it's very nuanced. It's complex.

People are dealing with incredibly difficult issues. And I think you know, to this particular moment. It deals it deals with identity quite a bit.

And 2020 in this country, you know, we had sort of a a a reckoning, racial reckoning of sorts where, you know, there's a lot of conversations about identity and what it is in this country. And this book at that time it would have been difficult bec as part of the conversation. Now it it it sits in the middle of a of a conversation we're still having that's a little broader, as all sorts of talk about, and I know this in Europe as well, is about immigration.

And Does that change the nature of a country? And what are the obligations of people coming to a country? Is it to assimilate?

Is it to retain your culture? So A lot of those questions come up in the book, those tensions, you know, this sort of individual versus group identity. So, you know, now is a time where we are continuing to have this conversation on a national level.

But what is it and even what is it to be an American, right? And like we talked about in the beginning of this of this podcast, it was two hundred years in, pretty young. You know, can we really yeah, can we coalesce around a value system that really is rooted in this radical idea that all men are created equal?

Right? Can we can we do that? Can we come together?

What are we coming together around? What are the shared values? Right?

That's a real question right now. 'Cause people have different ideas of what the country is and should be.

Catherine
Yeah, it's hugely, hugely contested, isn't it?

Rebecca
Yes. And how much of your identity can you retain? I mean we have to speak a common language to get along. We have to have a carn cur common currency. So there are certain things that if you share in a culture, you have to s you have to sort of give up perhaps a little bit as well

Catherine
I really enjoyed the book. I enjoyed the complexity of the story and that sort of multi-generational thing was quite fun, you know, sort of following all of these different people. And I I think one of the things that really struck me through that story, and stories are so powerful, aren't they?

Was this sort of contesting with kind of trauma. So all of those groups, I think it it's interesting. All of the different groups of people within that book are coming from really quite difficult background and also and also managing poverty.

And I wonder what I wonder what part you feel poverty plays in terms of shaping of identity.

Rebecca
Oh, that's really interesting. I mean, uh there is that as an undercurrent within the book, especially early early on, not not so much later, but the early generations who came here and what they had to sort of endure. And I, you know, it sh it does shape you, I think, for the first generation coming up from the sh the sugar cane, from the plantations, the Sicilians, and then we have the black American migration.

They're just sort of trying to to make it here. And I think we look back at the poverty, but we also see that they there was a real strong sense of community And we're in this together, we're doing this together, strong reliance on the church. I mean, it's not really talked about as much, a little bit in the book, but You know, today we say, oh, everybody's relying on the welfare system, whatever.

But you know, back then the churches were a huge support. People lined up for their dole. That was part of how you you made it.

Right. You relied on each other. There was these strong pockets of ethnic groups or even, you know, socioeconomic groups that had to rely on one another So you see that.

You even see that through to Cabrini Green, where you you come together in a shared experience and you you share sustenance every day, as I said. So it's not just bar borrowing some sugar once in a while. It's sort of a lived time together where you raise each other's children and you know when someone's a little short you step in.

So that sense of togetherness, I think, was was more a part of it You know, we can talk about gangs today, but I mean that's that's just an alternative economy. I mean, you do see that when people are struggling, how they try to find find their way.

Catherine
Yeah, when people have limited choices, then it becomes more complicated, doesn't it? I and I I was just as you were talking, I was just reflecting that actually if you're living in a penthouse suite in the clouds and you've got plenty of money, then the need to get sustenance from your neighbours just disappears, doesn't it?

Rebecca
Oh, absolutely. You become very atomized and isolated in some ways. Right.

You don't need to go knock on the door, the the the house next door or the door next door. You don't. You're just completely self-sufficient. Um and we see that a lot today.

We people don't even know their neighbors. They just, you know, depending on the communities you live, but I know that in the city for sure. Even where I live, I mean it's you know, people aren't they they kind of keep to themselves, so

Catherine
you're not often borrowing sugar.

Rebecca
No. No. And there's there's something to that, you know. where our country's been in a really good place for a long time as well. So we haven't had sort of the external strife of a world war or things that put other sort of outside pressures, not even what your own economy can give to you. But obviously you'll s you see throughout the book how events bring people together and put stresses on society.

Catherine
So faith Faith and spirituality and actually church communities sort of gets referenced in your book quite a bit, both from a positive perspective but also from a more challenging one. I I think I think one of the things that you do very well in the book actually is that There is no shying away from the complexity of all of these things. And I'm I'm wondering in what ways faith and spirituality has shaped you and what part of that place in your life.

Rebecca
Oh that's a great question. So yes, and uh first reference the book um and then bring it back to me. But yes, in the book you see, you know, faith.

Is it provides a it provides a moral framework for a lot of people. Um and you know, we have the Catholic side in the book, we have the nation of Islam. And we have sort of within those communities sort of extremes of of of how how the doctrine, you know, really influences an individual's life and how clearly they're they're going whether they're going to adhere to it to an extreme or how they interpret how they interpret that in their own lives and using faith sometimes in a way that maybe either wasn't intended or is sort of interpreted for their for their own life and the confusion around that as well.

Um So, you know, in my in my own life I would say, like I said, I do have this sort of Jewish background, but I wasn't raised Jewish, but I'm aware that it's there. I have a Catholic side, which is different than the Armenian Christian side as well. So, you know, as I've grown older, you know, I've had to sort of explore all sides of that and where I want to sort of personally come out and that's to me as you probably saw from the writing, everything to me is it's a journey.

And people use that word all the time now, but I would truly say that with faith it is And that, you know, you have to sort of examine where it fits in your life. For a very long time I pushed faith aside entirely. It did not comport with my values as a race that's sort of Randian individualism and which does not r leave room for faith at all.

And then as as you grow older and you start to really examine your life and your purpose in the world and things later, yeah, I'm open to exploring a lot and have have done that. Um, I don't need to get into that here as much, but you even see scientists, they get to a certain point where they can explain something. And we are seeing that a lot nowadays, right?

Like No one still can recreate life, right? Just like a cell, like right, down to the base not life meeting a child. I mean down to the basics, right?

And so Sometimes even scientists reach this point where they say, I just have to look for something. There's something greater, right? Even Einstein said there is something greater.

So I think we all go through that. And where we end up is probably different for everybody

Catherine
Yeah. I think lots of people would relate to that sense of of journey. I was really struck while you were talking about that you portray quite well that that sort of doctrine versus people kind of kind of thing.

Because obviously there are people trying to make decisions about um this young girl's life based on kind of a community sort of doctrine about what ought to happen. And you can just, as a reader, you can just feel the cruelty of that actually. While still seeing absolutely why those values would be held.

Uh I mean there were points where I really you kind of just wanted to sit these people down to have a conversation with one another. Could you just hear each other? Um can you listen to the people in the middle of this?

Yeah.

Rebecca
Yeah. No, because they're all going through their own sort of they're trying to figure out what they believe too and the main character sort of becomes unf unfortunately the the outlet for a lot of that struggle because she represents so much and what she goes through and the decisions that other people like you said are making for her based on whether it's faith or community expectations and what they believe is right and should be right. Um, and we see that in society today. There's a lot of judgment of what people should do and individuals should do, a lot of shaming, a lot of community expectations and seeing people more as part of a group instead of as an individual, um, grappling with very deep personal issues that are impacted by many things, not just a race or ethnicity or religion. So she's not she's not really seen as an individual.

Catherine
Yeah, absolutely. And actually we to make wise decisions, y you know, you do need to hear who somebody is. You know, you need something that's coming out of um a love that actually sees what's going on for someone before yeah, before it's possible, I think, to understand. Um and and obviously the main character and this girl who she ends up spending quite a lot of time with, you know You can absolutely see how that would be viewed by people f from outside, but actually we've had the honour as readers of kind of following that story really closely and understanding in more detail where people are at

Rebecca
Right. And her character makes it incredibly complex. It's not what it seems on the outside.

Um, but she also can't reveal that. So we do come with our ideas of what's family formation, what's the right thing to do? Who who has a right to form this type of family or that type of family?

And like just going back to this sort of broader picture of just bringing all these threads together, you know, is this interesting moment in the and, you know, readers will reflect on it later, but we have this from a theoretical standpoint, we have sort of this Randian individualist idea versus someone else who also came out of the sort of Russian system who was Solzhenitsyn, and we see his speech And and that's in 1978. But this there's this idea of the letter of the law versus the spirit of the law. And so right, so what might be right according to what you can do doesn't necessarily mean what someone should do or should do for their relationship or their family and We see that over and over again where someone's trying to adhere to a value system, right?

So strictly. But then it when you see it in the human situation related to an individual. Maybe the right thing i is different.

And I think that's a struggle we all sort of manage on a day-to-day basis, is sort of living within these theoretical frameworks when they meet real life.

Catherine
Yeah. Yeah. As as a as a Christian, it for me it's sort of summed up in the kind of a living by the spirit and not by the law.

Paul in Galatians talks about the the spirit the fruit of the spirit being love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, self-control. And that sense that that if you're guided by what is going to bring more love, joy, peace, patience, you know, what's going to what is going to nurture people Um, it's probably gonna be the right way to to go. Yeah, and people get very mangled, don't they?

When that's not the way that things are things are seen. Yeah.

Rebecca
It's difficult. Yeah. Yeah. Very nuanced.

Catherine
Yeah. So I I would say absolutely well done for having written a book that kind of That is that sort of brings all of that, brings all of that nuance. There's quite a bit of sort of philosophy in the midst of it and you have you've referenced Rand and Solzhenitsyn. And do you want to just give us a bit of a flavor of Who was Rand and what would that what would that kind of philosophy be as opposed to Solzhenitsyn, a little

Rebecca
Yeah, and I I'm gonna I'm gonna k would be caveat. I mean there's a whole, you know, in the Ayn Rand Institute and, you know, objectivism is well studied and I would not call myself a a scholar, so I do understand her ideas as as anybody who's read her works, Virtue of Selfishness, I think, was one of her works that really sort of outlined her position on most everything. Well and her works on objectivism, but in her novels of course.

So, you know, from a Randian perspective, there is this deep regard for for the individual. and not sacrificing the individual for the lar for the group. And w what's interesting about that though, is that she sees in racism as the lowest form of collectivism and the easiest way to group others.

And so, you know, just reading about her writings on race and how clear they are is is really something. And so, you know, you have this this grounding of the main character and something that is, you know, does cross over many, you know, different different viewpoints, right? And people will say, I don't I'm not a Randian.

Well, you probably would agree with her on on some of that. Right? On how we gro group others and judge others.

So but then you have sort of this old distant side, which is individualism can go too far where you have this freedom with no responsibility. And there's nothing higher than man and anything is possible, right? And there's this moral depravity, uh depravity that can come from that.

So you know, that's that's what his nineteenth sort seventy eight speech called The World Split Apart he gave at Harvard was was a lot about that. And so you do have this tension of these two philosophers that sort of they're I don't call them philosophers, two people came out of this Russian system, Soviet system. of communism.

You and that comes from dehumanization. We're just we're just part of a larger project, a collective. And so if one drops off, we still have the group, right?

And that, you know, so they both came out of that but came out differently in their views. And I wouldn't say they're they're on opposite sides by any means, but I would say that Sol Janitsyn brings that sort of like we talked about, that framework of something greater than you and that that brings in allows you to have a shared humanity and and and feelings for others rather than this sort of lack of empathy that can come from a pure Randian approach to life where you know, it's just a A equals A. It's all for the trade, right?

Catherine
Yeah. And have these two philosophers been influential to you?

Rebecca
I would I would definitely say yes. Again, I wouldn't say that I'm a a scholar of either, um, an academic in an academic sense. But I would say that their works and writings have influenced how I've seen things in a much more nuanced way.

It's the humanism, it's the empathy um it's the shared humanity that is the middle ground. And I think the opposite of that where this of of sort of this communist ideal is also inc is incredibly dangerous. I mean at one time I d did this whole circle map of sort of the extremes of both sides end up in in mass death.

That's really sort of the extreme individualist where I'm out for myself at all costs. And that's sort of what we're dealing with with AI questions, right? Like if this computer sort of operates with no empathy, it might sort of I mean that's what these sort of dystopian conversations are about right now will end in mass death, right?

That's what these these tech guys are saying, right? That's the extreme rant, right? w you know, where someone like a soldier needs him will come in.

And he talks about a lot of things. He talks about the lack of courage in the West because we have sort of this material prosperity and that, you know, we just want to keep our comfort so we're afraid. And you you know, we saw that a lot.

sort of in the last, you know, decades with, you know, people being afraid of being cancelled and afraid of losing XYZ and then I, you know Whenever I get afraid, is my gosh, I think of my my family and what they had to escape and that was, you know, it was life or death versus okay, someone someone might be get canceled, right? So, you know, your threshold for enduring pain and risk, um, the more comfortable you are materially, um, decreases substantially. So that that's part of what he he spoke of as well.

I mean that speech I think is needs to be re read and reread over and over. H. L. P talks about this sort of herd mass thinking um that happens in academia and among intellectuals in the media. So he he foresaw that long before these conversations were, you know, happening and and we were kind of realizing what was happening in those in that way.

That kind of herd mentality. So

Catherine
if somebody wanted to go and read that, where would they find it? So it's Soldiernit since nineteen seventy eight

Rebecca
Yes, it's called A World Split Apart. It's a speech he gave at Harvard, and I think it it at the time it just alarmed everyone. If you were an atheist, if you were you know, if you were a liberal, if you were a repo d Democra i everyone was just alarmed because they thought this guy was gonna come, this guy who survived the gulag and wrote this book through in his brain while he was in the you know, uh in the prison, you know, so he survived the Soviet ghoul and they thought he was gonna come and give this peach speech in nineteen seventy eight just praising the West.

You know, everyone was excited. And then instead he said, I wouldn't use you as a model. No. And these are the reasons why.

And so I mean it's it's but it's it's a it's a really he has a gravitas to him and you know what he went through and just his thinking and He was incredibly prescient about a lot of the issues that we are facing today and talking about today.

Catherine
Yeah. Wonderful. And if people would like to get hold of your book, do you want to tell us what it's called and where they might find it?

Rebecca
Yes, it's called Crossing Division Street. Um you can find it on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, uh, bookshop. org, perhaps your indie bookstore if you're in the States.

More information is uh crossingdivisionstreet. com, pretty easy. And if you're on Instagram at Crossing Division Street, we have some great reels and trailers and some sketches of of what I envision the characters to be.

I don't want to ruin ruin it for those who think they have an idea of what the characters look like, but sometimes you need to bring it to life a little for those who haven't read the book yet.

Catherine
Wonderful. Well thank you so much, Rebecca. That's been a really good conversation.

Rebecca
Well, thank you. Thank you for your time. I appreciate it.

Catherine
Thank you for yours. Hope you enjoyed this episode of the Loved Called Gifted podcast. If you'd like to get in touch, you can email lovedcalledgifted at gmail.

com. You can find a transcript of this podcast at lovedcalledgifted. com and that's also the place to go if you're interested in the Loved Called Gifted course or if you'd like to find out about spiritual direction or coaching.

Thank you for listening.