Yogi Hendlin (Part 1) - Shifting Individual & Corporate Values: Acknowledging Our Sensitivity & Interconnectedness in an Age of Corporate Malfeasance & Forever Chemicals

Ep. 128 (Part 1 of 2) | Environmental philosopher, public health scientist, and corporate malfeasance researcher Dr. Yogi Hendlin is dedicated to understanding, communicating, and addressing the psychological, social, political, and economic barriers that keep us from treading a solid path toward sustainability. One of the areas Yogi is extremely knowledgeable about is the dynamics and drivers of corporate decision making. An underlying belief that the planet is indestructible makes it okay to prioritize profit above global health, or companies may find themselves in a double bind where they would actually prefer to be more strictly regulated but that would mean corporate suicide unless their entire industry was regulated. Interestingly, Yogi has found that learned helplessness operates at all levels of power in inverse relation to actual power and responsibility, citing how some of the most powerful people in the world are saying, “What can I do?” when Indigenous groups with very few resources find ways to thrive in a sustainable way.

Yogi points out that changing the world is not an event but a process—and delves into how we can make real changes to get off the destructive path we are on, overshooting the limits of our biosphere on every metric. We can create circuit breakers for our habitual, counterproductive routines, we can cultivate skillful communication that allows our defense mechanisms to drop away, we can recognize our fundamental need for community and connection, and we can use spiritual practice and psychedelics to help us regain a sense of wonder and reverence for life. Yogi believes that decolonization and creating ecologies of discourse that reward honesty, vulnerability, admitting mistakes, and asking for help is the way forward. This is an earnest, thought provoking, heartfelt, and inspiring discussion of the way things are, the barriers to change, and hope for the future. Recorded January 11, 2024.

“We live disconnected from each other because we don’t need each other.”

(For Apple Podcast users, click here to view the complete show notes on the episode page.)

Topics & Time Stamps – Part 1

• Introducing environmental philosopher, public health scientist, professor & corporate malfeasance researcher, Dr. Yogi Hendlin (01:05)
• Yogi has coined the term “chemical anthropocene” in reference to the indelible legacy we have created in changing the composition of the earth’s chemistry (and our bodies) (02:18)
• “Forever chemicals” bioaccumulate in our systems and persist up to 7 generations (04:18)
• Humans are already bearing a toxic load, and we’re creating a path dependency of toxicity for future generations (06:09)
• How can we evolve collectively to respond effectively? (07:51)
• All day, we are called into being in different ways, some very tension inducing, and we have erected barriers to our unmediated appreciation of the world in response to these demands (12:12)
• We can practice different ways of attending (i.e. fasting from media, eating, work, routine) that act as circuit breakers to our culture’s destructive habits (13:57)
• The age-old separation between understanding the world through analysis and understanding reality by becoming part of the mindset of the other (15:20)
• Being open to novelty (apophatic) while also reaffirming the knowledge we already have (cataphatic): the rise of LGBTQ, for example (17:37)
• Does the “arc of the moral universe bend towards justice”? (19:08)
• The fate of the world is not independent from our actions (23:17)
• Decolonization is the way forward and Yogi’s upcoming book, Industrial Pandemics (26:23)
• Game theory and the double bind: it would be suicide for many companies to do what is best for all (30:00)
• We are currently engaged in what is essentially a global arms race that is destroying and undermining the basis of life on earth (33:29)
• Wherein lies the hope? Shifting perspectives, ecodelics (34:53)
• How learned helplessness operates at all levels of power in inverse relation to actual power and responsibility (35:59)
• We live disconnected from each other because we don’t need each other (38:07)
• Meaning making is a participatory event; connecting with and serving community is the fastest way out of depression (39:56)

Resources & References – Part 1

• Yogi Hendlin’s website: https://www.yogihendlin.com/
• Yogi Hendlin, Assistant Professor, Erasmus School of Philosophy; Core Faculty, Dynamics of Inclusive Prosperity Initiative, Erasmus University, Rotterdam; Research Associate, Environmental Health Initiative, University of California, San Francisco
• Yogi Hendlin, editor-in-chief, Biosemiotics
• Johan Rockström et al., A Safe Operating Space for Humanity 
• The Haber process is the main industrial procedure for the production of ammonia by converting atmospheric nitrogen into ammonia
• The debate between Erklären and Verstehen 
• The Fusion of Horizons (Steve Thomason YouTube video, simple representation of the concept of joined horizons)
• Hans-Georg Gadamer, Truth and Method* (on the joining of horizons)
• Iain McGilchrist, The Master and His Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World*
• Pauline Kleingeld, Kant and Cosmopolitanism: The Philosophical Ideal Of World Citizenship*
• Douglas Rushkoff, Team Human*
• Cory Doctorow, The Internet Con: How to Seize the Means of Computation*
• Gregory Bateson et al.’s double bind theory
• Richard Doyle, Darwin’s Pharmacy: Sex, Plants, and the Evolution of the Noosphere*
• Charles Eisenstein, The Turning of the Age

* As an Amazon Associate, Deep Transformation earns from qualifying purchases.

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Yogi Hale Hendlin is a professor in environmental philosophy and public health at Erasmus University Rotterdam and the University of California, San Francisco. Editor-in-Chief of the journal Biosemiotics, Yogi’s work explores the various ways in which industrialization has supercharged the illusion of separation and control as viable solutions, and instead harkens to the various ways traditional peoples have developed cultural practices from ecologies conducive to integral communities.

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Podcast produced by Vanessa Santos and Show Notes by Heidi Mitchell