1:55

and

2:00

what it means to be a good partner.

2:02

I never actually knew that this was based on a

2:04

book. I thought it was just something that started appearing

2:07

in framed posters in Airbnb's,

2:10

starting in like 2015. There are some

2:12

other really good elements

2:15

within this book. Chapman uses the

2:17

love language idea

2:19

to discuss how love is not just

2:21

like a magical feeling, but something

2:23

that requires effort to maintain.

2:26

He says that being loved gives us a

2:28

sense of purpose and makes us feel valued

2:31

and significant, which I do,

2:34

just for the purposes of our canon,

2:37

want to point out is also what Fukuyama said

2:39

about liberal democracy.

2:41

He's got the thymus section

2:43

of the poster up in all the Airbnb's. Just

2:45

trying to connect as many threads as I can through

2:48

our episodes. He also has some good real estate

2:50

investing advice in the last week's show.

2:54

The book has sold over 15 million

2:56

copies. It was originally

2:58

published in 1992 and was

3:01

fairly popular, but actually took

3:03

off in the late aughts and early

3:05

2010s. An updated

3:08

version is published in 2015, which

3:11

is important because I

3:13

read the updated version and then

3:15

I went back and read through

3:17

the original version. And several

3:19

of my friends, like you, when

3:22

I told them I was doing the book for the show, they

3:24

said they didn't think the book was too bad and they thought

3:27

the ideas were good. And what I said to them

3:29

was,

3:30

I bet you read the 2015 version. Oh,

3:33

so it's like the misogyny

3:36

minus version. Like they cleaned

3:38

it up for the hashtag blessed crowd.

3:40

Now, interestingly, the main way the

3:42

love languages concept has been like absorbed

3:45

by our popular culture is as

3:47

like a self-directed personality

3:49

test, right? People love

3:51

to describe their own love languages. It's

3:54

functionally a meme now where people just tweet

3:56

like, having a giant laundry

3:58

pile I never put away is my love. language. I think

4:01

it's important to note that like that's not what Chapman

4:03

was trying to get across. He wanted people

4:05

to understand their partners

4:07

love language so that you can learn how to

4:10

make them feel appreciated. So

4:12

our culture has sort of done a classic

4:15

American culture thing

4:16

of taking something and repackaging

4:19

it and it's like shallowest and

4:21

most selfish iteration. It's supposed

4:23

to be how to be nice and it ends up being how other

4:25

people can be nice to me. Yes. Right.

4:28

No, I want gifts. I want gifts. So

4:32

when you did men are from Mars, you got

4:35

suspicious of John Gray's credentials halfway

4:38

through the book and you started digging around

4:40

and found out that his PhD is pretty

4:42

much fraudulent. Gary Chapman

4:44

does not put PhD on the cover,

4:47

but he holds himself out as

4:49

Gary Chapman PhD.

4:50

And I was like, okay, you know, fool us once. Right.

4:53

As of now, there is a zero tolerance

4:55

environment for marriage counselor authors

4:58

on this podcast. His PhD

5:01

is real. Okay. He got his master's and

5:03

PhD in religious education from

5:05

Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary,

5:08

as well as a master's in anthropology

5:11

from Wake Forest. One of those

5:13

sounds real. Yeah. Look, I

5:15

didn't want to get into the merits of seminary

5:18

schools, but suffice it to say

5:20

that we are treading in more legitimate

5:22

waters than we were with Gray. So

5:24

Gary Chapman is a pastor, essentially.

5:27

He's coming to this from religious angle. He

5:29

is a pastor and yeah, it's important

5:32

framing because again, the

5:34

core concept of this book, I think

5:37

is quite good. The actual

5:39

book sucks. That's

5:42

basically what we're going to talk about. Before

5:45

we get into the substance of the book, I think it would be

5:47

useful at this point in our podcast

5:50

to talk about the hallmarks

5:53

of like shitty, bestselling self-help.

5:55

We need like five rules of the

5:58

five types of bestselling. books and

6:00

then write a best-selling book about it. Yes. So

6:04

I think like first and foremost, a

6:06

lack of science, a thesis

6:08

that is presented as if it is scientific,

6:10

when in fact there is absolutely

6:12

no science being done. So

6:14

is this five love languages thing just like something

6:16

he fully made up? Yes. He

6:18

is pretty explicit about that. He basically

6:21

says, you know, I was talking to couples over

6:24

the course of my counseling career and I

6:26

sort of formulated this concept.

6:29

So there's no it's not predicated

6:31

in any real science. There's no like psychology

6:34

hiding somewhere behind it or something.

6:37

He just sort of vibed this out. This also makes it

6:39

harder to debunk because he's

6:40

not citing any studies.

6:43

He's just like saying stuff. The sad

6:45

truth of this is that had he

6:48

relied on some science and cited

6:50

it, we would now be like pulling apart

6:52

his application of that science and explaining

6:55

why it's so stupid. But

6:57

you can't incorrectly cite

7:00

scientific research when you're

7:02

not citing scientific research.

7:04

I'm tapping my head right now like the gif of that dude.

7:08

Chapman like hints at science like

7:10

he'll occasionally say things like psychology

7:13

supports this. Like psychological research supports

7:15

it. And you're like, oh, great.

7:17

And then you look back at the notes like

7:19

the footnotes of the book. There are four

7:22

and three of them are to the Bible. No way.

7:24

What's the fourth one to? The fourth

7:26

one is just to an article on a website by

7:28

someone named Kelly Flanagan titled Why

7:31

One Text Message is More Romantic Than 100 Valentine

7:34

Cards.

7:34

What? I

7:37

would like to see Kelly Flanagan's footnotes,

7:40

please. It's that

7:41

Proverbs and Luke twice. So

7:45

quality number two of the bestselling

7:48

self-help book, it's presented as a cure.

7:50

All yes, there's no nuance. It's not like

7:53

this is a useful thing to keep in mind. It's

7:55

like here is how to fix your relationship

7:58

flat out period.

7:59

And like this is the. one thing you need to

8:01

know to solve every single relationship

8:03

problem. This is what John Gray was doing too. Number three,

8:06

filler. A book that is like 200

8:09

pages long when you can get the entire

8:11

message from the back cover. That is like

8:13

quintessential self help, right? Now

8:15

a big reason that these books get popular

8:18

is the simplicity of the central concept,

8:20

right? Which generally means that you're

8:22

going to need filler. Something I forgot

8:25

to mention in our Rich Dad,

8:26

Poor Dad episode was that he

8:28

includes an entire Robert Frost

8:31

poem to start to

8:33

finish because it takes up like

8:35

a page and a half. The tactics that these people

8:38

use to take up space are incredible. So

8:40

first you have like the chapters themselves, which

8:43

I'll start with an anecdote that

8:45

is very repetitive. A couple comes in

8:47

and they're like, we don't get along anymore. And

8:49

Chapman is like, what if you spoke

8:52

each other's love languages? And they're like, whoa,

8:55

you saved our marriage. And then he

8:57

like extrapolates a bit. End of

8:59

chapter. Now, if you remember in like the secret,

9:02

the last 40 pages were like biographies

9:05

of the contributors for

9:07

this book. The last 30 pages

9:09

are FAQs and a love language

9:12

quiz. Hell yeah. You also at the end of

9:14

each chapter, there's like a little

9:17

listicle summary of the advice the

9:19

chapter contained. Man, he couldn't even do that

9:21

with the footnotes,

9:21

though. He couldn't add some extra links to

9:23

Huff Post. I

9:26

didn't realize how funny the footnotes were until you asked what

9:29

the other footnotes was. I

9:32

think the last feature of the

9:34

best selling self-help book is

9:37

not actually within the book. It's the

9:39

cash grab spinoffs. Is there like

9:41

love languages for kids? Yes, there

9:43

is. And like love languages for her, love

9:45

languages for him. You've got the

9:48

five love languages of children, the five love

9:50

languages, Singles Edition, the five love languages

9:52

of

9:52

teenagers, the five love languages for

9:54

men. There is no for women. The

9:59

five love language.

9:59

is military edition. Okay.

10:02

Teens guide to the five love languages.

10:05

Now you might think

10:07

that's duplicative, but the five

10:09

love languages of teenagers is for

10:11

parents to understand teenagers. The

10:13

teens guide to the five love languages is

10:15

for teens. And there is also,

10:17

I forgot to mention, my apologies, the

10:19

five love languages of God. Oh,

10:22

okay. Now that one I actually

10:24

read a little bit because I was like, what

10:26

does he mean by giving gifts to God?

10:29

Talking about human sacrifice, that's what I was wondering.

10:31

But no, it's actually like God

10:34

is speaking the love language, so it's like God is giving you

10:36

gifts.

10:36

But then isn't God's number one love

10:38

language retribution? If

10:41

you actually read the Bible. All

10:44

right, I think it is time to dive into

10:46

the book.

10:47

The opening little vignette takes place

10:49

on an airplane. He is seated next to a man who turns

10:51

to him and says, what kind of work do you

10:54

do?

10:54

And Chapman says, I do marriage counseling

10:57

and lead marriage enrichment seminars. And

11:00

the guy goes, I've been wanting to ask

11:02

them on this for a long time. What

11:04

happens to love after you get married?

11:07

Chapman's like, well, what do you mean? And the guy goes,

11:09

I've been married three times. And each

11:11

time it was wonderful before we got married,

11:14

but somehow after the wedding,

11:16

it fell apart. All the love

11:18

I thought I had for her and the love she seemed to have

11:20

for me evaporated. He then walks

11:23

Chapman through his three marriages. He

11:26

says, in the first one, we had

11:28

three or four good years before the baby came after

11:30

the baby was born. I felt like she gave her attention to

11:32

the baby and I no longer mattered.

11:35

He talked about the second marriage, which was

11:38

following a sixth month dating

11:40

period. Then they split.

11:42

Then the third marriage, he dates her for longer,

11:45

but he just says, you know, she became a negative

11:47

person after a bit and I began to resent

11:49

her and we broke up. See

11:50

if she had this on her hinge profile,

11:53

he would have known what he was gonna do. Then

11:56

he turns to Gary Chapman

11:58

and says, so my question is, is, what

12:00

happens to love after the wedding? Is my

12:03

experience common?

12:04

Is that why we have so many divorces in our country?

12:07

And those who don't divorce, do they learn to live with

12:09

the emptiness or does love really stay alive

12:11

in some marriages? If so,

12:14

how?

12:15

This is quintessential Gary

12:17

Chapman dialogue,

12:18

just the most like transparent exposition

12:21

you can imagine. Yeah, yeah, yeah. If so, how?

12:24

What's with the divorce rate in this country, Gary?

12:26

Can you lay out the premise of your work

12:28

for me, please? Right. Are there

12:30

languages of love, Gary? Would you

12:32

say so? This is every scene in

12:35

the first half of Tenet.

12:36

Can you just explain, syntactically

12:39

to me, what the fuck is going on right now? So he

12:41

uses that little question as

12:43

the sort of prompt for the book. And

12:45

then he sort of makes his way to the love languages

12:47

themselves. The first love

12:50

language, words of affirmation. And

12:52

we start the chapter like almost all of his chapters

12:55

with a wife asking for help. She

12:57

says that she's been asking her husband

12:59

to paint the bedroom for nine months to

13:02

no avail. Has she tried a different

13:04

modal verb?

13:06

No matter how she asks him,

13:08

she says, no matter when he doesn't do

13:10

it. Now, what Chapman advises

13:13

is don't ever mention painting

13:15

the bedroom again.

13:16

And instead start complimenting on

13:19

the things he does do in

13:21

the hope that these words of affirmation

13:23

will motivate him to paint the bedroom.

13:26

In Metaphor Mars, like you were hinting at,

13:29

the author talked about using the term would

13:31

you instead of could you when asking

13:33

your husband for a favor. And now we have

13:36

Chapman saying,

13:37

stop asking, start

13:39

giving him compliments for other

13:41

housework he did. At the end of

13:43

the day, how many psychological tricks are

13:46

we as a society prepared to deploy

13:49

to get these guys to do their chores?

13:51

This actually came up a lot in men

13:53

are from Mars, women are from Venus, this idea that

13:56

as soon as you stop asking him to do

13:58

things, he will spontaneous.

13:59

do them for you, which seems

14:02

just totally wrong to me.

14:04

Because if all you're doing

14:06

is being nice to me, how would

14:08

I even know that you want me to paint the

14:10

bedroom? I'm trying to think of something that would work less on

14:12

me than just never asking me. I would immediately be

14:15

like, oh, she doesn't care anymore. Yeah, exactly what I would do. I

14:17

just didn't do anything and then she dropped it, awesome. It

14:19

seems to me like it's a

14:21

way

14:22

of just redirecting the fact

14:24

that you're annoyed that you're being

14:26

nagged about it and trying

14:29

to turn it into like, well, I would do

14:31

it if you weren't nagging.

14:32

Exactly, which I don't think is actually true.

14:35

I think you just don't want to do it and you're too chicken

14:37

shit to either nut up

14:39

and do it or launch a negotiation

14:42

of like, I don't want to do this for these reasons. Right,

14:44

exactly. It's like, well, if you were different, I would have done it

14:46

by now. What you mean to say is

14:48

I don't want to do this and also

14:51

I don't want to be bothered about not doing

14:53

it. So there is some good

14:55

advice for couples in here, compiling

14:58

lists of your partner's positive traits and

15:01

then using them as a reminder to give

15:03

affirming compliments. I thought that was a nice little

15:05

suggestion. Then he has

15:08

one particular couple who

15:10

is struggling, make their lists

15:12

and I'm going to send them to you. Okay, Andrea's

15:15

list looked like this. He

15:17

is aggressive in his work. He has received

15:19

several promotions through the years. He's

15:21

a good financial manager. He's always

15:24

thinking

15:24

of ways to improve his productivity. He's

15:26

generous with finances and agrees I

15:29

can use the money from my job any way I

15:31

desire. Mark's list looked like

15:33

this. She keeps our house clean

15:35

and orderly. She helps the kids with their

15:37

homework. She cooks dinner about three days

15:39

a week. She teaches first grade

15:41

Sunday school. She chauffeurs

15:44

the children

15:44

to all their activities. Again, this is

15:46

supposed to be a list of like positive

15:49

traits that the spouse has,

15:51

right? The prompt was things you like about

15:53

the other person. That is the quote from Chapman.

15:56

His list about her is essentially

15:59

a list of chores.

15:59

that she does. Yeah. And hers about

16:02

him is just like he has a job.

16:04

If someone described me in

16:07

these terms, I would like not feel like

16:09

they loved me. How could you? Mike's podcasts

16:11

come out on time. Mike's

16:13

really passionate about his podcast. I'm like, do

16:15

you think I'm smart or funny? Right. This

16:18

is my LinkedIn profile that you're giving me. It's

16:21

not even framed in terms of like,

16:23

oh, I admire his passion or something.

16:25

Right. Right. Like something that feels like more

16:27

of a real compliment. It's just like he

16:30

is doing business successfully. Yeah,

16:32

he's always working and he's very good

16:34

at working. Bizarre. In the earlier

16:37

editions of this book, the lists are longer.

16:39

It's still all chores for

16:42

him and finance stuff for her. The

16:44

husband says in the older version that one

16:46

of the positive traits of his wife is she

16:48

does the washing and some ironing.

16:52

The wife's list includes

16:53

he bought us a recreational vehicle.

16:57

Side note, this is one of, I think, two

16:59

parts of the book where a wife mentions

17:01

that she loves that her husband owns

17:04

an RV. And

17:08

I think it's probably worth

17:10

floating the real possibility that

17:12

Chapman has made

17:14

some of these up. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Or

17:16

that they're just sort of like gussied up

17:18

versions of much simpler anecdotes

17:20

from real life, which means that like maybe

17:23

he's creating

17:24

fictional dialogue where

17:26

men express appreciation for women. Right.

17:29

And he's just continuously listing chores.

17:31

This is also where his background as a pastor comes

17:33

in, right? Right. It's not like he came up with the five love

17:35

languages after working with a broad swath

17:37

of couples. He was presumably working

17:40

through the church with fairly

17:42

conservative Christian couples. There's

17:44

a layer here that I think is like

17:46

the book's central flaw, which really

17:49

didn't hit me until I was staring at this

17:51

little list.

17:52

He is proposing the idea that you can solve marital

17:55

problems by speaking the other person's love language.

17:57

But

17:57

like the question lurking

17:59

unanswered behind nearly every anecdote

18:02

in the book is should these

18:05

people be married? Chapman's anecdotes

18:07

always end in all of the couple's problems being

18:09

resolved no matter how dire

18:11

the situation seemed before.

18:13

That creates a sense in the reader that any problems

18:15

in a relationship can be solved using these

18:18

tactics. That's just not true and

18:20

maybe even veers into being dangerous

18:22

advice, right? If you're in like a particularly unhealthy

18:24

or abusive relationship. And again, Chapman

18:27

is a conservative pastor.

18:29

The only times divorce are mentioned

18:31

in the book are when he's either talking about how close a

18:33

couple came to divorce before

18:35

he saved them or how unfortunate

18:37

it is that divorce rates are so high. Maybe his

18:40

love language is just reactionary boilerplate

18:42

about how society is crumbling all around us. Millennials

18:45

need to get off their phones. All right. Quality

18:47

time.

18:48

This is number two. The chapter

18:50

is about the idea that some people feel most

18:52

appreciated through quality time spent

18:55

with their partner, which he makes clear involves

18:57

giving your

18:58

undivided attention.

19:00

The primary anecdote is that this couple

19:02

comes in and the wife is like,

19:04

he never spends any time with me.

19:06

And the husband, Mark, says

19:09

she's always complaining about me not spending time with

19:11

her. And Chapman is like, well,

19:13

maybe try spending time with her. And

19:16

Mark is like, Dr. Chapman, you've saved my marriage.

19:21

I'm not exaggerating. This is the course of

19:23

events. Chapman tells the guy to spend quality

19:25

time with his wife and he goes, Dr.

19:28

Chapman, that is what she has always complained

19:30

about. I didn't do things with her. And it's

19:32

like, so

19:32

she was telling you, Mark. Yeah. So

19:35

do you just need a man to tell you this? Right. And

19:38

you think it's real? I mean, that's genuinely what's happening.

19:41

And this is not the only time that this exact dynamic

19:44

plays out in this book. Like his

19:46

wife has just been telling him the same thing

19:48

for years. They go to counseling and Chapman is

19:50

like, yeah, spend time with her. And he's like, without

19:53

you, Dr. Chapman, we need to be divorced. I

19:56

would say the main issue in our relationship is that my wife

19:58

keeps asking me to walk.

19:59

the dog, what should I do? Well,

20:03

I don't know, man. If you

20:05

sort of take a step back and look at these books,

20:08

like I'm coupling Men are from Mars and

20:11

Five Love Languages together,

20:12

even in their telling, they

20:15

can't put together a tale

20:17

of like normal, competent

20:19

and loving men. You know, like these guys

20:21

are just like hapless losers.

20:23

This is in John Gray's book too, where like there's very

20:25

few examples and the examples that they have.

20:27

It's like not even like sitcom episode

20:30

levels of complexity. Right. It's just like

20:33

he never brings the groceries in from the car

20:35

and

20:35

like, well, yeah, then he should just do that.

20:38

It's not like these are not like real human

20:40

problems. All right. Let's move on to

20:42

receiving gifts. Most

20:44

of this chapter relatively anodyne advice

20:47

about how some people like to receive gifts

20:49

and like different ways to become a better gift

20:51

giver and how to balance

20:53

it with finances.

20:54

This one is always resonate with me because

20:57

I do not give a shit about gifts. This

20:59

has like always been like something that I

21:01

was not aware of about myself until I

21:04

found this framework. I was like, oh, okay. Like note

21:06

to self note to others when dating

21:08

me. Like, I

21:08

just don't really care if you give me flowers. I'm

21:11

not going to remember that in like six hours. Right. And like

21:13

that seems vaguely useful to me. One of the most

21:15

useful things about this framework is just

21:17

a simple reminder that

21:19

because you don't like

21:21

something or don't think something is important,

21:24

it doesn't mean that other people have the same

21:26

feeling because it's just reminding you

21:28

that other people's brains don't operate the

21:30

way that yours does. Right. One weird

21:32

little aside about this chapter is in

21:35

the new version, he uses the term friend

21:37

zone offhand. Okay. And

21:39

I was like, oh, that's weird

21:41

because that is a term that originated

21:44

primarily

21:44

with the pickup artist community. And

21:46

it's just sort of weird to see a marriage counselor

21:49

using the language. I'm not sure that he understands

21:51

what he is saying.

21:53

How does he use it? That's like a weird thing to

21:55

bring into like a couple's paradigm. He

21:57

basically leads off with an annex.

22:00

being like,

22:01

Jeff had been in the friend zone with

22:03

Becky. And then Jeff

22:05

catches a baseball at a game and gives

22:08

it to her, and then they fuck her. I

22:10

don't know, it was bizarre. This one also feels

22:12

fake. Yeah, no, I

22:15

didn't understand that one either. But

22:17

again, I was sort of like, yeah, maybe this is just not

22:19

the love language I see. Maybe it is normal

22:22

for someone to just get a gift and be like, I

22:24

like this guy now. Yeah, I. I don't

22:26

know. This is something I always

22:28

trace to Hollywood, but I wonder if it also

22:31

goes back to these pop bestsellers. The

22:34

idea that you've expressed interest

22:36

in someone, and they're like, no, no, I don't like you. And

22:38

then you do some grand gesture or

22:41

give them a gift, and they're like, OK, I'm

22:43

into you. Just as one of the

22:45

dumbest and most pernicious myths in

22:48

American life. In real life, people

22:50

like you less when you do that. Yeah, in

22:53

real life, you need to be mean to women

22:56

and treat them like shit, and then

22:58

they'll like you. The

23:00

way out of the friend zone is through nagging. Oh,

23:03

god. He talks about giving

23:05

the gift of yourself, which means just

23:07

being present. Oh,

23:08

that's just the other one. That's just like the quality

23:10

time one. Right, exactly. It's quality time.

23:13

I was like, all right, this is more filler. He was

23:15

like, all right, what other kind of gifts can you give? I guess you can give

23:17

yourself. The gift of self

23:19

part contains another example

23:21

of a situation where you're just looking

23:23

at a straightforwardly awful relationship,

23:26

and you're supposed to believe that he has salvaged

23:28

it using the power of love languages. I am

23:31

going to send you an excerpt. It

23:33

says, Sonia once said to me, my husband

23:35

loves softball more than he loves me.

23:37

Why do you say that? I inquired. On the day

23:39

our baby was born, he played softball.

23:42

I was lying in the hospital all afternoon

23:44

while he played softball, she said. Was

23:46

he there when the baby was born? He stayed

23:48

long enough for the baby to be born, but 10 minutes

23:51

afterward he left. It was awful.

23:53

It was such an important moment in our lives. I

23:55

wanted us to share it together. I wanted Tony

23:57

to be there with me. That baby was now.

24:00

15 years old, and Sonia was talking about the event

24:02

with all the emotion as though it had happened yesterday.

24:05

Have you based your conclusion that Tony loves softball

24:07

more than he loves you on this one experience? No,

24:10

she said. On the day of my mother's funeral,

24:12

he also played softball. Did

24:14

he go to the funeral? Yes, he did.

24:16

He went to the funeral, but as soon as it was over,

24:18

he left to get to his game. I

24:21

couldn't believe it.

24:22

My brothers and sisters came to the house with

24:24

me, but my husband was playing softball. Okay,

24:27

this guy's clearly having an affair, clearly doesn't

24:29

like his wife. I mean, look, this man is a demon.

24:32

These are like the most important days

24:35

in her life over the span of

24:37

like 20 years, and he just like strategically

24:40

picks them to play softball.

24:42

I'll see if I can make it. I'll try to

24:44

pop in at some point for the birth of our child.

24:48

So Chapman goes to the husband,

24:50

and the husband says, I knew she would

24:52

bring that up. And then

24:55

he says that he actually went to the softball

24:57

game to brag to his team

24:59

about the baby. And he was like

25:02

shocked that she was upset when

25:04

he came home. I don't know.

25:07

And then

25:08

paraphrasing his response about the funeral,

25:11

he basically says, well, I bet she didn't tell

25:13

you this, but I spent the week prior

25:15

to her mother's death helping out.

25:18

So after the funeral, I wanted to play

25:20

softball to relax. Okay. Those

25:23

are the reasons he provided. And

25:25

Dr. Chapman is like, well, look, this

25:27

is a well-meaning sincere guy

25:30

who just doesn't understand his wife's love

25:32

language. The final

25:34

advice that he gives here is, quote, if

25:36

the physical presence of your spouse

25:39

is important to you,

25:40

I urge you to verbalize that to

25:42

your spouse. It sounds like she has. It sounds

25:44

like this is a story that she's told throughout the marriage.

25:47

Everybody has been mad about the

25:50

softball game for 15 years. And

25:53

then he did it again on the day of her

25:55

mother's funeral. What else is

25:58

she supposed to do here?

25:59

And this is a situation where Chapman is like, hey,

26:02

the next time she has a once

26:04

in a decade trauma, don't

26:07

go play softball. And he's like,

26:09

Gary, you're a miracle worker.

26:11

How do you come up with this? It's like he's

26:13

chalking this up to like a misunderstanding.

26:16

Right. He just doesn't understand the gift

26:18

that you need of time. This is not the

26:20

gift of yourself. This is an obligation

26:23

that you have as like a human being who

26:25

cares about another human being. Yeah. There

26:28

is no saving this man. Maybe this is another

26:31

feature of these self-help books is they give this advice

26:33

that is kind of like

26:34

the starting point, right? Of like understanding

26:36

each other's love languages. Like that seems like a useful

26:38

framework, but ultimately you have to implement

26:41

it. And the problems in the relationship aren't necessarily

26:44

people not knowing this stuff. The

26:46

information is available,

26:47

but they're just not doing anything with

26:49

it. I like can't believe these guys are like,

26:51

the way he frames it is like, oh, I

26:53

wanted to go tell them. He makes it seem as if there's

26:56

this perpetual softball game going on that

26:58

he can like pop it in and out of. No, he was

27:00

trying to make the game. He was like, push,

27:02

push.

27:04

Although to

27:06

be fair, my, when I, on the day that

27:08

I was born, my dad did get an oil change on the

27:10

car. But that pays,

27:13

that's an investment. I

27:15

mean, it was like a labor takes a while. So

27:18

he was on the way. He's like, yeah, there's not really anything for

27:20

me to do for the next four hours. So I might as well go get an oil

27:22

change. And

27:24

that's why I'm like this. That's why I'm like this Peter. That's

27:26

an incredible dude thing to do. I know,

27:29

the dudeest imaginable thing. Acts

27:32

of service is essentially what it sounds

27:34

like. People who feel appreciated when

27:36

the other person does something for them. Isn't

27:38

this just the same as all the other categories though? I've

27:40

never actually understood this one. Cause isn't a gift,

27:43

a type of act of service and isn't quality time

27:45

a type of act of service? Well, look, it's not

27:47

a perfect science. All right, these are,

27:51

but acts of service to Gary Chapman,

27:53

again, mostly means chores.

27:55

Does that make sense? So like, yeah, I took

27:58

care of this thing for you. It would sound less.

27:59

romantic if the category was called chores,

28:02

but that's what it is. Oh God, logistics. Oh,

28:04

this is mine. Peter, holy shit.

28:06

This is mine. So physical touch

28:09

is the last one. This

28:11

chapter has the standard anecdote

28:13

where there's a miserable couple that ends up loving

28:16

each other again after they figure out their love languages.

28:18

Chapman takes a moment to criticize non-monogamy.

28:21

Okay, great. He says, quote, this age

28:23

is characterized as the age of sexual

28:25

openness and freedom. With that freedom, we

28:28

have demonstrated that the open marriage,

28:29

where both spouses are free to have sexual intimacies

28:32

with other individuals, is fanciful.

28:35

Those who do not object on moral grounds

28:37

eventually object on emotional

28:39

grounds. Yeah, tell me you've never worked with

28:41

gay couples without telling me you've never worked with gay

28:44

couples. There's no citation or anything. It's just

28:46

sort of like, open marriages don't

28:48

work. Moving on. As a kid who

28:50

grew up in a Christian household, I will say

28:52

whenever Christians talk about sex, it

28:55

gets really weird really fast. Because

28:57

the only framework they have for it is

29:00

marital intercourse. And so they have

29:02

no idea how dating works. If

29:04

I was a 24-year-old virgin,

29:06

and someone was like, you're a few legal documents

29:09

away from having sex, I

29:11

can't tell you how quickly I would have jumped into

29:13

it. Oh, yeah. There are a lot of gender tropes

29:15

in the physical touch chapter. Men

29:18

want sex all the time while, quote,

29:21

women need to feel a close emotional connection

29:23

for sex to be satisfying. Women be talking.

29:26

Women be emoting. I was reading

29:29

an article by someone who was

29:31

in a seminary learning these, and

29:34

mentioned that people in the class kept accidentally

29:37

describing women having sex with men as an

29:39

act of service rather than physical touch. That

29:42

basic thought recurs throughout the book. Like

29:45

the sexual desire of men is a given,

29:48

and the sexual desire

29:50

of women is not

29:52

discussed. Does he only mean sex here?

29:54

Or does he also, I always thought this meant cuddling,

29:57

no, he does not just mean sex, no, he means.

29:59

Cuddling massages,

30:02

things like that. It's meant to be inclusive

30:05

of all sorts of touch. With friends, I

30:07

always really appreciate it when friends are just touchy

30:09

people. It feels like I know where I stand

30:11

with them. I hate it. Oh, do

30:13

you? The... You're just recoiling.

30:16

I shouldn't say I hate it, but when guys

30:18

do the back pat, I'm like, oh, okay, what's

30:21

your problem? Are we in a fight? I think.

30:24

So I think this is as good a time as any to discuss

30:27

the sexism that runs through

30:29

the book. Chapman again is a conservative

30:31

pastor. He very plainly

30:33

subscribes to certain gender roles in marriages.

30:37

In one late chapter, there is

30:39

a story about a marriage that appears

30:41

to involve a potentially abusive

30:43

husband. According to her, he is mistreating

30:46

her,

30:47

verbally berating her, telling her that he

30:49

hates her frequently. He

30:51

refuses counseling and therapy. She

30:54

goes to Chapman. She says all of her friends

30:56

were telling her to leave him.

30:58

In the early editions of the book, Chapman

31:01

theorizes that the guy's love language is

31:03

physical touch, and his advice

31:05

is for the wife to start initiating

31:07

sex

31:08

frequently and more aggressively. No

31:11

way. She says that will

31:13

be hard for her because sex with him

31:15

makes her feel used and

31:17

unloved, and Chapman

31:20

tells her to deal with it by remembering Jesus's

31:23

sermon on the Mount in order to gather

31:25

the strength. Holy shit. Look, I wanted

31:27

to make a sermon on the Mount joke, but

31:29

it's like a little too serious of a situation. It's

31:32

a really dark anecdote actually that he's

31:34

just presenting this as like, fuck

31:36

him until he's nice to you basically,

31:39

or like give him what he wants. There's a husband who is

31:41

fairly strongly implied to be abusive

31:44

or at least mistreating her significantly. He's

31:47

not involved in the therapy, and the advice

31:49

based on a guess about his

31:51

love language

31:52

is to fuck him more. He doesn't need to

31:54

change his behavior at all. It's only her that has to change

31:57

how she reacts to it. In the newer editions.

31:59

He changes the story so that his advice

32:02

is just to be physically affectionate. Ruffle

32:05

the guy's hair, things like that. And

32:07

then she asks about sex.

32:09

Okay. After which his advice is to

32:11

engage in it more slowly over

32:14

time as she begins to

32:16

feel more loved and appreciated.

32:18

But that's again just do this thing and he will spontaneously

32:20

treat you better, which is like not my understanding

32:23

of abuse dynamics. Right. If you're

32:25

nice to him and ruffle his hair, he'll get less bad?

32:28

I don't know.

32:28

He basically toned down how problematic

32:30

the advice is, but I'm not sure that it

32:33

actually changes how effective it would be. Right.

32:35

And there's a sort of like every marriage can be

32:37

saved vibe running through this, right? Every

32:40

problem can be solved by doing love

32:42

language analysis, no matter how severe

32:44

the crisis is. And when you're looking

32:46

at

32:47

a little anecdote like this one, it really

32:49

jumps out at you where you're just like, oh. Now I'm

32:51

becoming more shocked that he didn't tell that one lady

32:53

to start playing softball. It's

32:56

actually your problem. Since that anecdote

32:58

was in the first book, that softball league

33:00

was taking place in the 1980s. So

33:03

I don't think she was allowed. This

33:05

is a no wife zone. This is where we go

33:07

when our wives are giving birth or their

33:09

moms are dying.

33:10

What do you think your love language

33:12

is, Peter? Did you get more insight into yourself reading

33:14

this? Truly, I don't know. I

33:17

can mostly do a process of elimination. I didn't

33:19

do the quiz at the end of the book. I

33:21

want to take it so bad right now. If

33:24

I had a process of elimination, I think I

33:26

land

33:27

somewhere around words

33:29

of affirmation, acts of service. So

33:31

does this mean I should tell you you're smart and funny

33:34

and do podcast chores? Absolutely.

33:36

You'll learn more about that in the five

33:38

love languages of podcasters, his next

33:40

book. Right.

33:41

Although I guess, as you said earlier, the

33:43

question isn't what is your love language, but

33:45

what is your wife's love language? Right. And

33:48

why isn't it putting up the shelf that you said you were going to

33:50

put up? I was reading off that one

33:52

anecdote to Lee about the

33:55

guy not painting the bedroom, and she was like, interesting,

33:57

interesting comparison.

33:59

She's

34:03

tried every modal verb with you, Peter. She's

34:05

tried should, would, could. Has

34:07

she tried complimenting the things

34:10

I do do? Peter, you've

34:12

been podcasting great today. This

34:16

is also a good segue into

34:18

the updates

34:20

in the new edition. Like I mentioned, there are

34:22

a handful of editions of this book with the

34:24

big mass market retool

34:27

occurring in 2015. Even at

34:29

the old Roald Dahl. So

34:33

in the new version, there are a lot of like little

34:35

changes designed to

34:37

make the book less expressly sexist,

34:39

less reactionary overall, less overtly

34:42

religious. Early editions are

34:44

fairly expressly Christian. Jesus

34:47

washing the feet of his disciples is

34:49

an example of an act of service in the early

34:51

editions. All of that gets removed.

34:54

That means I don't have to wash your feet when we hang out in New York. The

34:59

sexism in the earlier editions, pretty

35:02

much endless. There's one couple in

35:04

turmoil and Chapman asks

35:06

the

35:07

husband what he loves about his

35:09

wife.

35:10

The guy says, she is a good mother.

35:12

She is also a good housekeeper and an excellent

35:15

cook when she chooses to cook.

35:17

Ooh, good one. Throw that

35:20

and twist the knife. About 40 pages

35:22

later, there's an entirely different couple

35:24

and Chapman asks the husband how

35:26

he knows his wife loves him. The

35:29

husband says,

35:30

oh, I've always felt loved by her, Dr.

35:32

Chapman.

35:33

She is the best housekeeper in the world.

35:36

She is an excellent cook. She keeps my

35:38

clothes washed and ironed. She

35:40

is wonderful about doing things with the

35:42

children.

35:42

All of these seem to have come from like the 1950s

35:44

or like some weird world where like only

35:49

the men are working and the women are at

35:51

home. This is the 90s. Most

35:54

of these couples, both people are working.

35:56

But even if

35:57

that was your dynamic,

35:59

it's just that. It still doesn't make sense to

36:01

list off the chores as the

36:03

reason that you feel loved. Like

36:06

surely there was something more to

36:09

traditional relationships, even in Christian

36:11

households, than just this transactional,

36:14

he makes the money, I do the cooking and cleaning.

36:17

I keep just reading this shit being like, it's just

36:19

not what love is, right? Like I might feel

36:21

like I'm losing it. That's like that review of

36:24

the Star Wars prequels where

36:26

it's like describe the characters without

36:28

describing their jobs or their

36:29

clothes and like no one can

36:32

do it. All of that disappears from

36:34

New Additions. The end

36:37

of the book, again, has two

36:39

love language quizzes, one for

36:41

each spouse. The way it works is

36:43

it presents two statements and you

36:46

choose which one resonates with

36:48

you more. And then it does that about 20 times

36:50

and by the end of it, you know your love language,

36:53

right? The statements in the New

36:55

Addition

36:56

are functionally identical for

36:58

husbands and wives, just with the gender

37:00

swapped, like it's two versions of the same quiz.

37:03

But in the early additions,

37:05

they had all these weird differences. Oh hell yeah.

37:07

So it's like when you're vacuuming, or whatever,

37:09

from the women. Not

37:12

super far from what's about to happen. Okay.

37:14

So for men, the statement is, I feel

37:17

loved when my wife does the laundry.

37:20

And for women, it's changed to, I feel

37:22

loved when my husband helps with the laundry.

37:26

For men, you have, when my wife cooks

37:29

a meal for me, I know that she loves me. For

37:31

women, it's when my

37:33

husband helps clean up after a meal,

37:35

I know that he loves me. So basically, we're

37:37

just assuming that the women are

37:39

doing the laundry and the cooking. Right. And

37:42

it's like if he's doing this, it's as a helper. For

37:44

men, you have keeping the house

37:46

clean is an important act of service.

37:49

Do

37:49

you want to guess what the women version is? Oh,

37:52

and like when my husband takes one chore off

37:54

my hands. It's, I love when my husband

37:56

helps clean the house. Helps clean the

37:58

house. One of the...

37:59

The funnier ones, for men

38:02

it's, I love having sex with my wife, and

38:04

for women, it's changed to I love cuddling

38:06

with my husband. Aww. There

38:09

is no representation in this book for

38:11

horny women. Yeah. There is absolutely none.

38:14

Women are asexual

38:16

creatures in this book. It is baffling.

38:18

Yeah, especially considering that men get both sex and

38:20

RVs. I feel like for a self-help

38:23

book, that's pretty three-dimensional. There are others,

38:25

and many of them are very subtle, but

38:27

weird, like, there's one that I can't

38:29

quite

38:29

put my finger on, but it's odd

38:32

to me. For women, it says, I like

38:34

it when my husband helps out despite

38:36

being busy. Okay. But then the male

38:38

version is, I like it when my wife

38:40

helps out despite having other

38:43

things to do. Oh. Like

38:45

the term busy is reserved for men.

38:47

Right. Because that's like a work term.

38:49

Yeah, it's like work-adjacent, right?

38:51

Yeah, you can't be busy with like house stuff or kid

38:54

stuff. No, no, you're never busy, you just have things

38:56

to do. It's like, come on, you

38:58

don't know what busy means,

38:59

lady. I

39:02

got a softball game you don't have shit to do. My

39:06

favorite, my absolute favorite one,

39:09

for wives, it says, I love it when

39:11

my husband gives me a massage. But

39:13

for husbands, it says, I love it when

39:16

my wife rubs my back. Oh,

39:18

what? Less gay, right? It's

39:20

like, come on, I'm not a lady,

39:22

I don't get massages. I get my back

39:24

rubs.

39:25

You call it a massage. I call it heterosexual

39:27

first base. I'm going

39:29

to a spa to get my HFB. So

39:32

that's the book. Now with all

39:35

of this weird

39:36

sexist shit going on under the hood here,

39:39

our attuned listeners, and perhaps you,

39:41

Mike, are thinking,

39:43

what's this guy think about gay

39:45

people? Oh shit. God,

39:47

I hadn't even thought about this. I just like

39:49

took it for granted that like, of course it's heteronormative.

39:52

Gay people don't exist in this book.

39:55

They are not mentioned, no anecdotes

39:57

about them. Of course. Nothing.

39:59

It is just not discussed

40:02

or implied, but Chapman

40:05

maintains a website,

40:06

which at least at one point included

40:09

a little blog. And a few years ago,

40:11

a blogger named Kristin May went

40:13

digging around on it.

40:15

So this is a Q&A,

40:16

and the question is, my

40:19

son has recently told us that he is gay.

40:21

I'm having a very hard time dealing with

40:24

it. How can I help him with this and still

40:26

show love? And I have sent you

40:29

Gary Chapman's response. He says, Disappointment

40:31

is a common emotion when a parent hears

40:34

one of their children indicate that he or she

40:36

is gay. Men and women are made for each other.

40:38

It is God's design. Anything other

40:40

than that is outside of that primary

40:43

design of God.

40:44

Now, I'm not going to try to explain all the

40:46

ins and outs of homosexuality, but

40:48

what I will say is this. We love our

40:51

children no matter what. Express your

40:53

disappointment and or your lack of

40:55

understanding, but make it clear that you

40:57

love them and that you will continue to love them no

40:59

matter what. I would also encourage you to ask

41:01

your child to do some serious reading and

41:04

or talk to a counselor to try to understand him

41:06

or herself better while continuing to

41:08

affirm

41:08

your love. Yikes. I'd

41:11

actually love somebody to follow up and be like,

41:13

actually, could you explain the ins and outs of homosexuality?

41:15

I'd like to hear what you think homosexuality

41:18

consists of. I want to know what he thinks of

41:20

as the ins and outs. Exactly.

41:23

I feel

41:24

like this could be worse. You

41:27

love them no matter what. I mean, look,

41:29

Chapman is not a psychopath, right?

41:32

He is a dummy, but I

41:34

don't think that he is truly

41:36

evil in the way that

41:38

Matt Walsh or whatever is.

41:41

Right. But this

41:43

is the sort of hate the sin,

41:45

not the sinner shit that keeps

41:48

kids in the closet. Express your disappointment

41:50

and or your lack of understanding. You will

41:52

have two emotions, disappointment and lack

41:55

of understanding. There is also a section

41:57

of the website titled Understand.

41:59

I'm sending homosexuality. Oh no.

42:02

And I will send you the text of that in full.

42:05

The top is responsible for bringing the lube. Wow,

42:07

very, it's really, it's very detailed.

42:10

He says, I'm meeting more and more Christian

42:13

parents who are struggling in their efforts to

42:15

understand homosexuality. Almost all

42:17

parents, even those who say we should

42:19

tolerate all lifestyles, will

42:21

feel shock and deep pain if one of

42:23

their children announces that he is homosexual.

42:25

The initial reaction is that they have failed

42:27

their children in some

42:28

critical way. The fact is that research

42:30

has failed to discover the causes of homosexuality.

42:33

We simply don't know why some people

42:34

have same sex attraction. So what's

42:37

a Christian parent to do? The example of

42:39

Jesus would lead us to spend time with them, communicate

42:41

with them, and demonstrate love for them, even

42:44

though we do not approve

42:45

of their lifestyle. Okay,

42:49

again, could have been worse. Yeah, it's

42:51

more of the same sort of like, look, they

42:53

are awful and gross, but you

42:55

must still love them. Yeah. We've

42:58

worked around on the archived version

43:00

of the website and

43:03

found at least one other section titled

43:05

Relating Positively to a Child Who is

43:07

a Homosexual. That suggests Christian

43:10

counseling for your gay child and ends

43:12

with, quote,

43:13

your child's choices need

43:15

not destroy your life. Me

43:20

being gay has destroyed my parents' lives. I

43:23

think that's fair. These dated to like 2013 and 2014 again.

43:27

They're discovered by this blogger a couple

43:30

of years ago, I think 2021, and then scrubbed from

43:33

the site a few weeks after. So all

43:36

of this has vanished. I found one

43:38

other interesting

43:39

little tidbit. In 2012, he did an interview

43:42

with the Christian Post where

43:44

he said that part of what led

43:46

to the topic of sex being perverted

43:48

by our culture was belief

43:51

in evolution. Okay.

43:54

There's a lot going on with Chapman behind the scenes and

43:56

basically like all of your instincts

43:59

about.

43:59

his shitty religious beliefs, probably

44:02

correct. I mean, one explanation of them scrubbing

44:05

this from the website to be slightly generous

44:07

is that like maybe this just isn't his belief anymore.

44:10

And he's like, oh, that's where I was 10 years ago,

44:12

but that no longer reflects who I am.

44:14

It's possible, but I do think that A, we might

44:17

have seen him say that in some format

44:19

and I couldn't find it. And B,

44:21

we know that they're

44:23

trying to market this book to a mass audience, right?

44:25

Right. My best read on it is

44:27

that they were like, whoop, that's not good. That's a little outdated.

44:30

Let's knock that off the website and

44:32

we are good. I agree there's some

44:34

possibility that he's softened on it,

44:37

but I don't see any specific

44:39

reason to believe that that's true. Yeah. There's not

44:41

like love languages for like same sex couples.

44:43

Right. I also don't think that you go

44:46

from evolution denying

44:48

pastor to like LGBT

44:50

positive. That sound you hear is thousands

44:52

of

44:53

gay people removing their love language from their

44:55

hinge profile. So

44:58

there's like a meta item here. As we're

45:00

talking about his religion and

45:02

what comes out of it,

45:04

there's like this phenomenon of

45:06

Christian pastors publishing this

45:09

sort of self-help and relationship advice that

45:11

I think is worth drilling down on because it's so

45:13

ubiquitous. And I

45:15

think the blog, the old website, is

45:17

a good example of how pernicious it can be because

45:20

not only do the books have some weird

45:23

undercurrents, but also there's like a pipeline

45:26

into some more expressly reactionary

45:28

shit. Right. And then at the macro level,

45:31

you have the Christian publishing industry,

45:34

which I kind of want to talk about a bit, if you

45:36

will allow me. I love this shit

45:38

because I grew up in the church. I kind

45:40

of grew up

45:41

straddling these worlds that there's a

45:43

whole sector of the economy of like

45:45

Christian music, Christian books, and

45:48

like none of these activities

45:50

follow the same rules as like secular

45:53

world. Like there's all kinds of weird like bulk

45:55

buying that goes on and there's these

45:57

bands that are like huge in Christian world who

45:59

like. no one has heard of outside

46:02

of that world. It's really interesting, there's like this weird

46:04

insularity, but it's like 30% of the

46:06

US population. It's like a huge market. By

46:08

the way, I would have pinned you as having

46:11

a religious upbringing when you said the word Jesus because

46:13

you were like Jesus. Really,

46:16

you really hit the Jesus. I

46:18

was like bad. Wait till you hear me say Beelzebub.

46:20

I really think so. Mephistopheles.

46:23

I think it's hard for most people

46:25

to comprehend how

46:27

influential and vast the Christian

46:29

publishing industry was, especially

46:32

in the 80s and 90s. There's

46:34

a book written a few years back by Daniel

46:36

Vaca, a professor at Brown called

46:39

Evangelicals Incorporated that tracks

46:42

the origins of this industry. It

46:44

was a pretty good primer. So the modern

46:47

Christian publishing company

46:49

traces back to about the 1930s when

46:52

two evangelical publishing companies spring

46:54

up, Birdman's and Zondervan. During

46:57

the Great Depression and through

46:59

the post-war era, these companies

47:01

played a big role in creating the

47:04

distinctive culture of American Protestantism.

47:07

They are early pioneers of this

47:09

dynamic that we're talking about, where

47:12

you have this robust culturally

47:14

conservative media ecosystem

47:17

that exists alongside

47:19

the mainstream secular one. And

47:22

if you're not looking right at it, you might not see it at

47:24

all. In the 80s, you start to see mainstream

47:26

media recognize the scale of

47:28

Christian publishing. In 1988,

47:31

HarperCollins buys

47:33

Zondervan. At their peak in

47:35

the 90s, there were 4,000

47:38

Christian bookstores in this country. Barnes

47:41

and Noble, I don't think ever got over 1,000 locations

47:44

to put that in perspective. For the last 50 years

47:46

has not been uncommon to see evangelical

47:48

books top the nationwide bestseller

47:51

lists. Now, these publishers

47:53

would publish like all sorts of expressly

47:56

religious books, of course, but Zondervan

47:59

in particular. pioneers a

48:01

space for books that contain

48:04

what Baca calls an ambient

48:07

evangelicalism. Books that include

48:10

conservative Christian tropes and

48:12

principles, but aren't expressly

48:15

Christian, or at least aren't holding out

48:17

their religiousness too aggressively. And

48:20

I think that space is very

48:22

firmly where this book sits.

48:25

It's guided by conservative

48:27

evangelical principles. It's written by an

48:29

expressly religious pastor, and

48:31

it nonetheless is carefully

48:34

holding itself out as largely

48:36

secular and non-ideological. Chapman's

48:39

not hiding that he's a Christian pastor, but

48:42

I think he would say, well, this has advice

48:44

for everyone. It sort of

48:46

maintains a deniability that

48:48

the book is particularly religious or influenced

48:51

by any particular ideology. And

48:54

in recent years, Chapman and the publishers

48:56

have clearly taken care to scrub

48:59

much of the residual religiosity

49:01

from the book. Right. And I think that's important because

49:04

I think the veneer of secularism

49:06

allows them to launder

49:08

some very reactionary thoughts and principles

49:11

to a mainstream audience that doesn't actually

49:14

understand what exactly they're being

49:16

fed. Right. And also provides a way

49:18

of entry into a more explicitly

49:20

reactionary media apparatus,

49:23

right? So

49:24

you have the latent homophobia

49:26

and sexism of the book. Yeah. But then

49:28

if you take it to the next step and go to this guy's seminar

49:31

or visit his website, you're just confronted

49:34

with the express denial that

49:36

LGBT people are valid.

49:38

Right. And evolution. Yeah. And

49:40

you're just one step away from

49:43

a very conservative

49:45

worldview. And I don't think people

49:48

know that about this book. Yeah. That was on the back

49:50

of all the posters in the Airbnb's, but I never checked.

49:53

By the way, gay people don't exist. What's your

49:55

love language? I love women and

49:57

women only because I am a man.

49:59

Women in softball, baby.

50:02

Sports. It is interesting because on

50:04

some level, yes, this is true,

50:07

but also the vast, vast,

50:09

vast majority of people who know

50:11

about the level languages never bothered

50:13

to pick up the book. It's sort of like, well, thank God

50:15

nobody reads any of these fucking books. Right. That's

50:18

the thing is it's great

50:20

in this particular case that

50:23

no one read the book, whereas the

50:25

secret sells 30 million copies

50:27

and no one knows that it's about like

50:29

quantum physics magic. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

50:31

With this, there's like a two

50:34

sentence summary of this book that everyone

50:37

would benefit from, right? And so if

50:39

you hear that summary and that's all

50:41

your brain processes and you move on and

50:43

that's great, but if you actually

50:45

saw what that came out of, you'd be like, oh, it's actually

50:48

kind of bad that this sold 15

50:50

million

50:50

copies, right? Yeah, it's not ideal.

50:52

And one of the interesting things about

50:55

that concept of ambient evangelicalism

50:58

was that there were people in

51:01

Christian media

51:02

whose express goal

51:05

was to drive Christian principles

51:08

in the broader culture without

51:10

it being clear what they were doing. And when

51:13

you look at a book like this through

51:15

that lens, it becomes a little more unsettling.

51:18

Frankly, I don't know how much this is driving Christian

51:20

principles, but the idea that

51:22

someone can build

51:24

a book

51:26

around really rigid gender

51:28

roles, really antiquated gender

51:30

roles, and make it a 15 million

51:33

book

51:34

bestseller is a little

51:36

bit disturbing. It doesn't make

51:38

me feel good about the ability of our

51:40

culture to digest

51:42

this shit properly.

51:43

It's funny to me because like the

51:45

gender stuff actually bugs me more than the

51:47

gay stuff. Just not having gay

51:49

couples in your book is like pretty bad,

51:52

but also like whatever. This is a book for straight

51:54

couples, fine. But like the gender stuff

51:56

is so fucking pernicious. It

51:58

puts all of the moral age. agency on women,

52:00

no matter what the problem in their relationship

52:03

is, that's so ubiquitous in

52:05

the culture, just that women are in charge of fixing

52:08

fucking

52:08

everything. Someone being like, I don't like

52:10

gay people.

52:12

It's so transparent that it almost

52:14

feels better than

52:16

someone writing out 20 anecdotes that

52:20

have really weird gender dynamics.

52:23

A, it becomes harder to explain why

52:25

this sucks. And B, it almost

52:27

speaks to someone's worldview

52:30

more. I did a

52:32

search for criticism of this book, and

52:35

you find things here and there. Some people were questioning

52:37

how scientific it

52:40

is, et cetera. But what I

52:42

also continuously stumbled into

52:44

was on social media of various

52:47

types, the individual comments from

52:49

women

52:50

raised in conservative households

52:52

who read the book

52:54

and were like, the gender dynamics

52:57

made me uncomfortable. I didn't find

52:59

too many people writing at length about that, but

53:02

it was a common theme. Yeah,

53:04

it says I should ruffle my abusive husband's

53:07

hair. Right. There were people

53:09

noticing that this sucks, but it just didn't

53:11

get a lot of play. But this is something that is

53:13

becoming a theme on the show, how

53:15

these books take over the culture without

53:17

anyone really noticing or caring. Okay, 30

53:20

million people bought The Secret, but there's

53:22

no reason for The New York Times to write

53:25

a lengthy review

53:26

or for anyone to publish a

53:28

thorough authoritative debunking,

53:31

something like Rich Dad, Poor Dad, which I

53:34

could not find lengthy reviews

53:36

of. The only people that have debunked it are

53:38

other fucking real estate grifters, like people trying

53:40

to sell their own book. If

53:43

you're someone who is looking for 101

53:45

style advisor, yeah, you see this on a poster somewhere

53:47

and you're like, oh, I'm going to check this out. There's really

53:50

no authoritative source being

53:52

like, here are the reasons why it doesn't hold up. It's

53:55

sort of like the elite liberal media

53:57

has kind of just been like, eh, it's just

54:00

leaves. Right. But like these books are wildly

54:03

influential. And that's why you need to review

54:05

them. Yeah, exactly. 30 million people are reading the

54:07

secret because 15 million people are

54:10

reading five love languages. Yeah. So like,

54:12

yeah, maybe pick it up and see

54:14

whether it says that like women should be doing

54:16

every household shore. You know, right.

54:18

Right. I think you're right. It stems

54:21

from an elitism. I can't believe

54:23

the overwhelming advice

54:25

from a show about books is like whatever

54:27

you do, don't read the books. Thank

54:30

God nobody's reading