23 OctEpisode 87 | The “closet behaviorist” running for president: An interview with presidential candidate Jo Jorgensen
Did you know there is a woman running for president? Her name is Jo Jorgensen, she is the Libertarian candidate, and the only third party candidate who is going to be on the ballot in all 50 states. Dr. Jorgensen has a PhD in organizational and industrial psychology and teaches at Clemson University. She has a Basset Hound named Gertrude, and she has trained her to not beg at the table... but that's not actually why Annie wanted to talk to her. Annie wanted to talk to her because she has been trying to figure out if a world view and values informed by behavior-based dog training have turned her into a Libertarian.
After she became a dog trainer, Annie started thinking about something that had never taken up much brain space for her before: Government. We can govern our pets' worlds, and produce good behaviors, using environmental management and conditioning. If we can do all that without punishment or coercion, couldn't it be possible to -- at least to some extent! -- govern people that way as well? Isn't "freedom" just the ability to make choices that will be positively reinforced, rather than doing things because of coercion?
When Karen Pryor first started using a conditioned reinforcer to operantly condition dolphins to do tricks, she was using literature that had been given to her from the lab of Harvard Professor BF Skinner. He was experimenting on training animals in labs, but he was also writing about how humans could be conditioned. Last week, Annie looked at examples of people conditioning other people in some recent documentaries and biopics; this week, Annie speaks with the Libertarian presidential candidate about what it could mean to give people choice and to ease up on the use of coercion and punishment.
Subscribe: iTunes
Transcript:
Hi, my name is Annie Grossman and I'm a dog trainer. This podcast is brought to you by school for the dogs, a Manhattan based facility, I own and operate along with some of the city's finest dog trainers. During this podcast, we'll be answering your questions, geeking out on animal behavior, discussing pet trends and interviewing industry experts. Welcome to School for the Dogs podcast.
Annie:
Today's episode is a little bit different. It's an interview with a presidential candidate, Jo Jorgensen. She is the libertarian candidate for president this year. She is a professor of psychology at Clemson University. She has been an entrepreneur. She, her specialty is industrial and organizational psychology, and she is the only candidate other than Biden and Trump who is going to be on the ballot in every state. She's also the best looking candidate that's going to be on the ballot in every state. I guess that's debatable, but I could say she looks more like me than anyone else running for president this year. I'm about to share with you a conversation I just had with her.
But let me back up a little bit, because I feel like I need to explain that. First of all, I don't actually think I'm a libertarian. And second of all, I feel like I need to explain why I'm having this conversation with this person on a dog training podcast.
I mean, I'm sure she is a much better dog trainer with her dog than Biden is. And of course, Trump doesn't have a dog, so that makes her the best dog trainer in the race, but that's sort of over simplifying why I was interested and talking to her. I really have never considered myself a political person. My father was a political cartoonist and growing up politics to me like politics and cartoons went hand in hand. They, the politicians were the people in my dad's funny drawings in the 1980s, my dad did busts these sort of like caricature busts of Ronald Reagan with this beautiful brown and gold pompadour hair made out of clay. And these busts, I guess they were like mass-produced and they were all all over our apartment. And and he was just such a nice looking man in this, in this little caricature bust, like, the sort of avuncular little like Keebler elf man in a suit who I was told was a very powerful man, our president and I loved him.
I actually have a theory that this is kind of part of why people voted for Trump. He was like physically in people's living rooms for years and years and years as this powerful figure on his TV show. And just thanks to the associations people have of seeing this familiar person like in their home year after year, made them trust him. My dad also did an illustration, I forget where it was for, maybe I can find it, but of Ronald Reagan dressed as Mickey Mouse looking very cheery and happy. So I think I honestly like I also conflated Mickey Mouse and Ronald Reagan in some way as a very little kid. And I kind of vaguely remember people around me saying not nice things about President Reagan. And I would, I would feel like defensive and it had nothing to do with his politics. It had everything to do with his hair.
And it sounds crazy and ridiculous, but sadly I think a lot of adults vote because of the hair. And as I got older politics, just, it never really called out to me. I think I felt for a long time while still I feel sort of, kind of like art, like we're conditioned to believe our vote matters more than it does. Like, yes, everybody should go out and vote. But like in the end, there's actually only one person's vote who matters. And it probably won't be yours, right? Like if a hundred people vote for one guy and 105 people vote for the other guy, it's only the hundred and first person's vote that was a vote that mattered-the other four were just a bonus. And I acknowledge that this maybe doesn't make a lot of sense. It's based in a feeling about math perhaps more than it's really based in math.
The math of all of it though, is weird and not particularly motivating to me. Trump won the electoral college because of something like 70,000 votes in three states kind of came down to one of one vote in each of those States. You know what, like two out of the four people I have voted for for president in my lifetime actually won the popular vote, but didn't end up in office. Like what other competition does the second place person get picked as the winner. First election I voted in, the first presidential election was in 2000 with Bush and Gore. And I think, I think that had an impact on me and I mean, many people feeling like, okay, here, I can have my voice heard in this important election. And then it all came down to the hanging chads in Florida and, you know, whether or not these holes were actually punched in certain pieces of paper.
I mean, it just didn't leave me feeling very, very confident in the system. And I also, you know, around that time started to feel like what would make most sense was to move maybe to a government that had a structure that made more sense to me because like, I'm, I feel very anti-gun I think, I think there should be no guns. I think we, as humans, cannot deal with guns. And if maybe I should move somewhere that has gun laws that are more in line with my views, then maybe I would have ended up being more interested in politics in that place. Anyway, I did canvas for John Kerry in, I guess, 2004. And it's funny this morning as I was brushing my teeth thinking about this, I could not remember his name. All I could remember was that he was married to the ketchup woman, his who’s wife was from the Heinz family.
By the time I was in my mid twenties, I had just kind of decided, you know, Republicans are bad. Democrats are good, I'm on the good side. And I should proselytize and go door to door in Pennsylvania, which I did for a couple of weekends. But if someone had really wanted to engage me in conversation about John Kerry, I wouldn't have had any idea about his policies, his views, his stances beyond, you know, very sort of broad statements like he is pro-choice. And honestly, I think that's because like the policy stuff just like was always hard for me to follow. It seemed kind of opaque and hard.
When I was working at the New York Observer in the early two thousands, I used to go report on community board meetings, like local politics, and I found it so boring, does it… through these meetings? I mean, they often would point to really interesting stories, but just getting through these meetings with all the rules and policies and setting rules and policies, I just like would tune out. And I think my brain did the same thing when it came to really understanding politics. And so I think I felt like, well, if I don't really understand this stuff, and I don't feel like my voice actually matters that much, then why should I like devote my time to even trying to figure it all out when I'm going to be like the victim of the government, whether or not no matter who I vote for.
Frankly, I still feel this way in a lot of ways. I feel very cynical, but nothing has made me think more about government than dog training.
After I finished the Karen Pryor Academy 10 years ago, I became obsessed with learning about BF Skinner. Karen Pryor, who started the Karen Pryor Academy and is really considered like the founder of clicker training. She popularized this method of using a clicker as a marker in training, after having really perfected doing this kind of training with dolphins. With dolphins you often use a whistle, but it's the same idea of pinpointing a moment in time and like bridging the moment between when the animal does something correct and the animal is getting a reward. She figured it out how to train dolphins in this way, because she got her hands on instructions that were written out by graduate students who worked under BF Skinner, who was running a lab at Harvard in like the 1940s and fifties, I believe, training, seeing animals to do all kinds of amazing things using this kind of marker.
Skinner started by studying the work of Pavlov and went on to realize, look, animals aren't just learning by predicting something based on repeated associations. It's also possible for animals to learn how to operate on their environments in order to affect change. Behaviors that are reinforced are going to be more likely to happen again. Behaviors that are punished are going to be less likely to happen again. When there's no reinforcement and no punishment, a behavior is under extinction. You can play around with different rates of reinforcement.
Now in his lab, he was basically teaching like rats and pigeons to do party tricks. You can find videos online of birds reading and playing ping pong, but Skinner's main interest was humans. Ethically, you can't put a human in a box to study them the way you can a pigeon, but from what I've studied on my own about BF Skinner. He was pretty clear about this. And he wrote a whole book called Beyond Freedom and Dignity that's basically about how we are controlled by each other, by the government, by accident of birth, by our families.
Anyway, I came to Skinner through dog training, but reading Skinner's work has affected my life way outside of the dog realm.And it's made me have much stronger opinions and thoughts about things than I did before, quite frankly. You know, like I feel pretty strongly that humans don't have free will in the traditional sense of the way that we think of free will. And I've had some pretty heated arguments with family members about this. I think we have lots of choices available to us, but I think any living animal has some choices available, so I don't think free will is something humans would have more than any other sentient being. And I also think freedom is controlled by your environment. Someone in a jail cell has less freedom to make choices than someone not in a jail cell. I think there are lots of things that we learn, whether or not we have the desire or will to learn those things. And I think we are manipulated left and right all the time by people who are not necessarily looking out for our best interest.
You know, I mentioned the documentary, the Social Dilemma in the last episode- look at how we've all been trained to behave with our phones and with social media. Or, you know, I talked about The Vow to the people interviewed in that film seemed like pretty normal average people, but they kind of were essentially brainwashed by someone who just, I think, had a really good understanding of how to manipulate behavior effectively.
I know from working with dogs, that it is possible to control behavior without using coercion, without using punishment and to do so while also giving an animal choice. Frankly I think we should be doing more of this with people. Jails should be mental health and educational facilities. People should be incentivized to use birth control. We can use humane methods to control behavior for all of our good.
This is a paragraph I wanted to read herefrom the end of chapter two of Beyond Freedom and Dignity, it's a chapter called Freedom. He ends in chapter saying:
“men struggle for freedom is not due to a will to be free, but to certain behavioral processes, characteristic of the human organism, the chief effect of which is the avoidance of, or escape from so-called aversive features of the environment. Physical and biological technologies have been mainly concerned with natural aversive stimuli. The struggle for freedom is concerned with stimuli intentionally arranged by other people. The literature of freedom has identified the other people and has proposed ways of escaping from them or weakening or destroying their power.
It has been successful in reducing the aversive stimuli used in intentional control, but it has made the mistake of defining freedom in terms of state of mind or feelings and it has therefore not been able to deal effectively with techniques of control, which do not breed escape or revolt, but nevertheless have aversive consequences.”
– Annie commenting: the social dilemma comes to mind after reading that sentence,
“ it has been forced to brand all control as wrong and to misrepresent many of the advantages to be gained from a social environment. It is unprepared for the next step, which is not to free men from control, but to analyze and change the kinds of control to which they are exposed.”
So over the last few years, as I've sort of tried to figure out where all of this puts me on a political spectrum spectrum, I've had friends say, well, you know, a lot of your ideas actually sound rather libertarian. It sounds like you really believe in freedom. And I guess I believe in freedom, but I'm also against guns. Like I think the government should be there to provide or restrict access to things in kind of a strict way which then could seem like fascism. And so does that mean I'm a libertarian with fascist leanings. Okay.
I think freedom, we feel free when we are being put in a place where we can do things that we are then going to be positively reinforced for. And, you know, when we're not controlled using punishment and coercion. And I think a lot of that has to do with like, you know, arranging the antecedents and arranging the environment. Skinner himself actually wrote out a whole plan for a society that could be governed using environmental management and positive reinforcement.
During the primaries. I was most excited about Bernie Sanders and Andrew Yang, because I think we have enough resources in this country where it would be possible for everyone to get enough food and healthcare. I believe once people have those basic needs met, they're going to be better citizens-period. Cause I think there's enough wealth in this country to be spread around and that everyone deserves certain basics in life and that all animals perform better in all things when their basic needs are met. So then I started Googling like “socio libertarianism,” which leads to stuff on the internet about anarchy, which also sounds sort of crazy.
So I was sitting here the other day thinking, okay, so am I a socio-libertarian, fascist anarchist? And if I am, who does that mean I should vote for? So I Googled who is the 2020 libertarian candidate. And I started reading a little bit about Jo Jorgensen. And I began following her on social media. And I appreciate the point of view that freedom is everything and I get why that leads libertarians to be pro gun and pro drugs and pro things that can seem sort of crazy.
I understand now that it's kind of, it's like they're pro choice about everything, but that might not mean, I mean like you can be pro choice and also think abortion is murder, but you think people should make that choice for themselves. I think that's like you could be libertarian and think that vaccines are essential, but also feel like that's something that every person should choose for themselves.
By and large, it makes sense to me, except for the gun thing. I just think like we need government to not let people have guns and not let people have nuclear bombs in their homes. And we need government to make rules about taking care of the environment, which benefits everyone. And, and you know, we can go from there, but my dream candidate would have, would be saying, Hey, let's create a government where we're going to incentivize behaviors we want and and not get as many behaviors we don't want from people and give everything, give everybody everything they basically need so that they can be more free to help each other.
And I'm just not sure that is that libertarian party. So I called up Jo Jorgensen's office and asked if they could help me figure out if I was a libertarian. And I spoke to her press secretary. She answered the phone herself. Her name is Elizabeth. And Elizabeth said, you know what, why don't you get on the phone with Jo and you can discuss this with her yourself. So what you're about to hear is my conversation with JoJo rgensen, where I'm really trying to figure out what party, my crazy dog training government ideas would land me in.
You know, it's funny when, when Walden Two first came out BF Skinner's 1942 novel about a utopia run by a behaviorist people called it fascism without tears. And compared it to a giant dog training obedience school for humans. And both of those things are kind of true, but I also like really wish that I could live in Walden Two.
What's funny is before I got off the phone with Elizabeth, Jo Jorgensen's press person, I asked her a little bit about how she ended up in the libertarian party. And she told me about how she grew up with parents who were politically active Goldwater Republicans and how it was she read Atlas Shrugged or the Fountainhead– I forget which when she was a teenager and was influenced by Ayn Rand's ideas. And then we were talking a little bit about dog training. Elizabeth said to me, you know, my mom used to be really scared of dogs, but then she started watching The Dog Whisperer and it really helped her get over her fears. And so she loves The Dog Whisperer. And I see The Dog Whisperer as an example of someone who is government governing using nothing but punishment and coercion. So it felt interesting for me to think, you know, how apparent the wrongs are when it comes to how dogs are treated and how parallel those wrongs are to the way we are treated and trained. But in that moment I remembered how most people are not thinking about dog training and government as deeply, as I perhaps am, but maybe they should.
Annie:
Thank you so much for taking the time to talk to me. I asked Elizabeth who helped arrange this to prep you a little bit about me and the show so that you're not too confused why a dog training podcast wanted to have you on?
Jo:
Well, I mean, to me, every psychologist, especially every behaviorist, should be a libertarian. And it's very frustrating that, you know, 90% of the psychologists out there are all socialists, which makes no sense at all.
Annie:
Wow. So do you consider, consider yourself a behaviorist?
Jo:
I call myself a closet behaviorist. I'm, I mean, of course we have free will, of course we've got cognitive dissonance and other things. However, behaviorism is a very strong, you know, prediction of behavior and it's a way to shape behavior. So yeah, I mean, it works.
Annie:
Well let's… I would love to talk a little bit about your background. Both as someone who has taught psychology, but also as someone who has worked a lot, it sounds like in an industrial organization, is that right?
Jo:
Yes. Well, I've done some consulting. I've actually spent most of my time teaching at Clemson, which is not what the plan started out to be. A couple of years after I received my doctoral degree, my dissertation chair was interim department chair. And he- it was funny. He sent me an email and the subject line said, think about this before you say no. And he said, I really need a lecturer, can you just fill in for a semester or an academic year? And I said, okay, fine. And I was thinking, I'll do it to be nice to you. And then after about a month or two of that, I was like, wow, this is like the best job ever. And I never left. So..
Annie:
So I really learned about behavioral science through dog training. I mean, I took, you know, several psychology classes in college, and I think there was, you know, maybe one test question on one test at one time about anything having to do with behavior as any kind of science. And it was only through dog training that I started to see, oh, you know, this isn't just about dogs, this is animal behavior and animals are behaving all the time and we kind of forget that we are animals too. And I feel like in the last few years, I started to think about how we are being trained by the world that we live in for better or worse. And as I started sort of expressing my ideas to friends, I started hearing, you know, a lot of your ideas about this are actually kind of libertarian ideas. So I always thought libertarians, you know, I said to my husband, I'm going to interview the libertarian candidate for president. And he said, oh, isn’t she some gun-toting weirdo.. I said I, you know, I think she's pro gun, but I also think that has to do with like a larger feeling about the way that we should, or shouldn't be controlled and not that she's like, guns are the best thing ever, but also isn't that kind of the stereotype that we have in our culture of like what libertarians are, or so socio libertarians or anarchists or any of these things come along with like caricatures that are uncomfortable.
Jo:
Well, I hope that's changing. And that's one of the reasons why I'm running is because I'm a mom. I now have a grandchild. I live in a normal house. I drive a normal car. I have pretty much a normal job. And I, you know, if you met me on the street, you might think from my haircut, I'm a Republican, but my clothes, you might think I'm a Democrat, but I just look like every other person. And I know that when the libertarian party started out, unfortunately, there weren't many think tanks out there or other ways for people to learn about libertarianism. And so when the party started, they weren't even sure that they wanted to run candidates, but now we've got people, you know, we've got plenty of think tanks out there and ways that you can get information. So we don't have to be so philosophical anymore. We don't have to be so educational. So now we can actually run candidates who are talking about issues that are important to people instead of talking the philosophy that we started off the party with.
Annie:
Do you think that the founding fathers would have thought of themselves as libertarian?
Jo:
Oh, absolutely. Absolutely.
Annie:
Cause when I think about the ideals of libertarianism, I think maybe we need to do what they did and go somewhere else. Cause it seems like we've strayed pretty far from, from that ideal, which was their ideal. Yeah.
Jo:
Oh, very far. Yes. Unfortunately.
Annie:
How do you, how do you define, I mean, that's at the heart of libertarian is liberty, which has to do with freedom at which what makes it compelling to me is I see how, how far we can get when we give the animals we're training as humans with non-human animals, how far we can get when we give them choice. And we arrange the environment to encourage certain choices and we arrange the consequences that are going to be most likely, and we arrange the associations and I see that we can do all of that without punishment and coercion. But I'm, I'm curious how you define freedom.
Jo:
Oh, how I define freedom is being able to make your own choices. And I, what I tell people, the libertarian party is all, it's all about. What I tell them is that I believe that they know better than any politician or special interest in Washington, how to spend their money and how to run their lives and that we don't need people in Washington running our lives day to day. And you know, you talked about choices. So I teach a happiness class at Clemson. I've taught it for 10 years now. Oh, well, yeah, a little over 10 years. And we know that when people have autonomy, when people make their own choices, when people aren't told what to do every step of the way, they tend to be happier. And that's why a lot of people are happier in jobs, even when they're making less money, if they can set their own hours or if they can work from home or if they can go pick up their kids or whatever.
And what we have right now in Washington is people who basically want a one size fits all that is telling us every step of the way, what to do. You know, we've got a Department of Education that instead of telling localities, okay education should be among teachers, parents, and students, and you should be able to make your own choices. Instead they give us a one size fits all. We don't care where you live. And I would suggest that the needs of people in rural Appalachia, much different than downtown New York city, much different than, you know, Arizona.
Annie:
I think it comes down to, you know, reinforcement, again, you know, I don't think I did not know what operant conditioning was until I became a dog trainer. And, but now I see it's about, you know, we can, we can encourage behaviors by giving something or by taking something away. And when we're living in the, you know, so-called quadrant of like positive reinforcement, like encouraging behaviors, we like by, you know, giving good stuff basically, like that's feels like freedom. Like freedom is not like a, it's not like a necklace that you wear freedom, right. It just has to do with whether you're choosing because you want to do something or you're choosing, cause you're trying to avoid something.
Jo:
Yeah. Well, and now here's the thing. I do not believe that we have, that we should have a government that sits there and thinks, okay, how can we change people's behavior? How can we get them to do what we want them to do? What, what little rewards can we put out there? You know, what pieces of cheese, can put out there for people to go after. Instead, I think that government needs to just get out of the way and let people make their own decisions. And I would suggest that what government is doing in where it shouldn't be doing is first of all, punishing good behavior. If you make money, if you have a successful business, you get punished because they take away your taxes. You know, they take taxes away from you. So I look at it as, you know, we have people say, well, but what about wealth inequality? Should they give their money to the government? Well, research shows that money left in the hands of individuals and private businesses create twice as many jobs as that same money in the government. And really who do you want creating jobs companies around your town or Donald Trump or Joe Biden. So,
Annie:
But don't, we already live in a don't. We already live in a society that is manipulating our behavior by saying, you know, you have to pay money to bomb other countries or else, you know, you have to send your kids to school or else you want to vaccinate your kids or else like, so it is like manipulations already happening to saying like, like, okay, sure, let's just let everybody go make their own choices. To me seems like, well, isn't that just like disregarding the fact that like, people are being manipulated by like the commercials that they see and the fact that their phone is buzzing at them all the time and what they see on Facebook, like manipulation is like, it's not, I'm going to close my eyes and live in a vacuum. Right? Like people are going to be manipulated. So what's the name of the political party where it's like, we pay money into a government that's job is to like, you know, like encourage good behaviors. Like what, what party do I belong to?
Jo:
Well, to answer your other question, is it possible for companies to manipulate us by advertising? Of course, however we have the choice. So for instance and well, let me back up. I remember in class once my, one of my professors we were talking about bureaucracy in corporations and this was an auto-psychology class. And he said, well, you know, government, isn't the only place that has bureaucracy, private companies have it too. And I said, yes, but if UPS has too much bureaucracy, then we can simply go to FedEx where they might have better prices or a FedEx is too much bureaucracy, then we can go to UPS. What I'm against is government saying, okay, you have to deal with us. And you know, we're the ones who are going to provide your retirement. You have no other choice. They're getting that way with healthcare. They've been that way with education for quite a while. How about letting us make our own choices. Now can we make mistakes? Of course, but would it be better for us to make our own mistakes or to have government tell us what to do and have it be a big mistake?
Like for instance, with the coronavirus Trump got up there and said, if you don't show symptoms, you don't need a test. Even though they knew that over half the people with the virus had no symptoms at all, that's when you need to get tested. And then they have an FDA and a CDC that is supposed to protect us. That's supposed to protect our health. And yet those two companies blocked us from testing. There were dozens of testing kits out there that we could have used, and they blocked all of them except for two. So we all stay home under house arrest because nobody's tested and we lose tens of millions of jobs. Meanwhile, South Korea who had their first case tested within like a week of our first case, they had massive testing. They knew who had to stay home and who could go out and work. And they got ahead of the curve faster than we did. And they did it without shutting down the economy. So, no, I don't want government making bad decisions. I would rather people make their own decisions.
Annie:
So what is the name of the political party that I would like where the government is in charge of like encouraging the behaviors that we want. Like the government, the government is out there, incentivizing people to vaccinate their kids, rather than saying, if you don't do it, you're an idiot or else. The government that's out there… I mean, I mean, of course, like there is also the fact that there is a comment, like people drive on the right side of the street, not because like, they're going to get fined if they don't, it's just like, there's a general understanding that like, we all do this thing that works, couldn't that apply to, to vaccines. Like you're not, not vaccinating your kids. You are vaccinating your kids. You're not like I'm guessing you're not like have like an, you know, unlocked guns all over your home when your grandkids are like, I'm just guessing that things about you that, you know, tell me if I'm wrong, but like,
Jo:
Yeah, no, I no, I did vaccinate my children and my daughter has vaccinated my grandson. But if you want central control, if you want people who are in a capital of the country, directing everybody's actions, then I would call that the communist party. And we've seen that, that doesn't work because to have a small group of people, making decisions for everybody in the country just doesn't work. And the example I was given in fifth grade was, you know, here's why the Soviet Union failed because they had to decide, a group of people had, does decide, okay, who gets the steel? Is it the people, you know, is it the car companies or the refrigerator companies? And it's hard to do central planning, whereas in the United States, if there are more people who want cars and there's a waiting list, then the car manufacturers are more likely to pay more money and they'll get the steel. However, if the refrigerator manufacturers have a waiting list, then they'll pay more money. So if it's not centrally planned, then resources go where it needs to be.
But actually what I here's an even better example of communism not working. You know, of course in Russia, they said the Soviet Union, they said from each according to his ability to each according to his need, right and they took over all the farm lands. Well, they, the people were starving and the government said, okay, well we have to do something. And so they finally grudgingly said, okay, fine you can own your own little garden out in the back of your yard. You know, we're just not going to discuss it too much. Let's just kind of keep it quiet. Well, those little farms, the family farms made up three percent of all the farmland in Russia and yet it produced 30% of the food because people were working for themselves, they were making their own choices. They got to see the benefits,
Annie:
Right. But isn't there some happy medium where, you know, people could have the freedom to help each other where it's not mandated by the gun.
Jo:
And I would say that that was the libertarian way in that it's not mandated and we choose to help each other. And the United States has been one of the most giving countries in the entire world, in the entire history. And you just look through, you know, it's really a myth about the robber barons. I mean, they were giving money. We didn't have social security back then. We didn't have, you know, families with dependent children or anything like that. And so when there was an earthquake, you know, the San Francisco earthquake, there were companies rushing into helping people. So yeah,
Annie:
Not, not that you need to take political marketing advice from a dog trainer, but it seems to me like, like libertarians haven't been branded as like, we want to help other people. It seems to me it's more like the, and Ayn Rand-ian version of, you know, like each man for himself and, and screw them.
Jo:
Well, that's, unfortunately, that's how it's come across in the past. And when I ran for office, if you will look at some of the debates that we had, I opened up some of them by saying, look, I was so excited when I heard about freedom. I just wanted to spread it to everybody. And I said, isn't this great. And the response I got was, oh, you don't care about the poor, you know, you're just selfish. And I didn't understand. And it's because we were putting it in terms of like, how we can have freedom and, you know, we own our bodies and all that, but that's a bit, but that's too, again, philosophical. And that's what I said before about how, unfortunately, the party started off as an educational system, because there were no education systems out there who were teaching it.
So now we can be a political party and I've been going out there explaining healthcare that you know, how would you like to have healthcare that's affordable. We have systems in which that works. And by the way, if you're looking at it from a psychological standpoint you know, when you go to the doctor or when you buy medicines, if you're not the one who's paying the price, if you've got your little copay card and you pay $20, whether the drugs cost $40 or 400, you're not going to care because you're not going to care. Exactly. And so the state of Indiana for their employees instituted a program in which the people… in which it did matter in which if they found a cheaper price, they got to keep the savings. And generic drug use went from something like 10% to 90%. And the best part is, is they were happy to do it because they got to keep the savings. And that's the way it should be.
Annie:
You said earlier that you think anyone who would consider themselves a behaviorist, and I'm curious why you called yourself a closet behaviorist, but anyone who considers themselves a behaviorist would, you know, it, you don't understand why they wouldn't be libertarian. I'm curious what you meant by that. And I'm also curious if you think, I mean, at least, let me tell you my experience as a dog trainer is like, wow, it's amazing that I learned all about all of this from dog training, which I thought was going to be like, do you know, like how to get my dog to just not be on the carpet and leave it at that. Like, but also like it's astounding to me, how little people understand, like the laws of learning and operant conditioning and classical conditioning things that I could explain it in like 20 minutes to someone and how impactful that can be. So the fact that, like, there's a category of people that you would even call behaviorist and their vote would matter. I'm curious to hear more about that. Sorry. I hope I asked a question there.
Jo:
I call myself a closet behaviorist because, you know, no psychologist would be a behaviorist because as I said, we know about cognitive dissonance. We understand that the entire world isn't run on behaviorism as that we do have internal thoughts that control us and that we do have free will. But I, it's just kind of a term that I believe that behaviorism and just plays a large role in many of the things that we do that yes, we do things that we get rewarded for and we stopped doing things. We got punished for that. That's pretty much how we work. However, I would never say that I, you know, am a Skinnerian and I believe there's no free will. I do believe there's free will.
Annie:
Do you… can I just ask you quickly if you have a dog, and if you think about libertarianism, in your opinion.
Jo:
I have a Basset hound named Gertrude, and she's awesome. And I had, well, first of all, as you probably know, basset hounds are a little more difficult to train than other dogs. They're bred to follow scents and they're very stubborn. So I actually I have trained her so that she doesn't beg when we eat and I trained her just using behaviorism, you know, variable ratio reinforcement.
Annie:
So, yeah.
Jo:
Oh yes. So, and I teach that in my intro class. And one thing that I teach them is when you raise kids, be sure that you know, it'd be sure that when you say no, that no means no. Otherwise the kid's going to come back. Oh, come on, mom. No. Oh, please, mom, no, come on. And I say, all you're doing is training them with a variable ratio reinforcement in which your kid's the gambler. Now you're the slot machine and that's going to be a behavior that's very hard to break. So. Okay. Well, my meeting is starting… I'm glad I got to stay over..
Annie:
Thank you very much for all your time. I appreciate it and good luck.
Jo:
Have a great day.
*music*
Annie:
That is Roy Sakuma playing America the beautiful.
So what do you think, am I, am I libertarian? Am I crazy? Is she crazy? Are you going to vote for her? Am I wasting my vote? Let me know. I'm curious. Email me annie@schoolforthedogs.com.
We're also on the brink of starting an online community for School for the dogs clients, and fans. So if you're interested in joining that email me and I will make sure we let you know first when that is up and running.
Special thanks to everyone who reached out to me. After I talked about my dog's diagnosis last week, I actually got some really good news yesterday. I went to Blue Pearl and New York city along with my friend, Dr. Andrea Tu who was just such an angel for coming with me just basically keep me company and give me advice.
Anyway, they did a needle biopsy of his mass-his liver mass. And it actually came back looking like it's not cancer. And it looks like his lungs are also cancer-free so amazingly good news. There's still some issues with his heart and other stuff, but it doesn't look like his demise is quite as imminent which I'm certainly thrilled about. I really, I mourned hard this last week, had lots of feelings. I had moments where I was like, oh, hold on. He's not dead yet. Like, I felt like such a deep sadness and then would feel like this relief. You know, there's a lot of emotions I'm having just, I think about having an old, an old dog anyway, more to come on that, that front at a later point. I vowed to talk more about Amos on this podcast because he is just such awesome dog and really has had a huge impact on my life. And apparently also on my politics.
You can learn more about Jo Jorgensen at jo20.com.
Thanks so much for listening. You can support School for the Dog podcast by subscribing leaving a five-star review, telling your friends and shopping in our online store. Learn more about school for the dogs and sign up for lots of free training resources on our website school for the dogs.com.
Links:
Beyond Freedom and Dignity by B. F. Skinner
