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1:07

Welcome to metaphysical milkshake, the show

1:09

where we go deep, we get weird, and

1:12

we search for the meaning of life along the way.

1:14

presented by cast media and soul pancake.

1:19

Welcome

1:20

to metaphysical milkshake. I am

1:22

your host, Rosa Hasland. And I'm

1:24

your secondary host, Rain Wilson. Thanks

1:26

for tuning in everybody. Rain,

1:29

this is somewhat of a sad

1:31

sad day for us. It's coming a

1:33

sad day. It's a little bit of a sad episode. A little bit

1:36

of a sad episode.

1:37

Yeah. Yeah.

1:38

Do you wanna do you wanna tell the listeners

1:40

what's going on? Well, folks, after

1:43

nearly one hundred episodes

1:46

of metaphysical milkshake after we have

1:49

tackled some of life's biggest

1:51

questions.

1:52

what happens when

1:54

we die, you know, how many

1:56

universes are there? How

1:58

does the world come to an end?

2:01

It's time for us to

2:04

hang up our metaphysical hats. Is that

2:06

a thing? I I mean,

2:08

I'm

2:08

not wearing it. Well, we wanna hang up our metaphysical

2:11

hats.

2:12

For now, this has been

2:14

a really amazing ride

2:16

with a lot of episodes. But

2:18

we might be back. We might put our metaphysical

2:20

hats back on again It's

2:22

just for we're in a kind of

2:24

indefinite hiatus here folks.

2:27

We'd love to hear from you. If you'd like us back,

2:29

you can write us at metaphysical cast

2:32

dot com with this cast with a k. Hit

2:34

us up on the social media. Or if you don't

2:36

want us back You could also, please.

2:52

No. We've we've created

2:54

a great number of incredible conversations,

2:57

and we just need a little

3:00

break. We just need a little break. got

3:02

books coming out with

3:04

TV shows -- Yeah. -- TV shows -- Yes. -- we're

3:06

working on. So we just needed

3:08

a little a little rest, but I

3:10

truly hope that we can revisit the

3:13

metaphysical milkshakeers

3:16

at some point in the next year, which,

3:19

of course, begs the question, what are we gonna do now? What are

3:21

we gonna do with the for this last

3:23

this show? Did you book a guess? I didn't

3:25

book a guest because I thought that

3:28

you and I I mean, the last thing we wanna

3:30

do. The last thing we should do

3:32

is any kind of, like, self promotion.

3:34

or anything like that. I mean, we should just

3:37

talk about the episodes, our

3:39

favorite ones, what moved us,

3:41

what ideas, kind

3:44

of That's one thing we could

3:46

do. We I suppose we could.

3:49

What's I suppose? It's a pretty

3:51

purple. What's that pretty purple book?

3:53

this book that I'm holding up to

3:55

our YouTube audience. Oh, it's

3:58

just where did this come from? What

3:59

the I I did not expect

4:02

this. happens to

4:03

be a book called an American martyr

4:06

in Persia. the epic life

4:08

and tragic death of Howard basketball. And let

4:10

me see who's the author. Oh, boy. What

4:13

would you look at that? It's me.

4:15

Wait. This wait.

4:16

I got one too. This got sent to me in the

4:19

mail. What the that that is a

4:21

coincidence. I feel like

4:23

as two fairly spiritual

4:25

people, we should see this

4:27

as a sign from

4:30

the heavens that maybe

4:33

we should do a little self promotion. No.

4:35

No. Wait a second. Wait a second. Just

4:37

as by way of the beginning of this discussion,

4:39

who was Howard Best Baskerville,

4:42

just in a nutshell? Well, it's funny you

4:44

should ask. Howard Baskerville

4:47

was a twenty two year old

4:49

Christian missionary

4:50

from Nebraska

4:52

of all places, North Platte, Nebraska,

4:55

who in nineteen 07A

4:58

long time ago, traveled

5:00

from Nebraska

5:03

to Persia, what we now

5:05

call Iran, in order to

5:07

teach English and history

5:09

and preach the gospel showed

5:12

up at a kind of an auspicious

5:14

time showed up in the middle of what history

5:16

now knows is the Persian constitutional revolution,

5:19

the very first Democratic revolution

5:22

in the Middle East. And after

5:25

about a year and a half of, you

5:27

know, putting his head down and trying to ignore

5:29

things and teach his classes and preach

5:31

the word of God, he

5:33

ultimately gave up his

5:35

teaching position, gave up his missionary

5:37

position, gave up his American

5:39

citizenship, reconstituted his

5:42

students into a militia

5:45

and fought alongside them

5:47

in that revolution against

5:49

the tyrannical shah and

5:52

ended up dying a a

5:54

heroic death. A martyrs

5:56

death. He is truly considered

5:58

a martyr in Iran,

6:00

an American martyr. And this is

6:02

the first biography I ever written about him.

6:04

Thanks for asking. So a couple of things.

6:06

So this Howard Baskerville, he was

6:08

really selfless. Right?

6:11

Well,

6:13

well, he

6:13

was filled with he was filled with idealism

6:15

and had a pure heart. He

6:18

was definitely filled with idealism. So one

6:20

of the things that I I covered He so he

6:22

would not be in favor of us having the conversation

6:24

about this book right now. That's what I'm

6:26

saying. Right. Howard Macdonald

6:29

himself is rolling in his

6:31

grave that we are utilizing

6:34

our last metaphysical milkshake

6:36

episode in a long while

6:39

to plug your stupid book. Okay.

6:41

Counterpoint. Calculate.

6:44

You know, when I was a kid

6:46

growing up in Iran, this was

6:49

many, many, many years ago. Before the nineteen

6:51

seventy nine revolution, Everybody

6:53

knew Howard Baskerville's name. All

6:55

Iranians knew who Howard Baskerville

6:57

was this like heroic American

6:59

who gave up everything, including

7:02

his life, in order to fight for

7:05

Iran's freedom, you know, against the

7:07

tyrannical Shah. His tomb

7:09

is still in the city of Tiberiz,

7:11

where where he lived and and where he died.

7:14

People used to come from all over the country.

7:16

to visit his tomb and and to and

7:18

to pay homage to this

7:21

American Christian missionary, you

7:23

know, who came to save souls

7:25

and instead ended up, you know, fighting

7:27

alongside the people he was there to

7:29

to bring salvation to. There's AAA

7:32

beautiful golden bust of him

7:34

in the Constitution Museum.

7:37

But then after the nineteen seventy

7:40

nine revolution, pretty much

7:42

all memory of Howard Baskerville.

7:44

was wiped. All Iranian

7:47

collective memories like, I if

7:49

you go to Iran right now and you say, Howard

7:51

Batt, no one knows what you're talking No

7:53

one -- Really? -- knows who how my basketball

7:55

is. I had actually someone in Iran,

7:57

go to Tabrias, go to the museum.

8:00

and the docent who

8:03

was, like, showing her around the museum,

8:05

including the basketball stuff

8:08

had no real idea who Howard

8:10

Baskerville was. And, like, didn't wanna

8:12

talk about still Howard Baskerville stuff in

8:14

the museum. Yeah. He's still there. He's still

8:16

there. Okay. It's still there? The bus is still a paintings?

8:19

It's still there. Let me ask you let me ask you a larger

8:21

question because we're a metaphysical show.

8:23

So, Paul, I'm I'm just gonna I'm gonna give in

8:25

to the fact that we're having a conversation about your

8:27

speaker book. Comes

8:29

out October eleventh available at all.

8:31

Bookstores. Okay. Alright. Wait. Wait. Okay.

8:33

Okay. So I

8:36

I know you. I've known you for a long time.

8:38

Mhmm. Let's let's I'm

8:40

gonna I'm gonna start with the deepest possible

8:42

questions. There's a lot more details. I I wanna

8:44

know about his history and what he did and what he

8:46

didn't do and what was going on and,

8:48

you know, a history of Iran and

8:50

the centuries is not something that most Americans

8:52

are very familiar with. But

8:54

why did you write

8:56

this book? Why would

8:58

you write a book about an

9:00

American martyr in Iran

9:02

who died at age twenty two.

9:04

He died at twenty four. Yeah.

9:07

he arrived at twenty two because I know

9:09

you. You're up to something. I am up to You're

9:11

always up. You're you're always

9:13

poking the business. So what is

9:15

it about this young Howard Baskerville?

9:17

Well, look, on the one hand, this

9:19

is somebody that everyone should know about. I

9:21

mean, it's it's crazy that this, you know,

9:23

incredibly heroic man is somebody

9:25

that like ninety nine point nine percent

9:27

of Americans had never heard of before. And

9:29

a great Christian too. Right? So the

9:31

Christian side of our nation -- Yet, devout

9:33

evangelical Christian, Protestant,

9:35

missionary. I mean, that's who this this

9:37

guy was. So partly, it's just to,

9:39

you know, make sure people know

9:41

this person's first biography ever written

9:43

about him. Partly, it's

9:46

obviously, the challenge, you know, the

9:48

the the narrative

9:50

that we hear so often about America and

9:52

Iran. Right? These are two countries that have

9:54

really been at odds for deck gates

9:57

now. And there's a lot of

9:59

conversation about, you know,

10:01

Iran calls America the great Satan and,

10:03

you know, America refers to

10:05

Iran as a terrorist state, etcetera, etcetera,

10:08

a lot of anger, a lot of animosity. And yet,

10:10

here's this American who died for

10:12

Iran. And so in a way, he

10:14

can act as a sort of

10:16

bridge, possibly a a

10:18

way of of reconciling

10:20

maybe at the very least coming to some

10:22

kind of mutual understanding between these two

10:24

countries, but but you got

10:26

me. You got me. There is there

10:28

is a little alternative goal

10:30

that I have here And,

10:32

you know, partly, it has to do actually,

10:35

a lot like the zealot, like

10:37

my book, zealot, you know, which was also about

10:39

a young, idealistic, religious

10:42

firebrand who, you know, fought

10:44

a revolution in the name of the

10:46

week and the dispossessed and marginalized and

10:49

attacked he was Jesus. I'm not saying

10:51

basketball is Jesus, but it's a it's a

10:53

theme. But

10:55

for me, you know,

10:57

we've if if we're gonna go back on

10:59

these whatever nearly hundred

11:01

episodes of metaphysical milkshake that

11:03

we've had, And we're gonna talk about,

11:05

like, what is one of the more common

11:07

themes that has come up

11:09

in these episodes? it's

11:11

been the whole, like, faith

11:14

without deeds. Right? Mhmm.

11:17

values without action. Like,

11:20

that that is something that we

11:22

have repeatedly talked about just

11:24

we have no tolerance for.

11:26

Like, people who spout the things that

11:28

they believe but don't

11:30

actually ever put them into

11:33

play. And when I really,

11:35

really admire about this kid,

11:38

this kid, and that's what he was, is that

11:41

he

11:41

went to

11:42

Iran because he believed in

11:45

Jesus Christ. He believed that

11:47

Jesus was the Lord and Savior. He believed

11:49

that all people needed to know

11:51

Jesus otherwise it would burn in hell and so

11:53

And he wanted to convert Mohammedans. That's

11:56

what that's what he said. Yeah. I'm going to do the Muhammadin

11:58

work. That's I'm gonna go and make

12:00

turn these Muslims into Christians. Anyway,

12:03

there are any tried He

12:05

tried. You know, he, according

12:07

to all the documents that we have, was very open

12:09

about his faith, shared it with everyone, shared it

12:11

with all of his students, And as

12:13

far as we know, he'd never converted a

12:15

single person. Like, no.

12:17

Not one. Like, I I've scoured the

12:19

historical documents. There's like

12:21

nobody No. I mean, he had his

12:23

best friend was Persian. You

12:25

know, he one of his favorite

12:28

students wrote a nice little thing

12:30

about him. nobody converted.

12:32

Can I just interject as a little? As

12:34

as a bahai because as a member of

12:36

the bahai faith we hold a lot of similarities

12:39

to Islam, you know, in Islam, there's

12:41

this idea that there are there are

12:43

people of the book that Abraham,

12:45

you know, Moses, some of the

12:47

other lesser prophets of the Old

12:49

Testament, and Jesus were

12:51

all prophets from God. They were

12:53

all divinely sent. They're all

12:55

divinely inspired. And

12:58

So Mohamad Muslims

13:02

revere and love Jesus Christ.

13:04

So but they view that as just folded

13:06

naturally into their religion. So

13:08

they're it would just almost be silly

13:10

for them to kind of say, oh, wait.

13:12

But now I have to reject

13:14

Mohammed

13:15

In order to really love

13:17

Jesus Christ, no, I can love Muhammad and I

13:19

can love Jesus Christ and I can love

13:22

Moses and and

13:24

Abraham and and and and all

13:26

of the great spiritual teachers -- Absolutely. --

13:28

just FYI. Absolutely. Well and I

13:30

would say one of the thing. So There is

13:32

a real fascinating fundamental

13:35

difference between Islam and Christianity.

13:38

And to put it in academic terms,

13:40

Christianity is what we refer to as an

13:42

orthodontic religion. It's all

13:44

about doctrine and correct belief.

13:47

And Islam, like Judaism

13:49

for that matter, is what we refer to as

13:51

an orthoprastic religion.

13:53

It's all about the things that

13:55

you do. So to put it in the

13:57

simplest terms, to be

13:58

a Christian means to

13:59

believe a certain set of things.

14:02

But to be a Muslim or a

14:04

Jew means that you do

14:06

a certain set of things.

14:08

Right? You have to actually act

14:11

in a certain way. It's

14:13

the things that you do that

14:15

make you a muslim, whereas it's the

14:17

things that you believe that make you a

14:19

Christian. And you could see

14:21

the conflict here. Here's this

14:23

kid going around trying to convert these

14:25

Muslims to Christianity in the

14:27

middle of a revolution in which these people

14:29

are fighting for their lives, for

14:31

their freedoms, in which they are being

14:34

oppressed and marginalized and

14:36

and at the end of this story literally

14:38

starved to death. and guns

14:40

down and been arrested. And

14:42

-- Right. -- and here's this, you know,

14:44

well meaning kid being like, hey,

14:46

you know, you should know Jesus because

14:49

he'll save your

14:49

soul. And they're like, my soul.

14:52

Like, that's not how this works, man.

14:54

That's not

14:55

how religion in Iran works in

14:57

general. including the Bahais,

14:59

but it's certainly not how Islam

15:01

works. And so what

15:04

I find most remarkable about

15:06

basketball is here is this kid who very

15:08

quickly realized, if

15:10

I'm gonna actually really

15:13

and truly walk in

15:15

Jesus' footsteps, I

15:17

need to do what Jesus would do right

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Make a difference. So

16:23

he turned from an orthodontic to

16:25

an orthoplastic kind of believer

16:28

in the midst of this revolution. He

16:30

put his faith into action. That's what he

16:32

did. But isn't there also an element

16:34

of the American revolution and all this and and

16:37

how evangelical Christianity has

16:39

been kind of wedded with

16:41

the constant tuition in a way that

16:43

he also saw the mirrors of the

16:45

American revolution, the parallels

16:47

he was referred to as the

16:49

American Lafayette, Yeah.

16:51

In Iran. That's right. And so isn't there

16:53

kind of like, yes, there's a

16:55

shift in, like, what would Jesus do? Like,

16:57

the bumper sticker? What would Jesus do

16:59

well? Jesus would try

17:01

and fight in the cause of I don't know if

17:03

Jesus would fight anyone, but he would

17:06

certainly protest and be a part of the

17:08

cause of justice. but also

17:10

that he just like people

17:12

like to gotta have my Bible and my

17:14

Constitution wanted to hand -- Yeah. -- he kind

17:16

of wanted to to be

17:18

a great American revolutionary

17:20

in Iran. Well, one of the more fascinating

17:22

things about basketball that I uncovered

17:24

was that he went to

17:27

Princeton at a time in which

17:29

Woodrow Wilson was the president of the school.

17:32

And he arrived in Princeton a

17:34

few years after Wilson

17:36

had enacted what we nowadays

17:39

all commonly referred to as the electives system.

17:41

You can thank Woodrow Wilson for

17:43

your college electives. That was

17:46

basically his innovation.

17:49

And so although he went to Princeton to study

17:51

Christian ministry, that's what he was there for. It

17:53

was all about reading the bible, you

17:56

know, scriptural to Jesus. Like, it

17:58

was bible, bible, bible,

17:59

bible. His junior

18:01

year, he had to take these

18:03

electives, And what does he do?

18:05

He takes two electives with Woodrow Wilson himself,

18:07

one in constitutionalism and

18:10

one in jurisprudence. And

18:13

Look, there's a lot to hate about Woodrow Wilson

18:15

starting with the fact that he was undisciplciplined

18:20

racist. I mean, Like

18:22

this man I mean,

18:24

I could I could tell you a lot of stories about

18:26

how racist would draw Wilson was,

18:28

but let's just start with the fact that when he was president of the

18:31

United States, he actually premiered

18:33

birth of a nation at

18:35

the White House. k. That's didn't

18:37

he also drove fire forbid

18:40

all African Americans from working in government

18:42

jobs? Federal jobs? Yeah. Yeah. He

18:45

basically rid the the DC

18:47

bureaucracy of all black people. Absolutely.

18:49

I mean, but despicable in a million ways.

18:51

But this is we're we're

18:53

doing a little sidebar here. We wanna get back to Baskerville in

18:56

Woodrow Wilson's classes

18:58

and constitutionalism at princeton

19:01

in his electives. That's all great.

19:03

But this almost could be its own episode

19:06

of metaphysical milkshake. I'm not sure that we're

19:08

the podcast to cover it.

19:10

But I'm I was reading about, you

19:12

know, so much lullaby

19:14

about removing Wilson's name from Princeton --

19:16

Yes. -- from the library, etcetera etcetera.

19:20

and because he was such a

19:22

racist. And at the same

19:24

time, Wilson created the League

19:26

of Nations. Dude, I

19:28

know. And he also believed

19:30

in in god given right of

19:32

democracy. The democracy was

19:34

a god given human right that people

19:37

should have a voice and a voice for

19:39

change in their own country. He helped

19:41

win the first World War. I mean Yeah.

19:43

Yeah. This guy, like, I

19:45

mean So how and so this is a giant this is

19:47

kind of a national conversation, like,

19:49

as we go back into the history

19:52

of

19:52

our founding fathers were

19:54

gonna find more and more racism and sexism.

19:57

Even in San Francisco, they tried to tear

19:59

down a statue of

19:59

Abraham Lincoln because Lincoln

20:02

was a bastard to the Native Americans and

20:05

sentenced a bunch of them to death

20:07

for fighting in the ind quote unquote

20:09

Indian wars. They're just trying to save their

20:11

lands and their families. And

20:13

so Lincoln was racist against the

20:15

natives. And so every

20:19

everyone pre, let's say, nineteen

20:22

eighty, is is is gonna

20:24

be is gonna inherit

20:26

a certain measure of racism and sexism

20:28

and classism and And what have you?

20:31

This needs to be a national

20:33

conversation. Like, do we ban them and ban their

20:35

names? I mean, it's easy for me to say

20:37

as a white guy. Like, if I was a black

20:39

kid at Princeton, I don't want the name of someone

20:41

who -- Sure. -- actively hated

20:43

black people above a building.

20:45

But at the same time, You

20:47

have to acknowledge a little bit of the good and bad. Wilson's

20:50

family were slave owners. He was

20:52

a fervent supporter of the

20:54

confederate cause long

20:57

after the civil war was over. Like,

20:59

he was already done and he was

21:01

still lying. Yeah. The confederacy should

21:03

have won which is crazy considering

21:05

that he became president. He

21:07

was an avid supporter of

21:09

the KKK. Like, absolutely thought that

21:11

they were, like, a jewel of

21:14

Southern Pride, you know. Mhmm. By

21:16

the time he was president of Princeton,

21:18

all the other Ivy

21:20

League schools had started letting black

21:22

students in, but Wilson was like nope, not

21:25

gonna do it, not at Princeton.

21:27

And then on the flip side of that,

21:29

this is a man who

21:31

you know, is one of the fathers

21:33

of international law

21:36

created the the the precursor

21:38

to the United Nations had

21:40

this incredibly sophisticated global

21:43

understanding, and as you rightly

21:45

say, believed that

21:48

freedom and democracy

21:50

were

21:50

not

21:51

American ideals. They

21:54

were divine mandates

21:57

that they that it was sort

21:59

of god's commandment that

22:01

all people everywhere had

22:03

to say in the governments that

22:05

ruled over them in the decisions that

22:08

govern their lives, and

22:10

he preached this to generations of

22:13

Princeton kids And then ultimately,

22:15

of course, it became sort of the

22:17

foundation of his presidency. And

22:20

afternoon Baskerville at

22:21

what, like

22:22

twenty years old, was one of those kids

22:24

just listening to these

22:26

great orations from soon

22:29

to be president of the United States

22:31

Woodrow Wilson about how

22:33

it is the responsibility of

22:36

all Americans. to make sure that

22:38

everybody in the world is free, because if

22:40

everybody in the world is free, then is not

22:42

free, then no one is free. gets

22:44

into him. Right? So it just starts

22:46

burning this hole into

22:48

his chest where he's like, okay.

22:51

My dad is a country preacher, my grandfather is

22:53

a country preacher. I came to

22:55

Princeton in order to become a

22:58

country preacher, but I'm not gonna do that

23:00

anymore. I'm gonna I'm gonna go out into the

23:02

world. And, yes, I'm gonna go out of the world and

23:04

convert the masses. That's what I'm, you know, I'm

23:06

gonna be a missionary. But

23:08

for him, the sort of

23:10

the divine message that he had

23:12

and his fervent belief

23:15

in the political rights

23:17

of of people were

23:19

absolutely enmeshed. They were one and the same as far

23:21

as he was concerned. Amazing.

23:24

So this twenty two year old

23:26

kid goes to teach at

23:28

an American school

23:30

in Tehran? No. Tebras. Tebras. Yeah.

23:32

It's a north northwest of

23:34

the country. To paint a

23:37

picture, if you will, I find this fascinating

23:39

as as a a high who's

23:41

in the roots of our faith is in

23:43

Persia, in Iran, mostly in the nineteenth

23:46

century. But I

23:48

find it really fascinating. There's

23:51

an incredible contradictory

23:55

a dichotomous history of the

23:57

shah's in Iran. Because to

23:59

be a shah's, to be a king. Right?

24:02

You're just a but you're it's

24:04

like Louis the fourteenth. It's a divinely

24:07

appointed king that

24:09

that that rules unquestioningly

24:12

that is an oddly

24:15

enough what and and maybe you can help explain this

24:17

to me. The shawls throughout

24:19

history were always battling with the

24:21

Muslim clergy. Yeah. even

24:23

though the shawls were

24:25

believed to be by

24:27

everyone divinely appointed and

24:29

kind of pillars of Islam

24:31

there were Islamic divinely appointed

24:34

kings -- Yep. -- and yet they were

24:36

always in these battles --

24:38

Power and power grabs with the

24:40

various kind of clergy members who

24:42

who hated and resented the

24:44

shawls. And and part of the Iranian revolution

24:46

in nineteen seventy nine was the kind

24:48

of bringing down of the shawl,

24:51

you know, which and it but the the roots

24:53

of that were two hundred years old with

24:56

distrust of of the shaw. But

24:58

shawls were worshiped. Worshiped

25:01

in the nineteenth century and early

25:03

twentieth century in Iran. Can you

25:05

tell us a little bit more about that milieu that Baskerville

25:08

found himself Yeah. This has been a a

25:10

fraught relationship for centuries.

25:12

As you say, you're right. Actually,

25:14

what's really fascinating is that

25:17

the the origins

25:19

of this conflict between

25:21

the clergy and the shah starts

25:23

with this story with the Persian constitutional

25:26

revolution that that Howard basketball fought

25:28

in. because before then,

25:30

for a while, the clergy just

25:33

sort of stayed out of politics

25:35

altogether. You know? They the sheism

25:37

is a weird religion. It's a

25:40

messyemic. And so they believe

25:43

that only the Messiah

25:44

can be the true

25:47

leader. And so all leaders

25:49

on earth are just either

25:51

temporary temporary leaders or not

25:53

real leaders, and so it

25:55

doesn't matter. democracy, communism,

25:58

you know,

25:59

fascism, king like,

26:03

what who cares? because

26:06

eventually the world will end, the Messiah will

26:08

come, he'll create the perfect

26:10

order, and he's the only person who has

26:12

the right to actually rule

26:15

society. Then, you

26:16

know, for a little

26:18

while, they

26:19

you had a lot of conflicts, as you

26:21

say, at

26:21

the end of the of the nineteenth century,

26:24

beginning of the twentieth century, where

26:26

certain clergy, especially sort of firebrand

26:28

features were causing some trouble, you know, really

26:31

questioning the actions of the

26:33

shawls. And what the shawls did was

26:35

brilliant, is they just bottom all They

26:37

just brought the clergy into

26:39

the court and gave them

26:41

all, you know, money and

26:43

allowances and and great

26:46

positions, essentially shut up. Land?

26:48

May land? Yeah. Gave them land,

26:50

gave them wealth, bought bought

26:53

their loyalty. You

26:55

know at that time, at the turn of the century, how many

26:57

thousands of people were in this kind of,

26:59

like, governmental court system that had

27:01

been created by the shawls? I mean, it's

27:04

thousands and thousands of people that were

27:06

on that on the dole, given

27:08

land, given titles and positions,

27:10

kind of pitted one against another

27:12

She had this whole ruling class that

27:14

was bought off in corrupt. In

27:16

fact, this is this is how this shows. It

27:18

was so ridiculous just

27:21

as like, you know, these sick of ants

27:23

and bootlickers, you know,

27:25

thousands and thousands of people who are being

27:27

paid off by the court. it

27:29

was so ridiculous that during this time, if

27:31

you wanted to be the governor

27:34

of a province, let's say, you know,

27:36

into Breeze, the

27:38

way that you would become governor is

27:41

you would pay the shaw

27:43

to become governor. You basically you know,

27:45

people would bid so

27:47

in the highest bidder, would become

27:49

the governor. And then the way

27:51

that the governor would make up all the

27:53

money that he spent in order to

27:56

become the governor was to, like,

27:58

randomly tax the people that

28:00

he was, you know, supposed to

28:02

govern and then basically pocket

28:04

most of that money and

28:06

send, you know, the remainder off

28:08

to Tehran and the government. So it

28:10

was just corruption from

28:12

the top to the bottom.

28:15

And then at the start of the twentieth

28:18

century, a group of young, you

28:20

know, sort of western educated firebrand

28:23

revolutionaries and

28:26

business interests of, you know, the

28:28

merchants, the Bizari people, a

28:30

lot of power. And then this

28:32

kind of new generation of

28:34

clergy is clergy who were

28:36

dedicated to social justice

28:38

and economic justice, and

28:41

Iranian nationalism banded

28:44

together and created this

28:46

revolution that ended up creating

28:48

a a constitution, a

28:50

a parliament, and then ultimately, that's

28:52

the revolution that Howard Baskerville

28:55

joined. But what was really fascinating

28:57

is that that group, the

28:59

young revolutionary sort of Western

29:02

educated intellectuals, the merchant

29:05

class and the clergy, that

29:08

coalition is the

29:10

same a coalition that in nineteen seventy nine brought

29:12

down the last show. It's

29:14

just unfortunately in the

29:16

post revolutionary chaos. of

29:19

those three groups, only

29:21

one of them controlled the streets.

29:23

And that was the clergy. And

29:25

so once the shot was gone, That's

29:27

when the Ayatollah Khomeini basically used

29:30

the chaos that ensued in

29:32

order to take power for himself.

29:35

Now, Iran has a long

29:37

history of kind of blaming

29:39

imperialist powers in kind

29:41

of manipulating the puppet strings of the shah

29:43

or whomever is in power. That

29:45

started with the Russians

29:47

and the British and the US. Now it's

29:49

kind of Israel. But

29:52

they were but in a lot of ways, they were right.

29:54

Right. Because the British

29:57

controlled the oil, the Russians controlled

29:59

the when it was a tobacco. I don't I don't I don't

30:02

remember exactly, but -- Yeah. -- you tell us a little

30:04

bit about the three the

30:06

three big powers and what they

30:08

were doing in Iran round

30:10

turn of the century and -- Yeah. -- the first half

30:12

of the century. Is that old adage just because

30:14

your paranoid doesn't mean

30:17

you know, people aren't out to get you. Right.

30:19

Right. And, yeah, it's true that

30:21

Iranians, you know, love

30:23

to blame westernners for

30:26

all of their ils,

30:28

certainly the Iranian government does.

30:30

But it's also true

30:32

that Iran has three

30:35

Democratic revolutions in the

30:37

twentieth century. The

30:39

constitutional revolution of nineteen o

30:41

five the National Revolution of nineteen fifty

30:43

three and then the Revolution of

30:45

nineteen seventy nine. And in

30:47

all three cases, was

30:51

essentially the the involvement

30:53

of outsiders, Russia

30:56

and Britain in nineteen o

30:58

five, the United States and

31:00

Britain in nineteen fifty three, and then

31:02

mostly the United States in nineteen

31:04

seventy nine, that came

31:06

in and essentially put an end to

31:09

any hope that these

31:11

revolutions would actually result

31:14

in a peaceful

31:16

Democratic constitutional state.

31:19

And so, you know,

31:21

Iranian have a point that Iranian, you

31:23

know, talk about you know, Israel is

31:26

behind everything, you know. Every every

31:28

problem that we have in Iran is

31:30

Israel's fault, and that's obviously

31:32

ridiculous. That said,

31:35

Israelis are openly assassinating

31:38

people on the streets of

31:40

Tehran. You know?

31:42

So you know, you see that and you're like,

31:44

well, then maybe it is

31:46

their fault that, you know, the economy

31:48

sucks. Maybe it is their fault that,

31:50

you know, everything's shit. when was

31:52

the president of Iran overthrown

31:55

because he wanted to privatize Iranian

31:57

oil interests and take those away from the

31:59

Prime Minister. fifty three, the the Prime

32:01

Minister of Iran. That's exactly right. Yeah.

32:03

Mhmm. The Prime Minister, there was a Revolution in

32:05

fifty three. We kicked the Shaw

32:07

out again We

32:09

had a democratically elected prime

32:11

minister. The first thing that he did was

32:13

nationalize the oil because at that point,

32:15

you know, all the oil going

32:17

off to the to the British empire.

32:20

And as a result,

32:22

the United States, the CIA,

32:24

came in and within a couple of

32:27

months and a suitcase with just a

32:29

hundred thousand dollars, they

32:31

managed to remove the

32:33

government, remove Muhammed, who is

32:35

the prime minister from power, and then

32:37

literally just, like, pick up the shot and

32:39

put him right back on the throne again.

32:41

Right? You know?

32:41

So so when I that it has a few times,

32:44

you you start to think,

32:46

well, maybe it's maybe I'm not paranoid.

32:48

Maybe people are upset with me.

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Make a difference. So let's

33:19

go back to Baskerville. Here here's

33:22

this kid. He's into Breeze. He's teaching. There's revolutionaries

33:24

all over the place.

33:26

What happens? What are some bullet points? We don't

33:28

wanna give away the entire book, but

33:30

What are some bullet points of what happens to him

33:33

that leads to his eventual martyrdom?

33:35

Well, it's funny because he did not want to

33:37

go to Iran at all. He had been,

33:39

you know, he was he desperately begged

33:41

to go to either China or Japan because he

33:43

was hearing all these, like, missionary

33:45

reports, right, that coming from China and Japan

33:47

about how wonderful everything was China.

33:49

Oh, people are converting en masse, and

33:52

Japan is so beautiful. And then

33:54

you would read these

33:56

missionary reports from

33:58

Iran and they were horrifying.

34:00

They're like, this is the worst

34:02

place on Earth. These people are

34:05

the worst every sin imaginable is

34:07

present amongst them. You know, they

34:09

they are in veteran liars.

34:12

Muhammadinism is a is a

34:14

wall that cannot be

34:16

broken. So the last place he

34:18

wants to go to is

34:20

Iran. And of course, that's where he

34:22

gets assigned. So, you know, he

34:24

goes, it's what you you know, Jesus wants you in Iran. That's where you

34:26

go. And he goes

34:28

there at, you know, really expecting

34:30

the worst

34:32

and almost immediately falls in love falls in love

34:34

with the country, becomes

34:36

deeply close

34:37

friends with

34:38

this amazing character named Hassan

34:40

Sherif a day who basically is

34:42

like, you know, he's one of the great

34:45

orators of the

34:47

revolution, and they both are

34:49

teaching at the same school. He falls in

34:51

love, like, literally falls in love with the daughter

34:53

of the headmaster -- Yeah. --

34:55

of this of the school. you

34:57

know, he gorges himself on Persian food

35:00

because, like, you know, he's never had

35:02

anything. This guy's been eating, like, food

35:04

from Nebraska. and he shows up

35:06

and he's like, what the fuck? This is the

35:08

best food I've ever had in my life.

35:10

Yeah. Or my sobs and

35:12

This is how zed in June.

35:14

Yeah. Exactly. He's got that

35:16

tag tag tag. And and

35:18

then on top

35:19

of all of that, Here

35:21

he is living through,

35:23

like, literally, in

35:24

front of him, something that he

35:26

had only read about in history books, something

35:29

that he only talked in Woodrow Wilson's

35:31

classes. He's literally watching a democracy

35:34

arise in front of his eyes, you

35:36

know, a

35:38

constitution is written

35:40

and and and passed.

35:42

A parliament is is created. And

35:44

there are free and fair elections. There are

35:47

these like amazing conversations

35:48

being had in coffee shops

35:50

about like what kind of country are

35:51

we gonna be? Are we gonna be, you

35:54

know, a a confederation or

35:56

a republic? you know, there are these

35:58

conversations about how to how to

35:59

properly spend

36:00

tax revenue. It's like

36:03

he is living inside of a

36:05

history book. needs to be said too that

36:07

this is not just a

36:09

revolution. This is like the

36:11

first revolution in the Muslim

36:13

world and that the first place

36:16

in the middle world where this this idea was talk about revolutionary.

36:18

The idea that people

36:21

have rights, that peasants,

36:24

that workers, that business owners have rights, they

36:26

should be heard, that their

36:29

voices should be heard, you

36:31

know, in the halls of government. Crazy.

36:33

Is, like, mind blowing because

36:35

we're still on Louis fourteenth

36:37

-- Exactly. -- kind of mentality around

36:39

the Sun King Shaw

36:42

being supported by all these

36:44

boot liquor clergy. Yeah.

36:46

Right? I mean, it's insane. that

36:49

the constitution literally says that the

36:52

Shaw has his position

36:54

by the will of the people.

36:58

and the will of the people can remove

37:00

him from that position. This was

37:03

insane talk. Like,

37:05

that's crazy What are you talking about? The

37:08

shah was put on his throne because

37:10

God put him on

37:12

that throne. and only

37:14

god can remove them from the throne. So the

37:16

very idea that that's

37:18

something that people have the power

37:21

to do you know, was unheard of at the time. People talk

37:23

a lot about the Young Turk Revolution, but

37:25

the Young Turk Revolution

37:27

was influenced by the

37:29

Persian revolution. It was the Persian

37:32

revolution that then, you

37:34

know, started getting all this

37:36

attention in

37:38

in Turkey or in the Ottoman Empire, I should say, and all these young

37:40

Turks were like, hey, we want that too.

37:42

You know? And -- Mhmm. --

37:44

it was just an

37:46

unbelievable moment

37:48

of of hope and inspiration.

37:50

And and here's this twenty two year old kid

37:52

who just finished hearing for an

37:54

entire year, Woodrow Wilson saying,

37:58

God's will is for all people

38:00

everywhere to be free. Democracy is

38:02

a gift from the heavens and it

38:05

will eventually spread throughout the

38:08

entire world. And and now he's

38:10

like dropped in the

38:12

middle of

38:14

exactly what Wood Joe Wilson was talking about it's happening in front of

38:16

him and yet. He is

38:18

constantly being told by the

38:20

church, mind your own

38:22

damn business. It

38:24

is not your business. It's not your problem.

38:26

By the way, at the time

38:29

the state department under president

38:31

Taft was like, oh, this is

38:34

nonsense. There's no such thing as democracy in a

38:36

Muslim world. That's that doesn't work.

38:38

Like, that's not a real

38:40

thing. So absolutely, we cannot support this this

38:42

revolution, and absolutely no

38:45

American, you know, can support

38:47

this revolution. So he's got both the

38:50

US

38:50

government and his church

38:53

telling

38:53

him him

38:54

none of your business look

38:56

the other way. And for a year and a half, he

38:58

does that. I mean, he it's hard,

39:00

but he does it. until

39:04

he just can't anymore. And

39:06

what does he do? Does he pick up

39:08

guns? What does he does he help organize? What what

39:10

is the what's the juice of what he

39:12

was actually rolling up

39:15

the sleeves and doing there. So to

39:17

back up a little bit,

39:19

the constitution is signed by Musafar

39:22

Adinsha, a parliament is opened.

39:24

There's elections. Iran is

39:27

now a institutional monarchy, the first constitutional

39:30

monarchy in the history of the Middle East. It's a

39:32

it's an amazing moment.

39:34

And then that shah dies.

39:37

and his son becomes a next shot.

39:40

This thirty five year old kid named

39:42

Muhammad Ali becomes a next

39:44

shot. And not that Muhammad

39:46

Ali. And

39:47

he is very

39:49

unhappy with his father

39:51

and what his father had done. And

39:53

he's like, this

39:56

is nonsense. constitution is bullshit, parliament, I

39:58

mean, this this whole thing is

40:00

ridiculous. And so with the help of his

40:02

Russian backers, he tears up

40:04

the constitution. he

40:06

rolls cannons to the parliament

40:08

building, and he blows it up with the

40:10

parliamentarians still

40:12

inside. And and then he

40:14

declares war on the

40:16

revolution, manages to recapture

40:18

the entire country of

40:20

Iran. Every city, every province, every

40:24

town except to Breeze.

40:26

The one town that Baskerville

40:28

lives in becomes essentially the

40:30

last bastion of the revolution. And

40:33

by nineteen o nine, the show after trying repeatedly

40:35

to take Tebri's by force and

40:38

failing gives up and says, you

40:40

know what?

40:42

Alright.

40:42

If I can't defeat

40:43

you, I'm just gonna starve you to

40:45

death. And he besieges the

40:48

entire city, cuts off all

40:50

food, all

40:52

water, and the population in this

40:54

very gruesome, gruesome

40:56

moment in Iranian, his street

41:00

dies, slowly, dies.

41:02

Women, children, men, corpses

41:04

on the street. Just it

41:08

is horrific. And once

41:10

again, the church, the

41:12

Presbyterian Church that sent basketball

41:14

there is saying, this is terrible. It's

41:16

an awful situation. Our

41:18

hearts are breaking. but it's none of your

41:20

business. It's none of your

41:22

business. You're here to save souls, not

41:24

lives. k? So if

41:26

you wanna do good, go and preach the

41:28

gospel. That's how you can do

41:30

good. And he just

41:32

can't do

41:34

it anymore. And so there's this

41:36

very, you know, dramatic moment where he stands in

41:38

front of his students, you know,

41:40

in in the morning, he's

41:43

there, he's supposed to teach the class and

41:45

he just says, he literally says, I can't

41:47

do this anymore. I cannot

41:50

continue to teach

41:52

you while on the other side of this wall, on the other side of this

41:54

window, there are women

41:56

and

41:56

children dying on the street.

41:58

I can't do that

41:59

this anymore.

42:02

And so he says, I can't I'm gonna give up my teaching position,

42:04

and I'm gonna actually go pick up

42:06

a rifle and join the revolution.

42:10

and here's the crazy shit. This is this is the stuff that, like, you

42:12

see it, like, in Hollywood movies and you're

42:14

like, come on. Come on.

42:16

come on He

42:18

gives this speech to his students, and the students

42:20

join him. The students

42:22

stand up, they walk out

42:25

of school with him, and

42:27

they also join the revolution. So he's like this kind

42:29

of demented pied piper, like taking

42:31

these kids out of this this,

42:33

you know, school

42:36

that he's supposed to be teaching.

42:38

And instead, he reformulates his students into this

42:41

militia that called themselves the

42:43

army of salvation up

42:46

guns and they fight

42:49

against the Shaw's troops

42:52

and ultimately in April of nineteen o nine,

42:54

this group, Baskerville, this like

42:56

twenty four year old Christian

42:58

missionary who's like had

43:00

no military you

43:02

know, trading whatsoever. He literally,

43:04

like, learned everything he knows about the military

43:06

because he borrowed some

43:08

encyclopedia botanicals. and and

43:10

his band of teenagers decide

43:12

that they're gonna break the siege. That,

43:14

you know, there's no more food in

43:18

the There's nothing more to do. Someone's got to break

43:20

through the siege, go and get

43:22

food. So he and his students on the

43:24

morning of

43:26

April twentieth, volunteer for that job, and it's in the

43:28

process of trying to break the

43:30

siege that he gets shot in the heart and

43:32

dies. Amazing. And and

43:34

it ultimately does become

43:36

successful though? Well, so this is

43:38

the crazy thing, is

43:40

that the

43:42

backlash from the siege and from Baskerville's death.

43:44

I mean, thousands of people came to his

43:46

funeral in Tebreeze. And

43:48

the and the international attention this

43:53

whole debacle is starting to get,

43:55

starts to become too much. And

43:57

so the Russians and the British,

43:59

who were really the the

44:01

only people who could control the

44:04

shah, basically give them an ultimatum,

44:06

either declare

44:08

a ceasefire so that we could bring food

44:11

and humanitarian assistance into

44:14

tebreeze, or we're gonna

44:16

invade. We're literally gonna invade your country

44:18

and remove you from power. So which one do

44:20

you want? And which is ironic because these are the

44:22

two powers that I were basically,

44:24

like, spurring him on,

44:26

you know. to do exactly

44:28

what he was doing. But, you know,

44:30

international embarrassment was just too

44:32

much. So the Shaw has no

44:34

choice but to declare a

44:36

ceasefire, and the day

44:38

after basketball's death, the

44:40

siege is lifted, food

44:42

is brought into tabrias, but

44:45

then the revolutionaries used the ceasefire

44:47

to reconstitute, regroup, march

44:50

onto Tehran where

44:52

they forced the shaw off the throne, send him off into exile,

44:55

replace him with his like twelve year

44:57

old son, and then rewrite

45:00

the constitution rebuild the

45:02

parliament, have brand new

45:04

elections, and the very, very

45:06

first act, the first legislative

45:08

act of the

45:10

new parliament is to declare Howard Baskerville

45:12

a hero and a

45:14

martyr of of the revolution. You know,

45:16

it's crazy. Like,

45:18

that was Okay. You know, a

45:20

hundred and something years

45:22

ago. You think back now, today, you

45:24

know, twenty twenty two.

45:26

Is that what we're in? Twenty one twenty?

45:28

Yep. Yep. to think

45:30

that, like, there's a there's

45:32

a American Christian

45:35

evangelical missionary in

45:38

Iran whose tomb is a pilgrimage site.

45:40

Right? Whose bust is

45:43

in a museum, displayed

45:45

in a museum, who

45:48

until the seventy nine revolution had

45:50

elementary schools named after

45:52

him. Right? And who

45:53

was considered this

45:56

hero in Iran would be crazy. It'd

45:58

be crazy to think of that about

45:59

someone like that and yet that's who it was. And

46:02

so, you know, going back to what you were saying before,

46:04

that's my goal. us to make sure

46:06

that both Iranians and Americans

46:08

remember this kid because he's pretty much been lost

46:10

to history. Incredible

46:14

story. Absolutely. astonishing, Strayer. I mean, you told me years ago about this guy and

46:16

how you wanted to write a book about him and how

46:18

this should be a movie

46:20

Timothy Shalamet,

46:22

But going back to the big ideas here

46:24

behind this book, I love the idea of

46:28

a martyr because In

46:31

the bahai faith, martyrs hold

46:34

a big place because tens of thousands

46:36

of bahas, early bahas

46:38

and bahas, which preceded bahas,

46:41

gave their lives for for their And instead

46:43

of recanting their faith, they

46:45

were tortured, shot out of

46:47

can and said candles

46:50

stuck into their bodies and they

46:52

were burned in the streets. Bostanato,

46:55

you name it. The

46:57

the idea of martyrdom is

46:59

kind of lost in the modern world.

47:01

But what a perfect example of a

47:03

murder? This is guys like, let's

47:05

do this. Organizes Melisha, they march. He, you know, he gets

47:07

shot, unfortunately. But his dying

47:10

hits the newspapers. All of a sudden, the

47:12

English and Russians are like, oh my god.

47:15

changes everything he gave his

47:18

life to achieve

47:20

the suffering of the starving of

47:23

tabri's. Yeah. bring a constitution to

47:25

the poor people of Iran.

47:28

But this is

47:29

so

47:30

tell us your feelings about

47:32

what martyrdom is and what means and why

47:35

that that that word is

47:37

so powerful in this in

47:40

this book. by the way, I'm

47:42

really glad that you brought up the Bahais because they they were pivotal in

47:44

the Persian constitutional revolution.

47:47

And the Bub was actually

47:49

executed into You know? I mean, that that

47:52

was the sight of his

47:54

execution. And

47:57

And that will tell you a lot about

47:59

how Iran works because it was truly

48:01

the execution of the

48:03

BUB that

48:04

that allowed allowed

48:06

for

48:06

the flowering of Bahaiism

48:08

in so many ways.

48:10

The fact that this guy who had these

48:14

incredible ideas He had

48:16

amazing spiritual ideas, but he

48:18

had, you know, these amazing ideas

48:20

about the freedom of the press, which

48:22

is something that Bob talked about The quality of

48:24

women and women. The quality of women?

48:26

Yeah. Yeah. Which, like, no one no one

48:28

was talking about the equality

48:30

of women. you know, abolishing clergy. Not needing clergy.

48:32

Not needing, you know.

48:34

Actually, science and religion being in harmony.

48:36

That's right. So this is a

48:38

revolutionary concept in the forties.

48:40

And and by the way, the first person

48:42

in Iran to come up with the concept

48:44

of a house of justice, which is

48:47

what the parliament was. he

48:49

was the first to say, we need we need a place

48:51

where citizens can go to, where the law

48:53

is written down, actually

48:56

have, you know, access to

48:58

a a process whereby, you

49:00

know, you can be judged fairly

49:03

by the law. People were like judged fairly by the law,

49:05

the laws, whatever the shah says the law

49:08

is. And this is a

49:10

man who was willing

49:12

to die for

49:14

those ideas at a

49:16

time in which those

49:18

ideas

49:18

and his

49:20

followers were not that

49:22

huge. the word in which, you know, he didn't

49:24

he he couldn't look ahead and know that,

49:26

like, this was going to flower into

49:30

one of the most beautiful global religions,

49:32

you know, in in the world, but he

49:34

was willing to die for it. And fundamentally,

49:38

I think That's the question that really animated

49:40

me about this book. And it's the

49:42

question at the heart of martyrdom, which

49:44

is, what are you willing

49:46

to die

49:48

for? Like, it's a crazy idea. Right? And

49:50

theoretically, we could come up with a million,

49:52

you know, answers to

49:54

that question. Right? From comfort

49:56

of our living rooms. I can tell you a whole host of things that I would

49:59

be willing to die for. But then

50:01

put me in

50:04

that position. and and

50:06

then ask me again, like, what

50:08

are you willing to die for?

50:10

In sheism and in Christianity, martyrdom

50:12

is very huge. The idea that

50:14

Jesus sacrificed himself. In

50:17

Islam, you know, the idea

50:19

that, like, the imam Hussein, you know,

50:21

was able to sacrifice themself, martyrdom,

50:23

the idea that you would lay down your life for a

50:25

just cause is in

50:28

many ways,

50:30

the very core of Islam, certainly the core

50:32

of Islam, which is

50:34

what most Iranians are.

50:39

then for

50:39

Baskerville to come into this

50:41

situation as an outsider and

50:44

to say

50:46

I have these set of beliefs, both political and

50:49

religious, political in the sense that

50:51

all people deserve to be free, religious

50:54

in the sense that human dignity, human lives

50:58

matter, and they they need to

51:00

be protected. And for

51:02

him to say, I'm willing to die for

51:04

that because, you know, I I made it

51:06

sound very heroic. He and his

51:08

band of students,

51:10

you know, we're we're

51:12

going to break through the siege. I mean, it was

51:14

ridiculous. It was a suicide mission. It

51:16

was him and eleven students. It was

51:18

a dumb dumb idea,

51:20

but it was born out of

51:22

desperation. People are dying. I have

51:24

to do something. And so

51:26

you can say, with a very

51:28

clear conscience that he went

51:30

into that action knowing

51:32

that very likely he was

51:34

not coming back from it. and

51:38

that is the thing that

51:40

made him the hero in

51:43

Iran. It's

51:44

not about what you do or

51:46

what you say or even who you

51:48

are and certainly not what you

51:51

believe. It's about what

51:53

are you willing to die

51:55

for? And part

51:56

of

51:57

the reason why I think he has become

51:59

such a hero is that

52:02

that question has always been very important in

52:04

Iran. Whether you're a

52:06

Iranian Christian or an Iranian Jew or

52:08

an Iranian Buhai or an

52:10

Iranian Muslim,

52:11

There's the the Persian culture

52:14

is

52:14

all about this notion

52:17

of sacrifice. What are

52:19

you willing to die for? That's that's

52:21

the most important question. And will

52:23

you actually do it? Will you put

52:25

yourself out there?

52:28

And

52:28

so to me, that's the core of what martyrdom

52:30

is. Right? This idea that I

52:32

have a set of beliefs,

52:34

a set of values,

52:38

and I am going

52:39

to put those values into action,

52:41

but I am also going

52:44

to willingly, if

52:46

necessary, die. for

52:47

those values. It's just

52:50

we don't

52:50

really see that that much anymore. You know what I'm

52:52

saying? It's just not a not a thing anymore.

52:54

Peter Singer who we had on

52:56

the show gave a very

52:58

famous TED Talk. We might

53:01

have referenced it in our conversation with him.

53:03

I can't remember if it made the

53:06

edit. where he showed footage in China of

53:08

a girl who had been hit by a car laying

53:10

in the street and people were driving

53:12

past the dead body for, like,

53:15

twenty minutes or half an hour before someone, like, stopped

53:17

and said, hey, we need an ambulance and

53:19

what's going on here. People just ignored

53:21

the body. Right? And

53:23

Then he drew parallel

53:24

to like, well, wait a second.

53:26

We're doing this every day. We know that people

53:28

are We know that in Pakistan. Right.

53:31

there's thousands of people starving

53:33

right now,

53:34

right now from

53:35

the floods. Like we know in

53:37

the Sudan and in Ethiopia, there's war

53:39

in Sri Lanka. that people are dying

53:41

and starving. And, yes, and people

53:44

were outraged that people were

53:46

driving by this dead body. But

53:48

aren't we driving

53:50

by dead bodies every single day. So

53:52

when you think about murder them, like, most people

53:54

would say, like, well, I would die for my family.

53:57

I would die for my wife, I would die for my child. If someone was

53:59

threatening them, I would throw my life and I'd,

54:02

okay, fair enough. That's

54:04

that's great. That's great. And then it's

54:06

like, well, maybe I would die for my neighbor. If I saw someone my neighbor or

54:08

extended family, like, there's

54:11

but but but then how

54:13

wide do we make that circle? You know what I mean? How

54:15

big do it? because this is what he did,

54:18

essentially, was his circle

54:21

went from his family to people

54:23

in Nebraska and South Dakota, then

54:25

his circle when evangelical Christians

54:27

or Christian grads and all of a

54:29

sudden his circle went to

54:32

humanity. Yeah. Muslim women and

54:34

children of

54:36

tebreeze are then my family, I'm willing to die for them.

54:38

So in a way, my

54:40

point is like, how do we

54:43

And and and answer this question. I'll ask you this

54:46

question. How do we expand that

54:48

circle of what we are

54:50

willing to sacrifice our

54:52

lives for? Yeah.

54:54

I

54:54

think fundamentally

54:56

that is the

54:58

question of the book. It's literally a

55:00

question that I ask, you know, at the

55:02

end of it. Basketball died

55:04

for strangers.

55:06

You know, these

55:07

were not his people as you

55:09

say. Like, it wasn't didn't

55:12

they weren't Americans, they

55:14

weren't Christians, you know,

55:16

they they were people that he

55:17

didn't know. you know,

55:19

but they were suffering. And he felt like he

55:22

needed to. And you're right. As

55:24

Peter Singer

55:26

reminded us, yet people are suffering right now everywhere, and

55:28

you can do something about it. So why

55:30

aren't you? And I guess, at a

55:32

time in which, you know,

55:34

we've become less

55:36

and less globally aware. I think that's probably

55:38

true right now. We're becoming more

55:41

insulated, less concerned about what's

55:43

happening around the world

55:46

thousands of people who are dying in in Pakistan because

55:48

of, you know, the

55:50

the flooding. There are millions of people

55:52

all over the world whose lives are

55:55

at at risk because of climate change or

55:57

because of object poverty or

55:59

hunger. There are

56:01

people around the world

56:03

who are

56:03

in need of someone to

56:06

help them. And we,

56:08

I think, have become less

56:11

and less interested in those people, not more.

56:13

Even this idea

56:16

that Baskerville went

56:18

to some foreign strange land

56:20

ten thousand miles away. It took them two

56:22

and a half months to get there. because

56:26

he thought that they were deserving

56:28

of freedom and democracy. Like,

56:30

we're not even all that in a democracy

56:32

here in America anymore. Right? It's like half

56:35

of us are like, here's here's what I

56:37

love. No one has to ever

56:39

lose an election again. Yes.

56:42

Exactly. We never lose elections. No one

56:44

ever will lose an election. I I tweeted

56:46

that it's like a participation trophy. No

56:48

one loses. Like, all this anyone who look at,

56:50

quote unquote, loses an election, had it

56:52

stolen, and it was right. Right? That's right. So

56:54

no one ever has a everyone's a

56:56

winner. Everyone's a winner. That's

56:59

how we think here. Let alone the idea

57:01

of, like, promoting democracy in

57:03

another country. Are you nuts?

57:05

Like, that's not. We could

57:07

barely promote that here. And so in some

57:09

ways, you look at basketball's actions and and he comes off his, maybe a

57:11

little naive, a little foolish,

57:14

you know. It's

57:16

e he's easy to he's easy to dismiss and make fun of. There's no

57:18

question about it. You know, this white

57:21

Christian privileged kid who went

57:23

to some dark and foreign land in order

57:26

to, you know, bring

57:28

salvation and then

57:30

had this awakening. And really

57:33

kind of ended up being saved himself in in a lot of

57:35

ways because of that awakening and and

57:37

these actions. So I

57:41

really want this book to be a

57:43

challenge to the

57:44

people who read it. I want them. That's

57:46

what I was getting at at the very beginning.

57:48

I know that you don't write anything unless

57:51

you are poking the beehive, unless

57:53

you are issuing a talent.

57:56

beehive to but it's a challenge both for Christian Americans and a just challenge

57:58

for Muslim Iranians at the

58:01

same time. It's a

58:04

challenge for everyone. It's a challenge for Christians,

58:06

especially in America. Not behind. Not

58:08

behind. You have gotten to this

58:10

place where Christianity means nothing more than, you

58:12

know, political power and,

58:15

you know, forcing Christian

58:18

ideas and values upon

58:20

the the United States. I

58:22

mean, Christians and the Trumpiers have

58:25

gotten a very bad rap and deservedly

58:28

so. And here's a Christian who says,

58:30

no, being a Christian doesn't mean,

58:32

you know, forcing this

58:34

or that on someone being a Christian means acting

58:36

like Jesus and dying

58:38

for strangers. That's what being a

58:40

Christian means. But isn't this a little bit

58:42

scary. Isn't this a little bit scary that

58:44

a a Christian in in MAGA America could read

58:47

this and go, I

58:49

am gonna die. for

58:52

Trump. I am gonna die for those

58:54

evil liberals that are

58:56

tearing our democracy apart.

58:58

And because a lot of them are willing to die,

59:00

they're willing to sacrifice their

59:02

lives to protect America

59:04

from liberal scrum that they

59:06

believe by, you know, I

59:09

think about sixty percent are

59:12

evil for our country, possibly.

59:14

I think a lot of them

59:15

are willing to kill

59:18

for it.

59:18

far,

59:19

far fewer willing to die

59:21

for it. But nevertheless, it

59:23

comes back to that question, what are you

59:25

willing to die for? And by the way, this is an American

59:27

too. This I mean, he gave up his citizenship at the end of his life

59:29

because he had to. I mean, he that he

59:31

was literally being threatened

59:34

with treason. told

59:36

treason. You will be arrested for treason if

59:38

you fight in this war and he

59:40

was like, okay, well then I guess I'm not American

59:42

anymore and he handed his passport

59:44

in. But Unquestionably,

59:46

he was doing this as an American. He

59:48

believed that this is what an American would

59:50

do. That like the idea that

59:52

democracy is something just for America,

59:54

is fucking offensive. Like, of course, it's not. And

59:56

so this is me acting like a

59:59

Christian. This is me acting like

1:00:01

an American. And

1:00:04

so I think, you know, it's something for a lot of us Americans right now

1:00:06

to start thinking about too, what do we owe other

1:00:08

people in the world? What do we

1:00:11

owe their freedom?

1:00:13

I wanna say something on that on this word

1:00:15

martyr because I think there's an idea, like,

1:00:17

we don't martyrdom doesn't necessarily

1:00:20

mean giving your

1:00:22

life an in being shot to death

1:00:24

that martyrdom can mean

1:00:27

giving up your comfort, your

1:00:30

freedom, your status, your

1:00:32

time to help others. There is a there

1:00:34

is a martyrdom, a

1:00:36

healthy martyrdom in in

1:00:38

service to others.

1:00:40

So we don't have to think of martyrdom as

1:00:42

like -- Absolutely. -- what am I am I

1:00:44

gonna be bayonetta or garrotted or

1:00:47

brought up in front of a firing

1:00:49

squad, but actually it's like

1:00:52

working in selfless service is a kind of

1:00:54

-- That's Right? A different kind of martyrdom. That's right. It was any kind

1:00:56

of, like, voluntary suffering. It could be

1:00:58

economic suffering. It could just be comfort

1:01:02

you know, a lot. It's it's about

1:01:04

putting other people first.

1:01:06

I think that's what that's what,

1:01:10

you know, a true martyr is. And and I think that

1:01:12

this is somebody who

1:01:14

can be celebrated, but also at

1:01:16

this time right

1:01:18

now in America and in Iran, certainly. You know,

1:01:20

the the the sort of very

1:01:24

easy way

1:01:26

that Iranian's especially the government

1:01:28

has of just simply

1:01:30

demonizing Americans and Christians

1:01:32

for that matter, and yet

1:01:34

having to come to terms with this

1:01:36

American Christian who was a hero. And by

1:01:38

the way, this book is being translated into

1:01:41

Persian. It'll be Bill

1:01:44

REIT as a PDF for free for

1:01:46

anyone in Iran to

1:01:48

download for free. because I wanna

1:01:50

make sure that has to They're

1:01:52

telling the last same way that Americans are.

1:01:54

Yeah. Yeah. I'm gonna I'm gonna send it

1:01:56

out to all the Persian behind friends to -- Yeah. --

1:01:58

and this will be you could probably

1:01:59

be arrested in Iran,

1:02:02

like, a year from now for owning this

1:02:04

book. And, you know, it's it's possible. It's

1:02:06

funny. I

1:02:08

had, like, have this film crew in Iran doing some filming for

1:02:10

me and and, you know, they

1:02:12

originally got a permit

1:02:14

very very easily to

1:02:16

do this because they said, you know, we're doing AAA little, you

1:02:18

know, video thing on Persian

1:02:20

constitutional revolution and and and Howard

1:02:22

basketball is rolling it and the government was like, fine.

1:02:24

That sounds

1:02:26

great. Then they started filming and asking questions.

1:02:28

And the more they started asking about

1:02:30

basketball, in particular, this

1:02:33

American Christian missionary, people

1:02:36

started to tense up a little bit, and on the third day,

1:02:38

they got their permit revoked.

1:02:42

Just surprised your permit is revoked.

1:02:45

because I guess they were just talking too much

1:02:47

about America. And

1:02:50

again, I

1:02:50

think that's what I that's what I wanna

1:02:52

change. I wanna make sure that both Americans and Iranians remember

1:02:54

this name Howard Baskerville and

1:02:57

that that name is a

1:02:59

symbol of everything

1:02:59

that these

1:03:02

two cultures,

1:03:03

these two peoples actually hold in common with each other.

1:03:05

It can be a bridge between

1:03:07

these two great cultures.

1:03:10

And I'm I'm reminded of people reference

1:03:12

it all the time, but the Anthony

1:03:15

Bourdain episode in Iran

1:03:18

-- Mhmm. where he travels around and eats food

1:03:20

and there's some American

1:03:22

journalists there which are subsequently arrested

1:03:24

right after shooting the episode with

1:03:26

him. Yeah. Jason Russia shows the

1:03:28

incredible humanity

1:03:30

of Iran. People are just so

1:03:32

loving and warm and how spetable

1:03:34

and funny and goofy and it's

1:03:37

a it's a really glorious

1:03:39

culture with the most

1:03:42

amazing food

1:03:44

you've never had. Well,

1:03:46

I wish you the very best with this book, Reza,

1:03:48

but now he's gonna segue

1:03:51

into something like, So what do you think?

1:03:53

What would you die for listeners, metaphysical listeners? And we would love

1:03:56

to hear from you. We'd like to make

1:03:58

this our last

1:04:00

gasp, at least for a while, we would love to

1:04:02

hear from you on our social media at

1:04:04

metaphysical milkshake on Instagram. You

1:04:06

can write us at at

1:04:08

metaphysical at cast media

1:04:10

dot com. If you could find us on our

1:04:12

socials at ray ray Wilson at reza Hasland.

1:04:14

Are we gonna give some of these

1:04:17

away? We are. we are. How's that gonna work? How's that

1:04:19

gonna work? Pretty simple. First five

1:04:20

people to write a review of

1:04:22

metaphysical milkshake on apple pie Cast,

1:04:25

all you gotta do is email a screenshot of the

1:04:27

review to metaphysicalcastmedia dot

1:04:30

com, and we'll send

1:04:32

you a copy of the book. But

1:04:35

If

1:04:35

you're not one of those five people, listen, you could

1:04:37

still get the book. It just

1:04:38

costs a little bit of money. That's all. You

1:04:40

know? How much are we talking about here?

1:04:42

How much does this bad voice say? The hard cover is, like, thirty bucks, but

1:04:44

I think the -- A. -- a a. bundle cover.

1:04:46

Or the Are you reading it? Are you able

1:04:48

to read it on the audible? Yeah. Yeah.

1:04:51

Yeah. You could get audible and hear

1:04:53

me. You should have me read it. Read it to you in a

1:04:55

very dramatic. I can read it for you. I

1:04:57

can read it. But, you know, it's hard. Like, I was looking at

1:04:59

I was looking

1:05:02

at the the nonsense. One can forgive Howard Baskerville

1:05:04

for being lost in such thoughts. The

1:05:06

past six months have been a whirlwind

1:05:10

of highs. and Lowe's. Yeah. That's not bad. The fall felt like a dream.

1:05:12

The thing is that I can't afford

1:05:14

Raynelson. That's my problem. You cannot. I

1:05:16

was just gonna

1:05:18

say that just one last

1:05:20

appeal here is that I was looking at the non

1:05:22

fiction bestseller list.

1:05:24

And

1:05:25

it's all Trump. It's either books about

1:05:27

Trump eleventh.

1:05:28

Wow. So yeah. So hitting

1:05:30

the bestseller list would be helpful, and

1:05:33

you can help metaphysical milk shakers, please. This

1:05:36

episode drops on October eleventh.

1:05:38

So when you hear

1:05:40

this, these especially these

1:05:42

several days after this podcast

1:05:44

drops. The eleventh through the eighteenth

1:05:46

or so, like, get out

1:05:48

there, buy several of these. This is a great stocking

1:05:50

stuffer. This is the week to buy it

1:05:52

help Reza get his book up on that

1:05:54

best seller

1:05:56

list. Thank you, everyone. Reza, I don't wanna say

1:05:58

goodbye. But I'm first

1:06:00

of all, I'm really congratulations on the book,

1:06:02

and I'm really glad that we get to have this conversation

1:06:06

as the as the temporary, I hope,

1:06:08

sign off of of this

1:06:12

first long seventy plus

1:06:14

episode chapter of metaphysical

1:06:16

milkshake. But what an honor and

1:06:18

a thrill to be having these conversations with you

1:06:20

over the last several years? I

1:06:22

mean, it's It's enriched my life so much. I've learned so

1:06:24

much. I've thought so

1:06:26

much. We've we've got to speak to

1:06:28

some absolutely incredible

1:06:30

-- Yeah. incredible human

1:06:32

beings. And I wanna thank everyone

1:06:34

who's been listening and we've

1:06:36

gained a really kind of

1:06:39

loyal, wonderful audience And

1:06:42

just thank you so much for supporting

1:06:44

kind of uplifting

1:06:48

important

1:06:48

elevated conversations about

1:06:50

big ideas thank you for being a part of

1:06:52

this. We couldn't have done it without you. Hopefully,

1:06:55

we get to keep going. Yeah.

1:06:57

This has been a truly fantastic experience.

1:07:00

And, you know, I mean, we're friends before,

1:07:02

but I feel like we've gotten very close

1:07:04

in these conversations and Indeed.

1:07:08

And it's been it's just

1:07:10

been wonderful. And thank you, milkshakers, for

1:07:12

for being on this, I

1:07:14

guess, now, three year journey

1:07:17

with us. And, you know,

1:07:19

we love you. We love these ideas,

1:07:21

and and hopefully

1:07:23

we'll be back. I

1:07:26

hope so too. Milk shakers,

1:07:28

you guys are the best. We love you so

1:07:32

much. Reza, grasp on the book, pick it up, an American

1:07:34

Marver in Persia.

1:07:36

Blah blah blah blah blah blah by Reza

1:07:38

Hasland. pick

1:07:40

that up late September, early October. Thanks

1:07:42

for listening. Hopefully, we see you again. Tell

1:07:44

all your friends to listen to our

1:07:46

seventy to eighty plus episodes.

1:07:49

We would love to have these

1:07:52

ideas shared by everyone.

1:07:54

Thank you so much.

1:07:56

Siding off,

1:07:58

Metophysical milkshake is executive produced by

1:08:00

Rain Wilson, Reza Hasland, and Colin

1:08:02

Thompson. It is produced by

1:08:04

Safa, Samazadeh, Harris Lane, Mick

1:08:07

De Maria, Hashem self, and DJ

1:08:10

Lubel. Cast media is the

1:08:12

production and distribution partner,

1:08:14

original music by

1:08:16

Jeff Tang.

1:08:28

Timothy Shail

1:08:29

made, people don't

1:08:31

know this big stamp

1:08:34

of the metaphysical milkshake. Yeah. Love the milkshake. So to make milkshake or Timothay, if you happen

1:08:39

to be listening, you

1:08:41

know, I think you'd make a great

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