David Goyes: A Good Life for All
Redefining justice through restorative practices and social equity
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In a world enthralled by the new and the next, David Goyes invites us to pause and ponder a different question: What if true sustainability isn’t just about consuming less, but about deepening our care and commitment to each other?
David’s search brings us into a conversation that challenges the core of our modern consumer habits—a conversation about what it means to live in a more just, verdant, and peaceful world.
David is in search of a good life for every living being on earth, which he pursues through investigation and the application of his findings in everyday life practice.
Guest
Dr. David Goyes, a distinguished criminologist and environmental justice advocate, is celebrated for his innovative research that bridges the gap between law, society, and sustainability. Born and raised in Bogotá, Colombia, Dr. Goyes’s early experiences with economic and social inequalities shaped his profound commitment to justice and systemic change. A senior researcher at the University of Oslo, he uses his expertise to challenge and transform conventional approaches to criminal justice. Dr. Goyes’s work, particularly in restorative justice, emphasizes rehabilitation over punishment, advocating for policies that ensure social equity and human dignity. Known for his articulate and insightful analyses, Dr. Goyes is a frequent speaker at conferences worldwide, promoting a deeper understanding of how justice systems can better serve society. Through his research and public engagement, Dr. Goyes continues to inspire and drive meaningful reform, striving for a world where justice truly contributes to a sustainable and equitable future.
You can learn more about David and his work catalyzing positive change at:
Website: www.drgoyes.com
University of Oslo: Senior researcher
Editor-in-Chief International Journal for Crime, Justice and Social Democracy
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Extended studies from The Infinite Search library.
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Transcript
[00:00:00] John: In a world enthralled by the new and the next, David Goyes invites us to pause and ponder a different question. What if true sustainability isn't just about consuming less, but about deepening our care and commitment to each other? David's search brings us into a conversation that challenges the core of our modern consumer habits.
[00:00:27] a conversation about what it means to live in a more just, verdant, and peaceful world. Born and raised in Columbia, David's early experiences spurred his passion for addressing systemic inequality and advocating for comprehensive societal change. His book, Southern Green Criminology, has been instrumental in In introducing a nuanced perspective on the rights of nature and environmental issues in the global south, and his upcoming work promises to delve deeper into the world of white collar crime.
[00:00:53] Today we explore the shifts that might occur when we move from the paradigms of endless acquisition to one of reciprocal care. Imagining a society or each choice in each action is infused, not merely with the intent to do less harm, but to do measurable. Good. David, thank you for joining me on the Infinite Search.
[00:01:11] I'm excited to share this conversation with you and with our audience.
[00:01:16] David: John, I'm so excited to be here. I really look forward to our conversation because I think we have many topics in common and I think this can be enlightening, enlightening for both of us.
[00:01:25] John: You know, when I was researching some of your work and looking at the way that you've gone through this world, I've noticed that you seem to have more of a focus on the human rights over human profit and I'm curious if there was something in your childhood or something from early on that grounded that practice or that idea or that way of seeing the world.
[00:01:49] David: Definitely. And that's a very accurate observation as well. So as you may know, I was born in Columbia in Bogota and I was born to a lower middle class family. And we have different periods in our lives where we struggled economically. So at times during some years we survived out of donations from the church, from friends, from other organizations.
[00:02:17] So that was one experience, but at the same time, what that taught me was that it's not the wealth, not the exuberance, not the huge comforts. What matters in the life, what matters in life is that. Peace of mind is the well being, is the having the basic needs covered. Of course, money matters because you need to cover certain basic needs, but it's not what matters the most.
[00:02:47] So that was in my childhood, I guess I was seven, eight, nine years perhaps, but that of course framed the way I see the world and life right now. But then also when I started at the National University in Colombia, I met people from different regions in Colombia who had been forcefully displaced by violence.
[00:03:10] And I saw also their happiness, their, how smart they were, how much they could enjoy life. But I also saw how their lives have been somehow, I won't say ruined because they still enjoyed life, but they have been scarred. because of the greed of other people who wanted more money, more profit. They wanted to reclaim ownership over those lands that they had inhabited.
[00:03:40] So both my childhood experiences and what I saw during my undergraduate studies taught me that we need to change our priorities. We need to see life in a different way because economic success for some people. May entail the suffering, uh, and even the death for some others. So this childhood experiences and what I saw, what I experienced, what I learned from my family that has of course shaped how I see life and how I go about in doing the research that I do.
[00:04:20] John: I was talking recently with somebody who works in branding and they were talking about the importance of lived experience as being, uh, for them, it was the most valuable form of knowledge. And I find, I found that to be really interesting and really important and I can see where that relationship comes into play here, where you're talking about the fact that you experienced these things firsthand, you know, I also come from a, from a background where I grew up in poverty and had help from the church and all those sorts of things as well.
[00:04:55] And so I too have that, that, that experience. Um, not everyone has that experience in life and I'm curious. If there's something that we can do to bridge that world where there's an understanding between that relationship where people have a better sense of empathy or of the other person's plight in life.
[00:05:18] David: I think, as I say, first, it is, there's a concept called the impossibility to bear witness. So, to have the exact. experience as those who suffer certain types of violence or poverty or situations is 100 percent impossible because you cannot inhabit their worlds and feel the stress that they can feel. But I think there are different ways we can approach, even if we cannot do it 100%, we can approach their lives and their experiences.
[00:05:56] And we can bridge that gap. So something that I found fascinating is a piece of research about imagination. Because I think many times the capacity to imagine how it is for someone else to undergo a certain situation can increase our empathy, and it can change, it can modify our behavior. So what this research said, for instance, is that reading helps a lot to develop imagination and especially reading, uh, fiction.
[00:06:30] Because when you read fiction, what you do is you project the world that you're reading in your head. So you are somehow picturing what's happening with the characters. You are imagining all the, all the set, the setting of the story. So that increases your capacity to imagine how it is for others. And of course, any type of reading, but especially fiction or nanotechnology fiction, where there are characters or there are vivid descriptions.
[00:06:59] So that's somehow a pre workout, if we can call it that way, just a tool to strengthen our Capacity to imagine how it is for others, that would be a first step, but then a second step would be to really care and to really try to navigate and try to understand the reality of the world and that entails first accepting that we are part of society and that our actions matter, that we are not detached.
[00:07:36] So it's not like we are good citizens just because we go to our offices from nine to five and then back at home and we watch TV and then we can say we're innocent because every action has an impact. We may not see it, but it has an impact. So what we have to do is to really try and think and understand and research what impacts do our actions have.
[00:08:06] And for that, you need first imagination, but also a keen interest in what you're doing. So an example of what I'm saying. So I was putting this example of you go to the office from nine to five, and then you get, you come back home and you sit on your sofa and you watch Netflix. Well, one of the research projects that I had was the impact of certain shows, uh, true Crime, for instance, have on society.
[00:08:37] So I was researching the impacts of this show, Narcos, uh, the popular Netflix show about Paolo and the violence that transpired in Beijing in the eighties and nineties. And it has huge repercussions, uh, on, uh, in the, uh, city and the inhabitants and the victims. Because for them, for instance, for the victims to see their violence become a commodity, to become a, an entertainment product, it's very, uh, it's a re dramatization.
[00:09:10] So in that example, you can see a normal, a regular citizen working and then enjoying a TV show. So apparently that it's entirely innocent and with no consequence, but in reality, everything has a consequence. And so I think those two skills, or perhaps three skills and the capacity to imagine. In the interest in researching what are the consequences of our acts and third, the capacity to build empathy and to care for others.
[00:09:43] John: I love that idea around the inability to put yourself in another person's shoes like that, but it makes total sense. The imagination is, I love that idea. It reminds me of Gabriel Garcia Marquez in A Hundred Years of Solitude. I And the idea of the genre of magical realism in and of itself.
[00:10:07] David: Do you know that the Garcia de Marquez is my countryman and then magical realism is an important part of my upbringing and what's interesting now that we're talking about literature, imagination, ways into feeling what others have experienced or experiencing what others feel.
[00:10:26] Magical realism was developed. in Latin America, but it also appeared, for instance, in Russia, as a way to express what they could not express. So at the time when magical realism came about in Latin America, these countries had dictatorships, they had a lot of violence, repression, so writers could not straightforward say, this is happening in our countries and denounce it that way.
[00:10:53] Because we saw how some authors that did that were killed. So magical realism was a very clever way to have these narratives that are extraordinary, that are magical. And then the dictators would say, okay, this is not worth looking up. It's just fiction. But in that magical realism, they would camouflage all of these denouncements about the injustices, unfairness.
[00:11:19] So many times that something that happens with books. That they are able to, uh, pin down something that others cannot express, and they can express it very clearly. And through that ability, they allow us to understand a portion of reality. And that increases, I think, our imagination and our circle of empathy.
[00:11:42] So that's a very good entrance point for caring about others.
[00:11:49] John: You talked about this idea of interconnectedness and this realization that we need to have that understanding or that that's what we're looking for. And it sort of leads me into this idea that You do work in law and in criminology and and affecting change on a larger scale, not on a interpersonal one to one relationship.
[00:12:10] I'm curious where that came from. How did you find criminology in that sort of sense?
[00:12:15] David: So I studied law first and I started criminal criminal law and I practiced as a lawyer and I was defending people in prison for drug charges. Uh, and many times this, uh, drug charges, I found very unfair. So one example that I can give you is this, uh, young guy, I think he was 18, 19 at the time.
[00:12:42] He was at the party with friends, uh, with some, uh, women, they were dancing, drinking. He was not drinking because he was driving, but his friends had, uh, some weed with them, some marijuana with them. And then the police stopped them. They all had the weed, but it was not a big amount, and it was this, uh, how can I put it, an innocent time trying, experimenting a little bit, but the police stopped them, uh, it was four of them, they took them to the police station, and then the father of one of them was a lawyer.
[00:13:21] And when he arrived at the station, he told this guy, if you accept responsibility, it will be much easier for me to take you out. Because if not all of you, all the four of you will be charged with this. So it's easier to defend just one. So the person said, okay, I'm going to do that. He was very nervous.
[00:13:41] He didn't know how to react to that. He accepted being the owner of the marijuana. And as soon as he did that, the lawyer, the father of the other one disappeared. So this young guy, he was 19. He was sentenced to what I believe was 12, 14 years in prison for one night of being out with friends. So, I had that case, and what I thought at the time was, well, it could have been me.
[00:14:10] Because it's that time when you're studying, you're joined, you're out having fun with friends, you're really not harming society. But, um, but he was, he ended up in prison, uh, and what was more dramatic was that he was so distressed that he attempted suicide the second night in prison. So what I thought at the time, and I tried to defend him unsuccessfully because the war on drugs was so hard.
[00:14:42] At the time, it's still hard, but a little bit less, but it was so hard at the time in Latin America that all drug offenses were immediately considered very serious and the prison charges would be sustained, so it was basically impossible to defend him. So they thought, well, doing one case at the time is nice, but what I want to see is the source of injustice.
[00:15:10] I want to study, uh, who decides what is a crime, who decides how should we punish them, how can we understand why people commit crimes. So I wanted to have a more sociological, broader, and deeper perspective. And that's what criminologists do. And so I was at the time doing a master's in sociology, I was studying that, and then I found criminology.
[00:15:39] And the criminology asks all these questions about the definition of crime, the definition of punishment, about the causes of crime, and that's what I wanted to understand. I wanted to understand What are the sources or the origins of injustice or the origins of decreased well being in society? What were those sources for you?
[00:16:06] So, so I, I mean, well, I've been in this field for now 15 years, so I've been researching different topics, but my first my first research was about wildlife trafficking. And that was a little bit of a coincidence that I ended up researching that. But in the end, that what I was doing was to research who or why are wild animals trafficked.
[00:16:36] And that's a little bit, that was a little bit unconventional, because usually when we think about crime, when we think, when we think about victimhood, when we think about What harms society? We always think about humans because society is very anthropocentric, it's very centered in humans. So it's like we are the only thing that matters on earth and we know that's not, we know that we're all interconnected and we also know other animals also have the capacity to feel, to suffer, uh, to experience pain and to have a wish live.
[00:17:16] So that was the first, uh, the first, uh, research project that I had, and I was interviewing many people to understand the, the logics of this, but what it taught me is something that has, uh, that still applies to the research that I'm conducting nowadays. And it is that first, um, there are hierarchies. In society.
[00:17:41] So for instance, when it comes to wildlife trafficking, what happens is that there are very impoverished people in the countryside. So someone comes to them and they ask them, Can you catch this animal? It might be a frog. It might be a bird. It might the Uh, a tiger, a small tiger, whatever. And they pay them one or 2 and they have to do it because they don't have anywhere else to find the money to survive.
[00:18:11] So poverty is an important factor there, but then they give the animal, for instance, to the next person on the chain. And the next person on the chain, um, earns a little bit more money, but the person controlling the organization of the chains are usually more wealthy and established people who run the chain.
[00:18:32] No risks for this trafficking. So they are the ones organizing the trafficking. They are the ones organizing the transportation of animals. Um, but in the end, they run no risk because they are not catching the animals. They are not smuggling the animals. And then there's a final link in the chain, which are the consumers.
[00:18:56] And that's the important part also for us and for the listeners to remember. What we consume comes from a place and our consumption has consequences. So the first research project taught me first that there is the society and the world is interconnected. Second, that poverty plays an important role. And third, that consumerism is an important yet hidden factor or accepted factor.
[00:19:27] When we think consumption is fine, it's what drives society. We are also hiding away the harms of consumption. So it was roughly the first project. Uh, then I conducted some other research projects. And right now what I'm doing is interviewing people in prisons in Latin America. So people who have committed the offenses like murder or kidnapping or extortion or drug offenses.
[00:19:58] So what we call a street crime or violent crime, and for many of them, the ways into crime into criminality is their poverty. So these are people who didn't have proper housing, who didn't have proper education, who had a lot of poverty, who had a lot of trauma. in their childhood. So that's very interesting, interesting that you asked me about my childhood first thing in this interview, because the childhood really matters.
[00:20:29] So when they have, uh, all those needs unfulfilled, And denied by society, but they try to survive and they are closer to this illegal activities for that. So poverty, interconnection, uh, and consumerism, those are three, three issues that have come up often in my research.
[00:20:54] John: I'm familiar with the poverty side of things and the lawlessness or accepting of how to earn money in that sense.
[00:21:03] Um, my family has that background and my uncle died in prison and my older brother, um, I haven't spoken to him in maybe 20 years because of his involvement with, um, illicit activities and all of that sort of stuff. Um, so it's, it's a very, um, personal thing to you're interviewing people who have committed crimes.
[00:21:22] I am of the belief that our judicial system in America and maybe worldwide is not, um, rehabilitative. Thank you. It doesn't rehabilitate anybody, if anything, it does the exact opposite. And so I'm really curious to learn more about what you're doing with that and what the intention is beyond the interview part.
[00:21:42] How do you plan on communicating those ideas in the interview? The stories that are being shared with you.
[00:21:49] David: Indeed, so this is a large project funded by the Norwegian Research Council and it's unique and the largest criminology project ever conducted in Latin America. So I am part of this team and we have been visiting many prisons in Latin America.
[00:22:07] We have interviewed a total of 420 people repeatedly. So, our data consists of roughly 65, 000 pages, which is a lot of information, and the interviews that we conduct are life course studies, meaning that we ask them about their life trajectories. We ask them about, uh, their families of origin, how were their parents, their grandparents, how were their childhoods, their adolescence.
[00:22:39] So, we want to look at the entire tree. We are first and foremost scholars. So what we do is to try to understand society, and we try to understand society by looking at society, but by listening to the people, by gathering material, by having some sort of information that allows us to say this is how society works.
[00:23:05] And in that information, we have found a lot of, um, injustice, unfairness, the inequality that informs society to be at the root of many of the social problems we are experiencing. And part of those problems is the, the failure. Prison, you were saying that one of the justifications for prison is the re socialization.
[00:23:32] So prison promises to teach people how to function in society, how to be pro social. But in reality, prisons are very violent, insecure spaces that impose pain on purpose. That's the definition of a prison, just sending someone to experience pain for some years. And that's a very odd way to want to re socialize someone.
[00:24:00] So we are analyzing that material from the life courses of those in prison to the functioning or failure of the prisons. And the first thing that we want to do is to produce very solid. Logical grounded on data analysis that are scholarly, because I think that type of work is very valuable because we don't want to risk living in a society that just speculates or have ideas or notions without really looking at society.
[00:24:37] I think that's very dangerous in many, in many ways. So that's our first task. But of course, we want to also spread the word. So for me, it's very important to be having this conversation with you, for instance. Because this is a way to disseminate what we have identified, and that's a way to send a message to people in society about why crime happens, who are those committing certain acts, and what are the consequences of the punishment that we are imposing on people.
[00:25:17] So that's the first aspect. And the second aspect, it's not my responsibility directly because we are not politicians, but we do take the responsibility to try to come on day to send that information to policymakers. It would be a little bit too much for us to try and do everything from research to policy design, but we want to do our part well done as I really like one song by the Beatles that says we are all doing what we can.
[00:25:53] And that's true. And I think if we all take responsibility, if we all take our job seriously, our part in society, I think that's a very good way to do it. So we're trying to do the solid academic analysis. People like you, you're essential at disseminating knowledge and ideas and helping society in that way.
[00:26:14] We also should have politicians who take this information and design policies that are adequate and that should rethink prison and the failure of prison as the punishment that society has chosen.
[00:26:46] John: I couldn't agree with more with you that It's a total failure of a system, and it's totally our responsibility to try to, to build something different. I'm curious what you think that is. What does a prison look like that isn't called a prison?
[00:27:04] David: Thanks for that. Easy question. Yeah. It's, uh, it's something that it's been a challenge for, for criminologists of people in general.
[00:27:14] So in, uh, in criminology, we have, uh, a movement called Abolitionism. So there's a group of people who say we should abolish prison because it is a failing of everything. So the prison has different justifications. It says that it is about resocialization, as we mentioned. that it is about general prevention.
[00:27:40] So the idea that if we threat people with sending them to prison, if they commit a crime, they will be refrained from doing that. And there's a lot of proof that it doesn't work that way. The idea of incapacitation, which means If we find someone dangerous, then we send that person to prison, and from prison that person cannot come up with a price.
[00:28:01] Well, that's not true. That's not true either. And then we also have the retribution aspect of it, meaning that if you have done something wrong, you have to pay for it, which is a little bit like an eye for an eye logic, which is not the most constructive approach to social conflicts. So what abolitionists say is dot.
[00:28:24] We should just basically abolish or demolish principles and find different ways on, they have suggested different ways they have suggested for instance. taking the conflict back to the past. And so restorative justice is one of those notions, meaning we don't want to punish for the sake of quantity, which we want to react harm and to conflict in a way that is constructive for society.
[00:28:58] So rather than just imposing pain as the prison does, what we want is to react in a way in which the person who committed it. The, uh, Antisocial Act. tries to repair what he or she damaged. So instead of sending the person or incarcerating the person, then we may ask him or her with certain commitments.
[00:29:28] To repair the harm that he or she did. So, imagine this. A person hurts someone else, consume, consume the victim, some, uh, injuries, and then the person is sent to prison. Well, often, and then the person sent to prison, have no possibility to earn money, to work, to do anything about that. And the other person is left with the health injuries.
[00:29:55] Well, I don't think that's repairing too much damage. Yeah. Because one person is in prison, and the other person is hurt. So, how about a line that the other person To do something for the injured body to pay for the expenses and the person would have to work to perhaps pay some services. If the person cannot go to the grocery store, then perhaps your person can go to grocery stores.
[00:30:19] And that's a little bit more constructive. And what I have identified is that many victims do not want harsh punishments. They want to understand why that happened to them, which is a very natural need to understand why that happened to me. and they want to have as much as possible their lives restored.
[00:30:41] It's impossible to get their lives back to the exact original state because that's not how life works. But they don't want vengeance. Many of them want for them to have a good life. That's what most of us want. We want to have a good life. So that's one of the approaches, the approach of restorative justice, the approach of thinking, uh, In how to react to crime that is not a vindictive or divisive way.
[00:31:10] It's not us against them. It is all of us building together.
[00:31:15] John: It's beautiful. The idea of giving a perpetrator a reason to live is a beautiful thing to me.
[00:31:22] David: Precisely. And what we also have to understand is that many of those who commit crimes have also been victims. So it's some sort of circle where early in their lives they are victims because they are abused, traumatized, they don't have their needs covered, so they are victimized in many ways, and that somehow leads them into a path of victimizing others.
[00:31:50] And then they victimize others, and then they are sent to prison, and they are victims again. So it's the circles, we hurt you, and then they hurt us, we hurt you. So the ideological us against them, and that leads us nowhere. And so the many people that I have interviewed in prison, they suffer a lot. They are in a lot of pain.
[00:32:12] So what I would say, if we have to maintain the prison, If we need to keep those buildings, then what I want to say is what we need first is to see them, those without prison, uh, straight in their eyes. and understand them as humans and see all the pain that they carry and all the unfulfilled needs. And if we want to re socialize, the first step would be to say, okay, how can we, uh, give you back what society owes you?
[00:32:48] Because that's something that happens quite a lot, that they go and commit these crimes because society owes them a lot. And that's, uh, that's a different approach. It's a more constructive approach. It's not punishing, it's not, you're the bad person. No, we need to build a society in which people believe in themselves.
[00:33:09] In which people, as you say, this philosophy, we have a purpose in life, we have something to contribute to society. But when society send them away and say, you're dangerous, you're bad, you're hurting us, I think that's creating more harm, uh, than doing good.
[00:33:27] John: Looking at this conversation that we're having, I have this sense of overlapping it on another conversation.
[00:33:35] Or topic that I think is important to you around the idea of global North and global South. And I'm curious if we can find any sort of relationship between this idea of hurt people, hurt people. And that relationship that we have between the consumerism, capitalism. And the extraction of value from places that we don't see.
[00:34:00] David: Yes. So I think these logics appear repeatedly in all this phenomenon. So the first relationship between the two, I won't say, because I was talking a lot, um, prison, crimes, and so on. But I think this all started with the colonization of the Americas. So what happened here was that the colonizers came and they plundered the continent, and that created a lot of poverty, a lot of misery, a lot of suffering.
[00:34:38] And that's the perfect breeding ground for all these trajectories. If you have nothing to live with, then you're going to try and find means to survive and to cover your needs. So that's a dynamic in which the relationship between Global North and Global South is very important, because the highest standards of living in the Global North are possible because of the plundering and the injustice in the Global South.
[00:35:14] So many times, people in Europe or North America look down at, uh, South America, Africa, Asia, even some regions in Oceania and say, okay, they are undeveloped, underdeveloped societies. But what they are not realizing is that people in Europe and North America are the ones causing that, um, what they call this underdevelopment in these other regions, because they are taking away from them their means to survive and to have a good life.
[00:35:54] So an example of this is mining. So many of the high standards of the Technological equipment in Europe, for instance, comes from the mines. in Africa and in Latin America. So a mine creates many damages. It damages the ecosystem, it pollutes the soil, pollutes the river, the rivers, it pollutes the air. So the people living around, they have a very destroyed ecosystem now, and they are very impoverished, enslaved.
[00:36:33] Often, when there's a mine, there are sexual markets around. So there's people who force women to become prostitutes, there's the spread of sexually transmitted diseases, and the economy after the company leaves just crashes. So the good life or the luxurious life of people in Europe, say I have a Tesla and I have a Mac, and I have my iPhone, and I'm enjoying life, so I am a developed, advanced, civilized person.
[00:37:12] And then they look back and say, Oh, look at that. Those people in Latin America, they have not been able to, to have a good life as I have. I am a better person. But what they are not realizing is the nexus or the relationship between the good life of the person in North America or Europe and the impoverished, bad life of the person.
[00:37:35] So this inequality between global North and global South. Has been built across the centuries, and it is creating a lot of harm damage. It is pushing a lot of crime and criminality and instability and wars. Um, and it also connects with the consumer culture. So all of these topics that we talked about before, they all come together when we look at the relation between global north and global south.
[00:38:06] John: It seems to be centered on that idea of consumption.
[00:38:13] David: Consumption is perhaps. One of the most damaging practices and ideology. So as a sociologist said, there's a difference between consumption and consumerism. So consumption is just the acquiring things that we need. And that's something that we need to do.
[00:38:34] I need to acquire food to survive, right? And that's, there's no, that's not a big problem. The problem is consumerism. When meaning that Making consumption a lifestyle and building an identity out of consumption.
[00:38:53] John: You had spoken earlier around this idea that, you know, if we can't have a world without the prison, maybe there's a first step.
[00:39:01] I'm curious if, if you can see a first step or first few steps around off ramping ourselves from this degree of consumerism that we have.
[00:39:12] David: All right. So, yes. And that's, again, we get back to the. Two different ways of living, because we are now believing or living inside what we call this modern way of life.
[00:39:34] The more we industrialize, the more technology we acquire, the more we build, the more cars we have, the more technology and so on, that's a belief or an ideology that that will lead us to a better life. But in reality, that is doing the exact opposite. That's creating a lot of unfufilled desires for consumers, for instance.
[00:40:01] So when people build their identities around consumption, Often they have unfulfilled lives, empty lives. And then the commodity, it's a promise to have a happy life. So when this corporation sell you something, they are not selling just a product, they are selling you an identity and the promise for happiness.
[00:40:25] Right. And what happens often is that you go, you wipe that, you then feel, okay, I don't feel much happier. You may feel happier for the first day or first days when you are just playing with your new toy. But then you get back and say, and see, okay, my life is as empty as ever. So that's creating many problems and there are many.
[00:40:47] suicide problems, mental health problems, because we cannot build our lives around consumption. That's not what we know is the most important in life. But that consumption is also creating problems for others. It's also creating the devastation and plundering in our regions. So, this modern way of life is not delivering the promises it made.
[00:41:15] Of course, it has produced some important and good advances, so for instance, in informatics or in medicine, it's, it's produced important things, but we also have to combine that with other ways of looking at life. And I think for that, we have to look to other cultures. And to other ways of living as a part of this study that I have conducted is with indigenous communities.
[00:41:43] How do they live? How do they look at life? What what is important to them? Because many of them live much more fulfilled lives. Done the Western or modern world. So I'm not saying let us just kind of go back all of us to the jungle and to the woods. That's very enjoyable. I have done it, but we don't need to do it that way.
[00:42:07] We can combine what's good. In certain ways of living, but what's good in our ways of living, and many of these indigenous communities, they have as a priority, a good relationship, for instance, with nature, with community, with a spirituality. So that would be a way to step away from consumerism as a way of life and start valuing different ways of living.
[00:42:39] John: I'm always fascinated by people who choose to do things that are centered not around themselves, but around other people. Um, which is really why I reached out to you. I was just fascinated the way that you've walked through the world. Um, I'm curious if there is anything of advice or just recommendations that you would recommend have made my life sustainable and enjoyable.
[00:43:06] David: So I am a big follower of a Brazilian thinker called Paulo Freire. So he said what the biggest gift of humanity is our capacity to think for ourselves. And if that's what has made life very enjoyable for me and endurable during challenging times, it is that capacity or that freedom that I have inside my head of thinking, analyzing for myself, and try to find enlightenment and understanding through life.
[00:43:50] So what you and I are discussing here, these are ideas, these are inputs, these are a way to provoke people. But what I think is most important for our society is that each of us We try and think for ourselves rather than embracing dogmas or rather than following the masses. So consumerism, for instance, it's just one easy way is the path of least resistance.
[00:44:21] Everyone's consuming them. Okay. I also consume just because everyone's doing that. And that, I think is very unfulfilling. So my kind of what I would hope for society, for all of us is that we use That capacity, that gift that we have of, of thinking for ourselves, finding our, our ways, our own truths. Uh, the best ways of learning to be a little bit of a philosopher to be a little bit of a scientist to try and find, uh, how insights to life and society.
[00:45:01] So if people do that, if people are critical thinkers, then I think we would have a much better society.
[00:45:11] John: I agree, a hundred percent. It's a beautiful world like that, right? As we're looking to the future. What are your plans? You know, I know that you're coming out with a new book and you seem to have a real passion for writing and I love that. And so I'm curious what you're up to next.
[00:45:30] David: Yeah, I love writing. It's one of the most enjoyable activities, because it's that pleasure in creating something and the possibility to think clearer, understand better, and to play a little bit, to be creative.
[00:45:45] So that's one of the very simple joys of life that I love. So I'm writing this book, Humans Behind Bars. And most of my writing has been academic, because that's my, what I do. But I also want to communicate. My findings to society in general, and as we started the conversation, I was talking about the importance of reading to have empathy and to understand the world better.
[00:46:15] So that's my contribution to try and show as many as possible, as many readers as possible. how the lives of those in prison have been and how they are living inside prison. And I want to do that in a very, um, humane way. I'm not trying to use jargon, difficult words. I just want to tell the stories for the readers themselves to see and understand and appreciate and make their minds about, about society.
[00:46:46] So that's the project. I'm spending many hours in that, uh, as I am doing on my. academic articles. I'm writing about suicide and prison. I'm also writing a book about life courses, but that's much more academic. And I'm also thinking about the future in terms of projects. So, the project that I am envisioning now is the life courses of not those who have committed street crimes, but the life courses of white collar criminals.
[00:47:18] Because as I am studying the life courses of those who have murdered or trafficked with drugs or stolen. Or kidnapped, then the risk is that I convey the message that those are the ones who are harming society the most. Whilst what I have found in my research in the past 15 years is that the powerful, political and economic powerful are the ones that are harming society the most.
[00:47:49] So what I want to do next is to study the life courses of them. So if they were wealthy, if they came from families that has every material need covered, how come they are doing what they are doing? What are the trajectories into crime for them? So that's what I want to do next.
[00:48:10] John: That's fascinating. As soon as you mentioned white collar, it was like click. It was like, Oh my God, that sounds perfect for the right reasons. You know, I think you're really hitting on this idea that the, the crime of impact isn't the, the ones that put you in prison. They're the ones that allow you to build the prison.
[00:48:29] David: Precisely, precisely. And many, many times that those who are in prison now are disposable in a way. for the wealthy people. So if one of them is sent to prison, then I find another one. And there's plenty of people to the, to the work that I want to, to, uh, to be done for me. So if I am this politician who is involved also in drug trafficking, So I can find many poor people to do that kind of task, and if they are sent to prison, then that's all the same.
[00:49:05] I can find others.
[00:49:07] So in a way, uh, to deeply understand the sources of crime in society, we have to look. All the way up to those, uh, white collar people, because those are the ones shaping most aspects of society, including our lives many times. So, so that way we can look at both sides of the coin and see how society is structured and why it is structured the way it is.
[00:49:39] John: I really want to say thank you for joining me on this episode of The Search. We'll share all the socials and every way to connect with you. But again, I just want to say thank you for spending some time with me today.
[00:49:53] David: No, thank you very much for these questions. As I said, I'm doing my part, but that part would not be the same without people like you who are spreading the word, who are asking all the right questions, who are putting the time and effort to spread ideas, to think critically, to invite the audience to think critically. So I really appreciate this space.
[00:50:18] John: I look forward to following your journey and keeping up with the stories of the people you're sharing.
[00:50:24] David Goyes is a distinguished criminologist and environmental justice advocate whose work explores the intricate connections between consumer behavior, social equity, and environmental sustainability. They are a senior researcher at the University of Oslo in Norway, interested in all aspects.
[00:50:44] David is in search of a good life for every living being on earth, which he pursues through investigation and the application of his findings in everyday life practice. You can learn more about David and his work catalyzing positive change at www. drgoyes. com. That's www. d r g o y e s. com. If today's discussion moved you or sparked a thought, Please share it with us and with someone you know.
[00:51:11] You can also join our community on Instagram to continue the conversation and connect with fellow listeners at infinite. search. To delve deeper into this topic and explore additional episodes, visit our website at www. theinfinitesearch. com where you'll find extended show notes, further readings, and a full transcript of today's episode.
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