WEBVTT - Terrible Ideas, Taken Seriously. Peter Boghossian talks to Armstrong & Getty 0:00:01.560 --> 0:00:03.920 When you're ready to ride Metro, we want you to 0:00:03.960 --> 0:00:06.560 know we're ready for you. Here are just a few 0:00:06.600 --> 0:00:08.399 of the people at Metro to tell you how we're 0:00:08.400 --> 0:00:11.320 doing our part to keep riders safe. We're cleaning like 0:00:11.400 --> 0:00:16.040 nevill before half build greatly. You've found has santizing station, 0:00:17.760 --> 0:00:21.079 no mask, no Metro need one. We have a few 0:00:21.120 --> 0:00:23.880 extras at Metro. We're doing our part to keep the 0:00:23.960 --> 0:00:26.720 DC area moving. Find out more at well mata dot 0:00:26.720 --> 0:00:32.280 com slash doing our part. How do terrible ideas get 0:00:32.280 --> 0:00:35.559 taken so seriously on college campuses? So I'm Strong and 0:00:35.560 --> 0:00:41.240 Getty extra large because four hours simply usn't enough. This 0:00:41.440 --> 0:00:49.600 is Armstrong and Getty extra Large. So freaking interesting. We've 0:00:49.600 --> 0:00:52.720 been fans of these people ever since the grievance studies 0:00:52.760 --> 0:00:56.680 thing hit last January. Yeah, the fake papers that they 0:00:56.720 --> 0:00:59.800 got into various journals. Peter Bogo and James Lindsay and 0:00:59.800 --> 0:01:03.520 how and pluck Rose. They made up just ridiculous crap. 0:01:03.640 --> 0:01:06.920 I mean ridiculous, no, as you say, nobody but an 0:01:06.920 --> 0:01:10.880 academic could believe it, but fall down funny crap and 0:01:10.920 --> 0:01:15.480 actually got them accepted into various peer review reviewed journals. 0:01:15.480 --> 0:01:19.560 And the fancy universities across the country. Peter Bogan wrote 0:01:19.560 --> 0:01:22.240 a piece for The Wall Street Journal recently, idea laundering 0:01:22.280 --> 0:01:25.920 an academia. Peter as an assistant professor of philosophy right 0:01:25.959 --> 0:01:28.920 in the belly of the Beast Portland State University. He's 0:01:28.959 --> 0:01:31.200 also the co author of a book, How to Have 0:01:31.319 --> 0:01:34.160 Impossible Conversations that we need to talk about at some 0:01:34.200 --> 0:01:37.600 point down the road, but probably not today. Peter Bagoan 0:01:37.720 --> 0:01:40.280 joins us, Peter, this is a real pleasure. We've been 0:01:40.280 --> 0:01:43.039 looking forward to talking to you for some time. I 0:01:43.160 --> 0:01:45.480 love talking to you, guys, I really do, and I 0:01:45.560 --> 0:01:49.520 sincerely appreciate your support because I can't do what what 0:01:49.560 --> 0:01:52.160 I do without without you. So thanks. Yeah, when the 0:01:52.160 --> 0:01:55.400 whole grievance studies story hit and we were just so 0:01:55.560 --> 0:01:58.480 taken with it and it's so exciting for everyone. And 0:01:58.480 --> 0:02:00.560 I've watched a ton of YouTube is with you and 0:02:00.640 --> 0:02:02.880 James Lindsay and that over the last year. So, but 0:02:03.000 --> 0:02:07.240 has any progress been made our universities better off than 0:02:07.240 --> 0:02:11.320 they were before you did this or that's a good question. No, no, 0:02:11.480 --> 0:02:14.560 no progress has been made. In fact, um, they've they've 0:02:14.560 --> 0:02:17.399 doubled down on their nonsense and there you go take 0:02:17.440 --> 0:02:22.680 scholarship and attempts to successful attempts to self credential. So 0:02:22.720 --> 0:02:25.080 the situation as I see it, has actually gotten worse 0:02:25.360 --> 0:02:28.639 inside the academy, But outside the academy with the Dave 0:02:28.720 --> 0:02:32.840 Chappelle comedy show or Bill Burr or certain cultural now 0:02:32.880 --> 0:02:36.360 they want to know a gender Santa claus Um. I 0:02:36.360 --> 0:02:39.640 think outside the academy you're seeing pushback, but withinside the 0:02:39.680 --> 0:02:44.399 academy that absolutely it's absolutely gotten worse. Well, and I'm 0:02:44.440 --> 0:02:47.600 sorry to hear that given the number of dollars American 0:02:47.600 --> 0:02:50.239 families are throwing it educating their young ones. Are you 0:02:50.280 --> 0:02:52.440 surprised to hear that? I'm not surprised at least. I mean, 0:02:52.440 --> 0:02:54.640 this is the same dynamic of power you seeing government 0:02:54.639 --> 0:02:56.760 and anywhere else where power and money are at stakes. 0:02:56.760 --> 0:03:00.000 Self policing rarely works. But I do love the idea, 0:03:00.000 --> 0:03:04.200 idea that more and more people are feeling um. I 0:03:04.240 --> 0:03:06.400 hate to use the term empowered because it's trade out 0:03:06.440 --> 0:03:09.720 of grieving studies, but they're they're they're feeling more empowered 0:03:09.720 --> 0:03:12.560 to call bullshit on this stuff and they realize, wait 0:03:12.600 --> 0:03:14.760 a minute, I'm not a bad person because I think 0:03:14.840 --> 0:03:18.360 this is goofy um this is goofy right. And not 0:03:18.440 --> 0:03:20.679 only that you're not a bad person because you're a male, 0:03:20.800 --> 0:03:23.240 you're also not a rapist because you're a male. You're 0:03:23.240 --> 0:03:27.880 not a bad person because you're white. You your your 0:03:28.000 --> 0:03:31.840 ancestral line has absolutely nothing to do with your decency 0:03:31.880 --> 0:03:34.280 and dignity as a person. So I think it was 0:03:34.320 --> 0:03:36.800 the Wall Street Journal that ran your piece about idea 0:03:36.880 --> 0:03:38.800 laundering where we explained that whole thing, And that's why 0:03:38.840 --> 0:03:40.440 we wanted to have you on today because I found 0:03:40.480 --> 0:03:44.080 it's fascinating because I've wondered all along, where do the 0:03:44.160 --> 0:03:46.640 stuff comes from? How did this stuff catch on? Can 0:03:46.680 --> 0:03:50.480 you explain idea laundering to us? Yeah, So think about 0:03:50.480 --> 0:03:53.440 it this way. This is how they get away with it. 0:03:54.360 --> 0:03:56.480 This is how they do it, and here's how they 0:03:56.520 --> 0:03:59.360 do it. To an example, let's say that you let's 0:03:59.360 --> 0:04:03.200 say the three of us have some kind of moral idea, like, 0:04:03.360 --> 0:04:07.440 let's just give me a moral idea like you know, um, 0:04:07.480 --> 0:04:12.320 I don't know, like yeah, it's wrong to steal or 0:04:12.680 --> 0:04:17.040 I was thinking like something contemporary political issues like you know, uh, 0:04:17.080 --> 0:04:20.680 you know, impeach Trump for moral senses. Okay, so we 0:04:20.760 --> 0:04:23.080 have an idea, you know, build a wall. Let's just 0:04:23.160 --> 0:04:25.680 use that one. We need to build a wall, or 0:04:25.720 --> 0:04:28.760 we build a wall, doesn't matter what it is. Okay, 0:04:29.240 --> 0:04:34.720 you have this strong moral urge, you feel something really 0:04:34.880 --> 0:04:39.880 strong in your heart. I have this strong moral urge. 0:04:40.400 --> 0:04:44.520 I'm in the academy. I'm a professor at university. We 0:04:44.680 --> 0:04:46.840 both know, we both hang out. Maybe we know each 0:04:46.839 --> 0:04:48.720 other from Twitter, or maybe we know each other. We 0:04:48.800 --> 0:04:51.359 a life for Facebook? What have you? So we we 0:04:51.520 --> 0:04:54.599 all you need a couple of other people have these 0:04:54.640 --> 0:04:58.520 strong moral urges. What we do is a result of that. 0:04:58.720 --> 0:05:02.320 Is I a could journal, and in that I call 0:05:02.400 --> 0:05:06.440 it the journal of you know, um some some fancy 0:05:06.480 --> 0:05:12.599 academic name. I take papers into my journal that pushed 0:05:12.680 --> 0:05:16.200 the narrative, whatever moral narrative I want to push. Stealing 0:05:16.240 --> 0:05:18.400 is wrong, stealing is right. We want to build a wall. 0:05:18.480 --> 0:05:21.120 Everybody should be polyamorous. Note it doesn't matter what it is. 0:05:21.839 --> 0:05:27.320 Am I clear? So far? Okay? Cool? We then published 0:05:27.800 --> 0:05:34.039 in this journal, my journal that I create. I we 0:05:34.200 --> 0:05:38.640 take those articles and I start teaching them to my students. 0:05:38.640 --> 0:05:41.800 So the idea, it's called ideal anders is Brett Wae 0:05:41.839 --> 0:05:43.960 and my friend Brett Weinstein's idea. He was the professor 0:05:43.960 --> 0:05:49.200 who was hunted at Evergreen. It comes in as an 0:05:49.240 --> 0:05:52.279 idea and it goes out as knowledge. So when you 0:05:52.360 --> 0:05:55.000 ask these people, well, how do you know that obesity 0:05:55.080 --> 0:05:57.560 is just a narrative? How do you know that there's 0:05:57.600 --> 0:06:00.560 white fragility and then all whites are racist? How do 0:06:00.600 --> 0:06:04.560 you know that whatever insane idea they want to put forth, 0:06:04.600 --> 0:06:06.000 how do you know there's no such a thing as 0:06:06.040 --> 0:06:09.920 biological sex. Well, it's in this journal, but the journal 0:06:09.960 --> 0:06:14.840 itself is bogus. So the whole journal is it's been fabricated. 0:06:14.880 --> 0:06:18.560 Whole clause. You have a bunch of ideologues who get together, 0:06:19.279 --> 0:06:24.400 who have a moral idea, make a journal, publishing the journal, 0:06:24.920 --> 0:06:26.919 and it comes out to the other end is knowledge, 0:06:27.040 --> 0:06:29.800 And I imagine it's chuck full of highly questionable research, 0:06:30.160 --> 0:06:34.360 generally not even questionable, totally fabricated. The whole thing is fact, 0:06:34.440 --> 0:06:38.120 the whole it's fabricated, whole cloth. It's no relationship to 0:06:38.160 --> 0:06:43.320 reality whatsoever. That's no scientific method, there's no control groups, 0:06:43.360 --> 0:06:47.719 there's no testing, there's literally nothing. So it's so it's purposeful. 0:06:47.960 --> 0:06:51.680 Then they make this stuff up because they're so certain 0:06:52.160 --> 0:06:55.720 of their moral belief that they're they're willing to make 0:06:55.760 --> 0:06:57.560 this up so that they can teach it. Well, I'm 0:06:57.600 --> 0:07:02.080 teaching straight out of this journal, right, this review journal, right, 0:07:02.160 --> 0:07:04.160 and but your pearents are all whack jobs like you, 0:07:05.960 --> 0:07:08.880 And it's it's even worse listening to you guys. You're 0:07:08.960 --> 0:07:12.480 just you really are such nice people, and we're talking 0:07:12.480 --> 0:07:15.000 about some really vile id logs here. So it's far 0:07:15.120 --> 0:07:18.840 worse than that characterization. So it's not only that. So 0:07:19.120 --> 0:07:21.520 the way that this game works, if you get seven 0:07:21.600 --> 0:07:23.960 papers in seven years, if you're on a tenor track, 0:07:24.240 --> 0:07:27.640 you you you received tenure. When you receive tenure, that's 0:07:27.680 --> 0:07:32.480 a job for life. So you have now fabricated a journal. 0:07:32.920 --> 0:07:36.440 It's totally until the to reality. You're teaching these things 0:07:36.480 --> 0:07:40.560 to students' knowledge. Those students are getting out and going 0:07:40.600 --> 0:07:42.480 to the workplace. They're going to Google, like what they 0:07:42.480 --> 0:07:45.320 did to the Google engineer James more famous from the 0:07:45.360 --> 0:07:48.000 now Google memo. They're going to Twitter and the ship 0:07:48.160 --> 0:07:51.160 shadow banning. They're going to YouTube and institute of trutionalizing 0:07:51.200 --> 0:07:56.240 them monetization. But even within the academy itself, they institute 0:07:56.320 --> 0:08:01.360 mechanisms to restrict speech right biased response teams. A student 0:08:01.400 --> 0:08:05.440 can anonymously be reported to over two hundred universities have 0:08:05.560 --> 0:08:09.960 biased response teams, divert offices of diversity, equity, and inclusion. 0:08:10.200 --> 0:08:12.160 And these words don't mean what you think they mean. 0:08:12.640 --> 0:08:16.440 So they institutionalize these deranged ideas that they themselves have 0:08:16.600 --> 0:08:21.000 manufactured in journals which are completely unscientific. These are the 0:08:21.160 --> 0:08:25.080 ramblings of ideologues, and they point to all of this 0:08:25.120 --> 0:08:28.280 stuff as knowledge, and anybody who questions it is a 0:08:28.360 --> 0:08:32.560 racist or a bad person, or a homophobe or bigot. Well, 0:08:32.559 --> 0:08:35.840 and I'd imagine that each iteration of it, each layer 0:08:36.040 --> 0:08:40.400 of or every semester it's taught, adds to the credibility, right. 0:08:40.400 --> 0:08:42.040 And one of the things you mentioned in your article 0:08:42.080 --> 0:08:44.400 is building up over time, over decades or whatever, some 0:08:44.440 --> 0:08:47.040 of these whack job ideas. You know, you get more 0:08:47.040 --> 0:08:50.040 and more articles from multi generations that sign onto this 0:08:50.120 --> 0:08:54.120 crap that is absolutely correct, And that's how they manufacture 0:08:54.160 --> 0:08:58.800 a canon of knowledge. This is a completely pretend canon 0:08:58.840 --> 0:09:02.400 of knowledge. Well, and and honestly, what makes it so 0:09:02.800 --> 0:09:05.040 terrible and makes me so worried about it is that 0:09:05.080 --> 0:09:08.839 these ideologies, as you mentioned, are utterly repugnant. If you're 0:09:08.880 --> 0:09:12.960 a student of of global politics of history or whatever. 0:09:13.000 --> 0:09:18.840 You understand that inter ethnic, interracial, inter religious strife is 0:09:18.880 --> 0:09:22.760 the source of most of the horrors um, you know, 0:09:23.040 --> 0:09:27.400 putting aside communism, um of of the last several centuries. 0:09:27.640 --> 0:09:30.160 If you can whip up people to believe that the 0:09:30.240 --> 0:09:32.839 other is evil, which is what these people are doing 0:09:32.880 --> 0:09:36.800 all the time, I mean, the results are truly horrific. Right, 0:09:36.840 --> 0:09:40.760 and again you got your very nice people. It's not 0:09:40.920 --> 0:09:44.960 only that they're evil. Privilege is their original sin. But 0:09:45.120 --> 0:09:48.560 unlike original sin from which you can find redemption through 0:09:48.600 --> 0:09:51.840 the savior Jesus Christ, there is no redemption for these people. 0:09:52.200 --> 0:09:54.640 If you were born white and male and cists in 0:09:54.720 --> 0:09:58.079 hetero I would use a word or on the air 0:09:58.240 --> 0:10:03.160 beginning with f We can believe you are fucked. There's 0:10:03.360 --> 0:10:07.760 no redemption. That's it. Yeah, you're you're you're irrevocably stained, 0:10:07.840 --> 0:10:12.880 indelibly stained by your whiteness, your maleness, your privilege, your heterosexuality, 0:10:12.920 --> 0:10:16.160 and your sister genderness. That doesn't sound at all Nazi. 0:10:16.920 --> 0:10:19.560 So somebody, So somebody could start decades ago, you know, 0:10:19.679 --> 0:10:24.040 some something about white privilege and and start a journal 0:10:24.559 --> 0:10:29.000 and by now they're they're a senior member on whatever campus, 0:10:29.080 --> 0:10:31.120 and they're looked at the here's somebody for twenty five 0:10:31.240 --> 0:10:34.360 years has been doing research into this completely made up. 0:10:34.400 --> 0:10:37.720 It's been made up the entire time. And they're an expert. 0:10:37.720 --> 0:10:40.439 They're a quote unquote expert, and the media contact them 0:10:40.520 --> 0:10:42.640 and they teach students, and their students didn't go on 0:10:42.960 --> 0:10:46.280 at twenty five years. They go on to leadership positions 0:10:46.360 --> 0:10:49.400 and they sway the academy and they they're the ones 0:10:49.480 --> 0:10:52.640 that you hear what they're consulted. They're consulted for jury cases. 0:10:53.720 --> 0:10:57.400 I'm telling you this is a massive problem. And and 0:10:57.520 --> 0:11:00.440 the question becomes for the university system is my friend 0:11:00.440 --> 0:11:04.080 for Oisin said, if you're if you have a dog 0:11:04.559 --> 0:11:07.720 and your dog has rabies, that's not your dog anymore. 0:11:08.360 --> 0:11:11.560 If your dog has cancer, then you get the dog treated. 0:11:12.320 --> 0:11:17.880 Does the university system have rabies or does that have cancer? Interesting? 0:11:17.960 --> 0:11:20.840 And I think it at this point, the university system 0:11:20.840 --> 0:11:23.880 has rabies. It's irredeemable and nothing can be done about it. 0:11:24.240 --> 0:11:27.680 Are we're going to get worse? Am I correct that? 0:11:27.760 --> 0:11:32.360 And I'm thinking of um the recent move in the 0:11:32.440 --> 0:11:37.439 University California system that you must submit a statement of diversity, 0:11:37.559 --> 0:11:40.640 is that what it's called to get hired. I imagine 0:11:40.760 --> 0:11:45.079 hiring practices are highly tilted toward recruiting people who are 0:11:45.120 --> 0:11:48.360 going to tow the party line. Well yeah, okay, so 0:11:48.440 --> 0:11:52.800 this isn't another conversation. But you're absolutely correct diversity, equity 0:11:52.800 --> 0:11:55.079 and inclusion, and we should probably spell those words out 0:11:55.120 --> 0:11:57.520 at some point, but you have to hire a diversity 0:11:57.559 --> 0:12:01.560 statement moreover, and I published a using the Philosopher's magazine 0:12:01.559 --> 0:12:05.920 about this called deluded Departments. Here's how it works. One 0:12:05.960 --> 0:12:08.640 of the single greatest insights in all of critical thinking 0:12:08.760 --> 0:12:11.240 comes from the a man by the name of Dr 0:12:11.280 --> 0:12:16.240 Michael Shermer. Why does smart people believe weird things? Well, 0:12:16.360 --> 0:12:19.360 we've answered that question. Here's the answer to it. Because 0:12:19.400 --> 0:12:24.160 smart people are better at rationalizing bad ideas. In other words, 0:12:24.200 --> 0:12:27.040 the smarter you are, the better you are at justifying 0:12:27.080 --> 0:12:30.959 a bad conclusion, and then you convince yourself that it's true. Okay. 0:12:31.559 --> 0:12:35.880 That same mechanism operates when you have more people involved. 0:12:36.280 --> 0:12:39.440 So if you have ten people involved, they're better at 0:12:39.559 --> 0:12:42.760 rationalizing a bad idea. What we have now in the 0:12:42.840 --> 0:12:47.560 university system is we have entire university departments that are 0:12:48.120 --> 0:12:54.240 pumping out justifications complete nonsense. And those justifications are themselves 0:12:54.320 --> 0:12:59.160 based upon the literature that these people have fabricated. Well, 0:12:59.240 --> 0:13:03.120 and if it were merely that they were claiming dinosaurs 0:13:03.160 --> 0:13:06.719 were ancient giant people, I mean that would be idiotic 0:13:06.840 --> 0:13:10.240 and and and you know, uh, not temptable from an 0:13:10.240 --> 0:13:13.360 intellectual point of view. But the fact that they're pitching 0:13:13.400 --> 0:13:16.640 the most horrific sort of ideologies is Yeah, you talk 0:13:16.679 --> 0:13:20.000 about being fucked trum. I was watching a YouTube video 0:13:20.040 --> 0:13:22.040 with I think you and James Lindsay, or maybe it 0:13:22.080 --> 0:13:24.040 was just James talking about the whole critical race thing 0:13:24.040 --> 0:13:26.400 and how it's a no win situation and I worry 0:13:26.400 --> 0:13:29.120 about this raising I got a couple of young white boys, 0:13:29.600 --> 0:13:33.360 um where either you're you're a racist or you're anti 0:13:33.440 --> 0:13:35.720 racist in the in the new theory of things, either 0:13:35.760 --> 0:13:38.840 you're actively working either you admit your racist and you 0:13:38.920 --> 0:13:42.200 actively work toward being anti racist, which is defined it's 0:13:42.280 --> 0:13:45.240 undefined herble and defined by others. They will tell you 0:13:45.280 --> 0:13:49.199 what it means exactly. You can't ever win and that stuff. 0:13:49.440 --> 0:13:52.080 It makes my head want to explode, but it seems 0:13:52.120 --> 0:13:55.760 to actually be happening. Right. It's called a costa trap, 0:13:56.240 --> 0:13:58.760 and that is so this is the This is the 0:13:58.760 --> 0:14:01.319 way they view the world. We already know you're a racist, 0:14:01.679 --> 0:14:03.679 so you should just admit it and work toward it. 0:14:03.720 --> 0:14:05.760 And if you say no, I'm not a racist, they 0:14:05.840 --> 0:14:07.400 point to the fact that you said no, I'm not 0:14:07.520 --> 0:14:10.600 a racist as evidence that you're a racist. So there's 0:14:10.720 --> 0:14:13.240 literally nothing that you can do if you start with 0:14:13.280 --> 0:14:15.480 the idea that someone is a racist, no matter what 0:14:15.520 --> 0:14:20.280 they say has taken as evidence of their racism. You know, 0:14:20.320 --> 0:14:22.520 there's there's there's no redens. Let me just let me 0:14:22.520 --> 0:14:25.520 just go on some My daughter was adopted from China. 0:14:25.560 --> 0:14:27.800 We got her as a waiting child, which means she's disabled, 0:14:28.200 --> 0:14:30.400 and I'm not using that as a weapon or touting 0:14:30.440 --> 0:14:34.600 that around. That's not evidence that you're not a racist. 0:14:35.240 --> 0:14:38.560 If my wife were African Americans, she's not. But if 0:14:38.600 --> 0:14:41.200 you were, that would also not be evidence that you're not. 0:14:41.600 --> 0:14:44.600 There is no evidence that you can provide somebody that 0:14:44.640 --> 0:14:47.600 you're not a racist. These starting given is that you're 0:14:47.640 --> 0:14:52.200 a racist. How many people think like you on college 0:14:52.240 --> 0:14:55.560 campuses as opposed to the whack jobs. Who's winning this 0:14:55.680 --> 0:14:59.280 battle in terms of numbers? Yeah, that is a fantastic question. 0:15:00.120 --> 0:15:03.000 The part of the problem is We don't know. So 0:15:03.200 --> 0:15:06.120 we don't know because people are afraid to voice their 0:15:06.160 --> 0:15:09.360 actual opinions because if they voice their actual opinions, then 0:15:09.360 --> 0:15:11.280 the mob will come for them. And we have seen 0:15:11.360 --> 0:15:14.240 over and over and over again. You know, Laura Kitness 0:15:14.240 --> 0:15:17.400 writes some great stuff about how Title nine has been used. 0:15:17.520 --> 0:15:21.080 We don't really know how many people hate this. I 0:15:21.080 --> 0:15:23.320 mean people will come up to me and they'll whisper something, 0:15:23.800 --> 0:15:26.120 or I'll get emails. Think about this, just really think 0:15:26.160 --> 0:15:30.400 about this. I'll get emails anti Trump emails on p 0:15:30.640 --> 0:15:34.120 s U s UH University server. Now I should say 0:15:34.400 --> 0:15:36.560 I'm a liberal and I'm an atheist and I don't 0:15:36.560 --> 0:15:40.040 like Trump to say the least, But that is so inappropriate. 0:15:40.120 --> 0:15:45.400 It's beyond inappropriate to use university mechanisms to give political opinions. 0:15:46.240 --> 0:15:50.440 Here's the other thing these people have managed. And I 0:15:50.480 --> 0:15:53.600 know this is going to sound utterly crazy, but it's 0:15:53.640 --> 0:15:57.440 true and the evidence bears this out. First, they came 0:15:57.440 --> 0:16:00.960 to the conservatives. There's only one person at the entire 0:16:01.040 --> 0:16:03.840 unipruence a university who I know of who's a conservative. 0:16:03.880 --> 0:16:06.000 Now there may be others, but they're probably too terrified 0:16:06.080 --> 0:16:10.760 to speak out. There's one moderate and they've come for him. 0:16:10.880 --> 0:16:13.200 You should look Bruce Gilly up. He wrote the paper 0:16:13.240 --> 0:16:15.880 The Case for Colonialism, and they have been greefing him. 0:16:16.080 --> 0:16:18.760 He this is fascinating. He wanted to have a court. 0:16:18.840 --> 0:16:22.560 Now again, this is not a conservative, he's a centrist moderate. 0:16:22.840 --> 0:16:25.440 But for these people Stephen Pinker calls at the left 0:16:25.480 --> 0:16:28.880 pole if you're on the left, everybody the far left, 0:16:28.920 --> 0:16:31.440 everybody looks like they're on the right. So I, as 0:16:31.480 --> 0:16:33.400 a liberal atheist, look like I'm on the right. They 0:16:33.400 --> 0:16:36.160 think I'm on the far right. So this guy, Bruce 0:16:36.160 --> 0:16:40.200 gilly wanted a course in conservative political thought. The university 0:16:40.400 --> 0:16:43.560 denied it because they said there wasn't enough diversity in 0:16:43.600 --> 0:16:48.320 the course. So so they've come for him. The course 0:16:48.400 --> 0:16:52.360 on irony there at Portland State right now, they're coming 0:16:52.360 --> 0:16:54.800 for the liberals, right, So now they're coming for people 0:16:54.840 --> 0:16:58.720 like me because I am a show whatever they want 0:16:58.760 --> 0:17:01.320 to say. But the but here's the problem with this. 0:17:01.960 --> 0:17:05.280 Part of the problem is they have created this insane 0:17:05.320 --> 0:17:09.440 ecosystem where any time you want to voice, any time 0:17:09.520 --> 0:17:12.360 you even ask somebody for evidence, Hey, what's your evidence 0:17:12.400 --> 0:17:16.040 for that, that's construed as racist. Think about that. That's 0:17:16.040 --> 0:17:19.600 a micro asking someone for evidence as a microaggression. This 0:17:19.760 --> 0:17:22.040 is the exact opposite of what we should be doing 0:17:22.040 --> 0:17:26.119 in the university, because evidence and appealing to logic is 0:17:26.840 --> 0:17:31.080 white paternalism based traditional right, we're screaming away from the 0:17:31.160 --> 0:17:34.359 Enlightenment back towards somebody at the top gets to decide 0:17:34.400 --> 0:17:37.760 what's true and what's not exactly, and the idea is 0:17:37.800 --> 0:17:42.600 you can't disable the master's house with the master's tools. Reason, evidence, 0:17:42.640 --> 0:17:47.000 the scientific method. Those are all from white system, heterosexual males. 0:17:47.160 --> 0:17:49.760 Therefore they're tainted as evil. You know, that's why Hitler 0:17:49.800 --> 0:17:53.080 hated communism because Marx was a Jew. Right, this is 0:17:53.119 --> 0:17:55.040 the kind of the same thing that's employed, the same 0:17:55.119 --> 0:17:58.920 way of thinking that's in place. Wow, it's just it's 0:17:59.040 --> 0:18:03.359 so true bling. I mean, the idea, the ideology itself 0:18:03.400 --> 0:18:06.040 is incredibly troubling. The idea that young people at their 0:18:06.040 --> 0:18:11.679 most vulnerable, vulnerable are being indoctrinated into this is truly disgusting. 0:18:11.920 --> 0:18:15.439 I don't you know, I'm glad we have a voice 0:18:15.480 --> 0:18:18.679 and a and a reasonably you know, significant one. This 0:18:18.720 --> 0:18:22.280 is incredibly disturbing. Yeah, and I really this is the 0:18:22.320 --> 0:18:24.399 message I really want to get to people, and I 0:18:25.080 --> 0:18:27.359 hope that I articulate this to do you guys know 0:18:27.400 --> 0:18:31.000 what phrenology is? Yeah? I think so reading the lumps 0:18:31.040 --> 0:18:33.520 on people's heads is that what that is? Yeah? Okay, 0:18:33.680 --> 0:18:38.080 So let's say that these lunatics were had journals of phrenology. 0:18:38.359 --> 0:18:40.760 That's ideal laundering, right. They write about phrenology and they 0:18:40.760 --> 0:18:42.840 know it's true. They say, how do you know it's true? 0:18:42.880 --> 0:18:46.120 They point to all these articles in the Journal of Chronology, 0:18:46.359 --> 0:18:50.800 and then they start, you know, not only testing people's skulls, 0:18:51.400 --> 0:18:54.040 but they start assigning scholarships on the basis of the 0:18:54.040 --> 0:18:56.280 protrubances in your head, like, oh, this guy is a 0:18:56.320 --> 0:18:58.480 bump at L seven or whatever, you know, put him 0:18:58.480 --> 0:19:03.600 in engineering. Okay. So, if the people in power who 0:19:03.680 --> 0:19:09.480 are advocating phrenology are liberals, and I call out phrenology 0:19:09.520 --> 0:19:12.359 as not having enough evidence, that does not make me 0:19:12.480 --> 0:19:15.720 a conservative. That just makes me someone who doesn't think 0:19:15.760 --> 0:19:20.240 there's enough evidence to institutionalize and insane idea. If the 0:19:20.320 --> 0:19:24.560 people in power are conservatives and I call it out, 0:19:24.560 --> 0:19:28.760 it doesn't matter their political orientation. They're peddling bad ideas. 0:19:30.119 --> 0:19:32.359 And this is not a matter of right or left 0:19:32.480 --> 0:19:35.120 or liberal or atheist. Or believer. It's none of that. 0:19:35.480 --> 0:19:40.320 This stuff is pure unadulterated bullshit, and their teaching as 0:19:40.359 --> 0:19:44.520 to kids as knowledge, and it's got to stop. To 0:19:44.600 --> 0:19:49.280 what extent does this sort of thing resemble a religious 0:19:49.359 --> 0:19:53.320 cult and it's norms and its enforcement mechanisms and the rest, 0:19:54.200 --> 0:19:57.520 it's a complete religious cult in James Lindsay and Helen 0:19:57.560 --> 0:20:00.359 clock Rose and I have written about that extensively. You know, 0:20:00.440 --> 0:20:03.760 they have the same mechanisms. Blasphemy is big in the 0:20:03.800 --> 0:20:07.680 religious space. They have the same mechanisms with political correctness. 0:20:08.440 --> 0:20:12.600 This case, however, they can actually enforce those mechanisms, enforce 0:20:12.960 --> 0:20:16.880 blasphemy or political correctness with the university mechanisms, and at 0:20:16.920 --> 0:20:20.440 some point, let's do let's do this. Let's okay. There 0:20:20.440 --> 0:20:22.639 are two things going on we haven't talked about, but 0:20:22.720 --> 0:20:26.400 I think are very important. One is, if you just 0:20:26.520 --> 0:20:30.120 think about this issue as a free speech issue, you're 0:20:30.160 --> 0:20:33.800 not understanding the whole thing. These people do not just 0:20:33.880 --> 0:20:36.600 want to take away your freedom of speech. This is 0:20:36.640 --> 0:20:40.120 an issue of cognitive liberty. They want you to think 0:20:40.200 --> 0:20:42.480 a very certain way, and if you don't do that, 0:20:42.680 --> 0:20:46.040 they will punish you. And when you understand the problem 0:20:46.119 --> 0:20:50.520 like that, you understand how unbelievably serious it is and 0:20:50.560 --> 0:20:56.280 why these ideologues have to be stopped. That's some damn 0:20:56.359 --> 0:20:59.200 interesting stuff. Man. Okay, what what was the second point 0:20:59.200 --> 0:21:02.359 you said? He had to Well, okay, yeah, I have 0:21:02.440 --> 0:21:07.240 to so you know, Okay, it's very complicated. What they've 0:21:07.240 --> 0:21:11.120 managed to do. Why this is so difficult is if 0:21:11.160 --> 0:21:16.600 I say the word to you social justice mostly of 0:21:16.640 --> 0:21:20.000 course on for sociive. Who isn't for social justice. It's 0:21:20.040 --> 0:21:24.359 like the word affirmative action. Of course I'm for affirmative action. 0:21:24.680 --> 0:21:28.280 Of course I'm for positive action. But the words don't 0:21:28.280 --> 0:21:31.960 mean what people think they mean. So when you say 0:21:32.119 --> 0:21:34.720 do you want you know, the big push on universities 0:21:34.760 --> 0:21:37.679 now is to have inclusion, right, And if you just 0:21:37.720 --> 0:21:40.800 look at the word inclusion, like, well, inclusion, who what 0:21:40.920 --> 0:21:43.720 kind of every same person should want inclusion? Well, yeah, 0:21:43.800 --> 0:21:46.280 every same person should want inclusion. If someone is a 0:21:46.280 --> 0:21:49.320 minority or sexual minority or transfer, of course they should 0:21:49.359 --> 0:21:52.360 be included in the conversation. Of course they should feel welcomed. 0:21:52.640 --> 0:21:58.040 But that's not what inclusion is. Okay, So inclusion means welcoming, 0:21:58.480 --> 0:22:00.600 all right, Just the definition of what does what does 0:22:00.640 --> 0:22:03.199 to include? Someone needs to make them feel welcome. But 0:22:03.280 --> 0:22:08.119 if somebody says something that could make someone feel unwelcome, 0:22:08.359 --> 0:22:12.120 then this space isn't inclusive anymore. So what we need 0:22:12.160 --> 0:22:15.040 to do is to restrict speech so that people won't 0:22:15.080 --> 0:22:18.520 say anything that makes other people feel unwelcome. So when 0:22:18.520 --> 0:22:22.439 you hear the word inclusion, what that should translate that 0:22:22.520 --> 0:22:26.480 in your head is restricted speech. That's what the word 0:22:26.560 --> 0:22:30.520 inclusion means. And that's another way to rob people of 0:22:30.560 --> 0:22:36.520 their cognitive liberty. Wow, wow, good stuff. Um, you know, 0:22:36.560 --> 0:22:38.600 I think the best thing we can do is to 0:22:38.840 --> 0:22:43.240 recommend folks, uh follow you and and James and Helen 0:22:43.640 --> 0:22:45.560 on the Twitter and read the stuff. You're right, and 0:22:45.600 --> 0:22:48.280 we'll certainly bring it to people's attention as it comes out. 0:22:48.560 --> 0:22:50.239 Keep fighting the good fighting. We'll stay in touch. I 0:22:50.240 --> 0:22:53.240 love watching the videos, I love reading your stuff. You know, well, 0:22:53.280 --> 0:22:55.119 thank you. We we appreciate your support. And what I 0:22:55.119 --> 0:22:57.600 said the beginning of the hours true, We're just we 0:22:57.800 --> 0:23:00.800 can't do that. I'm trying to fight a whole university system, 0:23:00.840 --> 0:23:03.800 and I'm trying to take on a system of indoctrination. 0:23:04.240 --> 0:23:05.840 And you know, most people they don't even know what 0:23:05.880 --> 0:23:08.920 a peer of you paper is and when I call 0:23:08.960 --> 0:23:12.159 out this nonsense, they come for me. So when I 0:23:12.240 --> 0:23:14.800 have the support of you guys, that's a huge deal. 0:23:15.080 --> 0:23:18.200 That that that makes it possible for me to fight 0:23:18.280 --> 0:23:21.040 keep fighting this fight. So I am incredibly grateful. We'll 0:23:21.200 --> 0:23:24.560 use us like garden tools, Peter, because we we believe 0:23:24.680 --> 0:23:27.600