Speaker 1: I'm going to take the counterpoint that the male penis
Speaker 1: is a construct and the penis is responsible for global warming.
Speaker 1: It's Armstrong and Getty extra large because four hours simply enough.
Speaker 1: This is Armstrong and Getty extra large. You know, I
Speaker 1: gotta say that was not the highbrow tone I was
Speaker 1: hoping to take in today's discussion. I'm disappointed in you
Speaker 1: that argument was good enough to get published and a
Speaker 1: university uh publication that that can't possibly be. You wouldn't
Speaker 1: think so. Perhaps you've heard us on The Armstrong and
Speaker 1: Getty Show discussing the experiences of Peter begin who taught
Speaker 1: philosophy at Portland State University in Portland, Oregon for a
Speaker 1: decade and has recently resigned for reasons that we will
Speaker 1: let him describe. It's always great to talk Peter. Welcome.
Speaker 1: How are you, sir? I have never been better, truly,
Speaker 1: I am a I am so happy right now. That's awesome.
Speaker 1: How are you, guys? We're terrific. We won't still of
Speaker 1: thunder though. Why do you feel that way? Well, because
Speaker 1: I don't have to compromise my integrity because I was
Speaker 1: working in a job in which I was hired to
Speaker 1: teach critical thinking and ethics, and then the conditions at
Speaker 1: the university made that impossible. Uh. And and I've just
Speaker 1: been really touched. I you know, I wrote a letter
Speaker 1: of resignation and I published it on very was the
Speaker 1: sub Stack, and I detailed what happens to people when
Speaker 1: they question or challenge the orthodoxy. And I have been
Speaker 1: flabbergasted by the literally worldwide reaction, the publication of the
Speaker 1: letter into multiple languages, the unbelievable amount of support that
Speaker 1: people contacted me just to say thank you or we
Speaker 1: appreciate what you did. I mean, it's just it's so touching.
Speaker 1: You know. I was tearing up last night just reading
Speaker 1: all these emails and support. I mean, it's truly amazing.
Speaker 1: I think there is an aspect of this, uh that
Speaker 1: we're gonna be talking about that is is kind of
Speaker 1: nice and warm feeling in that we and you and
Speaker 1: Matt Taiebe and and all sorts of thinkers who might
Speaker 1: disagree about everything have realized, oh my gosh, these sacred
Speaker 1: principles are are actually at stake. And we're not prone
Speaker 1: to hyperbole around here, which probably makes us bad talk
Speaker 1: show hosts, but we actually believe what's happening in our
Speaker 1: elementary high schools and university campuses is actually dangerous to civilization.
Speaker 1: And honestly, it feels good to be working with people
Speaker 1: we generally disagree with to do what we feel is right.
Speaker 1: It does and appreciate you having me on. And what's
Speaker 1: interesting is, you know the local paper here, I want
Speaker 1: to have a conversation. I want to have a sincere
Speaker 1: conversation about what's happening in our university system. I want
Speaker 1: to have a conversation about the president of Potland State
Speaker 1: University said that basically racial justice is his highest priority,
Speaker 1: highest priority of the institution. And you know, I want
Speaker 1: to have a conversation with the left about as you know,
Speaker 1: I'm a liberal atheist. I want to have a conversation
Speaker 1: with Matt matt Ow, with CNN, with MSNBC, with the
Speaker 1: local paper here, the oregon Ian, with op B, Oregon Public, Nobody,
Speaker 1: the whole left media media ecosystem is having none of it.
Speaker 1: They just don't want to have that conversation. And I
Speaker 1: find that that is fascinating. Do you think that's because
Speaker 1: they agree with the radical walk left, or because they're
Speaker 1: afraid of them, or they're afraid I think it's part
Speaker 1: of it is the same problem you see within the
Speaker 1: university is mirrored outside the university, and that is, don't
Speaker 1: talk to people with different views. There's even a word
Speaker 1: for that, it's called platform, and don't give the Nazia platform.
Speaker 1: Don't And it's not even that the problem is that
Speaker 1: somebody would give me a platform. The psychologist Stephen Pinker
Speaker 1: says that he calls it the left pole. In other words,
Speaker 1: when you're on the far left, anything even slightly to
Speaker 1: the right of that looks like you're all right or
Speaker 1: a Nazi. And so I think it's guilt by association.
Speaker 1: I think it's that they view themselves and I'm at
Speaker 1: least in partial agreement with this, that we really are
Speaker 1: in a cultural war and they don't want to. Well, actually,
Speaker 1: maybe I'll just put it on you. So, why do
Speaker 1: you think that the left wing, anybody's center of left
Speaker 1: is refuge? You guys will have me on. Glenn Beck
Speaker 1: had me on, Tucker Carlson had me on, and not
Speaker 1: only to talk about this, to talk about a wide
Speaker 1: range of issues, to challenge and question in probe, why
Speaker 1: don't we see that on the left. I blame the internet.
Speaker 1: I certainly blame social media. The social media tends to
Speaker 1: be left, particularly Twitter, and because it tends to be left,
Speaker 1: the the outspoken voices of the fringe left, the crazy
Speaker 1: people that we're talking about, they their importance is being
Speaker 1: elevated to a level that is not you know, doesn't
Speaker 1: make any sense. But the regular left is so scared
Speaker 1: of that vocal Twitter left that I think that's what
Speaker 1: drives all of this stuff. I'm gonna I'm gonna, well,
Speaker 1: all right, I'm gonna I'm gonna throw out something that
Speaker 1: may seem crazy, But here's my this is the next
Speaker 1: level of thinking about this. Our Lord vote a famous
Speaker 1: has a famous line of title, The Master's tools cannot
Speaker 1: disable the Master's house. The master's tools cannot dissemble, take
Speaker 1: apart the master's house. What is the master's house patriarchy, sexism, racism, oppression?
Speaker 1: What are the Master's tools? Reason, science, dialogue, discourse, etcetera.
Speaker 1: I believe part of the rot that's happening now that
Speaker 1: we're seeing is because there is a deep seated belief
Speaker 1: that the master's tools, that conversation, discourse, etcetera. Are enabling racism, xenophobia,
Speaker 1: the patriarchy, etcetera. So to have a conversation with someone
Speaker 1: like that is you don't want to give them a voice.
Speaker 1: The only thing that you will do, and there's a
Speaker 1: whole line of academic literature on this, the only thing
Speaker 1: that conversation will do is it will reinforce the patriarchy,
Speaker 1: it will reinforce bigotry, and it will demean the lived
Speaker 1: experiences of people who listen to that conversation and be hurtful.
Speaker 1: So I think that there is a moral infrastructure in
Speaker 1: place in which many on the left. And I don't
Speaker 1: think that this is in any way native to the left,
Speaker 1: Like you don't see this with known Chomsky or the
Speaker 1: kind of old school economic leftist. You see this exclusively
Speaker 1: with woke people. This is like, like my friend Dad
Speaker 1: said said, it's like a parasticization. It's a parasitic value
Speaker 1: system that's latched onto traditional leftism. So that's why I
Speaker 1: think that the the anybody left of center won't talk
Speaker 1: to me or anybody else. Well, there are a bunch
Speaker 1: of big ideas there. I wish I jutted them all down,
Speaker 1: but it's starting with the the expression about the master's house.
Speaker 1: I just reject at premise outright, and and at the
Speaker 1: heart of this, the idea that their ideas are irrefutable
Speaker 1: because they're sincerely held is one of the craziest things
Speaker 1: I've ever heard in my life. Can you imagine Peter
Speaker 1: walking into a symposium or whatever and saying, first of all,
Speaker 1: I'd like it to be made clear that my ideas
Speaker 1: are unimpeachable, every single one. And of course you get
Speaker 1: a big belly laugh from scholars. But then you say, no, no,
Speaker 1: I'm perfectly serious. You can't use logic, you can't use data,
Speaker 1: because those are the tools of the oppressor. I mean,
Speaker 1: that's it's it's so obviously a con it's hilarious to
Speaker 1: those of us with skeptical minds. Well, that's the other
Speaker 1: thing about this. I mean, that's the thing that I
Speaker 1: just marvel at. It's so insane, Like people are ripping
Speaker 1: down statues, people are assaulting the police, they're des drowing
Speaker 1: storefront windows of mom and pop businesses, you know, working
Speaker 1: class and for what do they do. It's so stupid,
Speaker 1: for Chad, for for a for an anarchist zone in
Speaker 1: which people are raping and murdering each I mean, for what,
Speaker 1: what is the what is the goal of this whole thing.
Speaker 1: It's so much easier to rip down and destroy than
Speaker 1: it is to create. And that's also I think part
Speaker 1: of the problem of why the left wing media ecosystem
Speaker 1: won't have people on, and it's because I not only
Speaker 1: do they not value conversation and they think that conversation
Speaker 1: is actually bad, but I think that's a convenient excuse
Speaker 1: to not do intellectual work to understand the other side
Speaker 1: of the argument. Now that's not to say that the
Speaker 1: right wing doesn't have a lot of crazies. I mean,
Speaker 1: of course it does, but it has a different kind
Speaker 1: of problem. And I would argue that the problem of
Speaker 1: free speech and free inquiry is absolutely rudimentary to human progress.
Speaker 1: I would say, you make a lot of good arguments,
Speaker 1: and Ian Joe are talking about some very intellectual stuff there.
Speaker 1: But I can tell you just from being in this
Speaker 1: business at a very base level, I don't think Rachel
Speaker 1: Mattow on MSNBC or Jake Tapper on CNN agree with
Speaker 1: any of this woke stuff. But if their bosses get
Speaker 1: a hundred emails or tweets from the woke left complaining
Speaker 1: about having you on, that's enough to frighten them off.
Speaker 1: And it's not for ideological reasons. It's just advertisers and ratings. Okay,
Speaker 1: So so then so if that's true, then they have
Speaker 1: no integrity, correct. Yeah, yeah, that's a good so. Right,
Speaker 1: So we're either we're either in a position that these
Speaker 1: folks believe it but won't say it. And if that's
Speaker 1: the case, why would you listen to them because what
Speaker 1: they're saying is not what they're believing. So there's a
Speaker 1: kind of inauthenticity built into the mechanism. Yeah, these go ahead.
Speaker 1: I was just gonna say, I think I think it's
Speaker 1: somewhat like Trump and some people on the right plane
Speaker 1: foot see with you and on or whatever. They think
Speaker 1: it's just a fringe group of crazies and better to
Speaker 1: have them on our side than not, and they're not
Speaker 1: enough to do any damage. Well, turns out they are.
Speaker 1: And I think that the Rachel Maddows and Jake Tapper's
Speaker 1: and that crowd is going to find that out about
Speaker 1: the woke crowd too. That kind of just playing footsie
Speaker 1: with him because it's easier and keep advertisers is going
Speaker 1: to turn out to be a bad idea. Well, in
Speaker 1: the same way that for instance, Ted Wheeler is the
Speaker 1: Mayor of Portland found out in a very painful way
Speaker 1: that no, you can't control that whirlwind or that pack
Speaker 1: of pit bulls, and just because they're you know, nominally
Speaker 1: on your side, they'll get out of control eventually. Yeah.
Speaker 1: That that's another conversation. Ted Rulers is a public disgrace
Speaker 1: and he should immediately be impeached and held accountable for
Speaker 1: what he's done to the City of Portland when he
Speaker 1: personally his negligence. The homicide rates are astronomical. He I mean,
Speaker 1: this is another conversation, but he we can. I'd love
Speaker 1: to have a conversation, but I want to stick it on.
Speaker 1: I want to I want to keep it to The
Speaker 1: university is just now. This is not a ininge bunch
Speaker 1: of nut jobs like Q and on. These are people
Speaker 1: who control major academic in most academic institutions in English
Speaker 1: speaking world, and they have positioned they're paid for in
Speaker 1: my case apportency. The university is paid for by taxpayer funds.
Speaker 1: Many of these people, if not most of them, have
Speaker 1: jobs for life. They're looking at the university as an
Speaker 1: indoctrination mill. They're teaching people and um training people to
Speaker 1: be activists based upon scholarship. That's totally, totally bogus. Again,
Speaker 1: the parallel to Q and on doesn't hold up. Yet.
Speaker 1: Does the right have crazies? Have, no question about. Everybody
Speaker 1: has crazies, but these crazies, the woke crazies, control academic institutions,
Speaker 1: our knowledge, our engines of knowledge production right and it's
Speaker 1: and the messages are grievance filled. The West is awful,
Speaker 1: Capitalism is awful. I'm not saying capitalism is perfect by
Speaker 1: any means, but I'm saying they have a very specific
Speaker 1: message that they're pumping out and nobody benefits from They
Speaker 1: don't even benefit from that. That's the other crazy thing
Speaker 1: about this. Nobody benefits from racial hatred, from division, from
Speaker 1: the universities, you know, racial justice being the highest part.
Speaker 1: Nobody is benefiting from these things. It is an ideology
Speaker 1: that is killing us all well. As a person who
Speaker 1: has worked with young people of all races for most
Speaker 1: of my adult life, I believe that to my core,
Speaker 1: that the very worst thing you could possibly do to
Speaker 1: a little child of colors to tell them they can't
Speaker 1: possibly achieve what they dream of because the white man
Speaker 1: is keeping them down. I think I think you are
Speaker 1: doing work so unholy and evil. The clan at its
Speaker 1: height couldn't dream of being that affected as effective. Hey,
Speaker 1: I want to go. I want to make one point
Speaker 1: because it's a prism through which I think the rest
Speaker 1: of the conversation could flow. One of the things you
Speaker 1: said in your letter of resignation, which I've read several times,
Speaker 1: is that. And this hit me like, I mean, like
Speaker 1: one of those fundamental principles you learn when you're a
Speaker 1: little kid, something Thomas Jefferson said. It just it fills
Speaker 1: your soul with excitement because you've realized the great truth.
Speaker 1: And what you said was the freedom to question is
Speaker 1: our fundamental right. And I thought that was one of
Speaker 1: the truest things I've ever heard. That's at the basis
Speaker 1: of everything right. The freedom to question is our fundamental
Speaker 1: right and the role. And I think the next line
Speaker 1: in that letter was talked about what our duty is.
Speaker 1: We we continue to forget that, and the university's goal
Speaker 1: is to remind us that that's not only our right,
Speaker 1: but that's our duty. But Portland's state is practically forbidden
Speaker 1: questioning correct only about certain things, though only about things
Speaker 1: that contradict the more orthodox. You can question other things
Speaker 1: you know, like what's the best way to plant plant
Speaker 1: a tree? You know, how far down should it go?
Speaker 1: But only questioning certain things. So I guess I want
Speaker 1: to put out a call. I want to say two things.
Speaker 1: I think it's really important when you're talking about racial justice, Like,
Speaker 1: if you actually want racial justice, the first order of
Speaker 1: business is to give every American an education of public education,
Speaker 1: particularly AK through twelve, education of the first rate, independent
Speaker 1: of skin color or socio economic status. And we have,
Speaker 1: my opinion is that we have let down an awful
Speaker 1: awful lot of people. And the solution to that is
Speaker 1: not equity, in other words, trying to gerry read outcomes delution.
Speaker 1: The solution to that is the quality of opportunity. And
Speaker 1: so I think what I would like to see conservatives
Speaker 1: the space that they move in is well, many spaces,
Speaker 1: but in the context of this conversation, I'd like to
Speaker 1: see them move into honest and sincere attempts to fix
Speaker 1: school systems in the worst neighborhoods for the worst people,
Speaker 1: independent of their skin color. That's the first thing. The
Speaker 1: second thing that I would like to see is for
Speaker 1: all this talk about diversity, diversity is a code word
Speaker 1: for intellectual homogeneity. Right, if diversity really meant diversity, then
Speaker 1: for example, you wouldn't see the excuse me, the vile
Speaker 1: and bitriol spewed that Larry Elder particularly, and all the
Speaker 1: horrible names that he's been called because he's a black
Speaker 1: man who doesn't toe the party line. Right. So the
Speaker 1: other thing that I would like to see, and I
Speaker 1: just on Glenn Beck and I asked him this. So
Speaker 1: here's my question to you. Um. One of the things
Speaker 1: that we see in this in our university system is
Speaker 1: culling of voices. They came for the right, then they
Speaker 1: came for the concertors, and they came from the moderates,
Speaker 1: then they came for the liberals, and and now they're
Speaker 1: in their own little chamber of derangement. So my my
Speaker 1: question to you is do you think we should have
Speaker 1: a Mark A Marxists in an economics department at a university. Wow?
Speaker 1: That's an interesting and I absolutely believe Marxism ought to
Speaker 1: be studied and known and understood. I love the phrase
Speaker 1: chamber of derangement. By the way, So that's gonna be
Speaker 1: my new band. That's a good one. That's a good
Speaker 1: album title to um. Yeah, that's a really interesting question.
Speaker 1: I if there is the free of exchange of ideas,
Speaker 1: if there's the marketplace of ideas functioning, I don't mind
Speaker 1: some guy saying no, no, no, Marxism is correct, because
Speaker 1: any rational examination of the evidence will render that opinion.
Speaker 1: You know, silly, um. So I'm not particularly threatened by it.
Speaker 1: I don't love it, but that's fine. So so I
Speaker 1: do love it, and I'll tell you why. So I
Speaker 1: love the best proponents, people who actually believe what they teach.
Speaker 1: So I'm an atheist. I teach an atheist class, and
Speaker 1: I have Christians, many very very prominent Christians and apologists
Speaker 1: come in and teach the best arguments to the existence
Speaker 1: of God. And the reason is because I don't believe
Speaker 1: those things. And so I would be doing my my
Speaker 1: students and injustice if I taught them without having You know,
Speaker 1: um um, I was crazy to see this. Let let's
Speaker 1: say this way. Students need to learn from people who
Speaker 1: believe things in the most diverse ways possible. So I
Speaker 1: love the idea of their being a Marxist, even though
Speaker 1: I hate Marxism, because I think our students need to
Speaker 1: see our freedom night. They need to see people with
Speaker 1: psychology and behaviors. They need to see, they need to
Speaker 1: see people who have um a wide range of beliefs,
Speaker 1: and we need to give them the tools to figure
Speaker 1: out for themselves what the answer is. I just might
Speaker 1: be I was gonna say, I was gonna say, my
Speaker 1: my discomfort is with the hundreds of millions who have
Speaker 1: died at the hands of communism, And I mean, would
Speaker 1: you would you likewise be infused about somebody teaching actual fascism,
Speaker 1: not antifa's view of fascism, actual fascism and trying to
Speaker 1: convince the kids, look, this is a better system. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think it's less about convincing and more about framing
Speaker 1: an argument in the most charitable way possible. So yeah,
Speaker 1: I have no problem with that, even though I disagree.
Speaker 1: And the reason for that is not only so that
Speaker 1: the kids can get the best representatives of the of
Speaker 1: the ideas, but they can make the decisions for themselves.
Speaker 1: Like that, the moment that you say, oh, we can't
Speaker 1: have this person here or we can't have this person
Speaker 1: speak out, you you were in very serious danger of
Speaker 1: becoming the things that we hate. That's a very good
Speaker 1: So we have to allow a system that has the
Speaker 1: free exchange of ideas. Now, somebody recently, I don't have
Speaker 1: it in front of me, but put out a tweet
Speaker 1: about nine eleven being the white, hetero capitalist patriarchy professor
Speaker 1: from Syracuse University. Yeah, and the university did exactly what
Speaker 1: he should do and what it should have done, and said,
Speaker 1: look this this academic So freedom of speech in an
Speaker 1: academic context is even more privileged, even a higher value.
Speaker 1: It's like we need people like that too, you know, whatever,
Speaker 1: rock the boat, say anything they want to speak. That's
Speaker 1: the whole idea of protection from tenure. And the university
Speaker 1: issued a wonderful statement that I wish my university would
Speaker 1: have issued for me, that we may or may not agree,
Speaker 1: but this person has the right to speak openly and honestly.
Speaker 1: And then the students. That was a statement. But I
Speaker 1: would like to see the kind of intellectual change um
Speaker 1: wrestling with ideas and the type of academy in which, look,
Speaker 1: you can disagree with people, you can agree with people,
Speaker 1: But here are the people who have they believe this,
Speaker 1: those are publishing it, they have researched it. We've given
Speaker 1: you the tools to make an analysis and the examination.
Speaker 1: Now go forward. You do that and our democracy will flourish. Right,
Speaker 1: you teach people not to attack other people on the
Speaker 1: basis of the mutable characteristics, but to engage their ideas,
Speaker 1: and we were all better off. Peter, Maybe we can compromise.
Speaker 1: Let's keep the Marxist chained in a cage and just
Speaker 1: bring them out for lectures. Would that be fair? No,
Speaker 1: we have to give everybody, you know, and that's why
Speaker 1: I said a Marxist not. But the problem comes when
Speaker 1: you stack a whole department with people who have the
Speaker 1: same beliefs, and then the kids will go into that
Speaker 1: and they're saying, well, everybody, my economics professor believe this.
Speaker 1: He's written all these books. This is true. No, that's
Speaker 1: why you need intellectual diversity. And the other thing is
Speaker 1: nobody will trust the bodies of literature and the quote
Speaker 1: unquote scholarship coming from you know, about really important things
Speaker 1: like global climate change, because they'll say, well, why should
Speaker 1: I try? People have actually said this to me, why
Speaker 1: should I trust that? Everybody here is a leftist? And
Speaker 1: they're right, right, right, But if if you had a
Speaker 1: mix of people, right, if you in a climate science
Speaker 1: you know, if you pee Christians and everybody different views
Speaker 1: and they came to a convergence of opinion, they came
Speaker 1: to a consensus. Now that would be something that people
Speaker 1: would then look at that and say, Okay, wow, these
Speaker 1: people like me, they represent my voice, they agree with
Speaker 1: other people like you and I are agreeing about this stuff. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean, this is the fundamental principle upon which our
Speaker 1: democracy has to be based. We have to have open inquiry,
Speaker 1: we have to have free speech, and we also have
Speaker 1: to teach people. You know what, if somebody doesn't agree
Speaker 1: with you, that's okay. You can still hang out with them.
Speaker 1: They can still be your friend, you can still go
Speaker 1: drinking with them, you can still marry them. It's okay.
Speaker 1: In fact, it's probably good if they don't agree with
Speaker 1: you about everything, because then you can have some fun
Speaker 1: and good conversations. But we're strayed from that because we're
Speaker 1: not allowing people to have different that's my book, how
Speaker 1: to have impossible conversations. We're straight aid from that because
Speaker 1: those conversations don't take place in the university. And it's
Speaker 1: not only that they don't take place. It said. If
Speaker 1: somebody has a view that doesn't conform to what's morally fashionable,
Speaker 1: it's not just like they're wrong, but it's like they're
Speaker 1: a bad person. And that's the narrative. People are pointing out.
Speaker 1: If you don't agree with this, you're a racist, you're
Speaker 1: a bigot, you're a homeleful. Well how about this? How
Speaker 1: about maybe I don't agree because I don't see the
Speaker 1: evidence for how about how about that? Well? Yeah, amen
Speaker 1: to that, And that's the speaking of the fraud we
Speaker 1: were talking about before. The idea that I'm a racist
Speaker 1: for disagreeing with you is literally, you know, begging the
Speaker 1: question in the classical sense. I mean, well, what am
Speaker 1: I supposed to do? Just stand here and get punched?
Speaker 1: I guess ideologically, but I know Jackie had something just
Speaker 1: to make things easier. What what's the name you like
Speaker 1: to put on this, this whole thing is woke ism?
Speaker 1: What you like best? Or or you know? It's nice
Speaker 1: that when we throw on the term Marxist we all
Speaker 1: know what we mean. I think it it helped combat
Speaker 1: this if we have an agreed upon term that everybody's using. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't. I don't think you could have an agreed
Speaker 1: upon term. The people who participate in woke ideology don't
Speaker 1: like woke Helen pluck Rose, author of Cynical Theories, which
Speaker 1: is the v book on the subject, called the Critical
Speaker 1: Social Justice Yes but genius book. She calls it critical
Speaker 1: social justice. Whenever I write it, I write it social
Speaker 1: justice uppercase S and upper case J. So there is
Speaker 1: no consensus on this, but I like to term it
Speaker 1: either social justice, social justice ideology, or woke ideology. Sometimes
Speaker 1: people call it a worldview too, which is true. It
Speaker 1: is actually a worldview. It's a worldview which bases itself
Speaker 1: on the fact that the West is inherently racist, sexist, etcetera.
Speaker 1: And we have to destroy the institutions that leads to
Speaker 1: those things. And I just want to throw this in
Speaker 1: so I don't forget to say it. Um, you mentioned
Speaker 1: integrity earlier when we're talking about I mean, I mean,
Speaker 1: one of the most interesting things that's come out of
Speaker 1: this is you. I think you needed this that. Um.
Speaker 1: Everybody that's reached out to you for an interview is
Speaker 1: on the right, and no one, no liberals have I mean,
Speaker 1: like you mentioned earlier, that's amazing. But you brought up
Speaker 1: the term integrity, and I can't imagine more integrity than
Speaker 1: what you've done. I assume you're not an independently wealthy man,
Speaker 1: and you quit your job because, um, because you believe
Speaker 1: in this stuff too much. And I mean, I'm not kidding.
Speaker 1: I will remember what you did for the rest of
Speaker 1: my life whenever I come to a crossroads like this. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I I I appreciate that. I never wanted any of this, um,
Speaker 1: and I did. I just could not stay at the
Speaker 1: place where I had to compromise my integrity anymore. I
Speaker 1: just couldn't do it. I couldn't do it. So, you know,
Speaker 1: I think I can tell you about what led up
Speaker 1: to that, or I can. I mean, we can go
Speaker 1: from many places. Yeah, actually, you know, it's funny. I
Speaker 1: was about to go there. You mentioned Helen pluck Rose
Speaker 1: and her co author James Lindsay's Cynical Theories, and the
Speaker 1: paper you wrote, the Conceptual Penis as a Social constra
Speaker 1: and then the work you did with James and Helen
Speaker 1: is one of my favorite things that's ever happened. Can
Speaker 1: you tell us about the conceptual penis as a Social
Speaker 1: construct and then the other papers and what what we
Speaker 1: were trying, what were you trying to prove or or
Speaker 1: or you know, exposed, and then what was the reaction
Speaker 1: to it. Sure, happy to tell you about that. So
Speaker 1: the conceptual penis was a hoax paper, and Alan's social
Speaker 1: there are actually penises. Um, it's really I'm glad you
Speaker 1: actually read the paper because I think that the papers
Speaker 1: is really funny. That's the other thing about ideologs. They
Speaker 1: have no sense of humor. That so one of the
Speaker 1: things that we were trying to do is to show
Speaker 1: that these bodies of scholarship they're not rigorous, they're not
Speaker 1: based on evidence, and they are ideological. And so we
Speaker 1: wrote the conceptual penis is a social construct and we
Speaker 1: published it in a in a low ranked It wasn't
Speaker 1: a great journal. It was a new journal as well,
Speaker 1: and we received a tremendous amount of criticism, and much
Speaker 1: of that criticism was justified. And that criticism was you
Speaker 1: didn't prove what you thought you proved about these disciplines.
Speaker 1: If you want to prove it, you need to do
Speaker 1: the following things one, two, three, four, five, etcetera. And
Speaker 1: so I said to to to Jim, to James lindsay, dude,
Speaker 1: this is awesome. They told us exactly what we need
Speaker 1: to do, so let's do it. He's like, all right,
Speaker 1: so then we wrote twenty papers and we forwarded absolutely insane,
Speaker 1: totally deranged thecs. I probably can't say because many of
Speaker 1: them are sexual on the air right now. Oh no,
Speaker 1: it's a podcast. If we have to, we'll believe it.
Speaker 1: Go ahead, Okay about you know, penetrative anal sex and
Speaker 1: transphobia and you know, putting people in matt white males
Speaker 1: and chains as a whole of experience of reparations in
Speaker 1: the classroom. And that one did not get public. We
Speaker 1: we got called by the Wall Street Journal before we
Speaker 1: published it. But the goal was to say so we
Speaker 1: we did exactly what people wanted us to do, like
Speaker 1: exactly what they wanted to do. So but instead of saying, wow,
Speaker 1: maybe there's a problem here, like maybe this is something
Speaker 1: we need to think about or be more reflected on
Speaker 1: because this is informing public policy. Instead of doing that,
Speaker 1: they came after me. They tried to take my job.
Speaker 1: That's their response to this. So I want to make
Speaker 1: sure it's it's it's clear what you were trying to prove.
Speaker 1: You were trying to prove that these fields that masquerade
Speaker 1: as science aren't science. It's not just that they're not science,
Speaker 1: it's that it's that they're the musings of ideologues. There's
Speaker 1: no evidence for these. So so the background piece that
Speaker 1: you need to know is, as a general rule, there
Speaker 1: are maybe a few exceptions to this, but this is
Speaker 1: almost a rule. Seven papers in seven years his tenure. Right,
Speaker 1: there's a job for life. I had no background in
Speaker 1: this stuff. Jim had no background. Hell and had no background.
Speaker 1: Gym's a mathematician. And we delved into the literature. We
Speaker 1: did a deep dive in the literature. We really read
Speaker 1: the journals, we read the articles, we did our homework
Speaker 1: plus plus and the point was to show that the
Speaker 1: policies that we're shaping our institutions, first the university or
Speaker 1: the university system as an institution, and then the policies
Speaker 1: as they were seeping out, these are not not only
Speaker 1: are they not scientific, they're not anything. They're just a
Speaker 1: bunch of people get together. We call it a term
Speaker 1: Brett Weinstein uses for when we went over his house,
Speaker 1: he's the former Evergreen professor, and we were explaining the
Speaker 1: grievance studies thing. Early on he said, oh, it's like
Speaker 1: idea laundering. So a bunch of idea loogs get together
Speaker 1: and they have Um, they have an idea and they're
Speaker 1: they're in academia, and they published that idea. They discharge
Speaker 1: the moral impulse in a journal and then comes out
Speaker 1: as the other side, as knowledge. So then they go
Speaker 1: around pointing when you say, well, how do you know,
Speaker 1: they point to the bogus scholarship that they themselves meet up.
Speaker 1: But that's not based on evidence. And not only that,
Speaker 1: you couldn't publish anything in there that went against what
Speaker 1: what was morally fashionable, Like the whole ecosystem exists to
Speaker 1: prop up certain moral conclusions and they teach that to people,
Speaker 1: credential themselves, get tenure, and then hire other people who
Speaker 1: believe the same things. That's how that's why you have
Speaker 1: ideological capture of the university institutions. That's the mechanism. That's
Speaker 1: how they've done it. Boy, I love that image of
Speaker 1: idea laundering. That's a great metaphor. And and by the way,
Speaker 1: you've ruined the dog park for me, uh you with
Speaker 1: your rape culture at the dog park paper, which was
Speaker 1: hilariously brilliant. Well here here's something that we don't talk
Speaker 1: about because it's just too complicated. Um So everybody loves
Speaker 1: the dog park and and you know p traditions, can
Speaker 1: I rape culture and looking at it through the lens
Speaker 1: of black feminist criminology. I mean, it's just and that
Speaker 1: the total Well, yeah, I chose I chose that. I
Speaker 1: chose that because I had to find something that they
Speaker 1: could not criticize, like what was the thing? And they
Speaker 1: could never criticize black feminist criminology because that would be
Speaker 1: both misogynists and racist. So I choose to look at
Speaker 1: dog dog humping incidents. And the other thing is there
Speaker 1: was some utterly insane number of dogs and talk comping
Speaker 1: incidents that that I uh, that we alleged to have reported,
Speaker 1: and you know, people stopping their dog rage by doing
Speaker 1: jumping Jackson just I mean these crazy ship dog humping
Speaker 1: incidents or d h I s if you will. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So so the thing we never talked about that that
Speaker 1: goes on along the lines of the conceptual penis because
Speaker 1: it's a very complicated idea. But we got in the
Speaker 1: number one gender studies journal in the world, there are
Speaker 1: two of them. Um, we we got in this paper
Speaker 1: that argued that was against us, we specifically named us,
Speaker 1: and we talked about the conceptual penis in this paper
Speaker 1: and we said that basically, we're terrible people. Uh. We
Speaker 1: titled the paper when the Joke's on You, as if
Speaker 1: the joke were on Jim and I for writing the
Speaker 1: conceptual penis. But the fact that we published a paper
Speaker 1: the joke about us that was bogus and said things
Speaker 1: that were absurd was when the joke was on them.
Speaker 1: So the joke was actually on them when they're thinking
Speaker 1: that the joke is on us. So we know, was
Speaker 1: that clear? Yes, that is incredible Hall of Mars. It's
Speaker 1: very complicated to what we don't talk about it. But
Speaker 1: so so that's the part of the problem is that
Speaker 1: people are basing their conceptions of reality on these journals.
Speaker 1: And what you have is not only are they grievance filled,
Speaker 1: but they're racially divisive. They teach people. Look, I know
Speaker 1: I right now he's become a friend of mine, young
Speaker 1: kid who's at Oregon Health Science University. I can actually
Speaker 1: read you what it said, um the screenshot he sent me.
Speaker 1: But they've asked students to self segregate on the basis
Speaker 1: of race. I mean that's crazy. Yeah, that is just amazing. Now,
Speaker 1: who were the liberals here and who are the conservatives?
Speaker 1: So that's why those terms don't really mean anything. You're
Speaker 1: absolutely right, Well, conservatives at this point, good ones, I think,
Speaker 1: are conserving liberalism. But anyway, exactly that, Dave Rubens made
Speaker 1: that point, and I think that's absolutely true. I don't
Speaker 1: even know what those terms mean anymore. And so people
Speaker 1: will say, well, you're liberally conserved. Well what do you mean, Like,
Speaker 1: give me a specific policy and then I'll tell you
Speaker 1: my answer. But you know, people like you know, rubrics,
Speaker 1: umbrella terms like oh, I'm this, I'm this. But the
Speaker 1: fact is that in this cultural moment, the political reality
Speaker 1: is more complicated than that, it's more nuanced, and you
Speaker 1: all so seeing I publish a piece about this in
Speaker 1: the American mind, I call it the Great realignment. There's
Speaker 1: a realignment now if there's a political and ideological realignment
Speaker 1: based upon things like rules of engagement. So while you
Speaker 1: and I may have different I don't know what you
Speaker 1: guys think about abortion, but I'm pro choice. Well, we
Speaker 1: we may have differences of opinion about that, we agree
Speaker 1: how to solve those differences of opinion, right, We debate,
Speaker 1: we converse, you can even protest if you want. Um.
Speaker 1: But but the new, the new threat to cognitive liberty
Speaker 1: are you know, the are the woke. Are the woke,
Speaker 1: and they don't play by those rules of engagement. So
Speaker 1: if if you publish something or you say something they
Speaker 1: don't like, they go after your family, they try to
Speaker 1: get your job taken away from you, they file complaint,
Speaker 1: they weaponize offices of diversity, equity, and inclusion. So you're
Speaker 1: talking about people who do not abide by traditional rules
Speaker 1: of engagement. So that's one thing in the in this
Speaker 1: great realignment that we're experiencing. I mean there are other
Speaker 1: factors as well, you know, like there's a truth that
Speaker 1: can be known, there are more philosophical things, but I
Speaker 1: think it Behoovese people. You have to be willing to
Speaker 1: step If you're a liberal and you're against woke stuff,
Speaker 1: you have to be willing to step across the line
Speaker 1: when Ted Cruise, for example, says something and agree and
Speaker 1: you will agree with him because it's true. Not because
Speaker 1: you have to agree with every single thing Ted Cruz says,
Speaker 1: but you have to look when when someone says something
Speaker 1: that's true that corresponds to evidence and facts, you have
Speaker 1: to stand up to it, even if it's against your
Speaker 1: own tribe. In spite of the consequences. That's what intellectual
Speaker 1: integrity means. Well, the you know, the the intellectual mainstreams
Speaker 1: running in the other direction. Though, this is something we've
Speaker 1: talked about a fair amount. Is that to to signal
Speaker 1: your allegiance to your tribe, you bellow opinions that you
Speaker 1: don't even think are are real, but you know it's
Speaker 1: a tribal indicator. And the more ridiculous, the more clear
Speaker 1: your indication of tribal loyalty is. So the counter fact
Speaker 1: that the counter factual I would love to be able
Speaker 1: to run or in a parallel universe, is if Trump
Speaker 1: had won the presidency, who would be avoiding getting the
Speaker 1: vaccine at that point, because not because of any the
Speaker 1: science being any different, just because who was behind pushing
Speaker 1: it at the time. I think that would perfectly prove
Speaker 1: your point. Yeah, that that would I don't want to
Speaker 1: go down this rabbit hole, but the utter, unmitigated and
Speaker 1: fifty five years of my life, I think this is
Speaker 1: the worst catastrophe of this country and is signaling a
Speaker 1: new error from US. The unmitigated to call it a
Speaker 1: call Afghanistan and catastrophe is actually not even remotely doing
Speaker 1: it justice. But you know that's the thing, like, well,
Speaker 1: what if Trump were in or could you take the
Speaker 1: words of the sentence and you can when they say black,
Speaker 1: can you put white in there? Can you put white
Speaker 1: in it? But even in those cases, um that these
Speaker 1: folks have had many years, like an incubation chamber to
Speaker 1: incubate ideas. So they've changed the meanings of words. So,
Speaker 1: for example, racism is now has a power component instead
Speaker 1: of the traditional definition of discriminating me against an individual
Speaker 1: in the basis of a racial stereotype. Right, So they
Speaker 1: changed the meanings of words, and it makes it really difficult. Look,
Speaker 1: life is difficult enough, fake news, Russian bots, we have
Speaker 1: all this stuff we have to contend with, and on
Speaker 1: top of that, we have people running around who changed
Speaker 1: the meanings of basic words. I'm telling you, like, you know,
Speaker 1: I get all these emails from my kids school. They
Speaker 1: go to p punctions, equity, equity, equity, equity. How many
Speaker 1: people do you think actually know what the word equity means. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we've talked about the fair amount. That's one of the
Speaker 1: that's one of the ways they line up so many
Speaker 1: well meaning, suburban, college educated white gals and guys as well,
Speaker 1: as they've redefined these words, and I hear anti racist,
Speaker 1: and if I didn't know what Abram x Kendy has
Speaker 1: written and what that really means, I think, well, of
Speaker 1: course you've got to be anti racist, but it's come
Speaker 1: something completely different, right, and those sorts of things, and
Speaker 1: that's by design, by the way, of course, that's not
Speaker 1: a bug of the system. That's a feature of the system.
Speaker 1: And so look, so one of the things people say, well,
Speaker 1: was there a final straw for you? Like, what was
Speaker 1: the thing that finally? So I tried to I'm going
Speaker 1: to relate this to our conversation. So I tried to
Speaker 1: get a meeting with the president of Portland State University. Right,
Speaker 1: So a lot of things I didn't put in the letter,
Speaker 1: like the faculty Senate passed a resolution and the National
Speaker 1: Association of Scholars Oregon chapter has an amazing video that
Speaker 1: they took from the Faculty Senate meeting when they passed
Speaker 1: an actual resolution about criticism of ideas being harassment and
Speaker 1: specifically criticism of critical race theory. Right. Can you imagine
Speaker 1: the people in the engineering school saying, hey, criticism of
Speaker 1: this bridge design is the engine is harassment or philosopher saying, hey,
Speaker 1: criticism of my ideas of free will or ans free
Speaker 1: will or whatever. It's that. No, that's insane. The the
Speaker 1: the more ideological you are. To keep your ideology in place,
Speaker 1: you have to have things like political correctness, You have
Speaker 1: to have things like blasphemy laws. So the university passes
Speaker 1: faculty resolution. And then one of my colleagues wrote a
Speaker 1: hit piece on me and the Chronicle of Higher Education,
Speaker 1: and I responded to that, Uh, well, let me not
Speaker 1: hit piece. Let me rephrase that by saying, uh, she
Speaker 1: wrote an article about me, and and uh and and
Speaker 1: basically the idea was that criticism of ideas is harassment.
Speaker 1: And I responded in that And if you guys have
Speaker 1: a moment, it would be to read that, because it
Speaker 1: would give you context for for this whole thing that's
Speaker 1: happening in the academy. Criticism of ideas is not harassment.
Speaker 1: Criticizing and immutable property of a person is a no
Speaker 1: no because that person can't change it, so it doesn't
Speaker 1: do them any good. For example, to criticize someone in
Speaker 1: a wheelchair, or to criticize me because I'm fifty five.
Speaker 1: I can't change the color. I could change the cold,
Speaker 1: my hair, I can't change my age. So so I
Speaker 1: was in the dean's office. So I asked the president
Speaker 1: for a five minute meeting repeatedly, and his staff told
Speaker 1: me repeatedly, he's too busy. He's too busy for a
Speaker 1: five minute meeting. Okay, Finally I managed to have like
Speaker 1: a three minute meeting with a dean. And this individual
Speaker 1: told me, you know, I really did my best to
Speaker 1: watch my tone. I was extraordinarily respectful. And I actually
Speaker 1: had known this this person, so it's not like they're
Speaker 1: total stranger to me. We live in Portland, we know
Speaker 1: each other. So I said to this individual, you know
Speaker 1: that Portland's State university made the list of the talk
Speaker 1: of the Foundation for Individual Rights and Education. It's Greg
Speaker 1: Glukyanas book. He's the guy who wrote the Caddling of
Speaker 1: the American Violence. Yeah. Yeah, So I said, you know
Speaker 1: that I would urge your viewership to your listeners to
Speaker 1: fact check me when I say this, fact check every
Speaker 1: don't believe anything I say, fact check everything. Poland State
Speaker 1: University of worst colleges for free speech. And he turned
Speaker 1: to me with total sincerity and said, it's a good
Speaker 1: thing to be on those lists, and I was so
Speaker 1: utterly blown away, like because in other words, this wasn't
Speaker 1: a bug of the woke ideology. This is a feature
Speaker 1: like this is actually baked into the educational system. This
Speaker 1: is a feature. And it was in that moment I
Speaker 1: realized I had to quit, and then the pandemic hit
Speaker 1: and that kind of through through things for a loop.
Speaker 1: But um, I mean that is a month. That is
Speaker 1: a grown task. I mean think about that, like, that's
Speaker 1: not a symposium. You know. In the Greeks, they get together,
Speaker 1: they talk, they dispute, they argue, they laugh, they drink,
Speaker 1: and said, no, this is a church. These are yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm reminded of I'm reminded the final sceniversally,
Speaker 1: the final scene in Brave New World where the you know,
Speaker 1: the all powerful leader essentially says to the dissident, um no,
Speaker 1: I don't take it personally. I'm not angry at you
Speaker 1: or anything. Here's what we're doing, here's why we're doing it.
Speaker 1: You don't fit in, so you need to go away.
Speaker 1: And the cool rationality of it is always, you know,
Speaker 1: has always chilled me. And for that guy to say,
Speaker 1: oh no, no, that's a good thing. I mean that's
Speaker 1: like finding out he's a pod person or something. I mean, right,
Speaker 1: and and that's the other thing. So so that's when
Speaker 1: you really just let that idea percolate and then detonate,
Speaker 1: like when you really think about what that means. Here,
Speaker 1: individuals who are positive they have the truth, they want
Speaker 1: to look at the system as an indoctrination. It's kind
Speaker 1: of a factory where people come in and they put
Speaker 1: ideas about specifically race, gender, and sexuales, etcetera. But whatever is,
Speaker 1: you know, the moral orthodoxy. They put that in your head.
Speaker 1: They no longer have the north Star's truth. And when
Speaker 1: you do that, the natural consequences there can't be free
Speaker 1: inquiry and open expression. I mean, there can't be think
Speaker 1: about it like this, think about it like this. So
Speaker 1: if the president again, I want everybody to fact check
Speaker 1: every single thing I'm saying. Do not take my word
Speaker 1: for it. I don't have the exact quotation, but it's
Speaker 1: something like the highest priority of the university is racial justice, right, Okay,
Speaker 1: So let's just think about that. If the it doesn't
Speaker 1: even matter if it's racial justice, it doesn't matter what
Speaker 1: is If the highest priority of a football team is winning,
Speaker 1: which is what the highest priority of a football team
Speaker 1: should be right that any other priority that cons that
Speaker 1: conflicts with that would by definition be a or priority, right, right.
Speaker 1: So that's why they don't, for example, have diversity requirements
Speaker 1: on professional sports teams, because any other priority would have
Speaker 1: to be d prioritized or lowered. So, if your highest
Speaker 1: priority is racial justice and free speech or free inquiry
Speaker 1: or open expression of ideas can flis with that, you
Speaker 1: have to always side with your highest priority by definition,
Speaker 1: because it's your highest priority. Well, right, And we're in
Speaker 1: a situation here where what has long practically forever been
Speaker 1: the highest priority of a university, seeking of the truth,
Speaker 1: the exchange of ideas is now seen as detrimental to
Speaker 1: the new orthodoxy. So it's not just not as higher priority,
Speaker 1: it's specifically as it's a sin, it's a point, it's right,
Speaker 1: it's not above, it's a feature. And to avoid that,
Speaker 1: that's why you have to have intellectual, political, uh an
Speaker 1: ideological diversity. You have to have that Marxist in there,
Speaker 1: a Marxist. You have to have that um Keynsian, you know,
Speaker 1: you have to have someone teaching Hiak, you have to
Speaker 1: you have to have that intellectual diversity, so that the
Speaker 1: highest priority, so that the institution doesn't become something other
Speaker 1: than a means to enable people to understand the world
Speaker 1: and to figure out what's true. And if they're wrong,
Speaker 1: you know what, that's okay too. But nobody was forced
Speaker 1: feeding them that idea. They made the best. They did
Speaker 1: the best they could to come up to to be
Speaker 1: sincere and ask honest questions to try to figure out
Speaker 1: what's true. And they kept the value in mind of
Speaker 1: being willing to revise their beliefs. And that's another characteristic
Speaker 1: that ideologues don't have. They're not willing to change their minds.
Speaker 1: And that's a fundamental feature of what it is that
Speaker 1: makes someone rational. And we have we are not teaching that.
Speaker 1: We have lost that and what have we bartered it for.
Speaker 1: We've bartered it for an ideology that separates and divides us.
Speaker 1: If you try to get the if you try to
Speaker 1: get the universities down to one Marxist, there's gonna be
Speaker 1: a lot of Marxists on the street corners saying will
Speaker 1: share for food or something. But um my, my final
Speaker 1: question for you would be I used to read about
Speaker 1: the cultural revolution in China that happened through what the
Speaker 1: late sixties, early seventies, and I would read that stuff
Speaker 1: and I think, I don't I just don't get it.
Speaker 1: I mean, like, how how could this ever happen? It
Speaker 1: didn't quite make sense to me. I now get it completely,
Speaker 1: because it's starting to make sense to me in a
Speaker 1: in a very scary way. Do you think, um, do
Speaker 1: you think we could get there? Do you feel you
Speaker 1: feel like do you feel like it's getting worse or
Speaker 1: better or enough people waking up to it? Where where
Speaker 1: are we on the continuum there? That's that's a that's
Speaker 1: a great question. I don't know the answer to that.
Speaker 1: I know that this is not sustainable. I don't know
Speaker 1: what the expiration data is. People don't like living like this. Um.
Speaker 1: And again, like you said before, the whole thing is
Speaker 1: so stupid. You know, it's not like that they're offering.
Speaker 1: You know, what's the end result of any of this stuff?
Speaker 1: And that's the other thing. It's so idiotic. Just think
Speaker 1: about white fragility. It doesn't work with anything else. Why
Speaker 1: should it work with whiteness? I mean, it doesn't work
Speaker 1: with witches. You're a witch? No, I'm not. That's proof
Speaker 1: that you're a witch like you're denialist groups of the thing.
Speaker 1: So it doesn't work with literally anything else. Why would
Speaker 1: it work with I mean, the whole thing is so stupid.
Speaker 1: It's like what the junior high school people do to
Speaker 1: each other. But yet it's who doing an unbelievable number
Speaker 1: of our of our intelligentia, and it's captured the institutions.
Speaker 1: So I don't think that this is sustainable. I think
Speaker 1: that this will do unbelievable damage to our institutions. I
Speaker 1: think it already has done damage to the institutions. Who
Speaker 1: is Ah, no, you go. I was just gonna say,
Speaker 1: I hope you're right about the cultural revolution thing, because
Speaker 1: I see some of the the earmarks of it in
Speaker 1: the kids are being urged to either ignore their parents
Speaker 1: or turn them in or tell their teachers about them,
Speaker 1: and that sort of thing. And the idea of dragging
Speaker 1: your own parents into the street to see them beating
Speaker 1: is so horrific most of us can't imagine it. I
Speaker 1: think you had to have a communist system for that
Speaker 1: to catch fire like it did. Um. You know, Hitler
Speaker 1: send into power through the ballot box famously. Um. But
Speaker 1: you know, one more aspect of the cultural revolution, totalitarian systems.
Speaker 1: The rest of it are show trials, And I wondered
Speaker 1: if you could just spend a couple of minutes on
Speaker 1: your experience with the Title nine investigation. Yeah. Well I
Speaker 1: had to sign paperwork saying I couldn't talk about it,
Speaker 1: so I can't really talk about it. Wow. Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: now it was there just out of curiosity. I don't Peter,
Speaker 1: you probably don't know this about me, Joe Getty. I
Speaker 1: almost went to law school, so I'm the show's legal expert.
Speaker 1: Um Was there was this a contract? Was there consideration
Speaker 1: in exchange? You you you gave up the right to
Speaker 1: talk about this in exchange for what it was an
Speaker 1: exchange for I? I am. You know, we're represented by
Speaker 1: a union. And and that's the other thing that I've
Speaker 1: changed my mind on, probably a conversation for another show.
Speaker 1: I do not like teachers unions one iota, but I
Speaker 1: can tell you in no uncertain terms, like, as a fact,
Speaker 1: I would have lost my job long ago if not
Speaker 1: for my teachers union in general and not for the
Speaker 1: guy who heads the teacher's union. I was seeing this
Speaker 1: guy literally like every day from complain. In fact, he
Speaker 1: went up for renewal and I asked you to write
Speaker 1: um a letter like I don't know, two or three
Speaker 1: years in the row because he was seeing me. So
Speaker 1: I've kind of had a change of change of mind
Speaker 1: on the importance of teachers unions. But yeah, I know,
Speaker 1: it's it's it's it's uh, it's interesting. So the title
Speaker 1: line investigations, there's no due process in that, so you
Speaker 1: don't have access to what you're being infused if you
Speaker 1: have to infer that from the invest the gator. And now, look,
Speaker 1: it is often said that we are not um that
Speaker 1: people who consider us their enemies, we do not say
Speaker 1: kind things about. So I'm gonna tell you something unbelievably
Speaker 1: truthful about the title line investigator in the Office of Diversity.
Speaker 1: You could accuse these people of many things, but the
Speaker 1: thing you cannot accuse them of is not being thorough.
Speaker 1: These people are the most thorough people. I mean, they
Speaker 1: had a gustopo like thoroughness and compliment. They were calling
Speaker 1: in form of students, colleagues, t s, people I did
Speaker 1: you know, independent studies with people I had known like
Speaker 1: years ago. They went back like years and they were
Speaker 1: summoning them to the Office of Diversity. They were I
Speaker 1: mean I was walking around campus and people were coming
Speaker 1: up to me, that's what the whole beating your wife
Speaker 1: and family, and then like other people would come up
Speaker 1: with this I hear about you didn't want I was just,
Speaker 1: you know, the the particularly um insidious part about that is,
Speaker 1: you know, you know, my daughter is adopted from China,
Speaker 1: so like there's another level of hideousness that's going on there,
Speaker 1: and there's really nothing you can do. I mean, you
Speaker 1: can quit, but you can't say you know, you can't
Speaker 1: even see that, you forget anything. You can't even see
Speaker 1: the charges, right, And then I love the outcome of it.
Speaker 1: Loved it in quotes and that it is so bizarre
Speaker 1: it's actually it reminds me of one of Iron Rand's
Speaker 1: most famous quotes about you know, we don't expect you
Speaker 1: to follow these laws. We expect you to break them,
Speaker 1: because once you're a lawbreaker, then we own you. And
Speaker 1: at the end of your title nine things you mentioned
Speaker 1: in your letter of resignation, they essentially said, you're not
Speaker 1: guilty of these bizarre charges, but as long as we've
Speaker 1: got you in our clutches, you're not allowed to do this.
Speaker 1: You have to do this, and we think you ought
Speaker 1: to get counseling, and and it's like, wait what, so I, UM,
Speaker 1: that's right. So I requested a meeting. After that meeting,
Speaker 1: and then I read a very long statement UM to
Speaker 1: the chair of the department and the Chief Diversity Opics,
Speaker 1: and my union guys, Phil phil Lesh, who was again
Speaker 1: unbelievably phenomenal, um, and and among those, why am I
Speaker 1: not allowed to render my opinion or teach in such
Speaker 1: a way that my opinion about protected classes can be known?
Speaker 1: When there were entire wings of university architecture dedicated to activism.
Speaker 1: In fact, at the time I think alignment that was
Speaker 1: the Women's the Gender Studies Department of Women's Studies or
Speaker 1: whatever it's called. The p s U had the word
Speaker 1: activists or some variant there of seven times on the
Speaker 1: web page. So you have a whole you have entire
Speaker 1: departments basically anything with the word studies in it. You
Speaker 1: had entire departments that are geared towards activism. Explicit we
Speaker 1: not only rendering their opinion, but actually geared to make activists.
Speaker 1: But I can't render my opinion about a protective class
Speaker 1: of teaching such a way that it's known and that's
Speaker 1: the other thing. Think about how crazy that is. So
Speaker 1: if someone comes to me and says, hey, do you
Speaker 1: think this minority should be enslaved and in chained? I
Speaker 1: have to say I cannot render my opinion. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's so crazy on so many levels. You know. I
Speaker 1: picture you and Copernicus and Galileo sitting at a bar
Speaker 1: and just staring at your bears and saying, I hear
Speaker 1: your brother, I hear you as you ran into rather
Speaker 1: similar orthodoxes and results. Um, hey, Peter, I hope we
Speaker 1: can stay in touch. We're absolutely hoping to support you
Speaker 1: and people who think like you as much as we
Speaker 1: can for as long as they keep us on the
Speaker 1: air before some woke group gets us fired. But it's
Speaker 1: great to talk to you and and and chin up.
Speaker 1: I mean, we really admire the hell out of it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: thank you. I appreciate that you guys have always been
Speaker 1: terrific supporters and I'm I'm very grateful for that. You
Speaker 1: can find me on Twitter at Peter burgosand g H O,
Speaker 1: S S I N. And I just started a nonprofit
Speaker 1: that's going to fight back about this. It's called UM
Speaker 1: National Progress Alliance, and we're at National Progress Alliance dot org.
Speaker 1: So I appreciate you guys have always been been supportive,
Speaker 1: and it's a it's a great way to remember that
Speaker 1: we are Americans and we and our disagreements actually make
Speaker 1: us stronger. And you know, I would love to go
Speaker 1: out and have beers with you guys and hang out
Speaker 1: and you know, have spirited conversations to the early morning.
Speaker 1: I'll see if Galileo is available. All right, thanks many,
Speaker 1: good to talk, all right, thank you. All right. See
Speaker 1: that's principle, man. You don't see that that much these days, no,
Speaker 1: I think, Um, we've all had situations like this in
Speaker 1: our lives where uh, we don't want to do a
Speaker 1: certain thing, but we end up in a situation where
Speaker 1: the realized there's no choice. This is not what I
Speaker 1: want to do, but I've got no choice. And that's
Speaker 1: where he was. Yeah, I I absolutely admire his character
Speaker 1: and I know he would have done this in a
Speaker 1: variety of circumstances. In his letter resignation is brilliant and
Speaker 1: persuasive in the rest of it, but in a weird way,
Speaker 1: Portland's state made it easy for him in that they
Speaker 1: were so patently crazy and unfair and oppressive and unwilling
Speaker 1: to listen to reason. I mean, he really had no
Speaker 1: choice unless he was just gonna drink himself to death
Speaker 1: and pretend that it wasn't happening. Well, when one of
Speaker 1: the deans says, no, it's a good thing we're on
Speaker 1: that list of being the worst university for free speech
Speaker 1: to America, You're done. I mean what there's unless you
Speaker 1: think you can reform them from the inside. You obviously can.
Speaker 1: You're done, you know. He mentions he was sworn at
Speaker 1: and spit on walking across campus on more than one occasion.
Speaker 1: He's obviously a man of the mind and a man
Speaker 1: of peace. I had a punched people in their heads.
Speaker 1: But that's why Peter Gashian is a better fellow than
Speaker 1: I am. I find a quad with a pool cue
Speaker 1: or a sack by Nichols. Amen to that, brother. Extra
Speaker 1: large