Deconstructing the Manosphere with Sisyphus 55

what what are you doing with your YouTube channel Copus 55 and by the way Copus I get where that part came from but what's what's the 55 I've uh you know I get that I get I get asked that question a lot and I think uh in just keeping with continuity I'll just never I'll never disclose it that's just a that's a secret oh is that right okay yeah you know I should have I should have thought that you get asked that all the time I think the one rule of good podcast interviewing is don't ask a question that can be Google and don't ask a question that somebody's been asked in other podcasts and I think I probably just broke both of those rules I I don't think publicly people ask me that too much but uh I have like on my there's like a chalkboard in my kitchen and uh people have like everybody that comes over they try to like guess what the 55 means and uh so so it's it's it's at least among people that I I know they uh so don't don't worry about that it was I mean I'm not going to press you for an answer but there is a reason then it's not just like an arbitrary an arbitrary number there is something but like the explanation for suffering in with benevolent God we'll just never know what it is I mean maybe it doesn't have to be like a a potentially overly pretentious uh a philosophical question it it really came from the brain of a a 17-year-old who was uh procrastinating by making YouTube videos um in his bedroom so um but yeah funny enough I do know the feeling actually um I'm I'm I'm glad that we're sitting down together I've been I've been following your stuff for for a long time and uh yeah I I that's why I'm interested having seen what you've been doing and and you've sort of been doing some podcasts as well um and I guess more regularly recently but you've been doing that for a while and your videos cover a lot of different topics and so yeah I'm sort of wondering when you sort of give a job description when you tell people what what it is you do and they say oh what's the what's the YouTube channel about what is it that you tell them um I mean like because it's usually like a wide demographic of people especially if I'm meeting them at like a party or some sort of like public place I just say that it's like a YouTube channel that uh delves into like philosophy and psychology and sometimes more personal topics but um you know I I still feel like that doesn't quite capture it like it is really I think it initially started as an excuse for me to just read the books and and uh research the topics that I was intrinsically interested to learn about and thankfully my own intrinsic interests aligned with uh a lot of the um interests of other people so it was a nice kind of relationship there I think more recently it's uh you know maybe in the last year or so I started to kind of wake up to the idea that there were like you know I I get a lot of messages and stuff regarding ing mental health or people in in not great uh positions in life and you know they're telling me that you know these videos helped in some way and uh not that I set out to make these videos to specifically help somebody I um it was really out of my own trying to figure things out but I did realize that there was some sort of uh social utility in uh making these videos and also having some sort of influence and then you know more and more it is kind of felt like sharpening a blade in a bit in terms of where directly I should I should concentrate that that sort of social utility so I've been a bit more politically focused and uh I think especially in in a video that I'm making now that's coming up soon it's it's a very much a concentrated effort to to use this specific influence I have in order to enable some sort of genuine social action or um you know steps instead of uh you know like like I do have some sort of a LoveHate relationship with a lot of the the streaming and commentary channels that uh they they engage in a lot of kind of policing and back and forth regarding this person said this and then this person said that and a lot of the you know attention is finite and they have a lot of influence and a lot of this attention that they direct their viewers to and it is inspired by the viewers interests also but a lot of it is directed towards this kind of bickering within the room and kind of uh the idea of you know uh talking about accountability and stuff like that and a lot of it doesn't really direct towards any sort of genuine social action and I'm looking at myself also because I've talked about a lot of things and then I kind of by the end will propose some sort of abstract solution to them and uh you know at the end of the day you're a video essayist you can only do so much and you are kind of partially doing it in order to generate Revenue but I I am becoming more interested in uh actually helping in some way to change things in in some sense so kind of getting out of that just I'm making videos for fun or for myself and maybe actually instead uh looking towards some more actionable outcomes yeah I mean the videos that you make uh some of the more popular videos that I've seen on your channel they're about things like absurdity absurdism they're about depression they're about nihilism they're about Kimu they're about existen ISM this kind of this kind of stuff and I wonder if you're going into making a video about these kinds of topics whether you're thinking in your head okay I'm I know that a lot of people struggle with these issues so I want to make a video to help them or if you're going and thinking I I want to make a philosophical overview about this and you find that in doing so now uh you know I mean you said originally this was sort of not your intention but now when you're setting out like is that the is that more of a motivation now than just sort of philosoph IAL interest in in general um I think it would be disingenuous for me to start like exploring topics or advocating uh for certain topics if I don't have some sort of personal uh interest or emotional stake because then you can kind of you know you can kind of end up just you're you're kind of being controlled by your audience and a way you're being controlled by what you think the audience exactly would be interested in I took like a you know I think a somewhat of a leap quite a few times with regards to um discussing more like Progressive issues out of my own kind of personal path politically knowing that there was a certain amount of my audience that was uh more right-leaning and uh I could have I guess maintained some sort of apolitical uh slant or just kind of fully just focused on you know self motivation or individual responsibility but I decided not to do that um and that's out of my own you know my own personal values my own kind of life experiences and stuff like that and uh um and then knowing that a certain amount of my audience would be shed I guess um so so I think at the the end of the day it's usually topics that I'm uh still personally interested in or invested in like things will I I get quite obsessive and certain issues or things will will kind of pop into my mind and like I'll be thinking about them a lot like when there was the whole Andrew Tate um manosphere um Saga that was quite interesting to me and then there were other YouTubers that had made videos that I found were quite insightful coming from different angles about it and then I you know started reading masculinity studies and uh and then in my own kind of personal experience with masculinity it all kind of developed into I'll make like a video series about masculinity in the manosphere and uh you know have some experts on and talk about it so I think I think at the end of the day it is still fueled by my own personal interests and I think that that is to the benefit of the content because it comes across as more genuine um yeah talk to me about the manosphere how should a philosopher react to this increasing popularity of I don't quite know how to describe it but it's something a bit male it's something a bit testosterone it's something a bit gy it's something it's also something a bit like you know get outside and get some sunlight on your face and eat healthily and drink athletic greens and this kind of stuff like what's what's going on here in your view yeah I I mean it would be incorrect to completely dismiss every piece of advice or you know cont piece of content from what would be considered the manosphere it's definitely not a monolithic category uh you can see kind of two pillars of it would be maybe just general a political supposedly apolitical or a you know not surface not on the surface ideological uh content regarding gyms or you know working out or something like that and then there's uh you know you dive into more I guess at the most intellectual level uh you would have like Jordan Peterson who's talking about Carl Young and and psychological studies to justify certain hierarchies and and differences in gender uh or on kind of the lower rung of the intellectual ladder you would have an Andrew Tate who's kind of using a lot of that gy advice and embedding it in this uh discussion on you know a lot of kind of misogynistic takes regarding uh you know women just want this and men have to kind of go their own way and uh it's the sort of solitary stoic uh advice so those are the two it would be the two kind of major axioms of it and there's a lot that falls within it I'm more interested in kind of the the how do these online groups form and then how do they like over time kind of end up devolving from reality and then in doing so they end up informing real life actions and behaviors uh and I always appreciate Bard's uh use of hyper reality when discussing these kind of uh online movements that it can begin with an initial sort of truth that kind of been forms the uh simulation or the digital spaces after a while the digital spaces then become or you know these virtual spaces become more real than reality itself you can see that in across men and women online is is the discussion of the other gender can end up being very vitriolic and dehumanizing and uh in doing so you kind of create you know it's a cycle of dehumanization um that's a widely studied psychological phenomenon where if group a dehumanizes group b Group B in turn Will dehumanize Group a and this can actually cause an ex exponential kind of level of prejudice against each other and uh I think you see that with with these groups that they they really hate uh the other gender and I think men it's a particularly interesting case because a lot of hegemonic masculinity is based on access to women's bodies but then then at the same time they kind of paint women as the enemy so there's J talks about this too there's there's sometimes blatant contradictions or almost every time there's an ideology there's blatant contradictions within the ideology and uh that's where you kind of mine for for the truth or kind of like what's actually going on underneath but long story short I think it's just it's an example of hyper reality in terms of uh there's certain social codes Customs regarding masculinity which is a relatively unstable social concept across cultures but still stable enough that you know within Western Society it's uh we have certain ideas of what it is to be a man and then this goes online and then you have a lot of uh men I think due to socioeconomic uh inequalities and material issues they feel as I think it's called like an grieved entitlement because they're they're unable to signify their masculinity in terms of uh you know resources and and wealth and they've been told that that's what a man is growing up and then that kind of uh they can go to these online spaces and they can you know they they get kind of a double-edged sword of of they get maybe sometimes practical advice like good advice is you know going out getting some sunlight working out um sometimes just learning how to talk to girls and then it's like also with it is packaged this entire world viiew about women and about sex and there's a a really good author Rachel O'Neal Who hopefully I get the chance to interview her but she uh did a book called seduction and it's a sociological analysis of pickup communities and uh she kind of paints a picture of these seduction communities and and men's view of sex in these communities as very uh very much similar to neoliberal logic in terms of it's about the quantity of sex rather than the quality of sex so sex is used as kind of capital to be traded I think that at the end of the day that is really kind of what characterizes the manosphere is that it's a bit of a an extension of of neoliberal logic it's it's using the forest model of production to to teach men how to be men by kind of giving them a specific blueprint and also how to tell them how to you know seduce people and stuff like that that was a that was a rant but that was uh generally I guess my idea of what the manosphere is you talked about uh men being AG grieved and that a lot of this interest seems to be sparked by a feeling of insufficiency that is something's not quite right with my life and maybe this can fix it that's certainly the appeal of Someone Like Jordan Peterson it's very much the character that you have in mind when you think of Peterson is somebody whom a young man might come up to him in tears saying you you fixed my life or you helped me to get out of bed in the morning and this stuff about you know getting your exercise in and getting sun on your face is often thought of as a remedy for people who do spend their lives indoors sleeping in feeling a bit depressed feeling a bit nihilistic it's often suggested that you know men feel a lot of the time as if purpose is embedded in having some kind of um well philosophical purpose is rooted in Practical purpose for men that is if you have a family to provide for if you have a job that you have to get up for if you have some you know manual labor that you have to complete that having those tasks and feeling compelled to complete them is what provides meaning in a in a man's life and we live in a culture now where a lot of that is is less reliable you know families are less valuable or less valued as a social idea I think today a lot of jobs have moved online people are working from home you can do it from a laptop um even the role of men has seen to shift it's no longer obvious that men are the firefighters and the police officers and you know women stay at home this has obviously completely changed as well do you think there's any truth to that and if so to what extent do you think essentially nihilism in men is to blame for the rise of the manosphere that's a good question um I mean it's it's uh I guess it's kind of characterized by a sort of General disillusionment brought on by the fact that most people they derive their identity primarily or at least you know historically speaking uh primarily derive their identity from their gender which is a statement that doesn't seem readily apparent but that's because it is so kind of inherent we don't even consider it when you're growing up you're generally going to if you're a you know a boy at Birth you're going to hang out with other boys you're going to do certain things that boys do um same thing with girls it's like just a very normative like a unquestionable um Dynamic that occurs and uh I think I used in a video the aidea of thrownness by high Digger that you're thrown into the world uh like that just that sort of sense of of you you know you didn't ask to be here and uh you then kind of have to really quickly you know russle rustle up some sort of way in order to to survive and and to make sense of your existence and gender is one of the initial mechanisms in which to form your identity and your sense of uh you know who you are and I think you know one of the things that has disrupted this for people that would be considered uh like gender essentialists is the existence of of trans people and they you know show that there's like some some uh some differences some I guess anomalies within this this comfortable worldview and I mean that's also why you see the manosphere attack uh trans issues a lot and also I think why you know Peterson aligns postmodernism a lot with nihilism um because he kind of sees just that sort of just general like oh well if this traditional fact is is potentially ruptured then um you know it's it's nihilism it's bad and we need to go back to kind of a more stable set of things which which I find also just strange because he's a huge advocate of n and n in many ways would be considered like a kind of Proto postmodern in terms of deconstructing values but um going back to to nihilism with men is that you know they they grow up and they realize that in terms of the checklist that they need to to hit in order to um prove themselves masculine because you know and there is something kind of almost uh Judith Butler like about the manosphere um and I and buah talked about this too is that is that you know men need to perform their gender it's not something that you're necessarily born with to a certain degree like you're you're you're afforded certain privileges off of the fact that you're a man but then within especially Circles of men you need to really prove your your status and Rachel O'Neal talks about this in seduction is once again access to women's bodies is considered capital in a form of currency Within These you know pickup artist Comm communities where men will kind of trade stories of sexual Conquest in order to to prove their their level of masculinity so if you are you know unable to have access to to to women's bodies if you're unable to to show that you have some sort of sexual um experience or or skill or if you are unable to provide in some way or if you are unable to really assert yourself like if you're just you know bullied a lot as a kid for being like skinny or something like that um you are going to feel a sense of serious like identity misalignment if you were brought up as as a as a boy you're going to feel that sense of nihilism and you're GNA you're going to think man this is like maybe this is all my fault maybe I'm not really like a man maybe I'm not a you know who I who I should be and you can see in really dark cases they done studies with uh School shooters and there is that sense of AG grieved entitlement which is kind of like I should get those things because I'm a man and I'm not getting them and out of all of the sort of traits of hegemonic masculinity in terms of sexual dominance um kind of material wealth and aggression aggression is the easiest form of masculinity to perform in terms of access you can you can just be really angry you can beat up your partner you can uh go get a gun it's like very uh it's the simplest form in which men can express that they are masculine in some way and it's kind of a last resort and uh then there's people like Peterson that they go it's not your fault um it's you're also not entirely entitled to these things so it's a somewhat more subtle message and it you know they'll they'll say that it's actually more of a political issue it's more of a social issue that there are these nefarious agents such as the Frankfurt School or postmodern neo-marxists that are um out to kind of recreate a a sort of stalinist State I mean they won't say this outright they'll say this over and it's you know Tate wouldn't exactly say something like this it would be a lot more simplified but to use the example of Peterson it's it's it's very much attached to politics it's attached to values your your personal nihilism your personal uh like issue that you're dealing with is actually one that is born out of a rupture in historical necessity there are antagonistic forces that are uh that are are trying to infringe on something that is is truth in its absolute form that's actually good for human flourishing and that is this kind of notion of traditional gender roles and um and you know what it means to be a man for example and there's kind of a few ways to take that message in itself because in in in one sense it's I think blatantly incorrect because if you were to just take the the notion of liberalism as it is you know especially you look at John Stewart Mill um it is advocating for pluralism and for democ Y and for a general um equality amongst people and we should be happy that it's not just men that are you know firefighters or men that are in executive positions or anything like that we do want to see some general level of diversity that kind of transcends um you know gender or race or anything like that so to make that antagonistic is a bit uh I think backwards then at the same time it's like they're almost there in terms of you know recognizing that these men have material deprivations and they're unable to provide for people and and they feel very down and out um that's true and that's what really speaks to the emotional Resonance of figures like Peters Peterson is they can um you know they can go it's okay to feel bad about this like this sucks because you know you're or or you're you know you're working a job you don't want to uh or you're not really getting a lot of romantic attention but it doesn't go all the way because at the end it just like places all of the responsibility on the individual uh which I think would just lead to more frustration and aggression like the whole idea of cleaning your room which is famous uh in his lectures it's uh you know you could be you could be really poor and you could go and clean your room and then you have to go and work your shift really early in the morning and um and then after a little while you're like I can't really clean my room because I'm I'm so tired all the time and it's it's and then you kind of just like give up and you're you know not very you don't really feel like this this might have been useful maybe it is maybe you do have that capacity to do so but the issue there might not actually be cleaning the room the issue there might be the fact that you are working insane hours and getting like almost unethical amount uh in terms of uh wage or or money and that you know maybe the issue is it actually your fault entirely or maybe it's not your your your fault or your responsibility in this Regard in terms of self-improvement um it's actually you know maybe you should be focused on social Improvement maybe you should organize in your Workforce and and uh you know maybe talk to other people and it's like hey maybe they're kind of overworking us maybe this is why a lot of Our Lives aren't aren't going great so it's like it's it's more subtle and I do think that in terms of their you know especially Peterson's ability to get people to to take action is good but the action that he prompts is usually one that retains the status quo and the systems that actually um enable and cause a lot of the material inequalities that lead men to feel that nihilism to begin with then there's a whole other thing uh with regards to you know I I think that overall people are overidentifying with their gender and it is just healthier on a personal level to see gender more as an aesthetic than as you know this deeply essential integral component to who you are and I think when you talk to to trans people ironically you do get the sense of that um this this sort of genuine pretending of playing with gender of um you know they do they do feel right in in their gender but they're also and I'm not trying to speak on behalf of all trans people but um I'm looking at like Julia Serrano for example who's a trans uh person and also a biologist um and developed kind of like a gender Theory um that there's just multiple variables going into what makes a person really feel their gender and uh it is somewhat biologically based somewhat socially based and it's it's it's too it's too blurry to really just completely pin a worldview on you need to be this exact gender for like the good of the world or anything like that it's it's we need to pull back from that uh a little bit I don't know if that last part is totally clear but well you said that people were overidentifying with their gender I mean we've been talking in the context of the manosphere but is this something you think women do as well uh yeah I think I think I mean I'm not speaking on on behalf of sorry well I was just going to ask what it means to over identify with your agender in in the way that you use the phrase um I think I would use it in a clinical sense of is your you know in moments in which you are experiencing some level of of distress in regards to not living up to gendered expectations in your Sy Society is that causing you know severe distress in your life and existential burden and you know that sense of nihilism or meaninglessness um you know to tell boys that it's not it's not a huge it's it's you're not a lesser person if you can't provide for people or if you cry or if you know that girl in school doesn't like you or something like that um you know and you know reversely with with girls if if you know you're not a lesser person if you're if you're not you know considered objectively pretty or if you you know like sports or you know just just any sort of reversal um I think that's important and I think that that still allows people to I think gender expression is important I don't think I would align with like full-on gender absolutism but or sorry abolishment um but uh I I I I think that there should be just a general socialization of kids to realize it's not it's not a huge deal if you can't uh if if if you feel like you're unable to express these things because because or if you're unable to prove your your gender identity towards people um and I do think that the fact that the outlet for men is aggression whereas for women it's usually oh my god there was a study on this this is a while back for for women it's usually um um kind of either caretaking or withdrawal like affection or withdrawal uh speaks to the fact that I think for men it should be emphasized especially because the um repercussions of men feeling angered about the inability to prove that they are men um is much worse for themselves and I think like the world in general um whether it's the Romantic Partners or do do you think there's anything wrong with identifying with your gender in this way in that I I think when somebody says in a conversation like this that people are strongly basing their entire identity on their gender that this is this is just assumed to be a bad thing but if it is something deeply rooted in our psychology and our biology uh and you know the fact that men are more aggressive for example that that if if we take an approach of trying rather than trying to find like heal wethy outlets for that aggression and saying no own your masculinity yes you are a man and that is crucial to your identity that is going to mean you're more aggressive but you know take up boxing or something like that you know do do Sports this seems to be sort of the opposite to the approach that I think we've been institutionally taking in the west I mean there's obviously a big culture Clash on this issue but I think you know certainly like the government in the in the United Kingdom I don't know what it's like in Canada but I I think it's fairly similar and to a certain extent the United States as well the approach seems to be more something like no no like masculinity actually isn't important to your identity and even if it is masculinity isn't about being aggressive or anything like that and so why don't you try doing more traditionally girly things this is how we solve the problem you know it seems to me that if it is actually the case that men feel and indeed women feel feel strongly identified with their gender and this is causing some kind of problems that if some kind of cultural force or you know a political force comes along and says well have you considered the fact that being a man isn't that important at all and have you tried you know acting more like what's traditionally associated with the other gender wouldn't that potentially just make the problem worse if you see what I'm saying yeah and I mean I don't I hopefully hopefully it didn't sound like I was advocating for that no I don't think that's what you're doing but I think that's probably what our something like what our institutions are leaning towards yeah I think that that's the natural next step in this discussion is um you know as I said I I don't really I I don't totally agree with the idea if we can completely abolish uh gender um there and and Judith Butler who's like a significant gender theorist they even state that you know they and I I can find the passage afterwards it's it's I wish it was quoted more um but it was it was you know basically they were saying that my work should not be taken as a a disapproval or rejection of those who feel super strongly towards their gender Butler's take on gender is that it's a performance um but you know the extent to which people feel strongly towards that performance differs for some people it does not matter at all um for other people it is it is extremely important it's extremely significant to who they are um I do think that there's a certain limit where it Ma it starts to matter so much to them that they can start damaging other people that was kind of my or they could you know they could start to feel really bad um and that's where I mean like people are overidentifying with their gender I don't think broadly that it's that big of a deal because there's just a normal distribution of of you know people that they identify as as CIS men or CIS women um and I I I completely agree with the idea of what are healthy channels in which um you know a man for example who is dealing with um not feeling great in certain areas and they do feel that sort of aggressive energy and they do want to still feel masculine where can they channel that that that's super important I don't think that at an Institutional level we should just start aligning you know everything that is bad is masculine and everything that is good is feminine um I think that that will just it goes back to that cycle of dehumanization that I was talking about where it is just dehumanizing one group and for the most part this group if they're not you you know liberally educated um you know of a high socioeconomic status and they're being told by academics and institutions that um you know masculinity is bad in in a blatant sense they're going to feel dehumanized and they're going to dehumanize the other group and it's it doesn't lead to any sort of effective change it doesn't help anybody I think um so yeah we do need to I think we do need to find healthier Outlets also that that's why I love you know sports for example for men I think that's an extremely healthy outlet for men that are you know in some ways dealing with feeling inadequate in other areas you can stick to a specific skill set that you can develop and master and it's usually within a community of other people and it's also usually you're entering an arena in which you have to be emotionally vulnerable you can't really you know in terms of competition you you your true colors show so you have to learn conflict resolution I think that that that you know as an example when you said boxing that's an extremely productive uh form of curtailing this potentially aggressive uh group of people or people that are not doing too well yeah and it's not just playing sports as well but also even just being a fan I mean entering into a football or soccer stadium and and hearing these these crowds roaring at each other and an interesting thing about football in the UK I don't actually know I don't know much about sports certainly not in in North America but it might be the same that people support teams that are not where they're from you know I sort of grow up in Oxford and my friends are supporting Chelsea FC and they're supporting Arsenal and they're supporting leads and I've always been a bit confused by this I mean I assume it's probably got something to do with people moving cities I mean there must be some origin for this but it seems mostly it's inherited from parents but some people get into football for the first time in their generation uh they're the first generation of their family and it seems like they almost just would have to arbitrarily pick somewhere if they don't pick their own city that is like and then I see these stadiums the stadia of people screaming at each other it's like one of the loudest environments imaginable produced by human beings because there's a team in front of them that represents a city that most of the players probably aren't from most of the supporters probably aren't from but this idea has this idea of this team has has come to represent something at which all of your masculinity can be thrown behind you know men pitted against men in a battle someone's going to win someone's going to lose and it feels like it's a good outlet for an expression of the kind of thing that we're talking about which might be why it's a sort of mascul and dominated sport but it does seem just quite interesting to me that I mean I've always wondered about this question I thought to myself okay suppose your your your football team is there kind of a ship of thesis that you can do with football in that players move around right and so if a player moves from your team to an opposing team you might still respect the player but you don't support that player anymore you support the new player who's coming to replace him well what if your favorite team are playing your enemies and half time comes and due to some freak business deal in half time every single player on one team is swapped for every single player on the other team and so everybody comes back on the pitch and they're actually stood on the same side of the pitch CU you know they they've swapped but now they're stood on the other side the only difference is that they've changed which t-shirts they're wearing and they go to play football who are you cheering for do do you just suddenly cheer against the very people that you were just cheering for because they're wearing a different t-shirt the whole thing sort of amuses me I don't know if you're into sports and if you can you can relate to this I I I mean yeah firstly like I I cheered for the the Toronto Raptors when I was a kid and it was out of the arbitrary no one in my family liked basketball but it was out of the arbitrary fact that I really like dinosaurs and so it was a cool mascot and then they were the only Canadian team so I I always cheered for them um so yeah there is it's usually just out of like some random you know whatever but uh that's also a very interesting point in terms of a lot of psychology studies are used to this they use this Paradigm of just randomly assorting people into red shirts and blue shirts and then they do all these tasks and you can kind of see quickly the kind of ingroup outgroup Dynamics it's how they study a lot of uh like outgroup psychological phenomena and uh I've never thought of the idea of how it would relate to Spectators um I don't I don't know I'm I'm thinking that in terms of if if I really identified with the personalities of the team it usually takes me there there is in sports it usually takes a little while if a player was playing on my team and you develop some sort of uh I guess affection towards them or loyalty that when they go on to another team you're still going to cheer for them for a little bit like even if they're playing against your team you're not going to feel that bad because they because they are beating your team because you're like ah well they kind of used to it kind of takes a little bit of time on an emotional level so I don't know if in halftime it would be enough for for players to or for fans to really uh switch in terms of of loyalty based off of just a shirt but I I do also think that maybe the whole point of sports is is I don't know if you've ever seen the show Community but there's a a good uh little bit where where the the character Jeff he has a pencil and he holds up the pencil to the group and he goes this pencil's name is Blinky and then and uh gives a bunch of facts about Blinky like Blinky really likes to um likes when people use him to draw nature and he's uh you know really uh really likes using his eraser and stuff like that and then he just snaps and like and all that everybody goes like a and then he snaps the pencil he goes blinkie's dead and then they went awe and he's explaining that like a lot of everything we do is is in some way especially when it comes to like sports is we need to find things to give meaning and and relevance to and when we kind of identify ourselves or identify it with like a sort of some level of emotional resonance then it's kind of it's already gone like we've we've it doesn't really matter in terms of trying to grasp it on like an empirical level uh we just seem to like to do that in general um and I think Sports is like a good example of that well let's I mean we can talk a bit more about the philosophy of sports here what is it that's being being supported by a supporter there are sort of a few options that you might that you might consider by the way I think that the so to speak objectively correct answer to the question is that you continue to support the team that is you support the other players because I imagine it would be confusing but if you were interview people outside of the stadium they'd probably say something like well this is obviously very weird and I feel very conflicted but you know my team is my team and and that's who I'm here to support okay so so what is the team what being supported like you might say something like if all the players switch out the only thing that's left is Maybe the owner or the manager it feels weird to say that you're like supporting the manager or certainly supporting the owner and you know owners can change so the players change the manager changes the the team colors might change the uniform changes the the the owner changes you know the team changes hands and yet still there are people who will be there saying but you know Tottenham Arsenal yeah that's that's my team that's that's what I support what is it that's being supported it's not the place because most of the players aren't from the place and the and the supporters aren't from the place it's not the players because they can switch out it's not the owners or the managers they can be switched out what is it that's that's represented by this you know the the logo for Arsenal FC what is that thing yeah I mean I think I think sports teams are almost the quintessential uh kind of presentation of essentialism like you are you you you believe that there's some sort of essence about this uh team in some way that it's there's this this idea about it that can't be touched by any sort of external influence and that kind of I remember when the pandemic happened and how important it was for sports to come back and it makes sense because it grounds people it has that essentialism to it that no matter um you know which players are traded or uh like you know even sometimes they change the cities of the team sometimes the name of the team changes and uh sometimes the team is doing absolutely terrible and people are still cheering for it it's none of those things matter it's it's that it it grounds Us in some way that there's some sort of truth to it that we assign to it and thereby identifying with it we can stabilize aspects of our S no matter if you're going through a divorce or you're getting fired uh you are uh you know a fan of of Chelsea or you're a fan of FC Barcelona like that's a that's going to be a consistent trait of yours um and you know it sounds absurd and ridiculous if you're not a sports fan but um you know I think it explains the sort of at times Primal um associations that people have with it but what what I mean yeah it can be a a consistent part of your personality that you are a Chelsea supporter but what is what is that what is Chelsea what is Chelsea FC I mean I'm I guess I'm just struggling to understand even like as an idea like obviously it's not a material object but even like in the abstract realm I I I just don't see what it is that the concept is attaching itself to you know what I mean I I think it goes back to the the the pencil idea it's less it's or the pencil example it's less about what actually it it is there's nothing there and I mean that in terms of the idea like the the the idea itself can be completely empty it's it's the the the effect of the idea it's the and I think we just I was recently reading this book called cruel optimism and it's about um in general this this uh psychological phenomena where people um will gravitate towards certain certain objects of Desire or salvation or hope and those very things will actually be impediments or the downfall to their flourishing I think this author specifically is is talking about the idea of the good life in postwar um us um kind of like the sort of consumerism and and general kind of up and up progress going on and uh you know that led to a lot of environmental degradation a lot of mental health issues um greater material progress but there was never actually a clear idea of like where it was going or what was what it was going to amount to um it's it's I I think there is no idea behind these things I think these things are empty it's it's a it's a completely empty container but what's important is that there is a container and we can like grasp it and it and it grounds Us in some way but I think at the end of the day when you Deon deconstruct these things there's there's nothing to them um it it matters very little if if the Toronto Raptors end up ever winning another title or not in the in the grand scheme of things um and at the same time it would it would hurt me a lot if that was the truth so you know I I'm just thinking about it now I think there's an obvious option which I completely neglected to consider which is that the the football club consists not in its players not in its managers but in its supporters it's the supporters themselves who make up the thing that they're supporting and I think that's something like what you're saying what you're saying too but you're just sort of creating out of thin air this relationship to thousands of other people and that's what it is because even if the team changed doesn't actually matter which side everybody starts clapping as long as everybody's doing it right and you know supporters can have problems with their players they can start to hate one of their players they can hate the new owner they can think the manager is a is a bad decision but very rarely are they sort of turning against each other and in fact most of their anger is not directed at the opposing players but the opposing supporters as well so I don't know maybe everything else is just a proxy for you know something like a I guess something resembling a national identity or a community identity but this microcosm of it within a stadium yeah no like I made a I made a video a while ago called the case against Santa denialism and it was like a a video about people that are you know they deny Santa in some way and all of it was kind of just to say at the end and it was a bit of like a I'm atheistic or agnostic but I fully understand why people are religious I I I understand that like the whole point of Faith or hope I find that it's an extremely interesting thing to talk about but the you know the whole the video ends on this kind of interview from Donald Glover and he's talking about you know you know the spirit of Christmas isn't like you know it isn't Santa or it isn't like the gifts necessarily it's in like the belief of the kids like that's like growing up is when you realize like why you should lie to your kids about Santa pretty much that's the whole point is like that's the most magical part of it is because by them Believing by them kind of endorsing this this magic you kind of enter into that space even if you're like logically aware of it it's like it gives a little bit of something special to your life there's a sort of goodness to your life that I I think is on an affective level crucial for for uh us to keep going like as a as a society in some way like like we do need to hold on to these like strange uh objects of of ritual and um and hope um we've mentioned it a few times now in passing what is nihilism um yeah I mean in in my uh like knowledge of it it is the belief that there is no intrinsic or inherent value to things or reality um that is the my that's that's my I I think when people start to say it's a it's an Embrace of nothingness or the void or it's like like when they start kind of giving it normative like almost as if it's a project I don't think that's true because you know if there's no intrinsic value to anything I think it's more compared to something like existentialism it's a metaphysical claim um existentialism also has metaphysical claims but it's attached to certain kind of practical uh more ethical steps like okay there's no inherent meaning so we should make our own meaning um nihilism is I think just torn down simply the fact that there there is no meaning there is no intrinsic value to things um I I I'm sure there's a more articulate or like more um fully fleshed out definition of it though do you think that nihilism is a position or I mean it's often described as just negating it's like negating value negating ontology negating Essence and so to sort of re word or repurpose an old joke of Bill Mars is nihilism of philosophy the way that abstinence is a sex position is it is it actually an example of of a of a kind of thought or is it more like a rejection of of all of the options on the table because I mean okay you look at like the atheist movement um there is a a a portion of it that you would consider it kind of just a rejection of um I and I think on like a strictly kind of objective level of how you would Define atheism it is just a rejection of the existence of God and then it enters into human brains and human uh discussions and Egos and it becomes I think a lot more ideological I think when you talk about like the The Atheist movement and you're bringing up Sam Harris and Richard Dawkins there's like a particular like you know they they they seemed very concerned about certain issues um as a result of this base claim and so it's hard to parse that I think in the same sense nihilism you know there's this this kind of just general claim in terms of there is nothing with intrinsic value and then you see you know I think for example uh people that are accelerationist or um you know the the Doomer um where they from that they extract some sort of of even though they think that inaction in itself is is aligning with it inaction is still a sense of action or accelerationism where it's just kind of like let things go so everything will eventually get destroyed uh and you know or you know on a very base level the idea of like Joker or just this person who just destroys everything in in the name of nihilism that it's uh I think that that's giving it you know that's a more ideological more um ethical it becomes a project it goes from a claim to a project and uh I guess it's the the is a when hume's talking about it that just because they're saying something is this way it doesn't ought to result in some sort of action necessarily um I guess that would be be my general take I mean you've talked about nihilism a lot on your channel it's sort of a consistent theme do you consider yourself anilist no no I would I would consider myself a a you know I would consider myself maybe of the belief that things might not have intrinsic value um but I don't you know I guess it's an agnostic position in terms of I don't know there's no way to actually prove that we have to do basically the best with what we have in front of us and uh you know that's that's uh know as As Good As It Gets I don't I don't you know especially when people would say like n was a nihilist or something like that just because n entertained the idea and you know explicitly claimed I think several times uh with regards to there's certain things that really don't matter or just you know this general idea of nihilism and and nothing matters um that there are still things that he believes should matter um you know he advocated for like the Uber mench for example and he advocated for the the creation of new values somebody that's nihilistic wouldn't do that somebody that's nihilistic would first of all not write a book they would you know they would lie in bed and they like I would think that they would just kind of let things pass over and they would nothing matters their hunger wouldn't matter their thirst wouldn't matter I I don't I don't see how a genuine uh promotion of nihilism would uh actually amount to any sort of action at all I think it would be the the most extreme sort of passivity that you could possibly um even imagine but there's and there's there's a I was trying to find it but it's I guess my stance on nihilism is there's and it comes from kamu but in the rebel he says but if nihilism if it does not exist tries to do so that is enough to make the the world and and that is enough to make the world a desert um so it's more of like as a as a human being would you want the world to become a desert out of you know whether or not nihilism does exist there's certain social factors that do promote a sense of uh meaninglessness and and intolerable suffering and do out of your own interests just as a as a as an individual could you psychologically like live with that fact and I can't and so I wouldn't consider myself an nihilist I guess I and I've seen a lot of people or I think there's a common intuition that nihilism goes hand inand with passivity that is if you're a true nihilist and nothing matters the person you're picturing is like I say the guy that sort of doesn't get out of bed uh the guy that maybe just doesn't even eat because although he's hungry he doesn't care that he's suffering but I don't think to say that there's there is no value or there is no purpose or meaning means that you will even be able to ignore your your drives you can just see them as essentially meaningless that is I can imagine the the happy nihilist as somebody who imagine Like a Wolf of Wall Street type character just orgies and cocaine spending all the money in the world ripping off other people just and so motivated wakes up every day at 6:00 in the morning just can't wait to get in the office make more money and you know spend more time partying on his private yacht and yet he says yeah I'm doing this because nothing matters the reason why I'm just screwing around like this with my life is because none of this matters you know all of this money all of these boats it doesn't matter I'm just having a good time and so I don't think there's anything in his behaviors although he's like the polar opposite of the kind of person you've just described that would somehow entail belief in value it just means that there is some kind of psychological Drive within a person to get up and do things but but that's not the same thing I think is imbuing them with meaning MH yeah I mean like I've I've also thought of that with regards like Hedonism where is it you know there's you're you're not you're not stating that there's any sort of extrinsic or intrinsic value towards things you are I think still in your actions and in your motivations valuing pleasure um so I think that kind of toss it up in the air that there is still some sort of project even if it doesn't seem like a very um you know a lot of people wouldn't consider it a very like admirable project but it's like you know it's it's a project nonetheless that they are they are oriented towards some sort of action um that you know I I could see somebody considering themselves nihilistic and living a very hedonistic life um yeah I mean Hedonism might be a form of nihilism in the like yeah you value your pleasure but that's not to say that it is intrinsically valuable I mean I think that like if we're looking for something like purpose and and meet like if you ask somebody who is thinking they might be anist and you say why is that and they say I just I just don't sort of know why I'm doing anything and I say but look you're you're here you're having a conversation with me you know you got out of bed this morning you decided to bring this up like you must value something and the whole Paradox of it is they might say well yeah I know but even then like when I analyze why I'm following this desire to come and speak to you or this desire to watch TV or anything I I just I I don't even know why I feel that and I think I I'm just essentially just a slave to my biological and psychological functions that makes me more nihilistic because yeah I have all these drives to do things but that is what's driving my behavior it's almost as if I'm not doing it it's just like I just have these drives and I'm being I'm being sort of motivated by them you know the concept of the will might be might be important here and you might think of schopenhauer who is in many many ways a poster boy for nihilism but would never deny the idea that human beings are constantly motivated to get up and do things I think in terms of the um the the the mechanism of pleasure especially and if especially if you look in the in like you know the Buddhist tradition when they talk about pleases pleasure and and suffering or desire and fear these are very related and it would be maybe not impossible but for the kind of this nihilistic person who is fully just kind of following their drive towards pleasure um it would be I think difficult for them to not eventually reach some sort of suffering that would then make them question why they're doing anything at all they would you know I could see somebody dying really quickly of an overdose um which would be perhaps the most um in a sense intellectually honest form of Performing nihilism because you were just simply trying to experience as much pleasure as possible and then dying but then there's people that you know they do a bunch of drugs and then they start getting a toolerance and then you know maybe they're having a lot of sex but they start developing a tolerance like there is just like the honic treadmill of you know you would have to You' have to reach higher and higher levels of pleasure and the only way to do that is that you would have to start like um kind of engaging in um some level of discipline or something and and then I would kind of question if this individual would have that level of discipline to you know they would become very utilitarian they would have to they would have to think okay well if I'm giving this amount to this project then later on I'll have even more pleasure here which isn't entirely guaranteed and then I'm starting to I would start to think logically this person isn't the most nihilistic person at at least on the outside looking in terms of their actions it's like oh they're actually like they're working quite hard I'm thinking of like you know as you mentioned like Wolf of Wall Street and you know he suffered certain uh uh you know pitfalls due to his Hedonism like I guess um but you know it's not always the case but but I do think that it is it is tricky for um somebody who is totally invested in pleasure just based off of the fact that we adapt to pleasure after a while uh for them to sustain that while also not having any sort of like higher Ambitions really I mean I I I guess what needs to be teased apart is the fact that somebody values something from their assessment that the thing valued is is valuable in an objective sense it's it's like the way that people talk about morality if somebody is a sort of moral subjectivist who says look I yeah well of course I think that you know killing babies for fun is wrong and all but you know I don't think moral is objective I think it's relative I think it's subjective this kind of thing they're not denying that they feel the moral motivation and that they will essentially act in accordance with it they just say that whatever this thing is that I'm feeling doesn't have any grounding in reality and I guess that's sort of what's going on in the hedonistic nihilist like yeah there's a sense in which they must value something you must value you must have some assessment of I don't want to use the word goodness and Badness I mean in an aoral sense you must have some assessment of things not being the way you want them to be in order to do anything is the only reason you would do anything lift your arm pick up a glass of water or something is because there's a situation that you know could obtain that's different from the one right now that you would prefer so yeah there's a preference there's a value but think I think that needs to be teached apart from as I say this idea that that means that the cup of water is objectively valuable that would be a weird thing for me to say just because I value it in that instance and I think maybe something like that's going on I mean what does it mean you said that you're sort of an agnostic about this this question and so wouldn't call yourself anilist for that reason that means that it must remain open to you this idea that there is such thing as as meaning as purpose and I it's you know notoriously difficult to offer a definition of meaning what does meaning mean haha you know but I think that a a an approximate definition is something like a non-contingent reason to act as a or to be you know a reason to do something that isn't Reliant upon some more fundamental premise CU otherwise that just makes it totally contingent it's like okay so I don't know if you agree with that definition but however you define purpose if that option remains open to you being an agnostic about nihilism and you've also said that you're an atheist agnostic you don't believe that there's a God what what might this look like like what what could it be that provides this weird element of our otherwise seemingly material universe that that bestows value upon at least one thing objectively speaking um yeah I mean I think there's there's two things and I think like what is being parsed here is basically and for completely taking the nihilist claim of of there's no intrinsic value to anything then it is what we're talking about is uh is all of human behavior basically instin or is it thought and I do think that if there was a person and there probably has been quite a few times throughout history that was uh nihilistic and purely just kind of functioned off of instinct I'm kind of thinking like animals in a sense like they don't necess I mean we can assume perhaps they do but a lot of animals they just function off of instinct they don't function off of you know thinking and deliberating on things um there might be a certain group of individuals that are able to just operate purely off of instinct um they're you know I would believe that this would involves some level of uh antisocial behavior in some way um where they just kind of are only looking for pleasure and they never question anything which is possible um but at the same time if they were truly diolistic that's to hold these claims and to then nonetheless engage in you know a life of pleasure I think that's hard because you're engaging in both thought and instinct which is like you would you would have to somehow disassociate you'd have to kind of to to really enjoy these things you know I think there is a certain level of of and going back to how pleasure functions that it would it would get kind of tiring after a while and there would you know but but this is talking about specific individual psychologies and and I can't really say if such a person could or could not exist I'd fathom it you know might be possible um with regards to to your definition of meaning um yeah I I I agree it was like a non-contingent reason for Action is what you said yes something something like that okay um a non-contingent reason for action or reason to be or something like that maybe um I think with regards to my agnosticism and my like opening my mind up to the possibility of there being some sort of meaning is is you do look at just I would consider it a fact maybe that you know the human mind is is throughout history a process of the intellectualization and therefore fragmentation of our reality so it's like constantly we're just trying to conceptualize things break things down into specific categories in order for us to survive and to function um the more you start to get into this process the more you realize how difficult this is that there is a lot of categorical issues there's a lot of conceptual issues with constantly trying to find separation in things there's there's so many different anomalies and exceptions and um there is just this General sense that you know the the boundaries are blurred between things or entities um and that there is a sort of Union amongst things that that exist at least um you know we were made of the same material that was around during the big bang and perhaps even before then and there is just a a this is where I'm you know scared to drift too far into subjects that I have no idea about but you look in the case of interpersonal neurobiology for example where you you can see at the at the neuronal level we're we're affecting each other by mirroring each other's behavior um in terms of where our you know where our our brain is being activated in order to understand each other's emotions there's a sort of it's It's a field where it's that connection between people can actually be seen at a um an empirically valid level and I think that's where we start to get the sense of you know without making any claim of what this would end up entailing but if everything is somewhat connected or there there is some sort of just general unity in terms of existence that would at least give hope to there being some sort of meaning to it or I think a better way is some sort of constructive flourishing um that that could develop out of uh these all of these supposedly separate entities functioning you know as one in a sense but also in their own unique capacities which sounds very abstract but I hope that makes sense that that would be my I guess like my I'm open to it there there's like Spinoza's like pantheism which is that sort of very abstract belief in God is kind of just entailing everything um which I would gener yeah I would I would probably agree with CS Lewis wrote the words if the whole universe has no meaning we should never have found out that it has no meaning just as if there were no light in the universe and therefore no creatures with eyes we should never know that it was dark dark would be without meaning do you think there's any wisdom in this um I I think it does presuppose some sort of like uh like still like a metaphysical claim we don't actually know like whenever it gets to this point it's like well we would have to look at a um a reality where that did not happen which is like kind of impossible to wrap your head around um so I don't I don't know in that sense but it is like there are enough things I I don't know if it's not a very like logical backing but there's just enough things going on and there's just this fact that human beings especially have just made such a mad scramble and use of energy in terms of doing things and creating things and making things and have just expressed so many feelings that you know it wouldn't be out of the realm of possibility that it would that it would be amounting to or representative of something larger or of something that has some sort of intrinsic value and I don't think that this intrinsic value would be of uh such an alien nature I don't think it would be like a god or something I think it it is it is you know found in these moments of connection or or Unity or or it's getting studied a lot more in Psychology but like the study of awe like feeling like a you know there's a sort of beauty that's both like horrific and insightful and kind of makes you smaller and kind of can change your worldview um yeah like like experiences like that um I don't know it it's literally impossible to to talk about sometimes I think that's why I'm agnostic in that sense so I just kind of focus on the psychology I mean I'm I'm really just more interested in in lowering suffering and increasing human flourishing in in whatever ways that looks um and if that helps lead to some you know greater intrinsic value that we're not aware of or can't quite grasp I'll probably never know so on a from a philosophical perspective what gets you out of bed in the morning coffee um on a philosophical perspective I uh I mean that would be by the way the uh the nihilist unironic answer yeah yeah um I I I do think that it's uh it's it's a lot of it's based off of I think previous experiences where I do kind of just always remind myself that there's there's been a enough times in my life that have Justified living this life and each day is just another opportunity for something like that to happen and you never really know what could happen for better or worse so there is just a sort of on I mean this on a philosophical level as somebody interested in philosophy and maybe not in the more academic sense is that there's just a a basic curiosity that I think fuels existence of just not of Never Fully knowing and uh whether that's inter terms of knowing yourself or knowing the world or or or in relation to the two that is I think what generally fuels my uh my life my existence and a lot of my decisions and would you have any recommendations or advice given that you're somebody who receives a disproportionate number of emails from people who are struggling with nihilism and that you've probably seen countless comments in under your videos from people who are in similar situations I imagine you'll spent some time thinking about this what advice you have for such people who are struggling with nihilism which I think sometimes is just a euphemism for depression but it seems to be something like a depression with a distinctly philosophical tint or a philosophical motivation I mean I think it's probably true that they go hand in hand but it's difficult to tell whether it's a philosophically nihilistic worldview that leads people to be depressed or if it's depression that leads people to adopt a fully nihilistic worldview whichever way around it is and maybe you have an opinion on that matter what would you recommend somebody somebody do in that circumstance if like you they have an interest in philosophy I think it's yeah firstly it's interesting I I saw something on on Twitter where he said like the reason why men it goes back to our previous discussion the reason why men gravitate towards philosophy so much is was just cuz they were never able to actually Express their emotions vulnerably so it's like a kind of an intellectual way to explain why they're depressed a lot of the time especially existentialism and stuff like that nihilism um but it might be look it might be right it might be right I mean it's it's it's like a way to legitimize talking about sadness and bleakness and you know oh my life doesn't have any purpose or meaning but instead of doing it through you know tears you're doing it through philosophical essay writing mhm like I mean it's a joke but I think you know it's all good jokes contain an element of truth right oh yeah no I I did feel personally attacked when I read that so it's um I actually I think I would I'm going to quasi um refer to to uh jijik who you had on previously his his book Surplus enjoyment um where he kind of discusses uh the K's idea of subjective destitution because I think this is a extremely useful method of discussing the different ways in which uh we tackle um nihilism or you know even heartbreak or or radical change or you know just any any form of suffering um but subjective destitution generally comes in in four different forms and there's like a fifth lonian version but the the four different forums is let's say to use I'll use like political terms here is uh you've just realize that the world is like is like and it's just like a lot of Despair so a certain group of people will disassociate um they will make sure that their subject has been relinquished in some way by simply forgetting about it you know diving into uh social media doing drugs just kind of like ignoring it kind of Brave New World Vibes jij in the book he he talks about disassociation in in terms of of Buddhism but I don't think that that's quite the correct interpretation of Buddhism I I think the Buddha didn't dissociate from his emotions it's more so he was able to live with them and it's a lot more nuanced um so that's my my little personal addendum here but that yeah the first one is is dissociation of dissociation of the subject from reality from the world um and then the uh the second one is a sort of um subject Hood with divinity or something spiritual something larger than oneself where you kind of correlate your own enjoyment with the enjoyment of this larger Divine being and I think that's why a lot of people when they're in despair be they will turn to some form of spiritualism I notice on Tik Tok if I'm ever not feeling that good and because the algorithm is so effective it will just start it will begin showing me kind of a spiritual tick Tok and and kind of like tarot card reading and I I find that a little bit interesting um but that's very comforting and that in itself is kind of another form of dissociation in a sense because it doesn't actually lead to any sort of action and uh there's a third form which is the kind of destitution of the subject in order to sacrifice oneself for historical necessity um so you've realized the world is and you've attached yourself to some sort of like ideological cause or political cause you can look at you know Marxist leninism or something like that um where you are just fully committed or you know the the January 6th uh Capital um riots like you are you are regardless of whether you live or die or what happens you believe that this thing will be it will enact some sort of Truth and this will solve the problem and then the fourth version of subjective destitution is is um kind of what we were talking about before is is you know what a lot of people would consider the nihilist somebody who aligns personally with the darkness and you know they will create a lot of chaos they will they want things to suffer as much as they suffered they want a lot of institutional issues so the the level of like the depressed person or the person who's nihilistic um you have somebody who they tackle depression by basically ignoring it pushing away the feelings you have somebody who finds god um in a sense you have somebody who gets really heavily attached to a certain ideology and kind of believes it's uh the end all be all and then you have somebody who basically goes you know the world uh messed me up and now I'm going to mess the world up it's kind of like an eye for an eye and and the third one regarding ideology is very interesting because it's aligned with uh I think the the manosphere when talking about depressed people where Peterson is giving effective advice under the Gaze of or under the um this this overarching historical necessity that you improving yourself as a man under these specific check marks is actually part of a larger historical project of solving the crisis of masculinity and repairing Western moral degradation and so forth so that just as an as side that's what I find interesting because he has a lot of depressed fans also but then jijik talks about another form of lonan subjective destitution and I'll try not to misinterpret this too much but it is a a transversal of uh the fantasy what we were talking about before maybe cruel optimism or that object of Desire that thing that maybe things will finally be resolved it's a genuine Embrace of hopeless it's it's where you've you've accepted that you don't know what's happening like you need to accept the the sort of nihilism or the uh the you know in Buddhism everything is burning you know change is constant nothing's permanent you're going to die um who you think you are as a person isn't a stable uh reflection um or isn't a stable essential component but nonetheless unless you are doing what is necessary in the moment you are not acting out of historical necessity but present necessity and this sounds very like it sounds very abstract and like oh only like you know this sounds very like kind of what does that mean J actually uses the example of uh healthc care workers in during Co and I think this is really reflected also in the plague by Kimu because it's a very absurdist idea of you or of these people were confronted by a a horrific situation they were not given any sort of idea of how this would end they were obviously not given the correct resources or or enough resources a lot of the times like they were they were under a lot of Despair they were under pretty bad conditions and a lot of them were simply functioning off of a day byday I'm going to do what I need to do what I feel I need to do in front of me without any sense of historical necessity um for the most part I can't speak for all healthcare workers but the general stereotype of it of of the events like portrayed in the the media I mean it was kind of awful to see because you're just like wow like I I couldn't imagine actually being in that position and there is a sort of it's It's the Absurd hero in that sense because they are uh they're still pushing forth despite the darkness or despite knowing that this might not turn out well they're still just kind of doing it giving their all and it's funny because it also relates back to once again I think why Peterson's message is effective is the uh idea to clean your room obviously has some Credence because it's he's not telling you to change the world or do anything big he's telling you to operate on a very personal level to fix the environment right in front of you what needs action right now what can you do right now to fix it now my Amendment with that is that sometimes it doesn't mean cleaning your room sometimes there's genuine social issues uh that need to confronted that you can actually do um that you know whether it's workplace unionism or or unionization or you know maybe going to to see a therapist or maybe um you know reflecting on you know what there there there's a lot of examples that wouldn't just be cleaning your robe and sometimes would actually involve some sort of social change also um so it's not just like this idea of like think Global act local or something like that like there are certain things um that that are impacting your depression or your nihilism from the top down to what extent can you affect those things right now without any sort of idea that this is going to you know lead to any specific thing in the future um it's it's this idea of valuing Truth over information truth being you know truth hurts like truth is something painful where is the pain right now what is specifically causing the pain if you can centralize that and attack it then that's good if you're just getting information you know all you know on news like just constant just so many things are going bad and everything's unstable you're just going to get this General sense of nihilism and and despair and and it gives you paralysis and you do you should be informed but you should really like gravitate more towards what is uh kind of durable pains in your life that you can actually have some effective change over in the in the moment that would be my advice and I think that it at least for me whenever I've dealt with um anything involving despair or pain that's usually maybe not consciously what I was going for but that's usually the most effective kind of state that I'm in in order to get past that and I think it's in my opinion it's pretty realistic um advice well Ben it's uh it's been a wide- ranging conversation we've done everything from the Mana to nihilism to sports I almost forgot that we had that little that little diversion and um thank you for clarifying that you do not speak on behalf of all I think it was women trans people and medical professionals I'm just trying my best yeah I I'm presuming since you have more subscribers than I do that most people listening to this will already know who you are but just in case they do not Copus 55 is the way to find you on YouTube you have a podcast as well um but which goes on the same channel but I presume you probably stick it on Spotify Apple podcast can you find it that way yeah yeah I I tend to listen on on YouTube myself um but I really appreciate you taking the time man I'm glad we finally got to sit down together I've I've like I say I've been watching your videos for a long time and I think it's um you know overdue that we that we finally got to meet yeah no I thank you so much for having me it was a pleasure talking if you enjoyed that conversation then thanks I'm glad you can watch more full episodes of the within reason podcast by clicking the link that just appeared on your screen the podcast is also on platforms like Spotify and apple podcasts don't forget to subscribe thank you for watching and I'll see you in the next one

Channel: Alex O'Connor

Views: 106,454

Keywords: Alex O'Connor, cosmic, skeptic, cosmicskeptic, atheism, within reason, podcast, within reason podcast, religion, debate, Alex J O'Connor

Id: EipYVUhd7Dc

Length: 87min 34sec (5254 seconds)

Published: Sun Jan 07 2024