- We had a campaign,
National Progress Alliance, with Executive Director months and months before any of this stuff happened. This should be the easiest
ask on planet Earth. Give it to the Humane Society, give it Dave Rubin, give
it to my non-profit. Give it to- - I don't need it, give it to- - Give it to anybody, give it to anybody, but don't give it to your university because when you give
it to your university, you're supporting an indoctrination mill. You're supporting something, you're supporting an institution whose very values are antithetical to Western liberal democracy, so you have to stop. (dramatic music) - All right, Peter B., we are here. I'm not even gonna say your full name. You're Peter B. You've appeared on this
show so many times. - So you don't need a last name. Who needs a last name? - But, I know, we've had
conversations over many years. Before we met-
- Many, many years, yeah. You are half the man you used to be. - I am half the man I used to be. - You got off the dairy, and look at you, you lost
like 30 pounds or something. - Well, that's the crazy thing is, I mentioned the only change I made, literally the only change was
I took dairy outta my diet and I just, I mean, I could show you, but it's like, I can show you. - It's a family show. - I could show you my pant loop. - Yeah. - But the other thing is I
kept every variable the same. So I scienced it, so I know
that it had to be dairy and I feel great with the weight off. - Beyond dairy and diets,
which are very important. - Indeed. - We have about 20 minutes here, we're- - Okay, let's do it. - We're at this ARC conference and what we are trying to do,
what Jordan is trying to do, is tell a better story so
that the West can save itself. You've been one of the guys
out there, at college campuses. I mean-
- Yeah. - This is basically what
you do for a living now. - Yeah, yeah. - Trying to show people that maybe they don't necessarily know why they believe what they believe. - Right. - What they might be confused about. - Right. - Do you view that as
kind of the first step before we get to the course correction, is kinda pulling some of the strings on what's wrong with people's thinking? - I view it as a critical step. I don't know if it's the first step. I think that the first step is that our institutions
are so corrupt right now, that, and it's not just that
our institutions are corrupt and our legacy institutions are corrupt, but it's that we know that the wellspring of
this is from academia. I mean, we know that. In fact, James Lindsay is in there. 2015, we identified the problem. 2017 we published the conceptual blank. - Yep, you can say penis.
- Oh, I can say- - Yeah, yeah.
- We published the- - We're still allowed to
say penis on YouTube anyway. - Okay, okay. - But we'll, you know,
we'll link to that interview that I did with you guys about that. - Okay. - People that don't
remember, we'll put that- - Yeah, 2018, we decided
to do something about it. Everyone thought we were
crazy, like truly nuts. So it, you know, the
trajectory, it's not happening. It's only fringe people
in fringe departments. - Yeah. - It's only fringe departments. It's only humanities. It's only universities. It will never spill out. Here we are, it continues to get worse. Although now I see, I think
we're seeing a balance. But once we, the two paths
to ideological capture of the institutions, is
you build new institutions or you try to reform institutions. And DeSantis is doing a
fantastic job at reform. I'll be very blunt with you. I don't think it's gonna succeed, but I completely 100% support the mission. - You don't think it's gonna succeed, you meaning at a, succeed
at a national level. - At a national level, yeah. - Well, that might be right. I think it, from at the Florida level, it seems like it's working. - Well, Rufo is doing a
fantastic job at New College. We went to New college. - Yeah. - But back to your original question. We can talk about that. Back to your original question. It's that, "Would you
live in an echo chamber?" Not you, but college
campuses are echo chambers. Students not only don't hear
the other side of the issue, but they think they're better
people because they don't. So it's an indoctrination mill, a factory, a social justice factory. And so Reid and I go around
not just the United States, but the world, and we do
Spectrum Street Epistemology. We put mad, strongly disagree,
disagree, slightly disagree, neutral on the other side. And we ask people targeted questions to see if they're confident their, in their belief is warranted. And invariably, as you
can see from literally, I don't even know how many
videos now, it's not the case. - I suppose it doesn't surprise you, at this point in your
career, that the people who seem more open to
discussing these things tend to lean a little more conservative? - Yeah, I'm glad you
didn't say to the right. They lean- - Right, these terms are
all becoming sort of- - Right, we don't, totally, yeah, yeah. Here's the other thing I
found is that, invariably, people in the United States,
when you ask college kids, and you can see this on the videos, they're looking for
reasons to be offended. They're looking to be upset. But when we do this
here, you don't see that. You don't, it's, the feel is different. The tenor is different. And we know we've done
Israeli Palestinian problem. We've done virtually every
transgressive problem one can think of. But this idea that I'm a good person because I'm offended by this because I don't even know I've been indoctrinated by my institution. It's a serious problem. - You've been so in on
this, not because of just what you do publicly now, but you were at Portland State- - Right? - You were teaching, what
you were teaching ethics? Or philosophy? - Philosophy and ethics,
critical thinking. - Yeah, and one of-
- Reasoning. - One of the first public
gigs that I ever did, was you invited me up there
with Christina Hobson. - We had a great time. - And it was the three of us, but the amount of security,
it was the first time- - Just tell us of the
people with the shields. We had to go into the room
and we were squashed in- - And Christina, what I remember, she had the daintiest little wrists. - Right. - And I remember thinking
they were screaming that you were Nazis and all this stuff, and how this woman couldn't, you know, she's like the softest woman
you could possibly imagine. They're calling me a
homophobic, and you're a Nazi. And Andy Ngo, Andy Ngo was just in here. - Right.
- And Andy Ngo, at that time was a student there. - Right.
- And now, he's obviously become a
huge voice in all of this. - Yeah. - But I mentioned that because it's like, you were on the academic side-
- Right. - Now you're on the other side of it. You left, I mean. - I had to leave. - That's something, I
mean, you put your money where your mouth is. - I had to, look, look, look. Imagine, just imagine what
we were doing to students. We were telling them they
were getting an education. We were doing them a disservice. They weren't getting an education. They thought they were
being educated, you know, educare, to lead out of. They weren't getting that
and anyone who stayed in that system basically
perpetuated an injustice. And almost, it was almost criminal what we were doing to those kids. So Portland State was the nucleation point before the mass explosion. Like it's most easy to see in Portland, at Portland State.
- Yeah. - And all the derangements,
everything, defund the police, abolish prisons, all
of the total craziness. By the way, Portland's
murder rate has shot up. The police force is
down to an all time low. I think there's only one
traffic cop in the whole city. So you drive around, people
do donuts in the street. I mean, there were necessary consequences to public policies. - So what is the better story? That's the other question
I'm asking everybody here, since that's the whole
idea of the conference. What is the better story,
other than, "Okay, you know, let's respect each other," and- - No, that's bullshit. I'm sorry.
(Dave laughs) - Sorry, sorry about that. - Oh oh. - I feel comfortable with that. - Demonetized, (indistinct). - Well, one of the things, I've come to figure out what that is, but I have my own answer to the question. But I want to listen, I
genuinely wanna listen, to hear what other people have to say. Here's my answer. - That's the beauty of this, by the way. Everyone's presenting their
own argument for this. I don't think anyone's
coming here and saying, "It's my way or the highway." - Yeah, well, I'm gonna find out. I'm gonna find out tomorrow. That's why I'm here. Here's my answer to that. Western values are worth defending, freedom is worth defending enlightenment values,
freedom of the press, freedom of association, freedom of speech. I don't want another echo chamber. I don't want to be in a place
where if I give a secular, a blasphemy, a secular blasphemy, or say something heretical. I want to hear voices in the
Israeli Palestinian debate. I want to hear, you know,
there people are screaming, "Gas the Jews" now in Australia. I don't know if you've seen that. That was hideous. I mean, there are clear
incitements to murder, right? And so it's shifted from
any kind of public policies to attack on a people for who they are. I think that we have strayed so far from thinking about what's worth defending and what's worth valuing,
that we are reverting to kind of this pre medieval tribalism. And my hope for this, you
didn't ask, but my hope is that we move beyond
cliches and platitudes. We move beyond. If I hear one more person, "I
want peace, I want justice." Right, great, one, every, great, fine. By the way, when certain
people say justice, they don't mean, they
don't traffic in the term- - Right.
- In the way that sane people traffic in that term. But I want to, my hope for this is that we have tangibles,
deliverables that are actionable, that we can achieve some
kind of a consensus on- It doesn't have to be universal consensus, but we can agree that this
is how we move forward. And my other hope for this conference is that dissonant voices are not
just allowed but fostered. - So what do you think we
do about this new conference between the Marxists and the Progressives who we've all been kind of exposing for quite some time?
- Yeah. And now their new alliance
with the Islamists, let's say. Because you know, you mentioned what happened at Sydney Opera House where they were chanting "Gas the Jews." - Oh, you saw? - Now you can have some, I suppose, you can have some sort
of intellectual argument about whether that is free speech or not. And obviously they don't
have the First Amendment in Australia like we
do have in the States, but basically that they're weaponizing all of the freedoms of the
West now against itself. What do we do with that?
- Yeah. - As free speech guys. - Okay, so that's the
question of the hour. If the criticism is, all of the people who are suddenly pro-free speech are against people yelling "Gas the Jews-" (both laugh) - Which a lot of us are getting
crap for even saying that. - That's so, the first thing is you need to have a conversation about
what the framework is, right? If one is a free speech absolutist, if one makes that claim,
then you have to allow for gassing the Jews, right? You'd have to allow for
people to, not gassing, but claiming that a shouting
or screaming "Gas the Jews." - Although I would say that's as close as you can possibly get for a direct call to incitement, right? - But even if it isn't incitement, if you are truly a free speech absolutist, then anything goes, you
have to allow anything. - Right, although, I guess with the First Amendment
doesn't allow for- Not I guess, the First
Amendment doesn't allow for direct calls to violence. - Right, so that's the question. - So this is the, that's
what I'm asking you. Like what do we do about
that little balance? - Well, that's the question. The question is, you have two things. You have what the law allows
and what should the law allow. And should that be the
law in the first place? And unfortunately our
educational infrastructure is so damaged, we're utterly incapable of having that conversation.
- Right. - Utterly incapable of
having, we can't even, people are talking about my, a former institution where I used to work, they're even against the
idea that you should, that people can make a reasoned
criticism of critical theory because they're claiming
that that is racist. - In and of itself?
- In and of itself. So think about how far removed that is from the direct incitement of violence. And just, I don't have to
tell you, you know this, the same people who are
screaming about trigger warnings and microaggressions have no problem with, "Gas the Jews, Kill the Jews," now all of a sudden they're free speech. - Yeah.
- They're free speech. The President of Harvard
is claiming free speech. You saw it happen at at NYU. You know, I mean this is a
such monumental hypocrisy. But going back to your question,
what should we do about it? - Yeah, what do we do? - The first order of business, if a stream is being polluted, you have to stop the
pollution at the source. The wrong way to think about it is, "Let's clean up the stream." The right way to think about it is, "Let's stop polluting the stream." You have to, you have to stop
donating to your Alma mata. First order of business.
- Yeah. - And we're seeing some of that now. - We are-
- Fine. - And I, we had a campaign,
National Progress Alliance with Executive Director months and months before any this happened, stuff happened. This should be the easiest
ask on planet Earth. Give it to the Humane Society,
give it to Dave Rubin. Give it to my nonprofit, give it to- - I don't need it, give it to- - Give it to anybody, give it to anybody. But don't give it to your university. Because when you give
it to your university, you're supporting an indoctrination mill. You're supporting something, you're supporting an institution whose very values are antithetical to Western liberal democracy. So you have to stop. Now for all those people
who don't donate anyway or who've already stopped. Now we have to talk
about what else we can do to move the needle. Show up. Literally show up. Nobody, everybody wants
to do things virtually. Go up, go to, if you look at the meetings, videos of meet, there are
only a few people who show up. And they're all the same. They're just these far, far
left radical, intersectional, critical social justice maniacs. Show up, be a voice on the other side, physically walk into your
school board meetings, etc. Now we're seeing more people do that. That's great.
So that sends a clear message. Vote, that's another one. Look at a candidate's policies, ask questions, record things. The gold standard is to
do this legally, right? So you have to check if your one party state
records (indistinct) - Sure. - Get it on film. Upload it to YouTube, inform
people what the problem is. So here's another thing. Be forthright in your speech. Be honest with people. And if someone has a
disagreement with you, you can let friends be wrong. If you have a disagree- You don't have to have perfect ideological
congruity in everything. You don't have to believe
exactly the same thing. - Can we talk still at dinner tonight? - It's shocking. - (Dave speaks indistinctly). We have like, our dinner
keeps growing tonight. Yeah, but that's the thing. 'Cause we've lost friendships. - So what do we, do you sense that the
silver lining maybe is that now we see it so radically, it was one thing when they were like, "Okay, America's systemically racist," and people were just
like, all right, fine. Where now it's like literally
like, "Gas the Jews" or these people deserve to die. - Yeah, yeah. - Do you think that maybe
they've pushed far enough now that the pushback for the
average checked out person is now going to appear? Let's say the liberal who was
just like, "Ah, whatever." Maybe not?
- I don't know. I see schisms in this. I don't know how to answer that. No, I can't prognosticate,
I don't have the- I don't know. I do think that there is a
kind of vicious antisemitism that cloaks itself in anti-Zionism. - Yeah.
- And I do think that people now just
simply don't have the tools to navigate difficult problems. I think it's even worse now. It's worse now I think than it's been, certainly in my lifetime. But it's interesting, you know, I do think there are ways forward, like if you read Lincoln's
second inaugural address, he talks about friendship and the need for a kind of reconciliation. And if, the very idea that we're talking about
a national divorce is so insane to me, it's so crazy, that we've lost the tools
to deal with problems, how to navigate conversations. We, people only like
to hang out with people who like things that they- they wanna move to blue
states or red states. Look, you can move anywhere you want, but that's not helping, that's actually entrenching
the division, right? Because then you don't even know anybody outside your bubble, so- - On that one, I can actually make the
total counter argument, which is that you should live in a place that is more in line with your values. And that by someone like
me leaving California where I was in essence,
literally and figuratively, paying into a system-
- Yeah. - That was taking away my rights and locking me in my home and spending my money-
- Yeah. - On nonsensical programs that was leading to homelessness and crime
and blah, blah, blah, that I put that aside and said, "Hey, I will go to a place
where my values are valued." - Yeah.
- And then strengthen that. I think that actually, that to me, that's the beauty of Federalism. But I get what you're
saying in the long term, that it's like, well what
is the United States? - Well, I'll- - What is United? - Well, I'll give you,
what you're looking for, you have every right to do that. And you know, Shellenberger
has written about that for Newsom's policies on homelessness are literally backwards. San Francisco, they're literally back, shelter first, housing earned. The problem in aggregate
though, if everybody did that, nobody would even know someone
who has a different opinion. - Like, no one would get-
- Yeah. - to hang out, you
wouldn't go, and that's, you wouldn't go to a dinner party in which you'd view people who are
hardcore inveterate leftists or liberals or what have you. And then, you know, one of the reasons that people used to accept gays is that if they knew someone who was gay. And so the very fact that
people won't get exposed to you and see you on a personal level, that might be great for
you to move to Florida. But it's not doing the
social milieu any good. It's not doing the culture any good. It's not being, what was the
book called, "The Big Sort," a while ago. It's not doing anybody
any favors by dividing it to these ideological tribes.
- Yeah. - It's not that you don't
have a right to do that. Of course you have right to do that. - Right, no, there's sort
of like the granular problem of one's own life and where do you wanna live to flourish. - Right. And then there's like the
meta problem of what do we do with the society that is fraying. - Right. - And I will be the first to admit, I moved out of Portland. I moved outta Portland- - Which I was pushing you to do for- - Because I couldn't stand Ted Wheeler. I had very serious security concerns. I moved outta Portland because I just so fundamentally disagreed
with the policies that, you know, the danger, you- So can I tell you a quick story? - Yep.
- So, I was driving back from a friend's house one
night, Saturday night, and I saw this guy driving like a lunatic, like truly cracked out or what have you. So I do what any same person does. Lemme tell you, lemme just pause my story. If I have to call 911- (Dave laughs) - Something's gotta be really screwed up. - For me to call 911, there'd have to be some like
genuine catastrophe, right? So I call 911, I'm on hold, I'm on hold. So meanwhile I'm
following this guy I'm on- I don't even know how many minutes I was- Minutes and minutes and minutes
and minutes I'm on hold. Then he saw me and then he
started chasing me in his car because I was on the phone
trying to call to say, "Hey, the guy's here at
this intersection there, he's gonna kill somebody. He's literally gonna run someone over." 911 doesn't answer. To the whole, we see systemic
institutional breakdown. And that gets back to- - Is that the part that
I think everyone's sort of shocked at at the moment that say, seven, eight years ago when we
were all talking about this? - Yeah. - it's mostly on college campuses and we just, like, I actually always felt it was gonna spill over into real life- - Of course. - But I don't think most
of us really thought, "Oh, it was gonna be like, yes, we will have situations where
the cops will not show up." Like, I don't know that we all fully saw- and on top of that, let's behead children and there's justification for it, like- - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - Like, that's a lot. - Yeah, yes, and it's a direct consequence of the ideology to defund
the police (indistinct). The, here's the two ideas. One is that the capitalism
is inherent problem. The thing that supports
or buttresses capitalism is the police, so if you
can get rid of the police, you can rip down the system. And then you have, for
example, the manifestation of homelessness in LA,
it's terrible, terrible. - Yeah.
- Portland is terrible. And they spent millions, businessmen have come in and spent, I shouldn't say billions,
I don't know how much, but a lot of money to clean- - No, no, they pour tons of money- - Yeah, I can't say the exact figure, but the idea is that some people
in the far left don't want that problem solved because
they look at the manifestation of homelessness as indicative
of a problem with the system. And as long as we can
keep homelessness there, we can see that the system is corrupt. And then we can incentivize
people to rip down the system because we want social justice, right? We wanna remediate these
larger economic problems. so we know the source of these
are the capitalist structure. And that's the other thing.
It's the shift that come, it's the shift in thinking
that we're teaching kids that all problems are from systems. And the, if I may say one more thing? - Yeah, carry on. - But I do want to, you- - Mate, we're near, keep talking. - In the spirit of ARC, I do want to throw out the
criticism of the right on this. So the left that I've spent
a lot of time criticism, criticizing, has it's, a
unique set of derangements that Florence Read from Unherd calls this, I love this line, she says, "We are living in a uniquely stupid age." (Dave laughs) - But-
- Yeah. But the right also has
many ideological problems. One of those is that while the left thinks that, think that systems are responsible, the right thinks that people can just kind of pull themselves up
by their own bootstraps. And as a consequence for that, we see neighborhoods, for
example, with tax structures that fund local school systems and poor neighborhoods don't
get as, schools are as good. I think that's unAmerican. I think everybody should be entitled to a public education in the first grade. I also think that because
you're under 18 or maybe 21, you shouldn't be denied healthcare. And I think that the right has
fallen short on that as well. - Interesting, and unfortunately
we don't have more time for now, but like I- But you would fund school, sorry, students before systems, right? - A hundred percent.
- Yeah. Even though you're saying everyone should have a right to a public education, that's a different topic altogether? - Yeah. - But but those are not like things where you end up hating the
person across from you locally. It's mostly like, ah, we
just have a different- - Yeah, you-
- Where does tax money go- - You would now hate people
based on some identity concern. - Right.
- Because you would think it's not because you criticize this, not because you don't have the facts, which is Socrates' idea, but you criticize it, you don't see it because you're a bad person. So there's a kind of moral
flaw in the other person. - Right. - And we're teaching
generations of people this. - Last question.
- Yeah. - Are you bullish on the future or do you think we're just
kind of temporarily screwed? - I really love to end
interview positively. (Dave laughs) But I don't think I can, if
you want me to be very honest. - I want you to be, I
want you to be honest. - So, how many minutes? - And I'm getting-
- How many minutes do I have? - You got two minutes.
- Okay. - And I'm getting answers
all over the board on this, so I want you to be as honest as possible. - So we know what to do. Will we reclaim the will
to do what we want to do? I don't know. One of the things that
interesting to me about being in London is how
they treat the commons. They treat the commons
incredibly well here. The subways, the systems, the parks. I'm worried about $33 trillion in debt. I'm worried about the fact that, I'm not even concerned,
I'm actually worried. I'm worried about the fact that one third of the taxes
collected last year went to pay the interest on the debt. I'm worried that nobody
really gives a hoot about it. I'm worried about the
national divorce talk. I'm worried about wide
scale ideological capture of our institutions,
particularly legacy media, legacy institutions. I'm worried about the
geopolitical situation. I'm not just concerned, I'm worried. I'm worried about the
Israeli Palestinian problem. I don't know the solution to that. I have, if I were forced with a gun, I would say two state solution. But I dunno, I'm not an expert on that. I'm worried about that. - That ain't happening, but- - I don't know, that's why I don't know. I'm not a versed and I'm
not lettered in that. I'm worried about Chinese
militarization of Taiwan, the semiconductor industry. I'm worried about, I'm
not worried about rogue AI or you know, kinda these x-risk things. But I'm worried that we
have lost an understanding of what makes America great. I'm worried that we don't know- in as Reagan said, "Freedom
is only one generation away from being extinguished." I'm worried that we have
forgotten why freedom matters, why it's important. That's what I'm worried about. And unless we start to
care about those things, then we can't reconstruct reason, like you can't reconstruct
a civil society. - So the weight loss was
a little bit about dairy and a little bit about
stress I think that's- - No stress. My life has never been less stressed. I feel awesome. I'm living my own dream, baby. - I'll see you at dinner.
(hands slap) - All right, look forward to it. Thanks Dave, appreciate it. - If you're looking for more honest and thoughtful conversations
about politics, instead of nonstop screaming, check out our politics playlist. And if you wanna watch full
interviews on a variety of topics, watch our
full episode playlist. All right over here. And to get notified of all future videos, be sure to subscribe and
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