Practical guide to impossible conversations | Peter Boghossian x Brain Bar

no conversations or bad conversations bad conversations favorite philosopher Daniel Dennett was our Socrates live by the sea or in the woods Woods Which social network would you like to see disappear over Twitter [Laughter] never be employed again or cater to PC audiences never be employed again strong now while while introducing you I said that you were the professor of philosophy at Portland State University could you tell me what happened um the organization was captured by ideological maniacs and uh I was basically harassed and I finally I finally quit you were harassed for doing what was that I was harassed for asking questions what's the evidence for the policy should we use people's pronouns why should we use people Pro what's the evidence for space spaces trigger warnings microaggressions and then I was told that asking for evidence itself was a microaggression hmm so the one of the things that we're seeing happening now is that there are offices of diversity equity and inclusion and virtually every if not every institution of Higher Learning in the United States and those are weaponized against people so they're used to keep people in line when you talk what do these institutions do to keep people in line it seems like they threaten them with investigation for one thing right yeah you published a really interesting paper oh this is this is the 21 or older I I cried I love this by the way when I'm doing some research into you and I I burst out laughing when that was the point when I heard about the paper could you tell me about the paper which one we did a lot of them the conceptual penis oh the conceptual penis yeah um so I knew early on that there was a problem in the literature and so I talked to a buddy of mine and there's a famous mathematician and physicist named Alan Sokol and in the late 90s he published a hoax paper and this really prestigious journal and so I said uh to my buddy let's let's do this and so we came up with this idea so in this ideology woke ideology everything is a construct so we came up with the idea to say that penises are constructs and and the penis is responsible for basically every evil in the world including climate change and then we threw in all these vulgarities like custard launcher and just every vulgarity you could think of and so we we we published that and then we got a crazy amount of for that so you know this doesn't do it you think it does etc and some of that criticism was legitimate and so they gave us a road map if you want to show that there's a problem in the academic literature in certain Fields you need to do the following things XYZ so we did we published a a series of truly vile and what I think is hilarious papers about dog rapes at dog parks and leashing man and putting white heterosexual men on the floor and beating them as a form of experiential reparations and why don't straight men like things up their anuses well that's because they're transphobic so we published a whole and we didn't even have that idea the reviewers the reviewers gave us so we published these these bogus papers to expose the problems in the field so what are the problems in the um in the academic world that you were trying to expose it's it's the checklist without the the rigoreness in research well the problems are when you think that you read something in a peer-reviewed journal and that's truth or that's knowledge it's just not it's just a bunch of ideologues or charlatans who are masquerading as if they have some information and they're pushing it out it's called ideal laundering so they have a moral impulse they have something they'll they feel morally and they want to launder it like money laundering so it it goes in a peer-reviewed journal as an impulse and it comes out as knowledge and so then we make public policies based upon not not what's true or not even the things that we know but the things that really people who are ideologues have come up with I hear statements like you know feelings aren't facts and that's right but are you of the opinion that facts have more more weight more more substance than feelings because feelings are what unite people so does that discount feelings they'll think feelings unite people you can feel something about something or some person some so you've been in love and then you're not in love or maybe your boyfriend or your girlfriend or your spouse it really annoys you one day and the next moment your you know googly-eyed that those things are they change but facts are statements about the world those things don't change now we may have more information about those things and we may change those over time but the best way to figure out what's true is to just look at the evidence so you let me just put this in right in your life especially if you're young Plato writes about this you have to think about it as a chariot and there are horses in The Chariot desire is good emotions are good these things are important but reason should always be the first horse in The Chariot reasons should always lead you to figure out how to live a good life to figure out how to cultivate friendships of virtue it's always reason it's not feelings it's not emotional although those things are other horses on The Chariot and they play a role but reason has to be the North Star is that still true do you think oh it's more true now than it's ever been it's a Timeless truth but particularly in the Modern Age you know people have accused you of being sort of um anti-liberal particularly I mean you were in Portland State University correct that's in Oregon correct it's one of the most uh Vivid examples of what American liberalism looks like was that a sort of anathema um I I not to parse words but it's one of the most Vivid examples of what American progressivism looks like what's the difference is not a liberal um usually progressivism is associated with the word woke or critical social justice or social justice and the idea there is that you we just talked about truth you can access truth based upon some immutable characteristic you have or the oppression of your ancestors and if your ancestors aren't oppressed you don't have think about it like this so I'm a white CIS heterosexual male so in the Progressive ideology in the woke ideology I see the world in black and roll in black and white every time you add an oppression variable I get one more color to see the world I get another way to access truth so for example if I were bisexual then I would see the world in grayscale plus I know green or if I were handicapped couldn't use my legs or in a wheelchair then I would get to see the world I had another access to truth maybe I'd that would be yellow or if I had another access like I didn't feel comfortable in my body maybe I thought I should be in a woman's body that actually gives you two two colors so progressivism seems to be something that you are sort of rallying against I'm rallying against the the idea here's what I'm relying against I'm really against the fact that there's a truth I'm rallying against the fact so some people think that there's no truth I'm really against that it's a little more subtle than that because they think that the truth can only be accessed as I said if you have certain characteristics I'm advocating every single person live a thoughtful and examined life that you are willing to revise your beliefs and the basis of evidence that we can that there are better and worse ways to live that certain cultures that we can make condemnations of cultural practices like female genital mutilation um who are we not to make those condemnations I'm rallying against the fact that at the moment our organizations our institutions in the United States have been ideologically captured and it's getting worse it's getting worse it's been getting worse for years right now I'm glad he brought up the us because basically everything that you're saying it seems like the loudest example is coming from the U.S do you see this as a global Trend or is it very much isolated within the U.S yeah absolutely okay I'm so happy you said that so um I so there's a Indian public intellectual by the name of Rajiv Malhotra and I just wrote the forward to his book I mean this thing is truly a masterpiece it is 864 pages okay here's the idea I hope the English doesn't get complicated the United States is engaged right now in a new form of colonialism it's a neocolonialism and how we are colonializing uh people specifically Indian peoples we are Colonial we are engaged in a neo-colonialism by exporting post-modernism wokism progressivism to Indian institutions and it's a new sort of colonization in this book it's called snakes in the ganga it is truly a masterpiece it's like the net the if you want to learn about any of this stuff the book written by Helen pluckrose and James Lindsay describes all of this in meticulous detail and then gets back to your question about liberalism what's the difference between liberalism and progressivism so liberalism doesn't see color liberalism doesn't in in liberalism we know that there are better ways to live life our lives we know that there are better ways to construct our communities but just get back to the India thing so yeah so it is a global phenomenon and it's being exported from the United States around the world right now what do you mean by liberalism doesn't see color so this is very important for people especially if you're not a native English speaker to understand this don't be fooled by the words people use so I'm going to give you an example of two words they sound the same even native English speakers mix these up equity and equality this answers your question Equity inequality in liberalism equality is treating people equally independent of whether they're dark-skinned light-skinned trans gay whatever the oppression variable is with Equity that's a very very different word it sounds good like even if you close your eyes you think ah Equity it's it's kind of like a feeling that was a finance word originally for how much money you had in your heart like you need a big mortgage if your mortgage was a hundred thousand dollars I was gonna say Florence but I can't calculate that if your mortgage a hundred thousand dollars and you had fifty thousand dollars down because you're paying your mortgage you had equity in your home but now what Equity means and this is so important Equity means making up for the sins or the problems of the past by redistributing assets to people whose ancestors have been historically oppressed and the there are many problems with that Chief among those is it's profoundly unfair to people whose ancestors did not oppress anybody I mean I'm part of Armenian my ancestors were in a genocide so you need to be very careful when you hear these words you know when you hear the word inclusion it just simply does not mean what you think it means it sounds nice and I'm telling you this is an American export that's coming to a university an organization in an institution near you let me tell you what the word inclusion means this is a progressive word people think that the word inclusion means exactly what you would think it means to include every single person in in here should want an inclusive space we should want people of different nationalities different sexual orientations doesn't matter if you're gay or what have you you're included here's the issue when you hear the word inclusion this is an inclusive space this is what that really means an inclusive space is a welcoming space you you want people to feel welcome don't you absolutely I mean I want people to feel local let me finish up you want people to feel welcome I want people to feel welcome but the only way we can make people feel welcome is if they're not offended and the only way we can make people not be offended is if we restrict their speech if we put limitations on what they can say so when you hear the word inclusive or this is an inclusive space this is a woke idea and what people really mean is you need to not say certain things that's what they mean by inclusion to me an inclusive space is a space where you wouldn't be oppressed not necessarily silenced the way you're referring to but right that's because they've changed the meanings of words they've changed the meaning of diversity they've changed the meaning of equity they've changed the meaning of inclusion well let's go back to equity for a second when you're talking about making up for past sins right anecdotally from my perspective I'm I'm Indian I'm from India a few years ago I was applying for a visa to visit the UK uh which is already a bananas concept to an Indian it's like I have to pay you guys money when you guys didn't ask and it's 400 pounds for a single entry Visa okay which they may or may not reject and then when they inevitably reject that money's gone and when I when I when I experienced that I was I was pretty baffled by the audacity that the past wasn't taken into consideration it's like okay so you're gonna come in here masquerade as spice Traders oppress my people for 200 years and then I have to pay you to go to a business meeting in London um what is that I don't know what it is but it feels like a lack of equity to me I don't think so so when so okay so it's really important to understand not only what people mean by words but how they how they use words so for example one of the primary purveyors of the ideology is someone called ibram X candy which was not his birth name and he's very clear in his book The only remedy to pass discrimination is future is is future discrimination the only remedy to pass just to discriminate people the fact that people have been discriminated in the past is to discriminate against other people that is a recipe for alienating your populace it is a recipe if taken to its logical end it's a recipe for civil war so in the context of what you're talking about that's not the way that the people who traffic in these Concepts use the word I feel I feel like you um you like provoking people I'm sure I do as a as a philosopher that's basically 90 of your job to to provoke people what is it that Drew you to be uh sort of combative towards ideas and to to explore things and break boxes open look what's inside have zero Toleration for zero I just can't stand it what does look like to you um looks like they're types of but when somebody holds a belief tenaciously or when someone holds a belief strongly and they don't have sufficient reason or evidence for the belief so if if honestly if you put on a scale if they hold the belief nine but they only have justification to hold the belief six like evidence it's the difference between that or you know I was just in in Vienna and uh I'm just the whole covert thing has been so fascinating to me to watch who wears masks what claims they make about covid so so it's not just something that's a lie it's something that people want to believe and usually has a moral component to it it's a nicely packaged light it's a conveniently packaged light yeah and it's the new ideology which you asked me about there's a lot of Truth to that we have been horrific to homosexuals we have been horrific to minorities there's just no question about that and and that's what makes trying to figure out what's true more difficult is because there are kernels of Truth within the ideology but the remedies for that are not to to go around democracy and rip down statues we have Democratic means by which we can solve problems we have judiciaries and in the functioning Civil Society people can count on those people can place their trust in those but right now we're having a crisis of confidence so you know you ask about Hungary I'm 56 years old I went to 53 years old I never had a gun now I have guns everywhere I sleep with a gun by my bed a loaded gun think about that I have right assault rifles in my home the police have been sufficiently defunded in the city of Portland right now that it takes them over an hour to respond to an active kidnapping so I'm sick of living like that's one of the reasons I love to move here in this country I have to I can walk anywhere and I have to own a gun I have to worry about Maniacs killing me um but I think that ideas have consequences the consequence of thinking that the whole system is skewed against a particular group of people minorities every time so if that's another word you should look for when you hear the word system that's a key piece of the thinking of the ideology this system is against us this system and so every time I hear that I said okay go give me an example of of something that's systemic give meaning is there a law you can think of so I went around the whole country you can see this on my YouTube channel and I ask people that question oh this system is against that okay give me an example well I don't really know okay so what do you mean by the system so if you hold these beliefs these beliefs have consequences defunding the police has a consequence not hiring people on the basis of Merit has a consequence and it's all fun and games until it gets into medicine which it is now until it gets in the military and the people of of Hungary unfortunately have had a recent wake-up call to that meritocracy is essential to the thriving of a country but to do that we don't need progressivism we need we need liberalism I think we need equality we need to treat people equally and we need to create institutions to allow all people to thrive whether you're gay or black it's totally irrelevant I think that the word meritocracy is something that a lot of people now are saying is one of those Community packaged lies like it's correct it's a concept that uh that makes people feel like the harder you work the better you're gonna do if you're if you're the right person you will get hired but Society just isn't set up that way um so do you think that meritocracy can exist let's say you let's say you're going in for a surge surgery now I've never held a surgical instrument in my life who do you want to perform surgery on you me or somebody who's graduated from the third tier medical school so so we know we we know that certain people can develop expertise and things that's the other thing you should think about can the activity be faked the the more likely it is to be faked like the fake papers we made the further away it is from reality the less likely it is to be faked the closer it is to reality there were certain activities like Hungarian you could expose in literally five seconds after I said like three Hungarian words kusanome Boz Meck and something else you would immediately yeah you would know that I didn't speak Hungarian or or there or maybe I spoke the right words but not enough of them so or like playing a piano or a musical instrument those things have expertise genuine expertise so with meritocracy it's possible to develop a genuine expertise in something and in the same way that you would would want to choose a surgeon or you wouldn't want me to fly any plane that you'd be on trust me I probably wouldn't want to fly any plane you'd be on so so we know that we can achieve we know that we just have to create the conditions that allow people to succeed and those conditions can't be dishonesty it can't be lying to people it can't be privileging one group of people over another group of people we have to create liberal and equal conditions in the society so obviously you have a pretty um combative nature uh and say so yeah yeah I mean you're not you're not afraid to stand up for what you believe in so can you tell me a little bit about the harassment that you faced uh yeah University I want to say one thing it's really important in your life particularly if you're younger I feel as I get older I can dispense this more readily it was when I was younger I couldn't talk about this stuff but you can be combative and you can have strong stances on things and you can have strong opinions and that's great and the most important thing you really need to have is an ability or willingness to change your mind as long as you're willing to revise your beliefs you can take any stance you want as long as you listen to people you're open to changing that's great the problem is that many people have dogmatism they have confidence they have certainty they have conviction but they don't have an open mind they don't have a willingness to change their mind and if you only have dogmatism then you're dogmatic if you only have conviction then you're a fanatic you're an ideologue so you have to have both could you give me example of something that you change your your mind about uh something that actually had a fundamental impact on on your world view yeah I'm a little embarrassed to say it now but I'll give you a recent example this is a a hashtag safe space yeah yeah I think I think this is the other thing I think it's really important that we create a culture that when somebody has a belief and they were wrong that that we don't shame them for coming out so I'll give give you an example or we also need to create a culture that when we're asked a question we say I don't know and I don't know is a fantastic answer to a question don't pretend to know things you don't know just say I don't know I'll give you an example of something a little embarrassing but I'll tell you I honestly believed as Angela Merkel did and others if we just kept Europe on Russian gas everything would be great uh yeah the Russians wouldn't want to disrupt this because they're making money from it everything would be would be hunky hunky-dory is an expression everything would be great um we didn't really need to I've always been in favor of nuclear but um we didn't really need to look too far for alternative sources of energy because it had a kind of built-in equilibrium that would keep the Russians in line and boy was I wrong about that I was epically wrong about that well that's less you changing your mind rather than having your mind changed for you forcefully okay I'll tell you what I well I was wrong about it been wrong about so many things I've been wrong about the Iraq War for example I I really did believe a lot of the uh propaganda oh here's something I was that I I mean I do this for a living try to discover and I was completely wrong about the hunter Biden laptop story completely wrong I was convinced that that was I was so convinced I didn't give it another second of thought I really genuinely believed that this is Russian disinformation I was wrong about that so I mean I I mean I've been wrong about interpersonal things I've been wrong about geopolitical things um yeah wrong about things all the time how does it feel to change your mind does it give you a sort of identity crisis does it make you um I know flagellate yourself I guess in one sense you don't want to be self-congratulatory about it like you don't want to congratulate yourself it just should you be it should just be a habit so okay what's the evidence there's enough evidence I'm going to change my mind for it I don't I think I don't necessarily think it's a moral virtue that it makes you a better person that you change your mind I think it's just a good habit to get into right okay so actually can we can we get me back to something um anything you want we have we have a little section outside the the change my mind area I'm sure you guys have seen the meme you know there are only two genders change my mind we actually have one of those where you can actually debate other people so how about I come up with a statement and then you try to change my mind but right now we're at the booth right now I look I'm prepared to make a total ass of myself let's do it and you come up with a claim and and I want you to tell me how I'm arguing badly uh that's not what I'm gonna do I'm gonna do something else okay cool uh fine keep me on my toes the reason that that won't work is because the reasons for changing people's mind have to be internally generated and the only reason that that can come this I wrote a whole book about this but the only reason that can be facilitated is if he decides it not if it's imposed externally so I'll elicit I'll ask targeted questions these are Socratic questions and I'll do we'll do that outside it's a thing too so go ahead give me a second so um social media is a tool for evil change my mind oh boy I actually believe that too so it's more difficult um social media is a tool for evil is it what do you mean by evil evil as in the actions that would lead you to prison or Hell depending on your belief system so if you use social media you can go to prison well it gives you a platform for uh for demonstrating opinions and uh inciting actions that are illegal and immoral illegal yeah and immoral look the the January 6 protests I mean those were organized probably like on a Google Calendar right it's really weird to think about is it are they always evil or bad The Bad actions no social media you said social media is a platform social media is a tool for evil yeah is it always a tool for evil there are good things and bad things about it but essentially evil today would not be able to thrive at the level at which it does without social media yeah I think that's that's probably true I mean I can try to change your mind about something that's probably true that that's probably a bad moral decision on my part but um but let's keep running with this so um I'm thinking about can you think of an example in what social media has done significant good say within the last 72 hours in the last 72 hours uh no I have not been paying attention what about the protest in Iran oh absolutely um but the people who are uh standing up for the woman who died in in Iran are now being detained arrested uh sexually assaulted and beaten by the morality police in Iran and it's through social media that these actions are able to thrive okay well that okay well that let me ask you the question because I'm not an expert in Iran part of the reason is part of the reason that these protests have been been successful is because they've these clips have gone out around the world which is exactly why the government wanted to shut down the internet right so would you say that social media has some positive benefits I'm not sure uh we'll have to find out in the change in my mind area we are out of time unfortunately warm welcome to Dr Peter pogushan everyone [Applause] thanks appreciate it [Music] foreign

Channel: Brain Bar

Views: 40,194

Keywords: Brain Bar, future

Id: 6UrUpiHb_tM

Length: 29min 34sec (1774 seconds)

Published: Fri Jan 13 2023