Making Sense - Sam Harris - May 21, 2021


#250 — Broken Conversations


Episode Stats

Length

45 minutes

Words per Minute

166.5318

Word Count

7,546

Sentence Count

187

Misogynist Sentences

11

Hate Speech Sentences

19


Summary

Jesse Singel is the former editor of New York Magazine's The Science of Us, Slate, The Atlantic, The Boston Globe, The Daily Beast, and other outlets, and he has his own podcast with Katie Herzog, Blocked and Reported, which I recommend. And he has a new book, The Quick Fix: Why Fad Psychology Can t Cure Our Social Ills, which is out now. In this episode, we talk about how he got started in journalism, how he became a writer, and why he thinks the media fragmentation of the 21st century is a problem, and how it relates to all of our other cultural problems. He's also the host of a new podcast with Ricky Gervais, which can be found over at Absolutely Mental, and it's a lot of fun to make. As always, I never want money to be the reason why someone can't get access to the podcast, so if you can't afford a subscription, there's an option at Samharris.org to request a free account, which means you get 100% of the podcast's premium features, including ad-free episodes, for as little as $5 a month! If you can t afford it, but want to become a supporter, then you can get 10% off your first month with the discount code MAKINGSENSE, and get 20% off the entire month for the rest of the month, you get 15% off, plus an additional $5 off the next month, plus a free shipping when you sign up for the second month, free of the third month, and a year, free shipping, and an additional 3 months of the fourth month, for the total of $99 a year of the first year, and you get a maximum of $150 a year from The Making Sense offer? Thanks for listening to the Making Sense Podcast! Sam Harris and I hope you enjoy what we're doing here! - Sam Harris - Make Sense of It! Make Sense - The podcast is made possible through the efforts of Sam Harris, the podcast by Sam Harris & his team at The Huffington Post, and The New York Times, Slate and The Atlantic. . Music: "Make Sense" by Zeena Vellian "The Making Sense" and "The Daily Beast" by The New Republic by is out on SoundCloud and The Nation, and is available on all major podcast directories.


Transcript

00:00:00.000 Welcome to the Making Sense Podcast.
00:00:08.860 This is Sam Harris.
00:00:10.900 Just a note to say that if you're hearing this,
00:00:13.120 you're not currently on our subscriber feed,
00:00:15.520 and will only be hearing the first part of this conversation.
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00:00:21.580 you'll need to subscribe at samharris.org.
00:00:24.180 There you'll find our private RSS feed to add to your favorite podcatcher,
00:00:27.580 along with other subscriber-only content.
00:00:30.300 We don't run ads on the podcast,
00:00:32.400 and therefore it's made possible entirely through the support of our subscribers.
00:00:35.920 So if you enjoy what we're doing here, please consider becoming one.
00:00:39.420 As always, I never want money to be the reason why someone can't get access to the podcast.
00:00:43.880 So if you can't afford a subscription,
00:00:45.800 there's an option at samharris.org to request a free account.
00:00:49.060 And we grant 100% of those requests.
00:00:51.480 No questions asked.
00:00:52.280 No housekeeping today,
00:01:04.940 apart from reminding you that I have released a new podcast series with Ricky Gervais.
00:01:10.280 That can be found over at AbsolutelyMental.com.
00:01:15.500 And people really seem to like it.
00:01:18.640 And it was a lot of fun to make, so enjoy.
00:01:20.780 Anyway, okay.
00:01:23.420 Today, I'm speaking with Jesse Singel.
00:01:27.920 Jesse's the former editor of New York Magazine's The Science of Us.
00:01:33.200 He has written for The New York Times, The Atlantic, Slate, The Boston Globe,
00:01:39.300 The Daily Beast, and other outlets.
00:01:41.380 And he has his own podcast with Katie Herzog,
00:01:45.520 Blocked and Reported, which I recommend.
00:01:48.480 And he has a new book, The Quick Fix,
00:01:51.660 Why Fad Psychology Can't Cure Our Social Ills.
00:01:55.540 We really don't discuss the book much in this podcast.
00:01:59.360 Electing instead to touch a wide variety of controversial issues,
00:02:03.320 from racial inequality to trans activism to the conflict in the Middle East,
00:02:09.500 we really make a fair amount of trouble for ourselves.
00:02:13.440 Anyway, I hope you enjoy it.
00:02:15.560 Now I bring you Jesse Singel.
00:02:23.440 I am here with Jesse Singel.
00:02:25.600 Jesse, thanks for joining me.
00:02:27.140 Hey, thanks for having me on, Sam.
00:02:28.880 I will have properly introduced you, but to remind people,
00:02:31.560 you've got a new book, The Quick Fix,
00:02:34.480 Why Fad Psychology Can't Cure Our Social Ills.
00:02:37.340 And you have a very enjoyable podcast,
00:02:41.000 Blocked and Reported, which you do with Katie Herzog.
00:02:43.740 And you have a Substack newsletter,
00:02:46.180 which is also a great read.
00:02:48.740 So I guess there are many intersecting things here
00:02:51.820 I want to speak about with you.
00:02:53.800 I think one thing we should cover
00:02:56.760 is something that I think you and I both typify at the moment,
00:03:02.500 which is the fragmentation of media
00:03:04.700 and how this relates to all of our other cultural problems.
00:03:09.240 Maybe that's the lens through which we could focus this conversation.
00:03:12.520 But before we jump in,
00:03:14.280 perhaps you can give a potted history of how you got here.
00:03:19.000 How do you think of yourself as a journalist
00:03:21.500 and what has been your career
00:03:24.880 prior to the properties and platforms I just mentioned?
00:03:29.060 Yeah. So in my 20s, I was sort of just mostly a liberal opinion writer.
00:03:34.620 And by mid to late 20s, I became more interested,
00:03:38.140 not just in arguing that people were wrong,
00:03:41.160 but trying to understand the roots of disagreement.
00:03:43.740 And John Haidt was a big influence on me on that front.
00:03:47.820 I ended up getting a public policy master's in a program
00:03:51.400 with a pretty heavy psychology component for a public policy program.
00:03:55.980 But yeah, I was sitting in a coffee shop on a fellowship in Berlin
00:03:59.640 trying to figure out what the hell to do when I got back to the States.
00:04:02.540 And I saw New York Magazine was launching a whole behavioral science vertical.
00:04:07.460 So I was the first editor of what was called Science of Us.
00:04:11.680 And that sort of brought me more into that stuff,
00:04:16.000 just writing and editing stories about human behavior every day.
00:04:19.480 And along the way,
00:04:20.800 I learned that a massive amount of social psychology
00:04:24.260 is probably complete bunk, which was disappointing.
00:04:26.960 But the bright side is it provided good fodder for a book.
00:04:32.500 And yeah, I'm condensing a lot of stuff.
00:04:35.360 But I also, I became slightly controversial
00:04:38.160 among some people along the way,
00:04:39.760 which I think probably helped me gain a platform
00:04:42.140 on Substack and Patreon.
00:04:44.200 So now, like an increasing number of journalists,
00:04:47.200 most of my income comes just from direct subscribers,
00:04:51.280 which if you told me that would happen, you know, three years ago,
00:04:54.420 I would have said that probably means there was some sort of catastrophe.
00:04:58.260 And I had to go that way.
00:04:59.580 But it just turned out that's the better approach for a lot of people.
00:05:02.880 Yeah, let's start with the fragmentation of the media.
00:05:06.640 I think this individually, it's clearly the right choice.
00:05:10.680 And as we get into some of the controversies here,
00:05:14.220 I think, well, it'll become explicit
00:05:15.880 why it is the right choice for you.
00:05:18.320 It is certainly the right choice for me.
00:05:20.480 But ultimately, it's a choice that I'm still worried about.
00:05:25.100 It's a choice that doesn't really scale.
00:05:28.060 It's a, I mean, we just cannot devolve
00:05:31.300 into a wilderness of competing Substack,
00:05:35.680 newsletters, and podcasts, right?
00:05:37.700 I mean, we need institutions.
00:05:38.780 We need a New York Times and other media properties
00:05:43.960 that function by intellectual standards
00:05:47.700 and journalistic standards that we can all rely on and defend.
00:05:52.240 And so this flight to the suburbs of media
00:05:55.800 is troubling even when we're really succeeding at it, right?
00:06:01.080 And it also has a kind of winner-take-all dynamics to it,
00:06:04.040 which is worrisome.
00:06:05.640 Now, it seems to me there are many points of contact
00:06:08.400 between the kinds of things that are so difficult to talk about
00:06:12.200 that are forcing this fragmentation of media
00:06:15.240 and some of what you discuss in your book.
00:06:18.520 I mean, your book kind of rolls over social psychology
00:06:21.240 in a fairly devastating way.
00:06:24.780 And so you take on the self-esteem industry and grit
00:06:29.420 and the implicit association test,
00:06:33.160 which purports to reveal unconscious bias.
00:06:37.300 And there are many other exports from social psychology of late
00:06:42.640 that don't withstand all that scrutiny.
00:06:45.860 And some of them are directly related to some of the problems
00:06:50.840 with wokeism and cancel culture that we'll talk about.
00:06:54.400 I guess as I just have a first step in this direction,
00:06:58.420 what is it that you are most concerned about now
00:07:03.100 with respect to the state of media
00:07:05.660 and the career of a journalist
00:07:07.980 and the bad incentives that seem to be reliably pushing us
00:07:15.040 in the direction of being less and less competent
00:07:18.200 to talk about socially polarizing issues?
00:07:21.780 Yeah, I think there's two issues here that sort of overlap
00:07:26.980 but are useful to separate out.
00:07:28.820 One is just the general collapse of funding models for media
00:07:33.500 and for newspapers in particular.
00:07:35.620 So, you know, in this conversation, we have shared interests.
00:07:39.560 We're probably not going to talk a lot about this,
00:07:41.400 but we should keep in mind that America as a country
00:07:44.760 has an interest in us knowing what's going on
00:07:47.340 in the Baltimore City Council or the Nashua courts.
00:07:51.540 All these areas of life where unless there is a local newspaper
00:07:55.260 that is well-funded, they will just not be covered
00:07:57.600 and there'll be no incentive for, you know,
00:08:00.220 people to not be corrupt, basically.
00:08:02.420 That's just gone.
00:08:03.720 So the bigger story here that sometimes gets obscured
00:08:06.240 and I'm sure I've helped to obscure it
00:08:08.660 because I have my own interests,
00:08:09.620 is just a steamroller devastating the American media ecosystem.
00:08:13.800 So that's one thing.
00:08:15.680 Then there's what's going on at the elite outlets,
00:08:18.260 at the New York Times or the Atlantic or the Voxosphere.
00:08:21.540 And there, I think in part because when your livelihood
00:08:27.600 feels more precarious and like it's collapsing
00:08:30.480 and then you have Trump,
00:08:32.480 I think all of this has combined to create
00:08:34.540 a mainstream media ecosystem that, as you said,
00:08:37.240 is having a harder and harder time talking seriously
00:08:39.960 about complicated issues.
00:08:42.020 And I think it's leading to a lot of groupthink
00:08:44.220 and a lot of work that ranges,
00:08:46.580 you know, some of it's just unreadable
00:08:47.980 but fundamentally harmless.
00:08:49.440 It's just bad X-Men analysis or whatever.
00:08:52.240 And then there's stuff that I think causes some harm
00:08:54.160 because it's actively misleading on important policy issues.
00:08:57.720 Yeah, well, it relates.
00:08:59.040 I guess this is a direct point of contact with your book.
00:09:01.560 It relates to concerns about inequality
00:09:03.840 and meritocracy at this point.
00:09:06.240 And, you know, much of the stuff in social psychology
00:09:11.040 that hasn't held up very well
00:09:12.880 relates to this notion that inequality
00:09:16.680 can be fixed in ways that would be wonderful if true
00:09:23.780 but like boosting people's self-esteem
00:09:26.720 or understanding and improving grit
00:09:31.380 and whether or not that's just a synonym
00:09:33.880 for conscientiousness is another matter.
00:09:37.020 But, you know, whether or not that's the case,
00:09:39.480 whether improving those things,
00:09:40.900 if you could improve them,
00:09:42.060 would really fundamentally address
00:09:44.800 the inequality that is becoming a greater concern
00:09:47.840 and more and more difficult to speak about
00:09:49.780 in so far as it interacts with variables like race.
00:09:52.460 And maybe we should get your own misadventures
00:09:56.820 with cancel culture out of the way
00:09:58.240 before we jump in.
00:09:59.700 So you have, you come trailing a fair amount
00:10:02.460 of cancellation-related debris in your orbit.
00:10:06.220 What has been your experience here?
00:10:09.420 Yeah, we should say attempted cancellation
00:10:10.960 because I think some people rightly point out like,
00:10:13.860 you know, screw you, you're not canceled.
00:10:15.960 You make a good living doing this, which is true.
00:10:18.260 But most of it stems from a 2018 cover story
00:10:21.500 I wrote for The Atlantic about trans youth
00:10:24.760 and about the question of what you should do
00:10:27.400 when a 12- or 13-year-old wants to go on puberty blockers,
00:10:31.300 which pause puberty, or cross-sex hormones,
00:10:34.700 which, you know, if you're a natal male
00:10:36.260 and you go on estrogen,
00:10:37.520 you'll develop some female secondary sex characteristics,
00:10:40.320 and that is generally not reversible.
00:10:43.360 It's a 13,000-word article.
00:10:45.460 It goes to great lengths to explain
00:10:47.520 why transition is important for people with gender dysphoria
00:10:50.240 because it is.
00:10:51.600 The science on that isn't great
00:10:53.020 because this is a difficult thing to study,
00:10:54.560 but I think it's fairly solid.
00:10:56.400 But it points out that for kids,
00:10:58.740 there are reasons to maybe be a little bit more cautious
00:11:01.040 and to ask more questions.
00:11:02.880 It's not an anti-transition piece.
00:11:05.300 It's not a pro-conversion therapy piece,
00:11:07.300 but it sort of launched a firestorm
00:11:10.300 that's continued to this day.
00:11:11.960 And it sort of occupies so much real estate
00:11:16.620 in the minds of a group of people
00:11:18.900 where, like, whenever,
00:11:20.720 when Donald Trump did something bad in anti-trans,
00:11:23.360 or more recently,
00:11:24.420 these states trying to pass these laws
00:11:27.500 banning transgender healthcare for minors,
00:11:30.300 which I'm very much against,
00:11:31.340 this is, everything just traces back to my article.
00:11:33.380 My article is sort of the cause
00:11:34.720 of all transphobia in the states.
00:11:37.800 And I just think that's a result of people
00:11:39.280 spending too much time online.
00:11:40.740 But it's been a weird experience
00:11:42.900 because if you told me, you know, 15 years ago,
00:11:45.460 I'd be added to, like,
00:11:47.140 a glad-their-enemy list
00:11:48.880 of supposedly transphobic thinkers,
00:11:51.080 that stuff like that would happen to me.
00:11:52.380 I would not have believed you.
00:11:53.980 It's been strange,
00:11:54.860 but at the end of the day,
00:11:56.020 I stand by the article
00:11:56.960 and no one has pointed out any factual flaws in it.
00:12:00.660 In the interest of not creating more hassle for you,
00:12:03.640 it was grammatically ambiguous
00:12:05.200 as to whether or not you were saying
00:12:06.720 you were against the laws
00:12:09.220 against transgender healthcare
00:12:12.360 or you were against transgender healthcare for minors.
00:12:16.380 Yeah, these laws are attempting to ban
00:12:18.560 puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones for minors.
00:12:21.680 I'm very much against those laws.
00:12:23.500 I think there are serious gaps in the research
00:12:25.400 that I'd be happy to talk about,
00:12:26.740 but saying there's gaps in the research
00:12:28.700 is not the same as saying,
00:12:30.100 I trust the Tennessee legislature
00:12:32.900 to weigh these issues in a way
00:12:34.920 that would take the right out of parents' hands
00:12:37.380 or doctors' hands to weigh that issue
00:12:38.900 in a different way.
00:12:39.580 I think they're terrible laws,
00:12:40.940 and I've tried to be outspoken
00:12:42.720 in my opposition to them.
00:12:44.400 So was there anything truly controversial
00:12:47.440 or that you understand to be,
00:12:49.640 why it would be controversial
00:12:50.920 that you put forward in that piece?
00:12:52.400 Or is this really a case
00:12:56.300 where there's just a fairly concerted effort
00:13:00.660 to demolish you with bad faith
00:13:03.580 misconstruals of what you actually said?
00:13:07.340 A lot of it was bad faith.
00:13:09.480 In some cases,
00:13:10.260 just sort of making up things
00:13:12.000 about the content of the piece.
00:13:13.300 The genuinely, to me,
00:13:15.300 the fair points are,
00:13:16.600 there's two of them.
00:13:17.200 One is,
00:13:18.440 why focus on detransition?
00:13:20.560 People have argued,
00:13:21.740 basically, I talked to some people
00:13:22.920 who transitioned,
00:13:24.260 regretted it,
00:13:24.980 and then said that they felt
00:13:26.200 they were sort of
00:13:27.060 led too quickly down the road
00:13:28.980 of taking hormones
00:13:29.780 or getting surgery
00:13:30.540 by what they saw
00:13:31.880 as incompetent therapists
00:13:33.340 and healthcare providers.
00:13:35.480 You could make a good faith case,
00:13:37.520 like, you know,
00:13:37.960 why focus on that?
00:13:39.440 People often say detransition is rare.
00:13:42.020 We don't know that it's rare
00:13:42.960 in an American context
00:13:44.200 because in the American context,
00:13:46.100 there's basically no binding guidelines
00:13:48.540 for things like mental health assessment
00:13:51.140 and how long,
00:13:52.760 you know,
00:13:53.080 before you get surgery,
00:13:54.440 stuff like that.
00:13:55.360 So that's fair.
00:13:56.100 The other fair critique is
00:13:57.880 I presented sympathetically
00:14:00.040 the idea that some teenagers
00:14:01.820 who have other mental healthcare problems
00:14:04.100 going on
00:14:04.760 might, you know,
00:14:05.980 become convinced
00:14:06.720 through peer influence
00:14:07.640 that really their issues
00:14:09.160 come down to the fact
00:14:09.960 that they're trans
00:14:10.540 and they haven't transitioned yet.
00:14:11.820 I didn't sort of say as myself,
00:14:15.040 I think this is happening,
00:14:16.080 but I presented parents
00:14:18.120 and cases of kids
00:14:19.180 where it does appear
00:14:20.180 to have happened.
00:14:21.080 So the thesis there
00:14:22.560 is that there's a social contagion
00:14:24.060 component to this,
00:14:25.480 the trans phenomenon,
00:14:26.460 which if true
00:14:28.220 would be something
00:14:29.640 that many people
00:14:30.680 would be concerned about.
00:14:32.760 Yeah.
00:14:33.220 And so one thing
00:14:34.800 no one disagrees about
00:14:36.180 is that the number of kids
00:14:37.360 being referred
00:14:37.980 to youth gender centers
00:14:39.480 around the world
00:14:40.160 has skyrocketed.
00:14:41.420 And the question is
00:14:42.620 whether that's just people being
00:14:44.940 the reduction of stigma,
00:14:47.280 more people feel like
00:14:48.740 they can go to their parents
00:14:49.560 and say,
00:14:49.900 I think I'm trans.
00:14:50.700 Can we go to a gender clinic?
00:14:51.780 Surely that is part of it.
00:14:53.020 The question is
00:14:53.620 whether in some cases
00:14:55.120 it's kids who are,
00:14:56.720 you know,
00:14:57.220 a little bit going through a phase
00:14:58.680 or slightly confused.
00:14:59.780 And I,
00:15:01.000 having sat and talked to kids
00:15:02.580 who that has happened to,
00:15:04.160 I find it impossible
00:15:05.180 to believe
00:15:05.780 that the number of cases
00:15:06.880 of that is zero
00:15:08.200 or close to zero.
00:15:09.400 Now, does that,
00:15:10.080 how much of the increase
00:15:10.860 does that account for?
00:15:11.540 We have no idea.
00:15:13.120 Anyone who claims to know
00:15:14.240 how much of the account
00:15:15.440 the increase is X versus Y
00:15:17.420 I think is lying
00:15:18.660 or is overconfident.
00:15:19.480 We don't know.
00:15:20.180 But I just,
00:15:21.120 there are very compelling
00:15:22.260 anecdotal accounts
00:15:23.280 of kids doing what kids do,
00:15:24.840 which is becoming convinced
00:15:26.080 of something at age 12
00:15:27.360 that they'll look back on
00:15:28.700 at age 20
00:15:29.400 and be like,
00:15:29.940 huh, that's interesting.
00:15:31.120 I thought that.
00:15:32.580 Yeah.
00:15:32.740 And I think the larger problem here
00:15:35.620 is that the conversation
00:15:37.900 around this issue
00:15:38.940 is not a dispassionate,
00:15:42.340 intellectually honest,
00:15:43.920 compassionate approach
00:15:45.840 to get into something
00:15:47.060 like ground truth here.
00:15:48.420 It is a picture of
00:15:50.540 kind of scorched earth activism
00:15:52.960 on the one side
00:15:54.580 and a range of
00:15:57.360 well-intentioned
00:15:59.120 and block-headed approaches
00:16:01.700 to resisting the activism
00:16:03.780 on the other side, right?
00:16:05.380 I would certainly put you
00:16:06.300 in the well-intentioned camp,
00:16:07.960 but then you've got
00:16:08.580 everything that's happening
00:16:09.640 in Trumpistan
00:16:10.320 going on over your shoulder
00:16:11.880 from the point of view
00:16:12.720 of the left.
00:16:14.040 And it's just very difficult
00:16:15.660 to sort out,
00:16:16.320 but it culminates in
00:16:17.920 just culturally bizarre products.
00:16:21.360 Like, I don't know
00:16:21.880 if you recently saw this
00:16:23.060 on Twitter,
00:16:24.500 but Sarah Silverman,
00:16:25.540 the comic who I absolutely love,
00:16:27.820 who's brilliant in so many ways,
00:16:29.400 but she on this topic,
00:16:31.380 I mean, she's clearly drunk
00:16:32.520 the woke Kool-Aid here,
00:16:35.560 and she just attacked
00:16:38.380 Caitlyn Jenner, of all people,
00:16:40.860 as a transphobe.
00:16:42.740 Did you see this?
00:16:43.940 I did, yeah.
00:16:44.980 I mean, if you're calling
00:16:45.760 Caitlyn Jenner transphobic,
00:16:48.020 at some point you need
00:16:49.080 to check your math along the way
00:16:51.580 and wonder what cul-de-sac
00:16:54.880 you have argued yourself into.
00:16:56.740 Well, but I mean,
00:16:57.600 I could do you one better than that
00:16:58.700 because something like that,
00:16:59.660 you can understand why
00:17:00.540 because she's just trying to stay,
00:17:02.000 she's been criticized in the past
00:17:03.580 for offensive humor,
00:17:05.400 but like CNN in a news article,
00:17:08.100 not an opinion article,
00:17:09.100 a news article recently said
00:17:10.380 there's, quote,
00:17:11.320 no consensus method
00:17:13.040 for assigning sex at birth
00:17:14.460 with a newborn.
00:17:16.860 Like, no, does it,
00:17:18.480 does it help trans people
00:17:20.320 to say that?
00:17:21.060 Does anyone think that's true
00:17:22.640 or that it helps anybody
00:17:24.060 to think?
00:17:24.980 Does anyone, it's just very,
00:17:25.840 That sex is a total mystery
00:17:26.820 at birth, yeah.
00:17:28.380 Yes, yeah.
00:17:29.180 And this is the kind of thing,
00:17:30.240 where people often jump
00:17:32.500 to the Soviet comparison
00:17:34.440 or the cultural revolution comparison.
00:17:36.400 I obviously don't think we're there.
00:17:37.920 I do think it's completely bizarre
00:17:39.520 that we're at a place
00:17:40.320 where CNN in a news article
00:17:42.280 would try to tell its readers,
00:17:44.260 we just don't know
00:17:44.860 what sex babies are.
00:17:45.760 Who knows?
00:17:46.700 Yeah, yeah.
00:17:48.180 Well, so this is an issue
00:17:49.820 that I basically have not touched.
00:17:52.080 I mean, this is, you know,
00:17:52.780 what we've just said.
00:17:54.500 Apologies in advance, Sam.
00:17:55.600 Now is as much
00:17:56.880 as I've ever said about it.
00:17:58.220 I guess I should probably
00:17:59.380 put out a few fires
00:18:01.460 before they start,
00:18:02.420 but I just think that
00:18:03.720 there's no question
00:18:04.980 gender dysphoria
00:18:06.740 is a real phenomenon
00:18:07.840 that isn't merely
00:18:09.400 a product of
00:18:10.980 cultural contagion
00:18:12.640 or propaganda, right?
00:18:15.060 I mean, there are, you know,
00:18:15.980 I know someone
00:18:17.940 who at the age of four,
00:18:21.720 at least,
00:18:22.620 this, you know,
00:18:23.100 was just obviously
00:18:24.060 identifying as the opposite gender
00:18:26.760 and alleging any brainwashing
00:18:29.960 from the parents
00:18:30.680 or the culture
00:18:31.360 just doesn't make any sense
00:18:32.700 when you get close to this case.
00:18:35.400 And clearly,
00:18:36.820 there needs to be some path
00:18:38.080 for her to live
00:18:40.180 as happy a life as possible.
00:18:41.740 And, you know,
00:18:42.020 whether that requires
00:18:43.760 transitioning
00:18:44.920 through hormones
00:18:46.080 and surgery
00:18:46.620 at some point,
00:18:47.280 you know,
00:18:47.460 that's for the parents
00:18:49.280 and the child
00:18:49.740 to figure out
00:18:50.420 and only a,
00:18:52.780 someone who's really
00:18:54.780 just not sensitive
00:18:56.400 to the difference
00:18:58.200 between happiness
00:18:58.880 and suffering here
00:18:59.780 could doubt
00:19:01.420 that we would want
00:19:02.540 some process
00:19:03.440 to make that
00:19:04.220 as orderly
00:19:05.220 and as sensible
00:19:05.900 and as compassionate
00:19:07.100 as possible.
00:19:08.260 I mean,
00:19:08.540 and you want it
00:19:09.480 to terminate
00:19:10.300 whatever someone
00:19:11.180 winds up doing
00:19:11.980 in this space,
00:19:12.880 you want a political
00:19:14.080 environment
00:19:14.600 where there's just
00:19:15.320 no question
00:19:15.880 that there's
00:19:17.000 political equality
00:19:18.020 whatever one's
00:19:19.320 self-identified gender.
00:19:21.600 But around cases
00:19:23.480 like that,
00:19:24.460 there's an activist culture
00:19:25.960 that is just
00:19:27.720 not at all committed
00:19:29.840 to having a sane
00:19:32.180 conversation about this
00:19:33.620 and the trade-offs
00:19:34.440 between women's interests
00:19:36.680 and trans interests
00:19:37.920 and the interests
00:19:38.860 of the gay community
00:19:39.700 and trans interests
00:19:40.600 now are increasingly
00:19:41.840 zero-sum
00:19:42.640 in ways that are
00:19:43.940 pretty weird
00:19:44.720 and, you know,
00:19:46.160 the J.K. Rowling affair
00:19:47.460 was a flashpoint
00:19:49.040 around this.
00:19:49.940 I think the argument
00:19:51.000 here is that
00:19:51.660 we want to be able
00:19:53.060 to talk about this
00:19:54.520 but it does seem
00:19:56.100 like the controversy
00:19:56.840 here is completely
00:19:58.840 out of proportion
00:19:59.700 to the numbers
00:20:00.780 of people
00:20:01.340 who are actually
00:20:02.100 implicated
00:20:02.740 in this issue.
00:20:04.940 I mean,
00:20:05.080 I don't know what the,
00:20:06.020 even with an explosion
00:20:08.700 in gender identity
00:20:10.860 uncertainty
00:20:12.160 in the culture
00:20:13.580 for, you know,
00:20:14.060 whatever its origin
00:20:14.960 whether it's just,
00:20:16.000 you know,
00:20:16.300 exposing the level
00:20:17.980 that was always there
00:20:18.880 or there's some
00:20:19.700 component of social contagion
00:20:21.360 it's still a,
00:20:23.200 it has to be a sub-1%
00:20:25.020 of the population
00:20:25.980 phenomenon
00:20:27.060 and yet
00:20:27.680 it has a presence
00:20:29.140 online in particular
00:20:31.060 that, I mean,
00:20:31.640 you would think it's
00:20:32.700 as big as
00:20:34.020 wealth inequality
00:20:35.480 or racial inequality
00:20:37.200 in our society.
00:20:38.800 Do you regret
00:20:39.800 touching this topic
00:20:41.040 at all?
00:20:42.880 I do sometimes.
00:20:44.680 It's just,
00:20:45.280 it's sort of,
00:20:46.280 when this gets
00:20:47.260 its craziest
00:20:48.060 it gets very crazy
00:20:49.160 and, you know,
00:20:50.580 I'm not,
00:20:51.180 I'm not trying
00:20:52.540 to report from Syria.
00:20:53.760 I don't feel my life
00:20:54.520 is at risk
00:20:55.000 but, you know,
00:20:56.020 there's a subset
00:20:57.500 of people
00:20:57.880 who really try
00:20:58.540 to inflict
00:20:58.960 as much reputational
00:21:00.060 damage as possible
00:21:01.020 and it's not,
00:21:01.540 it's not fun
00:21:02.180 to go through.
00:21:03.160 That said,
00:21:03.920 I'm confident
00:21:05.440 in my work
00:21:06.140 and I'm confident
00:21:06.780 in the Atlantic's
00:21:07.420 editing and fact-checking
00:21:08.440 and I would still
00:21:09.680 point people
00:21:10.180 to this article
00:21:10.780 as a good way
00:21:11.960 to understand
00:21:12.800 this issue
00:21:13.400 and it includes
00:21:14.720 the voices
00:21:15.140 of happily transitioned
00:21:16.200 young people
00:21:16.900 so I can't really
00:21:18.800 say I regret it.
00:21:19.560 I also,
00:21:19.980 on net,
00:21:20.340 I've benefited
00:21:20.800 from the controversy
00:21:21.640 because controversy
00:21:22.440 attracts eyeballs
00:21:23.580 and then people see
00:21:24.620 the article,
00:21:25.620 read the article itself
00:21:26.460 and are baffled
00:21:27.040 as to what's
00:21:27.800 controversial about it.
00:21:29.240 And the question
00:21:30.060 of why the issue
00:21:31.120 is so big,
00:21:31.680 I do think
00:21:32.560 it's complicated.
00:21:33.340 There's a subset
00:21:34.660 of people
00:21:35.040 who from a very young age
00:21:36.160 are deeply dysphoric
00:21:37.180 and when I first
00:21:39.140 started learning
00:21:39.620 about this issue,
00:21:40.240 the idea of forcing
00:21:41.240 people to live
00:21:42.300 as men
00:21:43.620 or as males
00:21:44.640 when this is just
00:21:45.940 going to bring them
00:21:46.500 tremendous misery
00:21:47.520 and when in 99%
00:21:49.120 of cases
00:21:49.640 this won't hurt
00:21:50.460 anyone else
00:21:51.080 for them to transition,
00:21:52.160 I find there is
00:21:53.500 a genuine level
00:21:54.300 of cruelty there
00:21:55.120 or a level of maybe
00:21:56.340 rigidity of thinking
00:21:58.420 where at a certain
00:21:59.460 point it really is,
00:22:00.700 there should be
00:22:01.200 a little bit
00:22:01.640 of who cares
00:22:02.260 to this discussion.
00:22:03.100 Who cares
00:22:03.500 if people transition
00:22:04.220 if they're not
00:22:05.180 hurting others?
00:22:05.840 And then there's
00:22:06.780 that 1%
00:22:07.740 or 5%
00:22:08.500 or 10%
00:22:09.060 of the issue
00:22:09.500 when you're
00:22:10.080 talking about kids
00:22:11.120 and diagnostic
00:22:12.240 procedures
00:22:12.800 or when you're
00:22:13.560 talking about sports
00:22:14.660 or sort of
00:22:15.920 non-everyday
00:22:16.640 but still important
00:22:17.440 issues like prison,
00:22:19.180 stuff like that,
00:22:20.400 where we need
00:22:20.940 to be able
00:22:21.220 to have a sane
00:22:21.720 conversation
00:22:22.300 or there's
00:22:23.040 just going
00:22:23.360 to be
00:22:23.680 endless
00:22:24.000 culture warring
00:22:24.820 and backlash.
00:22:25.780 But there's
00:22:26.740 absolutely
00:22:27.360 a subset
00:22:28.360 of people
00:22:28.700 who I do
00:22:29.100 not think
00:22:29.500 will be able
00:22:29.820 to live
00:22:30.120 authentic
00:22:30.580 happy lives
00:22:31.220 unless they're
00:22:31.720 allowed to
00:22:32.060 transition.
00:22:33.020 The percentages
00:22:33.580 are tricky
00:22:34.140 because a lot
00:22:35.540 of social science
00:22:37.180 institutions
00:22:37.800 and media outlets
00:22:38.680 have sort of
00:22:39.160 taken cues
00:22:40.640 from activists
00:22:41.680 who are trying
00:22:42.260 to lump together
00:22:42.880 very different
00:22:43.440 cases.
00:22:44.280 So basically
00:22:45.000 the definition
00:22:45.640 of someone
00:22:46.020 who's transgender
00:22:46.500 at this point
00:22:47.040 is someone
00:22:47.380 who identifies
00:22:47.940 as transgender
00:22:48.660 and that ranges
00:22:49.800 from people
00:22:50.340 who don't have
00:22:50.880 any dysphoria
00:22:51.680 who will never
00:22:52.340 need medical
00:22:52.880 health care
00:22:53.380 to people
00:22:54.120 who are
00:22:54.360 deeply dysphoric.
00:22:55.660 So that sub
00:22:56.460 one percent
00:22:57.100 figure I think
00:22:58.100 is actually
00:22:58.600 not true.
00:22:59.840 I mean some
00:23:00.240 polling shows
00:23:01.160 much higher
00:23:02.460 numbers especially
00:23:03.200 among young
00:23:03.740 people but that's
00:23:04.540 because no one's
00:23:05.100 ever bothered
00:23:05.600 to really define
00:23:07.340 gender as it's
00:23:08.400 used today
00:23:08.820 in a coherent
00:23:09.360 way.
00:23:09.760 Gender seems
00:23:10.300 to mean a
00:23:10.760 million different
00:23:11.600 things.
00:23:12.220 So when we
00:23:12.500 talk about a
00:23:13.020 gender revolution
00:23:13.740 which is
00:23:14.300 language you
00:23:14.920 often hear
00:23:15.400 sometimes that
00:23:16.380 really is just
00:23:17.180 you know
00:23:17.520 14 year old
00:23:18.220 saying I
00:23:19.540 painted my
00:23:20.040 nails so I'm
00:23:20.640 non-binary
00:23:21.460 which is fine
00:23:22.300 and doesn't
00:23:22.660 hurt anyone
00:23:23.060 but that's
00:23:23.360 not the same
00:23:23.840 as having
00:23:24.320 dysphoria
00:23:24.820 and needing
00:23:25.340 medical help.
00:23:27.280 What would
00:23:27.500 you put the
00:23:28.320 percentage at?
00:23:29.800 Well I mean
00:23:30.220 the UCLA's
00:23:31.480 Williams Institute
00:23:32.200 I think puts
00:23:33.140 it at around
00:23:33.920 one percent
00:23:34.520 but I do
00:23:35.000 think especially
00:23:36.340 in the rise
00:23:37.000 of people
00:23:37.500 kids especially
00:23:38.540 identifying as
00:23:39.340 non-binary
00:23:39.760 any chunk
00:23:41.380 of the younger
00:23:41.820 population
00:23:42.440 it's probably
00:23:43.740 significantly higher
00:23:44.800 than that
00:23:45.200 and it doesn't
00:23:46.620 matter.
00:23:47.160 This is not
00:23:47.500 a threat to
00:23:48.380 anyone.
00:23:48.520 And the
00:23:48.700 only cases
00:23:49.720 I'm concerned
00:23:50.340 about are
00:23:51.040 when medical
00:23:52.360 interventions are
00:23:53.120 on the table.
00:23:54.540 Yeah it's
00:23:55.240 difficult and
00:23:56.260 no one should
00:23:58.160 envy anyone
00:23:59.000 parent or
00:24:00.120 child going
00:24:00.840 through it
00:24:01.440 but the
00:24:03.520 style of
00:24:04.920 conversation
00:24:05.560 on this
00:24:06.260 issue and
00:24:06.740 on so many
00:24:07.420 others at
00:24:07.800 the moment
00:24:08.180 is so
00:24:08.680 poisonous
00:24:09.180 and so
00:24:11.020 explicitly
00:24:11.680 aimed at
00:24:13.220 defenestrating
00:24:14.960 people and
00:24:16.280 the people
00:24:16.660 who survive
00:24:17.760 the mobbing
00:24:19.400 are either
00:24:20.400 very lucky
00:24:21.900 or they've
00:24:23.880 been previously
00:24:25.460 insulated from
00:24:26.560 the consequences
00:24:27.220 of this.
00:24:27.660 I mean someone
00:24:27.920 like J.K.
00:24:28.520 Rowling is
00:24:29.080 probably the
00:24:30.540 best example
00:24:31.160 because in
00:24:32.120 her case I
00:24:32.640 think it's
00:24:33.100 pretty obvious
00:24:34.380 that had she
00:24:35.580 not been J.K.
00:24:36.700 Rowling she
00:24:38.120 would have been
00:24:38.980 cancelled.
00:24:40.200 I mean her book
00:24:40.800 would have been
00:24:41.360 too much money
00:24:41.920 is on the line.
00:24:42.380 Yeah I mean
00:24:43.120 she is a
00:24:43.840 you know
00:24:44.360 literally a
00:24:45.220 billion dollar
00:24:46.100 colossus in
00:24:47.380 the publishing
00:24:48.080 industry opening
00:24:49.420 theme parks
00:24:50.360 based on her
00:24:51.000 novels.
00:24:51.900 It's impossible
00:24:52.760 to cancel her
00:24:53.560 but it seems
00:24:54.900 that even
00:24:55.340 there they
00:24:56.300 got fairly
00:24:56.860 close given
00:24:58.420 I mean when
00:24:59.040 you know the
00:24:59.840 Hollywood actors
00:25:00.920 whose careers
00:25:02.180 were entirely
00:25:03.120 defined by
00:25:05.080 her intellectual
00:25:06.380 property come
00:25:07.720 out and
00:25:08.660 disavow her
00:25:09.640 that's a big
00:25:10.800 deal especially
00:25:11.600 given how
00:25:13.180 anodyne the
00:25:14.740 things were
00:25:15.360 that she
00:25:15.700 said on
00:25:16.220 this issue.
00:25:18.000 Yeah I mean
00:25:18.560 you know it
00:25:19.260 gets complicated
00:25:19.840 because they're
00:25:20.520 expressing their
00:25:21.380 opinions they
00:25:22.060 have every
00:25:22.500 right to.
00:25:23.400 In the Rowling
00:25:24.540 case I
00:25:25.220 she was mostly
00:25:27.000 responding to
00:25:27.820 the idea of
00:25:28.800 reforming the
00:25:29.680 Gender Recognition
00:25:30.420 Act in the UK
00:25:31.100 so that self-ID
00:25:32.480 is basically the
00:25:33.300 law of the land
00:25:33.760 meaning you
00:25:34.800 can transition
00:25:35.660 your sex
00:25:36.240 without much
00:25:36.920 of a process
00:25:37.360 you just sort
00:25:38.020 of announce
00:25:39.420 bureaucratically
00:25:40.300 you sign
00:25:40.780 something and
00:25:41.280 you say I'm
00:25:42.000 now a man
00:25:42.680 I'm now a
00:25:43.120 woman it's
00:25:44.220 just been
00:25:44.540 weird watching
00:25:45.340 watching the
00:25:46.080 conversation over
00:25:46.840 that unfold I
00:25:48.260 generally don't
00:25:49.000 have a strong
00:25:49.360 opinion on it I
00:25:49.960 haven't looked
00:25:50.360 deeply enough
00:25:50.860 into it but
00:25:51.360 but you would
00:25:51.820 think that like
00:25:52.540 we should at
00:25:53.040 least be able to
00:25:53.580 talk about a
00:25:54.320 proposed change
00:25:55.240 to the law but
00:25:56.420 any opposition to
00:25:58.940 that or even
00:25:59.540 questions about it
00:26:00.720 is treated as
00:26:01.860 as though you
00:26:03.140 want trans people
00:26:04.220 to die and
00:26:05.360 and I'm only I'm
00:26:06.420 not really
00:26:06.860 exaggerating there
00:26:07.820 and that's
00:26:08.940 just not I
00:26:10.000 don't know
00:26:10.240 watching mage
00:26:11.020 mainstream media
00:26:11.720 outlets go along
00:26:12.540 with that and
00:26:13.140 and pretend that
00:26:14.020 there couldn't
00:26:14.600 possibly be any
00:26:15.700 trade-offs here
00:26:16.500 to the point
00:26:17.000 where the the
00:26:17.920 Guardian wrote
00:26:18.740 an unsigned
00:26:19.620 editorial simply
00:26:21.220 stating there
00:26:21.860 might be some
00:26:22.420 trade-offs here
00:26:23.100 and the US
00:26:23.760 Guardian several
00:26:24.520 staffers there
00:26:25.140 wrote a scathing
00:26:25.900 rebuttal about
00:26:26.960 how transphobic
00:26:27.740 their colleagues
00:26:28.320 across the pond
00:26:29.080 were it's just
00:26:29.720 you sort of you
00:26:31.000 you need to have
00:26:31.780 an actual
00:26:32.100 conversation about
00:26:32.960 a policy issue
00:26:33.760 and that means
00:26:34.580 that those of us
00:26:35.120 participating in it
00:26:36.120 we need to we
00:26:37.160 run the risk
00:26:37.640 maybe 20 years
00:26:38.420 ago 20 years
00:26:39.180 from now will
00:26:39.580 be history's
00:26:40.620 monsters but to
00:26:41.420 not have that
00:26:42.080 discussion at all
00:26:42.760 to skip right
00:26:43.380 ahead to this is
00:26:44.000 the right policy
00:26:44.720 and anyone who
00:26:45.300 questions it should
00:26:45.900 be destroyed
00:26:46.460 just just isn't
00:26:47.760 a sane way to
00:26:48.500 do business
00:26:49.040 I wasn't even
00:26:50.600 thinking of that
00:26:51.420 aspect of the
00:26:52.380 conversation was
00:26:53.060 more I mean
00:26:53.520 when I saw
00:26:54.760 things kick off
00:26:55.560 against Rowling
00:26:57.100 it was just on
00:26:58.020 her obvious
00:26:59.420 concern about the
00:27:00.260 the degradation of
00:27:01.960 the English
00:27:02.660 language right
00:27:03.560 she was pushing
00:27:04.220 back against
00:27:04.820 some I forget
00:27:06.180 who it was
00:27:06.620 but someone was
00:27:07.220 not using the
00:27:07.780 word woman
00:27:08.340 in the context
00:27:09.620 of talking about
00:27:10.560 people who
00:27:11.140 menstruate right
00:27:12.100 they didn't want
00:27:12.560 to use woman
00:27:13.100 because that
00:27:13.580 would be would
00:27:14.460 be denigrating
00:27:15.120 to all of the
00:27:15.840 trans women
00:27:17.100 who don't
00:27:17.520 menstruate so
00:27:18.620 they they referred
00:27:19.360 to you know
00:27:19.920 menstruators or
00:27:20.740 people who
00:27:21.140 menstruate and
00:27:21.820 and JK Rowling
00:27:22.840 got on Twitter
00:27:23.420 saying in a
00:27:24.840 somewhat snide
00:27:25.440 way well surely
00:27:26.520 there's a there's
00:27:27.140 a word for
00:27:28.080 someone who
00:27:28.560 menstruates and
00:27:29.860 then reap the
00:27:31.480 whirlwind on the
00:27:32.180 basis of that
00:27:32.760 yeah I you
00:27:34.380 know I think
00:27:35.280 there's an extent
00:27:36.140 to which not
00:27:37.900 just among
00:27:38.720 trans activists
00:27:40.320 but activists in
00:27:41.100 general there's
00:27:41.620 been this weird
00:27:42.200 tumblerization or
00:27:43.280 twitterization of
00:27:44.080 everything where
00:27:44.720 the specific
00:27:45.820 fights we have
00:27:47.280 aren't always the
00:27:49.280 most productive
00:27:49.880 ones if your goal
00:27:50.680 is to convince
00:27:51.400 people who aren't
00:27:52.020 yet convinced I
00:27:52.800 mean imagine
00:27:53.260 the difference if
00:27:54.620 you're new to
00:27:55.080 trans activism
00:27:55.700 between hearing an
00:27:56.660 interview with
00:27:57.140 someone who is
00:27:57.880 who is just going
00:27:58.940 to be miserable
00:27:59.540 unless they have
00:28:00.260 access to transition
00:28:01.100 services and there
00:28:01.840 are a lot of
00:28:02.100 people like that
00:28:02.660 versus versus
00:28:03.840 the your first
00:28:04.500 encounter with it
00:28:05.140 being you can't
00:28:06.200 say pregnant women
00:28:06.900 anymore they're
00:28:07.460 pregnant people or
00:28:08.280 they're menstruators
00:28:09.240 there there seems
00:28:10.840 to be here and
00:28:12.260 elsewhere little
00:28:13.300 people aren't really
00:28:15.140 attending to the
00:28:16.100 idea that maybe
00:28:16.760 they should try to
00:28:17.440 couch the political
00:28:18.660 claims in language
00:28:19.780 the as yet
00:28:21.340 unconverted would be
00:28:22.800 sympathetic to
00:28:23.400 so now how do you
00:28:24.840 pick your battles
00:28:25.660 at this point
00:28:26.520 because you don't
00:28:27.300 shy away from
00:28:28.060 controversy even
00:28:28.920 though you you
00:28:29.980 are battle
00:28:31.140 scarred on this
00:28:32.480 topic what what
00:28:33.480 do you are there
00:28:34.260 are there things
00:28:34.760 that you decline
00:28:36.800 to touch now
00:28:37.760 because of this
00:28:39.240 experience or do
00:28:40.560 you just keep
00:28:42.320 forging ahead
00:28:43.800 toward any
00:28:44.520 culture war issue
00:28:45.640 that interests
00:28:46.280 you I mean so
00:28:48.440 one of the benefits
00:28:49.220 of having a
00:28:49.800 sub stack is when
00:28:50.620 I do write about
00:28:51.320 these issues it's
00:28:52.280 often behind a
00:28:52.940 paywall and
00:28:53.600 there's downsides
00:28:54.240 to that because
00:28:54.960 you know if you'd
00:28:56.260 like to contribute
00:28:56.860 to the public
00:28:57.380 discourse but
00:28:58.180 especially given
00:28:59.460 that my views
00:29:00.020 aren't that that
00:29:00.980 radical I mean I
00:29:02.060 it is you can
00:29:03.400 avoid the Twitter
00:29:04.020 shitstorm which is
00:29:04.820 nice I I do
00:29:07.160 think people who
00:29:07.820 write about
00:29:08.240 cultural issues
00:29:09.000 there is this
00:29:09.820 risk that you
00:29:10.860 get pulled into
00:29:12.000 this black hole
00:29:12.880 where your entire
00:29:14.700 intellectual identity
00:29:16.480 becomes centered on
00:29:17.580 like fighting the
00:29:18.800 SJWs or whatever
00:29:19.920 or or fighting the
00:29:21.700 worst college
00:29:22.440 professors and I'm
00:29:23.520 I'm worried about
00:29:24.760 that because there
00:29:25.380 is some incentive
00:29:26.140 to do that like if
00:29:26.940 I wanted to
00:29:27.360 maximize my
00:29:28.420 sub stack revenue
00:29:29.540 I would just do
00:29:30.100 culture worship all
00:29:30.940 the time but there
00:29:32.120 really there are more
00:29:33.060 important things in
00:29:33.780 the world so I
00:29:35.120 haven't figured out
00:29:36.020 how to how to
00:29:36.680 strike the right
00:29:37.160 balance but I'm
00:29:37.920 trying to
00:29:38.480 yeah that is a
00:29:40.600 a real liability of
00:29:42.340 touching these
00:29:43.020 topics it's this
00:29:44.700 phenomenon that I've
00:29:45.400 discussed at a few
00:29:46.920 points which goes by
00:29:48.900 the name at least in
00:29:49.760 my brain of audience
00:29:51.300 capture where you if
00:29:53.080 you yes train your
00:29:54.780 audience or you
00:29:56.200 acquire an audience
00:29:57.200 that wants to hear
00:29:59.000 from you on on
00:29:59.940 this hottest of
00:30:01.500 topics yeah you
00:30:03.260 you can kind of
00:30:04.040 self-incentivize to
00:30:05.220 keep doing it and
00:30:06.260 I've certainly done
00:30:07.520 my best to avoid
00:30:08.360 that I mean really
00:30:09.380 not because I
00:30:11.320 mean the main
00:30:12.180 reason for me is
00:30:12.920 just it's just that
00:30:13.700 it's it's too
00:30:15.080 boring right I
00:30:16.600 mean it's just it's
00:30:17.540 just deadly there's
00:30:18.260 there's not that much
00:30:19.340 to think about here
00:30:20.660 once you have a
00:30:23.280 modicum of intellectual
00:30:24.880 honesty and goodwill
00:30:26.420 in hand it's just
00:30:27.300 not this is not it's
00:30:29.820 not rocket science to
00:30:31.440 see what's wrong with
00:30:34.080 with essentially lying
00:30:36.260 and seizing upon
00:30:39.000 confirmation bias as
00:30:40.920 though it were some
00:30:41.340 kind of virtue and
00:30:42.880 then trying to destroy
00:30:44.160 people who won't play
00:30:45.240 that game I mean so
00:30:46.660 criticizing that whole
00:30:47.960 tangle of bad form
00:30:50.300 in argumentation
00:30:51.940 again and again and
00:30:53.200 again is just it
00:30:54.240 gets deadly boring
00:30:55.020 but and there are
00:30:55.840 people who do it
00:30:56.780 and they become
00:30:58.060 single issue people
00:31:00.640 to a point where
00:31:02.060 yeah then they then
00:31:03.360 they allow themselves
00:31:04.080 to make alliances
00:31:04.980 that are obviously
00:31:07.260 ethically or
00:31:08.680 intellectually
00:31:09.640 questionable or both
00:31:11.260 right I don't know
00:31:12.740 that we need to name
00:31:13.440 names here but there
00:31:14.260 are people who I
00:31:15.360 think I agree with
00:31:16.580 95% on the topic
00:31:19.660 of what's wrong
00:31:20.900 with wokeism or
00:31:22.280 you know cancel
00:31:23.000 culture or identity
00:31:24.200 politics but the
00:31:25.840 5% of daylight
00:31:27.200 between us opens
00:31:29.420 on to the full
00:31:31.520 horror show of
00:31:32.640 Trumpistan and
00:31:33.760 QAnon and just
00:31:35.720 absolute madness
00:31:36.920 that these people
00:31:38.720 refuse to criticize
00:31:40.320 because those
00:31:41.960 cultural forces are
00:31:43.700 pointing in the same
00:31:44.720 direction against the
00:31:46.780 wokeness on the left
00:31:48.500 and so you know it's
00:31:49.720 just this principle
00:31:50.500 you know the the
00:31:51.220 enemy of my enemy is
00:31:52.180 my friend which
00:31:54.020 really is just it's
00:31:55.440 just a bad heuristic
00:31:56.980 that was like a big
00:31:58.520 moment for me as
00:31:59.320 like a warning sign
00:32:00.280 of what can happen
00:32:01.000 if you're not
00:32:01.480 intellectually careful
00:32:02.420 and don't have some
00:32:03.480 humility humility
00:32:04.480 watching all these
00:32:05.300 sort of anti-woke
00:32:06.840 people either
00:32:08.140 announce they were
00:32:08.940 voting for Trump or
00:32:10.140 claiming there wasn't
00:32:11.240 really a big and
00:32:12.740 meaningful difference
00:32:13.400 between Trump and
00:32:14.140 Biden to claim to
00:32:16.180 speak for liberalism
00:32:17.540 classical or otherwise
00:32:18.620 and then not be
00:32:20.440 outraged by Trump
00:32:21.580 it just it all becomes
00:32:22.820 tribalism and in many
00:32:23.920 cases they take on the
00:32:24.980 characteristics of their
00:32:25.820 enemies you'll see
00:32:26.700 them talk about
00:32:27.540 wokeism in the same
00:32:29.160 way the least
00:32:30.760 thoughtful thinkers on
00:32:31.940 the left talk about
00:32:32.680 white supremacy as
00:32:33.580 this like mystical
00:32:34.420 force that just
00:32:35.260 infects everything and
00:32:36.420 can't really be
00:32:36.940 explained in normal
00:32:38.300 terrestrial language
00:32:39.260 and you end up
00:32:40.100 sounding like a cult
00:32:40.980 member at the end of
00:32:41.680 the day not not
00:32:42.440 someone capable of
00:32:44.040 intellectual engagement
00:32:45.420 and weighing trade
00:32:46.660 offs I just yeah I
00:32:48.440 can't stand that at
00:32:49.740 all I also um there's
00:32:51.620 a really good book by
00:32:52.320 Todd Gitlin called the
00:32:53.260 twilight of common
00:32:54.140 dreams he wrote in
00:32:55.020 1995 as just as a
00:32:56.560 lefty attempt to make
00:32:57.480 sense of the culture
00:32:58.240 wars and you know
00:32:59.520 he's outraged by the
00:33:00.640 1995 equivalent of
00:33:02.040 wokeness he's also
00:33:02.860 outraged at conservative
00:33:04.360 attempts to sort of
00:33:05.340 um uh piggyback off it
00:33:07.420 in bad faith and it's
00:33:09.040 such a depressing book
00:33:09.920 to read because there
00:33:10.820 are almost other than
00:33:12.640 social media there are
00:33:13.620 no differences between
00:33:14.660 the fights that were
00:33:15.340 going on then and the
00:33:16.240 fights that are going
00:33:16.740 on it's just it's all
00:33:17.760 the same shit was
00:33:19.260 slightly different
00:33:19.920 language and it's just
00:33:20.900 like how many decades
00:33:22.540 of your life do you
00:33:23.180 want to spend doing the
00:33:25.100 culture war thing when
00:33:25.920 when there's not I'm
00:33:27.260 not sure it's gonna be
00:33:28.120 any different 30 years
00:33:29.120 from now but something
00:33:30.900 has changed I mean this
00:33:32.160 may be a difference of
00:33:35.480 view between us in
00:33:36.400 terms of how dire the
00:33:39.340 current moment is
00:33:40.260 because I mean in
00:33:41.540 1995 there hadn't
00:33:43.800 been unless I just
00:33:45.660 slept through it or I
00:33:47.200 was too young to care
00:33:48.460 or something it does
00:33:50.660 not seem that there
00:33:52.600 had been the same
00:33:53.340 kind of institutional
00:33:54.500 capture by what
00:33:56.360 certainly to my eyes
00:33:57.980 seems like a public
00:34:00.060 hysteria and the
00:34:01.960 difference I mean the
00:34:02.860 reason why it makes
00:34:03.880 sense to worry more
00:34:05.420 about the far left
00:34:07.440 and I guess we just
00:34:09.380 can keep calling it
00:34:10.380 wokeness to capture
00:34:12.140 the whole phenomenon
00:34:12.820 the reason why it
00:34:13.900 makes sense to be
00:34:14.680 more worried about
00:34:16.120 wokeness than by you
00:34:18.940 know white supremacy
00:34:20.160 say is because genuine
00:34:23.320 white supremacy is a
00:34:25.380 true fringe phenomenon
00:34:27.620 on the right the people
00:34:29.780 who show up with tiki
00:34:30.700 torches are obviously
00:34:32.660 retrograde assholes and
00:34:34.660 they don't I mean apart
00:34:35.540 from the fact that
00:34:36.540 you know Trump gave
00:34:37.440 them some comfort with
00:34:39.100 his ambiguities we're
00:34:40.940 not talking about real
00:34:43.320 cultural power for the
00:34:45.540 fringe on the right
00:34:46.380 whereas the fringe on
00:34:48.160 the left really does seem
00:34:50.240 to have captured
00:34:51.160 academia and media and
00:34:54.100 tech and Hollywood not
00:34:57.280 every inch of it
00:34:58.160 perhaps and obviously
00:34:59.800 there's a ton of
00:35:00.660 preference falsification
00:35:01.820 I mean there are many
00:35:02.660 many people who are just
00:35:03.480 keeping mum or paying
00:35:05.700 lip service to an
00:35:06.660 ideology that they don't
00:35:07.720 actually share and
00:35:08.560 they're waiting for
00:35:09.120 everyone to wake up so
00:35:10.280 that it'll be safe to be
00:35:11.320 honest again but it
00:35:12.960 still has been captured
00:35:14.240 to an amazing degree so
00:35:17.680 in terms of cultural
00:35:18.740 influence and the
00:35:20.260 stifling of honest
00:35:21.840 conversation that's
00:35:23.720 happening in mainstream
00:35:25.000 really in every
00:35:26.820 mainstream quadrant of
00:35:28.160 culture that is a leftist
00:35:30.360 phenomenon
00:35:31.060 so I agree that that's
00:35:33.860 a difference between
00:35:34.920 then and now I guess
00:35:36.400 part of me I think the
00:35:38.460 preference falsification
00:35:39.260 thing is huge just based
00:35:40.740 on the emails I get from
00:35:41.960 from professors and
00:35:43.060 journalists who think
00:35:43.920 their own department or
00:35:45.180 newsroom has gone crazy
00:35:46.480 if there is capture I'm
00:35:49.300 not sure how sustainable
00:35:50.780 it is because so many
00:35:52.320 people are are quietly
00:35:53.820 freaking out about you
00:35:56.220 know what the Trump
00:35:56.900 years have done to their
00:35:57.760 institutions and there
00:35:59.960 seems to be a steady
00:36:00.820 stream of stories that
00:36:02.840 leak and that outrage
00:36:04.340 every it's just it's a
00:36:05.540 very whatever it is and
00:36:07.280 I agree wokeness is I
00:36:08.680 don't know if that's the
00:36:09.260 best word away but you
00:36:10.260 could fight all day over
00:36:11.400 what to call it it is not
00:36:12.500 a popular ideology it
00:36:13.800 really isn't I mean
00:36:14.620 whatever polling you look
00:36:15.620 at but the people who
00:36:17.400 believe in it you know
00:36:18.860 they're people from
00:36:19.540 backgrounds like mine
00:36:20.280 they're they're they're
00:36:21.080 well-educated they're in
00:36:22.200 media I just I'm not
00:36:23.840 sure you can sort of
00:36:25.300 foist it on on people
00:36:26.880 for that long without
00:36:28.280 there being backlash
00:36:29.140 and I think that does
00:36:29.940 partly explain you know
00:36:32.120 the sub stack thing and
00:36:33.320 the success of of of our
00:36:34.800 podcasts and others so I
00:36:36.960 guess I just what I
00:36:37.740 don't want is like total
00:36:38.700 balkanization where where
00:36:40.460 these outlets keep going
00:36:41.860 down that road and to
00:36:42.840 get the other view but
00:36:44.160 still left of center view
00:36:45.340 your only choice is is
00:36:46.780 sub stack or certain
00:36:47.800 podcasts yeah that I
00:36:50.260 think is totally
00:36:51.480 unsustainable but what to
00:36:53.780 do about it is the
00:36:54.480 question I was recently
00:36:55.760 at a a meeting of very
00:36:59.180 connected people in tech
00:37:01.320 and media and I say I
00:37:04.360 won't name anyone but I
00:37:05.600 mean these are people who
00:37:06.460 are are running or were
00:37:08.560 running some of the
00:37:09.940 biggest companies these are
00:37:12.140 people with massive
00:37:13.480 influence and these were
00:37:15.180 people who are you know on
00:37:16.360 the same page with
00:37:17.100 everything we've said
00:37:17.760 here but when when told
00:37:20.240 that they really should
00:37:23.540 just present a united
00:37:24.600 front here and not
00:37:25.780 tolerate these mutinies of
00:37:28.100 their their woke employees
00:37:30.640 so the example I gave in
00:37:32.540 this meeting was you know
00:37:33.980 what happened to Nicholas
00:37:35.180 Christakis at Yale so my
00:37:37.460 premise was at some point
00:37:39.980 and I think we're at that
00:37:41.020 point there is no substitute
00:37:45.040 for institutional courage
00:37:47.260 right you can have the
00:37:48.300 courage of individuals but
00:37:50.640 at a certain point the
00:37:51.900 institutions themselves have
00:37:53.620 to say okay no more
00:37:55.100 this party of masochism and
00:37:59.060 delusion is over so when
00:38:02.520 you look at what happened at
00:38:04.020 Yale when you watch that
00:38:05.580 video of Nicholas summoning
00:38:08.180 more patients than anyone
00:38:10.280 you know out you know
00:38:11.740 short of you know a
00:38:13.180 Christian saint who has been
00:38:14.300 crucified with a happy
00:38:15.660 smile on his face has
00:38:16.760 has managed to muster and
00:38:18.660 you see the behavior of
00:38:19.920 those students that was
00:38:20.860 borderline physically
00:38:22.680 threatening at points and
00:38:24.780 totally intolerable from an
00:38:27.360 academic point of view it's
00:38:29.100 just it's patently obvious
00:38:30.660 to me what should have
00:38:31.640 happened there that some of
00:38:32.720 those kids should have been
00:38:33.860 expelled from Yale it was
00:38:36.020 completely beyond the pale what
00:38:38.840 they were up to there and what
00:38:41.920 actually happened is they got
00:38:43.740 awards for activism they were
00:38:46.620 literally given awards right
00:38:49.220 some of them I don't know how
00:38:50.300 many got awards but some some of
00:38:51.980 the principal people in that
00:38:53.380 video got singled out for their
00:38:55.540 their heroic activism which was
00:38:58.100 antithetical to anything a sane
00:39:00.540 university needs to be committed
00:39:02.800 to in terms of a dispassionate
00:39:05.760 search for truth so I floated that
00:39:08.160 example to these captains of
00:39:10.040 industry and I said at what point do
00:39:12.560 your companies just hold the line
00:39:15.400 and say if you feel that way go
00:39:17.300 work somewhere else and everyone
00:39:20.740 in the room agreed that that was
00:39:22.880 not going to happen that there was
00:39:24.700 no way that was going to happen
00:39:26.220 just because of the backlash yeah
00:39:28.180 that it's gone too far it's too
00:39:30.720 scary there's too much money to
00:39:32.540 lose it was a complete not it went
00:39:34.840 over like a lead balloon that was a
00:39:37.140 complete non-starter and I kept
00:39:39.660 pushing it I said listen the people in
00:39:41.940 this room literally know everybody
00:39:43.980 you could have a star chamber
00:39:45.940 meeting where everyone agreed to be
00:39:47.700 on the same page here so that the
00:39:49.960 mutineers from Google couldn't just
00:39:51.840 jump over to Amazon or Facebook or
00:39:53.960 Apple or you could literally get
00:39:55.740 everyone to agree to just wake up
00:40:00.060 simultaneously and they said there's
00:40:04.520 no way it's going to happen it's over
00:40:06.680 it was an incredibly bleak picture
00:40:11.140 coming from people who either are at
00:40:13.860 the top or were at the top of some of
00:40:16.220 the biggest businesses in tech and
00:40:18.320 media right and which suggested to me
00:40:21.280 that this is you know the situation is
00:40:23.720 worse than I thought not better I mean I
00:40:27.640 wouldn't want I saw the video it was
00:40:29.960 terrible but I wouldn't want the kids
00:40:31.300 expelled why can't it be a middle way
00:40:33.020 where you don't expel them but you
00:40:34.680 just explain at a certain point you
00:40:36.620 need to explain like you know you
00:40:38.460 guys don't make the rule something
00:40:39.900 similar happened as Simon and
00:40:41.380 Schuster where you know Mike Pence's
00:40:43.200 book employees wanted to cancel it and
00:40:45.940 the the higher-ups were like you know
00:40:48.320 no we're not canceling it obviously
00:40:49.600 that's another case where a lot of
00:40:50.620 money was involved so it wasn't like
00:40:51.860 doing it out of their out of the good
00:40:54.340 of their liberal hearts but but I mean
00:40:56.520 that's that's a depressing story I just
00:40:58.280 think it it doesn't seem like the
00:41:00.880 places that have just said you know
00:41:03.520 sorry we disagree with you on this
00:41:05.080 have suffered as a result I mean
00:41:06.540 there's another dumb blow-up involving
00:41:08.200 Trader Joe or some blogger or Twitter
00:41:10.340 or tried to say their brand names were
00:41:12.560 offensive and Twitter just Trader Joe's
00:41:14.320 just said said no why why can't more
00:41:16.100 people just say no that's the one
00:41:17.820 example I mean that and Basecamp are
00:41:19.900 the examples of companies standing I
00:41:22.680 don't think Trader Joe's suffered any I
00:41:25.100 don't don't actually know but I
00:41:26.360 hadn't I haven't heard that they
00:41:27.680 suffered much of anything as a
00:41:29.500 consequence but Basecamp lost you
00:41:31.480 know whatever 30 percent of its
00:41:33.520 employees and I think the picture of
00:41:36.640 something like that happening at
00:41:37.720 Facebook or Apple or anywhere else is
00:41:40.480 too terrifying but that that only
00:41:42.780 presumes that they would have
00:41:44.280 somewhere they could go I just think
00:41:46.580 that a certain point institutions have
00:41:48.340 to present a united frontier I mean the
00:41:50.860 problem is that if you flipped it if
00:41:52.960 you flip the to take the variable of
00:41:55.540 race here it is reverse racism well it's
00:41:59.300 creating a completely hostile you mean
00:42:01.280 like the Yale thing no the Yale thing
00:42:03.600 was deranged around this this issue of
00:42:06.380 Halloween costumes and but I mean the
00:42:09.140 thing that is causing so much chaos in
00:42:12.680 most of these instances in these
00:42:15.320 corporations obviously the trans issue
00:42:17.380 comes up again and again but it's much
00:42:19.820 more common that the issue is born of
00:42:22.180 concerns about racial inequality which you
00:42:24.780 obviously are understandable and need to
00:42:28.260 be addressed in some way throughout our
00:42:31.360 society but there's just a continuous
00:42:34.880 allegation of racism where the allegations
00:42:38.920 not only unwarranted it's obviously
00:42:41.940 unwarranted right like all the participants
00:42:44.700 actually know that it's unwarranted you take
00:42:47.320 the case of there are so many cases here but
00:42:50.160 the one that comes to mind here is what
00:42:52.760 happened at Netflix with the head of
00:42:56.040 communications Jonathan Friedland who got
00:42:58.200 fired you know he for using the n-word in a
00:43:02.520 context that was not a use of the n-word as
00:43:06.020 a slur it was the use of the n-word to tell
00:43:09.120 people just you know what a concern it was
00:43:12.320 that they get their messaging correct I mean
00:43:14.140 for those who don't remember this episode
00:43:17.140 briefly what happened is Tom Segura the comic
00:43:19.760 released a comedy special on Netflix where
00:43:22.860 he used the word retard over and over again
00:43:25.100 and they got a ton of blowback and so
00:43:27.860 Jonathan Friedland who was head of
00:43:30.300 communications in a closed-door meeting at
00:43:33.440 the company said listen this is this is a
00:43:35.560 huge deal it turns out that using this
00:43:38.420 word is like using the n-word for the
00:43:40.760 black community but he didn't say n-word
00:43:42.640 he used the word and for that use of the
00:43:46.260 magic syllables in a context where he's
00:43:48.960 expressing his own you know very liberal
00:43:51.980 opinion that they have to be even more
00:43:53.700 scrupulous about the use of the word
00:43:55.820 retard he wound up getting fired but it
00:44:00.000 was in a context where literally no one
00:44:03.000 thought that he was actually a racist right
00:44:06.140 this was not a case where there was a
00:44:07.720 that his use of the word suggested to so
00:44:09.980 many people that he really is a closeted
00:44:12.680 racist no he had simply uttered the word
00:44:16.280 Voldemort and it was the taboo is so deep
00:44:21.180 that there was no digging out so there's a
00:44:24.760 couple different things there was another
00:44:26.000 case similar at the New York Times
00:44:27.880 involving Donald McNeil jr that I I found
00:44:30.780 similarly infuriating and you had you had
00:44:32.880 you know 150 times staffers signing a
00:44:35.780 letter demanding he be reinvestigated I I do
00:44:39.000 think there's maybe a difference between
00:44:40.380 cases like that where you know basically
00:44:43.200 what people are trying to do there is
00:44:44.800 establish
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