Making Sense - Sam Harris - #92 — The Limits of Persuasion

00:00:00.000 Welcome to the Making Sense Podcast.

00:00:08.820 This is Sam Harris.

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00:00:46.380 Today I am speaking with the very bad wizards, David Pizarro and Tamler Summers.

00:00:52.100 They have a podcast by that name, which I've been on, I think, twice.

00:00:57.700 We debated free will at great length, so if you're interested in that topic, you can listen

00:01:03.820 to us there, and I recommend you listen to their podcast.

00:01:07.020 They touch fascinating subjects and in quite the irreverent way, and they do fantastic movie

00:01:14.480 reviews as well.

00:01:16.680 David Pizarro is a professor of psychology at Cornell.

00:01:20.060 He focuses on morality and moral judgment and the emotion of disgust, and needless to say,

00:01:29.520 all of that is incredibly relevant to this time and any other.

00:01:34.880 And his partner in crime, Tamler Summers, is a professor of philosophy at the University

00:01:39.400 of Houston.

00:01:40.340 And he focuses primarily on ethics and political philosophy and the philosophy of law.

00:01:45.860 And he specializes in topics like free will and moral responsibility, punishment, revenge,

00:01:54.020 honor.

00:01:55.020 Again, fascinating and all too relevant.

00:01:58.780 In this podcast, we essentially took questions from Twitter.

00:02:03.760 People had heard us on the Very Bad Wizards podcast and had topics they wanted us to address.

00:02:09.980 We talk about free speech on campus.

00:02:13.080 We do a fairly long post-mortem on my podcast with Scott Adams.

00:02:18.200 So if you haven't heard that, you might listen to that first.

00:02:22.400 Otherwise, feel free to skip ahead, especially if you're sick to death of hearing me talk about

00:02:26.920 Trump.

00:02:28.400 We talk about moral persuasion.

00:02:31.360 And then we get into things like meditation and the sense in which the self may or may not

00:02:38.460 be an illusion.

00:02:39.960 Again, I encourage you to subscribe to their podcast because they are quite good.

00:02:46.140 And now I bring you the Very Bad Wizards.

00:02:54.860 I am here with the Very Bad Wizards.

00:02:57.040 David Tamler, thanks for coming on the podcast.

00:03:00.080 Thanks for having us.

00:03:01.240 Thank you, Sam.

00:03:01.820 I will have introduced you, and people may have heard our previous interviews on your

00:03:07.240 show, but remind everyone where you are and what you guys tend to focus on when you're

00:03:13.240 not causing trouble on your podcast.

00:03:16.200 Well, I am a professor of philosophy at the University of Houston.

00:03:21.740 You are Tamler. 0.82

00:03:22.740 And I am Tamler Summers, right.

00:03:24.340 And when I'm not podcasting on Very Bad Wizards with David, I am working on this book, which

00:03:33.200 I've been working on for quite a while, for the last few years, that's coming out in the

00:03:39.340 spring, in the early spring, called In Defense of Honor.

00:03:43.140 And it's about honor and morality.

00:03:47.940 Yeah, you like honor.

00:03:48.880 That's something we could talk about.

00:03:50.340 We can add that to the list of things.

00:03:51.980 Yeah.

00:03:52.500 Yeah.

00:03:52.720 I look forward to that.

00:03:54.340 And I'm David Pizarro from Cornell University.

00:03:57.440 When I'm not podcasting with Tamler, I'm losing my cool on occasion.

00:04:01.580 I do research on moral judgment, and especially on the effects of emotion on judgment.

00:04:09.340 So the emotion of disgust is something that maybe for the last 10 years I've been researching

00:04:14.520 and how that can influence judgment, political judgment, and moral and social judgment.

00:04:19.220 And then just trying to teach the young minds, trying to sucker them into getting PhDs.

00:04:26.040 Our listeners want us to talk about the moral panic on campuses as one of the items.

00:04:31.080 We went out on Twitter asking for topics.

00:04:33.860 And I know you guys disagree with some people who think that it's a huge problem.

00:04:39.280 And so I want to get into that because you guys are also on the front lines as professors.

00:04:43.680 But first, let's just start with your podcast.

00:04:46.340 Your podcast is fantastic.

00:04:48.240 I'm a huge fan, and I'm a fan, even though it seems every other time I tune in, you've

00:04:55.620 said something disparaging about me.

00:04:58.020 That's Tamler trolling you. 0.87

00:05:00.520 I wipe my hands clean of this one.

00:05:03.320 I think early on, I was disparaging of certain remarks from your book, The Moral Landscape

00:05:12.220 on moral relativism.

00:05:14.340 Since then, I think we've been very even-handed and balanced.

00:05:18.620 And we don't even say anything about it.

00:05:20.020 You would think that.

00:05:22.420 I believe Tamler's watching a different movie.

00:05:25.520 It's an emotional truth, what I just said.

00:05:28.280 It's not a fact-based truth, maybe.

00:05:30.940 Persuasive to somebody, nonetheless.

00:05:33.220 Your podcast is great, and people should check it out, and we will provide a link, or all

00:05:38.080 the relevant links on my blog.

00:05:40.200 But I'm just wondering, so your podcast, you're both professors full-time, and you have a fairly

00:05:47.020 edgy podcast.

00:05:48.520 I mean, you guys, you get into topics, and you express opinions that I would think could

00:05:56.360 conceivably get you in trouble.

00:05:58.760 And this does actually connect with this first topic that has been suggested to us, this

00:06:03.100 idea of a fundamental and spreading intolerance to free speech that's taking hold at the universities.

00:06:11.160 Do you guys ever worry about what you're doing on the podcast with respect to your jobs?

00:06:16.320 I mean, do you both have tenure?

00:06:17.540 How do you think about your life at this point?

00:06:19.760 Okay, well, I'll start by saying, I think that at first it was what some people refer

00:06:27.280 to, to use an analogy if I may, refer to as security through obscurity.

00:06:30.820 I was sort of convinced at first that nobody would be listening, and therefore it would

00:06:36.600 be perfectly okay.

00:06:38.380 But I've been actually quite surprised.

00:06:40.160 So as our listenership has grown, thanks to the many wonderful guests, including Sam,

00:06:45.760 and as our audience has grown, I do not think, and Tamler, you can correct me, I think one

00:06:53.920 of the things that is so nice about the long-form podcast sort of discussion format is that people

00:07:01.840 can hear, they get to know you in a way that the things that you say are in a context of

00:07:09.980 conversations.

00:07:10.900 And for lack of a better word, I think they get to know your character a little bit.

00:07:13.980 And some of the crazy things we say, people really are good at taking it in context.

00:07:18.300 And I don't, maybe one or two emails.

00:07:21.180 Specifically devoted to taking us out of context.

00:07:23.700 That's right.

00:07:24.540 One time I expressed the fear that we'd be taken out of context, and that Twitter account

00:07:28.980 started up.

00:07:30.740 And I don't know, you know, I think maybe one or two times we've had somebody email us

00:07:36.220 with maybe some anger about what we've said.

00:07:40.220 But you mean from your own institutions?

00:07:42.460 No.

00:07:42.760 No, no, no, no.

00:07:43.380 From our listenership.

00:07:44.520 From our own institutions, I genuinely think, I mean, part of it is I haven't, I haven't made

00:07:49.820 it sort of anything that I talk about too much in my own institution, in part because

00:07:55.920 of that worry.

00:07:57.240 Honestly, to connect it to the topic, this is one of my points of evidence when I say

00:08:04.480 that I think people exaggerate the degree to which there's a chilling effect or that

00:08:09.640 people can't express their views if they don't toe the line with, you know, the progressive

00:08:16.540 agenda or whatever.

00:08:18.360 It's, you know, I think neither of us do that.

00:08:21.560 I think, you know, maybe me even less than Dave.

00:08:27.360 And I haven't heard one single, not a single complaint from any colleague who listens to

00:08:34.600 it, from any person at my institution who listens to it.

00:08:37.300 And there are, there are a bunch.

00:08:39.580 Nobody has taken umbrage by a single thing that we've said. 0.99

00:08:45.680 And we've said some repugnant shit as, you know, that's part of our, that's part of our 0.99

00:08:50.900 trademark. 0.99

00:08:51.340 And I think it's for the reason that Dave says is, you know, people get to know us and

00:08:57.420 they know, I think that our hearts are in the right place.

00:09:01.440 And so as long as they know that they're going to allow you to be a little edgier or more

00:09:09.940 inappropriate and not try to shut you down.

00:09:12.820 And so this is one of the things that makes me think that these incidents are not as, it's

00:09:20.780 not as widespread a phenomenon as it's portrayed by some in the media.

00:09:27.120 But there's a relevant part there that we didn't answer, which is we both have tenure, but we,

00:09:30.680 we, I think we got them, we got tenure after maybe like, what were you, a year of doing

00:09:37.240 the podcast?

00:09:38.020 When we started, I don't think we had tenure, but we do have tenure, just to add that.

00:09:41.460 Right.

00:09:42.000 Okay.

00:09:42.820 Are you guys as irreverent or edgy in the classroom, or is there a very big difference

00:09:48.920 between your podcast persona and your, your professor hat?

00:09:54.400 I teach a course intro psychology, which is largely freshmen, uh, with about 800 students

00:10:01.000 enrolled for many of them, it's their first experience in a lecture course in college.

00:10:04.960 And while I probably tone it down, um, I don't purposefully, I mean, part of it is you're

00:10:12.740 a person that kind of changes depending on the situation.

00:10:14.740 So we, we, we, it's more like we tone it.

00:10:16.920 We, we raise it up a notch on the podcast sometimes, but, but largely I say crazy things in my class

00:10:24.560 all the time.

00:10:25.260 Um, and I've had students who take delight in writing it down.

00:10:30.360 Um, the, there was once a, uh, somebody on Facebook who would, who would quote me, um,

00:10:36.340 extensively.

00:10:37.080 Well, I got a word document at the end of one semester from a student with a list of all

00:10:41.380 the crazy things I had said, but usually again, I think not on the first day, sort of you,

00:10:46.600 you build, you build yourself up and always, I think at least I try in the, in an attempt

00:10:53.320 to communicate something well.

00:10:55.360 So if I drop an F bomb, it's usually because I want somebody to remember something.

00:10:58.920 I'll give an example.

00:10:59.680 When I, when I talk about evolutionary psychology, for instance, um, I remind students that if

00:11:03.960 a claim is made that natural selection costs something, it has to be directly tied to the

00:11:09.980 mechanism of survival and reproduction, um, or else, or else it doesn't work through natural

00:11:16.520 selection. 0.57

00:11:17.160 So I just remind people, unless it leads to more fucking, um, it's the, it's not an evolutionary 0.96

00:11:22.420 argument, like adaptiveness, and I say that in an, in an attempted song. 0.97

00:11:28.380 Well, it's an attempt to, much to the chagrin of my mother, it's an attempt to solidify a

00:11:33.480 principle.

00:11:34.560 Maybe I'm just making you.

00:11:35.620 It sounds a little post-talk to me.

00:11:37.520 You just want to laugh.

00:11:38.600 You've got 800, 18 year olds in front of you.

00:11:41.040 It's your one moment of standup for the day.

00:11:43.720 And Tamler, are you, do you tone it down?

00:11:45.640 Because I'm not drunk usually when I teach.

00:11:49.120 So, so that's one difference, but every once in a while for the podcast, we, uh, we put

00:11:55.400 down a few, um, probably me again, a little more frequently.

00:11:59.140 I've done that once.

00:12:00.440 Plus some other things, which, but, um, but anyway, so, uh, I think it's exactly what Dave

00:12:08.280 said.

00:12:08.540 You build up a little trust over the course of the semester and they sort of get you and

00:12:14.460 you're, you know, like I, I'm somebody that likes to go up and approach the line.

00:12:20.000 I get bored when everybody is talking and it's a little too, everyone's being too polite

00:12:25.520 or dancing around certain topics.

00:12:27.800 And I think that students like that.

00:12:31.020 And especially now when I think a lot of these students, at least at my institution, which

00:12:35.940 is a public institution and they're, and they're working jobs and they're, uh, stressed out

00:12:42.560 taking five classes and a lot of them have family issues that they're dealing with and

00:12:47.980 anxiety issues that they're dealing with.

00:12:50.140 It is nice to just have a place where people can, you know, not watch what they say and not

00:12:57.680 feel like they have to walk on eggshells.

00:12:59.220 So that's at least the kind of environment that I try to build.

00:13:02.880 And again, in classes, I have yet to find that, uh, to be a problem, even remotely, like

00:13:11.100 not one single complaint, at least one that has reached me.

00:13:16.180 Now we have to reconcile our worldviews because, and you know, many of these principal experts,

00:13:21.860 really.

00:13:22.080 How do I square what you guys have just said with what Jonathan Haidt is saying and, and

00:13:30.640 really canonizing in the, the heterodox academy, you know, worrying about this creeping moral

00:13:38.180 panic that is fundamentally antithetical to the, the core values of a university.

00:13:43.960 I'm sure David knows Jonathan, but perhaps you do too, Tamler.

00:13:47.820 You guys really should have him on your podcast to talk about these things because I'd like to

00:13:51.480 hear what he would say, but he's really worried about this.

00:13:54.880 And then you have the cases of like Nicholas Christakis, who I'm sure at least David knows

00:14:01.340 Yale.

00:14:02.560 You have Brett Weinstein who at Evergreen University, which has gotten a lot of attention.

00:14:09.160 And that just went fully off the rails.

00:14:12.760 Uh, as far as I know, he's, he's, I'm not even sure he, his family is back in town yet

00:14:17.680 based on safety concerns.

00:14:20.080 And then you have the, the, the Rebecca Tuval incident.

00:14:23.840 And I actually had lunch with her to talk about her experience not that long ago.

00:14:27.380 So it's totally possible that you guys are right.

00:14:31.000 And that these are, are individual cases that suggest very little about the rest of what's

00:14:37.120 going on on campuses.

00:14:38.760 But take the first part.

00:14:40.160 How do you think about how height is describing this?

00:14:44.980 It's a tough question because I think this is one of those cases where two things can

00:14:49.600 be true.

00:14:50.640 And one other thing, Tamler, I should say that you see your, your step-mom is Christina

00:14:55.520 Hoff Summers, who is just this, basically as far as I can tell, she has a cult following 0.98

00:15:01.220 on the right, you know, or center right for the way she's brought attention to, to this 0.96

00:15:07.480 sort of issue.

00:15:08.720 Yes.

00:15:09.560 Especially as it relates to gender and, uh, yeah.

00:15:13.720 And so, yes, this is a debate I have often and certainly every Thanksgiving, you know, I'm

00:15:20.880 pretty close to my stepmother.

00:15:22.240 So we go back and forth.

00:15:24.300 You know, it's funny, like if you listen to us talk about it, I think we can both concede

00:15:30.280 a little bit of, and this is how I feel about height too.

00:15:33.000 You know, I thought the coddling of the American mind was, you know, one of those first sort 0.95

00:15:39.520 of overhyped pieces that captured the attention and the imagination of everybody.

00:15:45.800 And I think people aren't good at, at looking at a video like the Christakis video or the

00:15:51.680 Evergreen State video and, and, and, and they're bad cases.

00:15:57.120 They're really bad.

00:15:58.100 I mean, there's no denying it if that was going on in every, or the, or the Charles Murray

00:16:03.560 thing, right.

00:16:04.180 If that was going on in, in the universities, then people would be right that, that, to,

00:16:09.360 to panic about this.

00:16:10.760 But what's I think difficult for people to process is day in and day out, how many things

00:16:20.720 happen at the thousands and thousands of universities, uh, across the country where there's no stifling

00:16:29.480 of speech, there's no chilling, there's no, there's none of that.

00:16:32.680 You know, Charles Murray successfully gave that same talk at a hundred universities probably

00:16:40.360 before Middlebury.

00:16:42.120 And, you know, Evergreen State is a little bit of a whack job, uh, liberal arts college

00:16:49.820 to begin with, you know, and for a while, this isn't true anymore, but for a while, anytime

00:16:55.120 there was an article written about this, they, it was Oberlin, like something happened in Oberlin

00:17:00.640 because that's just what Oberlin is.

00:17:02.720 It's been like that for 50 years and it'll probably be like that for another 50 years.

00:17:08.580 So I think it's important to separate the.

00:17:12.120 What's wrong, what's legitimately wrong, uh, that's going on at, at, at these particular

00:17:18.280 institutions for what is going on in quote unquote, the American university.

00:17:24.720 Cause I think those two things are different, but, you know, I understand like height will

00:17:29.360 kind of could concede some of that and say it is at these more privileged private institutions

00:17:35.920 that this is occurring, but that's still a significant worry.

00:17:40.400 And, you know, I have some sympathy with that.

00:17:43.260 Yeah.

00:17:43.620 And, and just to, to make clear, I think that, that, um, there, Tamler and I disagree about

00:17:50.520 this often.

00:17:51.160 Um, although, although we share a lot of the sentiment, uh, you know, I think that it's

00:17:56.280 important to separate arguments about frequency with arguments about importance.

00:18:01.320 And, and I, I do think that there is a probably measurable chilling effect in that, um, that

00:18:11.040 some professors are less willing to say some of the things that they used to say, um, or

00:18:16.740 they think twice about it.

00:18:18.380 And I do think there's probably a measurable difference in the average undergrad, um, in

00:18:23.980 the way that they think about a lot of these things.

00:18:25.900 And then we can separate whether the reaction of panic, which I think with Tamler is, is

00:18:30.520 responding to is, is the right, the right sort of reaction to, to the problem as it currently

00:18:37.000 stands, which I, I agreed is, is probably not, it, it does get overblown and it captures

00:18:42.400 attention.

00:18:42.840 Um, but, but I nonetheless do worry about it.

00:18:47.220 And I do think that, um, that we are creating, um, an environment in which people pause before

00:18:53.680 they say some things.

00:18:54.660 But I, I always try to emphasize that there's, there's a way in which a lot of this is actually

00:19:00.060 progress.

00:19:00.900 I do want people to pause before they say some things.

00:19:03.340 And so if that's, what's called chilling, then, then good.

00:19:06.500 I, I, I think I mentioned this on one of our podcasts.

00:19:09.000 I don't know if it made the final edit, but, um, I did have a professor once tell me that

00:19:15.340 he, he really felt like he couldn't tell the same jokes that he used to.

00:19:18.380 And I said, like, what kind of jokes?

00:19:20.160 And then he, he gave me an example and it was a pretty racist joke.

00:19:23.560 And I was like, good.

00:19:26.720 In his defense, he wasn't from the U S and he didn't think it was a racist joke.

00:19:30.760 Right.

00:19:31.280 You know, it hasn't stopped Dave from his, you know, constant stream of antisemitism.

00:19:37.460 So, so, you know, it's, I feel like, I feel like that's the canary in the coal mine.

00:19:43.360 The minute, you know, that gets squashed, I will, I will announce to the world.

00:19:48.020 Right.

00:19:48.680 First they came for the antisemites.

00:19:50.420 That's right.

00:19:51.120 And I did nothing.

00:19:51.880 I just want to add that I think sometimes, like, I think Dave's right that sometimes professors

00:19:57.400 feel like they have to watch what they say, but sometimes that's their fault, not the environment's

00:20:03.560 fault.

00:20:03.820 Like they've been reading too much of the Atlantic and too much, you know, whatever the latest

00:20:11.500 column on the heterodox blog.

00:20:14.560 And now they've convinced themselves that they can't say anything that might border on

00:20:19.900 inappropriate.

00:20:20.920 Sometimes you just have to man up and just say the thing that you want to say.

00:20:26.060 And if there's any blowback from that, then you'll deal with it, you know, or, or woman 0.87

00:20:31.200 up or woman up. 0.97

00:20:32.240 Yes.

00:20:32.460 Sorry.

00:20:33.020 Oh, or woman. 1.00

00:20:33.980 Can you cut that?

00:20:34.920 I'm going to get a big go of that.

00:20:35.680 I can't believe you.

00:20:36.520 That's a keeper.

00:20:38.020 So, uh, no.

00:20:39.800 So, so I do think I was having this talk with a professor, um, at a conference and he was,

00:20:45.860 he said, you know, I was in this faculty meeting and then, you know, an hour later, this faculty

00:20:51.920 member tweeted out something.

00:20:54.160 She didn't use my name, but something that I had said in the faculty meeting.

00:20:58.480 And I was like, so who, so who cares?

00:21:00.340 So what?

00:21:01.160 So maybe she'll tweet out something that you said at a faculty meeting.

00:21:04.540 That doesn't mean you shouldn't say it.

00:21:06.740 That's just life.

00:21:08.160 It's life that when you say something, sometimes people will react in a certain way and you

00:21:13.360 deal with it then.

00:21:15.040 Yeah.

00:21:15.160 I mean, the problem is that there, we have these cases, which may certainly on your, your

00:21:19.580 account are outlier cases where this stuff just goes completely haywire and you have someone's

00:21:26.300 career destroyed, or there's at least a, just a massive public shaming experience that

00:21:32.680 follows in precisely that pattern.

00:21:35.180 If you have a tweet sent from a otherwise private meeting or what was that incident where

00:21:39.880 the guy, a guy wore a shirt to a conference and he was just vilified endlessly for the

00:21:45.360 insensitivity of his shirt.

00:21:47.320 Again, we have these cases that get media attention and at minimum advertise how haywire this can

00:21:57.120 go.

00:21:57.460 So it's easy to see how this would propagate back and cause everyone to choose their words

00:22:02.740 more carefully.

00:22:03.800 I guess it's partly, it's easy, but it's not, it's not an excuse.

00:22:08.340 It's not a full excuse.

00:22:09.760 You know, professors generally are smart enough to understand the difference between a widespread

00:22:16.680 phenomenon and some cases that still, I think, can reasonably be called isolated.

00:22:23.200 And, you know, like anything, like a terrorist attack, you don't want to overreact to it.

00:22:28.300 You don't want to completely take away everybody's freedoms just because there was this one terrorist

00:22:34.720 attack in Orlando.

00:22:36.720 So, you know, that's...

00:22:38.940 I will say that I think it's important to say that in, in the, many of the incidents that

00:22:42.720 we've described, these people were treated horribly and unfairly and, and there's no lack 0.98

00:22:46.860 of assholes who, who are, who are causing people grief. 0.99

00:22:52.940 But I, I always think that this is, the response to me is more important than, than the, whatever 1.00

00:23:02.580 growing number of, of undergraduates who are easily offended.

00:23:06.640 I think that this is actually, what, what do we make of this?

00:23:09.800 What do we do with this?

00:23:10.800 And if it is anything like a trend, if it's not isolated incidents and it is the beginnings

00:23:15.360 of a, you know, some zeitgeist changing, um, more so than ever, I think that the, the role

00:23:21.620 of the professor is, I think we've failed our students.

00:23:25.980 If, if by the end of our classes, for instance, um, they, they still, uh, don't, I think part

00:23:35.220 of the training of say a seminar in mind is for students to come out of there comfortable

00:23:39.100 with expressing opinions and not vilifying others who they disagree with.

00:23:42.740 And I think that the response to any claims of alarm and, and, and these trends or whatever

00:23:49.940 being dangerous ought to be met with open and clear conversation with our students and not

00:23:56.980 with a response that it's just these, these students who are like completely progressive

00:24:01.320 liberals on the left who are ruining things because of post-modernism.

00:24:04.500 You know, I would want to talk to that student to, you know, bring them in, let them teach

00:24:10.520 by example, what it means to have a respectful disagreement.

00:24:14.720 The issue with post-modernism connects us to another item that many have suggested we talk

00:24:19.640 about.

00:24:19.920 And I think this is something that you slammed me for on one of your podcasts, the conceptual 0.97

00:24:25.560 penis hoax. 0.92

00:24:26.560 Is there a mess we need to clean up there?

00:24:28.860 I don't think we slammed you on the podcast about that.

00:24:32.100 Well, what happened is I was among the people who forwarded this hoax.

00:24:35.960 I think I read a piece of their paper on my podcast and then retweeted it.

00:24:42.760 And then many people have now judged it to have been a false hoax or at least a misfired

00:24:48.880 hoax.

00:24:49.620 I mean, we don't have to spend a lot of time on it, but I think you guys saw it as an example

00:24:53.240 of skeptics not being nearly skeptical enough because they just practice their own version

00:24:59.580 of confirmation bias by spreading this thing, which in the end wasn't what it seemed to

00:25:04.880 be.

00:25:05.100 Is that still how you think about it?

00:25:06.200 Because I think the authors both defended themselves, right?

00:25:09.540 And I think even Alan Sokol wrote a fairly appreciative piece about it, or at least partially

00:25:16.820 appreciative piece about it.

00:25:18.500 I think what was like, and we had James Lindsay on our podcast and we talked at length about

00:25:24.580 it and I think that, not that I'm encouraging you to listen to it, but at the end of that,

00:25:29.140 I was more disappointed with his response than ever.

00:25:34.400 And I think it is a case where, yeah, we were taking to task many in the, you know, whatever

00:25:41.600 skeptic community, if you want to call it that.

00:25:43.660 I don't know how you feel about the label, for falling prey to confirmation bias.

00:25:48.000 And I think our point was just generally that this was, you know, published in a really

00:25:52.320 low tier journal after being rejected from a mid tier journal.

00:25:55.360 And I thought, well, what would be evidence of a good scholarship if not being rejected

00:26:00.240 from journals?

00:26:02.280 From an unranked journal.

00:26:03.820 They were rejected from an unranked gender studies journal and got it published in a paper

00:26:09.100 published, not gender studies journal.

00:26:11.980 It requires no defense of genders. 0.99

00:26:14.540 I mean, I think we're all on record as saying this is like spectacular bullshit coming out 0.98

00:26:19.600 of some of these fields, but there's something about the arrogance and the quickness of mockery. 0.98

00:26:26.040 And this is something I want to talk to you.

00:26:27.520 This is your podcast, so you can direct us.

00:26:29.380 But I did want to talk to you about the, in this broader context of moral persuasion about

00:26:33.920 the role of this mockery and, and I don't think I've been struck maybe, especially in

00:26:43.100 the last few, few weeks or few months as, as our audience has grown and we get more and

00:26:51.080 more people interacting with us on Twitter.

00:26:54.700 I don't know if it's just some belief that this is an effective way of convincing others

00:27:00.120 of the truth.

00:27:01.260 But I've, I found the authors or at least the one author we talked to of the hooks to

00:27:04.740 be very dismissive and, and, and quite, quite arrogant about the way that he presented his,

00:27:10.780 his case in a way that Sokol himself was not right.

00:27:14.460 And I find, for instance, you to be very reasonable when you talk, but you have a wide

00:27:21.420 army of people who aren't that way.

00:27:23.800 And so I don't know how you feel about when you see, you probably get so many tweets that

00:27:28.100 it's hard to keep up, but, but when you see people who sort of on your behalf are acting

00:27:33.320 in ways that I don't think that you would ever act.

00:27:35.860 There are really two topics here.

00:27:37.100 One, one is whether mockery is ever useful and, and, and persuasive to the people you're

00:27:43.120 mocking or whether, I think, I think you guys have even more global doubts about whether

00:27:49.160 just hard criticism is ever persuasive to the people you're criticizing.

00:27:53.200 Whether a frontal assault atheist style on religious faith ever wins hearts and minds.

00:28:00.680 I think that's something that at least Tamler has doubted in the past.

00:28:03.320 Well, I mean, it depends what you mean by frontal assault, but.

00:28:06.140 Then there's the issue of, of how one's fans or, or listeners or readers in, in my case,

00:28:13.920 represent me in how they respond to, to people who criticize me or, or, or my podcast guests.

00:28:20.080 And on that second point, I, for me, it's very clear.

00:28:24.040 And I, I've, with some frequency, I mean, I can't keep doing this, but with some frequency, 0.98

00:28:30.000 I admonish my listeners not to be jerks. 0.98

00:28:34.080 And I've said on a few podcasts, listen, you, you're doing me no favors, no matter how much 0.98

00:28:40.540 you hate what someone said on my podcast, no matter how wrong you think they are, you're

00:28:45.960 not doing me any favors if you now just flame them on social media.

00:28:51.440 I don't want a person's experience coming on the podcast to be that that was the worst

00:28:56.200 thing they ever did in their lives because of how they were treated by, by a fairly large

00:29:01.300 audience.

00:29:02.140 In fact, I want it to be the opposite.

00:29:03.800 I want everything that comes their way to be really smart and civil, no matter how hard

00:29:10.000 hitting it actually is, or no matter how critical it is of their position, it has to be civil

00:29:15.700 and relevant.

00:29:17.200 And so, yeah, I'm fairly clear about how I wish people would represent my audience.

00:29:24.680 But I, you know, I have very little control over what people actually do apart from saying

00:29:28.440 things like that periodically.

00:29:29.560 I guess the, so, I mean, and there's, right, you don't have control over what the people

00:29:37.420 who are fans of yours do, and all you can do is model good behavior, you know, which I think

00:29:44.400 you did.

00:29:44.780 I mean, you did win the Scott Adams, you know, almost to the point where it was heroic, the

00:29:52.820 degree to which.

00:29:54.320 We'll see if I can still model it, and now that we talk about it.

00:29:56.860 Yeah, but, but so.

00:29:59.880 There's some Chris Talkus level patience.

00:30:01.500 But the question that Dave alluded to before about whether mockery is an effective tactic

00:30:09.840 to change people's minds, I think is a, you know, it's something that I think skeptics and

00:30:19.080 sometimes atheists, I guess maybe I just disagree with them because I don't have any great 1.00

00:30:26.480 evidence on whether mockery changes minds or not. 0.99

00:30:30.000 Certainly in my experience, mocking somebody, calling them stupid, calling them, you know, 0.87

00:30:36.740 obviously irrational or whatever is not a, it just makes people more defensive. 0.96

00:30:42.240 It makes people dig their heels in more, and the, the way I think to, to change minds is

00:30:51.540 to be respectful of their opinion and to really try to, you know, see the best side of it

00:30:59.220 as, and, and, and to engage with it, even if you find it indefensible on, on some level,

00:31:08.440 just as a purely practical, instrumental goal of changing somebody's mind, you know, in my

00:31:17.460 experience as someone who's no stranger to mockery, that's not what I want to trot it

00:31:22.260 out for.

00:31:23.320 Mockery is fun, can be funny.

00:31:25.660 It can get the people who already agree with you to agree with you more and to be more proud

00:31:34.060 of themselves for being on the right side of the view, but it doesn't change the minds

00:31:39.200 of the people that you're mocking.

00:31:41.780 I would just say that that assumption is pretty readily disconfirmable.

00:31:48.400 I mean, it doesn't change some people's minds, I'll grant you that.

00:31:51.720 It might not, it might not even change most minds and, and most minds, depending on what

00:31:56.760 the belief system is, might just not be available for change, right?

00:32:01.420 So there's nothing you're going to say on a podcast or in a book, however well-tempered,

00:32:08.280 that's going to change the mind of a, you know, a real jihadist or get him to question

00:32:13.140 his, his faith.

00:32:14.360 But, you know, I, I've been amazed to learn that some of the most hard-hitting stuff I've

00:32:19.580 put out there, you know, the stuff I've said about Islam and the end of faith or in various

00:32:24.080 YouTube videos has actually penetrated and reached even totally devout conservative people

00:32:31.540 in communities in Pakistan, right?

00:32:33.600 Where the people are, you know, are now closet atheists, right? 0.98

00:32:37.020 Based on what I or Richard Dawkins or Christopher Hitchens have said about their religion.

00:32:42.180 And obviously that's not, those people themselves must be outliers.

00:32:46.360 But you have to picture people at every point on the spectrum of credulity with respect to

00:32:53.240 any ideology.

00:32:54.340 And so there's, there are the people who are, you know, fundamentalists and have never questioned

00:32:58.260 the faith.

00:32:58.840 And there are people who are halfway between that and being, you know, fairly just nominal

00:33:05.000 adherents of the faith.

00:33:06.580 And they can be tipped in either direction.

00:33:09.120 And if they see something very hard-hitting, but also obviously well thought out, directed

00:33:16.880 at this thing that they have been told is so important and so beyond doubting, you don't

00:33:23.500 know how many of those people you capture.

00:33:24.920 And I can just say that, you know, having done this for more than a decade, there's personally

00:33:30.060 a kind of an endless stream of confirmation that minds get changed through confrontation with

00:33:38.220 evidence and argument, however, actually disrespectful and hard-hitting.

00:33:43.640 And I, I, maybe some, there were some distinctions that came to mind as, as we continue to talk

00:33:49.520 about this.

00:33:49.940 And, and one is that, that, that I don't, at least what I know of the discussions that

00:33:55.960 you've had have struck me as mockery.

00:33:57.540 Um, and I find even, even in instances of strong disagreement, I don't think that you are

00:34:06.180 disrespectful, but, but I think that the question of, of whether mockery is effective may be

00:34:11.280 just the wrong way for me to think about it, because it may very well be that you change

00:34:16.700 some minds through mockery, but that, that isn't the way that I want to, to do it.

00:34:21.320 And maybe there are some tactics that just are so, I mean, there are some issues that

00:34:24.620 are so important that you, you might adopt a by any means necessary approach, but I, I

00:34:28.700 find it distasteful and disrespectful.

00:34:31.940 Yeah.

00:34:32.940 Yeah.

00:34:33.940 I don't know how we define mockery, but so for instance, the way I speak about Trump,

00:34:37.900 right?

00:34:38.400 Well, this is not everyone's cup of tea.

00:34:41.440 I mean, obviously Trump supporters who are totally incorrigible hate what I say about Trump

00:34:48.060 and they, they must be unreachable, but I think, I gotta think even there it reaches somebody.

00:34:56.280 And, and on certain points, there is just no other way to say it.

00:34:59.680 I mean, to fail to convey the feeling of moral opprobrium that, that seems to me just central

00:35:08.140 to the response I'm having to Trump.

00:35:10.520 Yeah.

00:35:10.900 I mean, to delete, to leave that off the table is to actually not communicate what I think

00:35:15.240 about Trump and what I, what I feel everyone has good reason to believe about him.

00:35:19.840 And so I guess the, the, the respect side comes in where I can give a sympathetic construal

00:35:26.840 of why someone didn't see it that way at first, or maybe even doesn't see it that way now.

00:35:33.680 And I can certainly sympathize with someone who hated Clinton and felt for their own reasons

00:35:39.640 that Trump was probably a better choice.

00:35:41.460 There's, there's definitely a, a, a discussion to be had that they can dignify the other side.

00:35:46.140 And I, you know, I spent a whole podcast running down Clinton with, with Andrew Sullivan.

00:35:50.020 So I'm, I'm sympathetic with the other side, but to actually just focus on a specific example,

00:35:56.380 like Trump and Trump university, as I did with Scott Adams and to not express just how despicable

00:36:04.980 that was and how despicable it is not to find it despicable.

00:36:10.380 Now, I was somewhat hamstrung in my conversation with Scott because I have to play host and debate

00:36:16.100 partner, but kind of the host has to win.

00:36:18.720 At least I'm using it as a heuristic now that the host has to win in those moments and,

00:36:23.900 and keep it, keep it civil at, at, at all costs.

00:36:26.800 But to give him a pass on that, I feel is a moral failing in itself and an intellectual

00:36:33.860 one. So, and to not communicate that is, is dishonest.

00:36:38.120 I guess, um, what you did with Scott Adams is, as I see it different, you weren't mocking him.

00:36:46.020 You weren't, I, I'm not saying you shouldn't express your feelings or you should sugarcoat

00:36:51.820 how you feel and what you believe about Donald Trump.

00:36:55.820 But when you look at what you did with Scott Adams, you were very deliberately trying to see

00:37:01.680 his perspective, trying to understand why he was defending the positions that he was defending.

00:37:08.880 And, um, I don't know, like, I see that more as an example, even though he wasn't going to be

00:37:14.960 persuaded either way. I see that as an example of more what I'm talking about than what you're

00:37:23.200 talking about. And I think this is what doesn't happen with Trump, with liberals and Trump voters

00:37:28.680 is they are dismissed in like the basket of deplorables. They're just dismissed as this

00:37:34.920 monolithic group of racist idiots who vote against their own interests constantly. And 1.00

00:37:41.560 just to be clear, I'm highlighting not what I said to Scott or about Scott, but what I say about Trump.

00:37:49.460 Trump, there's no way to sugarcoat it. I am being as disrespectful as you can possibly be

00:37:55.420 about Trump. So imagine what I would have to say to Trump to his face if I ever met him to square

00:38:01.780 with what I've said.

00:38:02.920 I'm talking about a Trump voter and trying to convince a Trump voter to change their mind. Say,

00:38:09.240 we get to the next election time and you're canvassing with the Trump voter,

00:38:14.280 the way to change their mind both as a party and as an individual person isn't going to be,

00:38:22.340 I don't think, to make fun of them because that's what was tried. And that's what seemed like almost

00:38:31.820 a galvanizing, it had a kind of a galvanizing effect to the voters.

00:38:37.840 But what do you think of something like the SNL sketches against Trump and Sean Spicer?

00:38:42.700 Yeah. So I was going to get to another distinction about humor because there's not a clear line.

00:38:54.020 And all I can do, I think, is point to the sort of attitude that somebody holds toward another human

00:39:03.720 being where humor is actually a great way to satirize and to condemn. And by the way,

00:39:10.700 I also agree with you that what I'm not saying is that there aren't cases of just sheer moral

00:39:16.240 condemnation that we shouldn't pull our punches. We should be very, very comfortable to say,

00:39:21.480 I agree with you. I think Trump is somebody who I wouldn't have anything good to say about him.

00:39:27.040 And I think so much of what he's doing is wrong and setting the wrong example. And with humor,

00:39:32.220 I think humor, there is often a line there. And I find that I can distinguish the kind of humor that I

00:39:41.800 think is good satire for me in my reaction from stuff that just gets nasty in some way in the tone

00:39:49.800 with which it's being done. And I think the power of humor is that it tells a truth in a way that

00:40:00.440 disarms people. It doesn't bring their walls up. Not always, but it has the power to do that.

00:40:07.540 I think I've gotten so much more insight from people like Dave Chappelle and Louis C.K.

00:40:12.120 because they tell some pretty difficult truths in a funny way. I think, though, that it can get to a

00:40:21.880 mean spirit. And then I just don't like it as much. I don't like that feeling that somebody's

00:40:28.420 disrespecting. And I think when I said mockery, for instance, what I meant was somebody who is 1.00

00:40:32.500 unwilling to engage. And I found, I think, in our James Lindsay interview about the hoax,

00:40:40.040 I found an unwillingness to engage or just a stopping point at their willingness to talk about

00:40:48.140 opposing views that is what distressed me or what bothered me, I guess.

00:40:53.020 I haven't listened to that, so I'll have to do that. So let's open it up to this larger

00:40:58.140 issue of moral persuasion. And this follows rather directly from what Scott Adams was claiming on my

00:41:06.400 podcast, that Trump is this brilliant persuader and that persuasion is really not about facts and

00:41:16.040 needn't be about facts. I mean, it's not a bad thing that it's not about facts. This is one thing that

00:41:23.020 again, in my role as host, I couldn't fully communicate how reprehensible I feel this position

00:41:31.420 is. And I'm not saying anything about Scott that I wouldn't say to him. It's just hard to kind of

00:41:37.980 split the baby in real time when you're on your own show. And I say this now fully aware that it will

00:41:43.500 get back to Scott. But I just feel like this, he seemed totally comfortable. In fact, he seemed

00:41:49.560 fairly jubilant about caring not about what is true, but about what people can be led to believe.

00:41:59.240 It just matters what people can be led to believe. Don't you understand, Sam? That's the game we're

00:42:04.140 all playing. That's what this life is about. It's about persuading people to get what you want out of

00:42:09.540 life. And Trump is great at that. And that, as a kind of the linchpin of an ethical worldview,

00:42:16.300 there's so much, where do I start? Everything is wrong with that. As a scientist, as a philosopher,

00:42:22.920 as a journalist, as a compassionate person who just wants to have his or her beliefs track

00:42:28.520 reality. I mean, whoever you are attempting to build a better society, I don't see how you can

00:42:35.880 be comfortable with that as your starting point. And yet, he does have a point. I mean, the fact that,

00:42:42.660 one thing that was astonishing after our podcast was to see how differently our two respective

00:42:49.020 audiences perceived it. I mean, my audience vilified him and his audience vilified me. And I mean, it was

00:42:56.480 clear that they thought he had destroyed me. What an embarrassment. You know, it was like career

00:43:02.760 suicide for me to have someone as brilliant and as persuasive as Scott on my podcast to just,

00:43:08.900 you know, do the Jedi mind trick on me. By the way, we've had some of your followers listen to our

00:43:14.440 long podcast on free will and say, Sam destroyed you guys. And I always sort of laugh because I'm

00:43:19.680 like, you know, I don't think that the destruction of it. I did destroy you guys. I was like, you know,

00:43:26.580 I don't, I think that they, that that was, that was me. I have another account.

00:43:29.800 You have like an account with six followers. The Scott Adams interview, it's a, it's a, it's,

00:43:37.920 it's a funny thing to listen to. You get kind of disoriented and, and, and there was a kind of

00:43:43.220 postmodern feel to it. There was a kind of postmodern critical theory kind of perspective that he seemed

00:43:52.260 to be inhabiting with facts and, and, and reason-based arguments or at least sort of, you know,

00:44:00.600 objective reason-based arguments that could be independently evaluated just didn't play the role

00:44:07.500 for him that it played, that it plays for you and that it's, you know, mostly we think plays for,

00:44:14.600 for all of us. And there was a meta level as trying to, when, you know, when you two would

00:44:22.140 debate, say the Russia investigation or climate change, and he would say, well, you know, the

00:44:28.600 Paris deal was a hoax and you weren't, but Trump said climate science was a hoax. And, you know,

00:44:33.580 all of a sudden there were shifting terrain. And then you start to wonder, is Scott Adams treating

00:44:40.600 this very debate as something to be like a vehicle for persuasion? Not of you. He probably knew that

00:44:51.220 you weren't going to be persuaded, but, so he's not trying to win the argument in the, or the debate

00:44:57.620 in the sense that we understand that. He's trying to do what he says Trump is a master at doing,

00:45:03.280 which is persuade people to appreciate Trump or to find something in him that they haven't found

00:45:13.140 before. And then it was like, now I don't, it's like, how do you assess this, uh, this argument

00:45:20.140 at all if he's not even trying to win the argument as I understand winning arguments, you know?

00:45:25.300 No, I think that's true. I think he's very sincere about his insincerity. I think he's got,

00:45:30.440 he's got this bad faith structure to his game and he's fine with that. And I feel that there is an

00:45:38.940 immense number of, of intellectual and ethical problems that follow from that. And, and we

00:45:45.140 couldn't fully get into it, but it's a, I do find it very frustrating, but in his defense,

00:45:51.080 the aftermath and just everything we see around us proves at least one part of his thesis,

00:45:58.400 the two movies analogy, our audiences, my audience and Adam's audience are, were clearly watching

00:46:05.780 different movies of that podcast and perceived it totally differently. And the question of,

00:46:13.120 of moral persuasion, how do you bridge that gulf? Honestly, I'm at a loss when you can't get

00:46:20.920 facts that would be morally salient in another context to matter to someone for the purpose of

00:46:31.340 a political discussion. I mean, like when, when I, when one point I made with him, which, to which he

00:46:35.460 didn't have a rebuttal. I mean, I think he basically agreed with me. You know, I said, listen, if I did

00:46:40.720 any one of these things that I just named that you're not disputing Trump has done, if I did any

00:46:46.940 one of these things, it would be the end of me. And for good reason, I mean, you would not come

00:46:51.820 on this podcast if you had heard that I have a, had a Trump university in my backstory, or if I had

00:46:57.220 been, you know, barging into the dressing rooms of, of the beauty pageant contestants under my sway,

00:47:02.740 or I mean, any, any of these things. And, you know, you would rightly recognize that I'm a schmuck 0.99

00:47:08.080 who shouldn't be taken seriously. He does sort of split the difference here. And in other moments, 0.98

00:47:13.200 he says, well, who am I to judge any of that? And I'm not the Pope. And I, you know, when he's

00:47:16.800 talking about Trump, he's, or he says, oh, he's lived more publicly than you sort of implying

00:47:21.800 that who knows. But, and I do wonder about someone who feels that he is in no position to judge

00:47:30.700 the litany of abuses to morality and reason we see just pouring out of Trump's life.

00:47:38.200 I think his better argument was that you shouldn't, like, we're not hiring him to model,

00:47:46.620 to be a model citizen, good behavior, where it's like, you want that dirty lawyer, or as 0.96

00:47:52.980 Dave would say, the Jew lawyer to win your case for you. 1.00

00:47:57.380 God, it's character assassination.

00:47:59.260 You don't want the lawyer that's the most upstanding citizen when you're in a battle,

00:48:06.100 you know, for your, you know, whether you're going to go to prison or not, or for a lot of

00:48:11.320 money.

00:48:12.280 There's so much to disagree with him about. And, but I'll tell you what I found the most

00:48:17.880 distressing. And, and, and again, I actually found him to be like an interesting, respectful

00:48:26.100 dude when he was discussing. So this isn't this, but, but I, but I get, I reserve the right,

00:48:31.320 as Sam, you were saying before, to just fundamentally disagree with him. And what I found the most

00:48:34.840 distressing in his whole, in the whole interview was, as you point out, the amorality of his,

00:48:43.100 of his arguments, but another one, just the insistence on praising Trump for his persuasive

00:48:48.320 powers and unwillingness to talk about what he was persuading people about, that he was avoiding

00:48:54.300 any discussion of content. So, so it's fine if you want to get in what he wants. And that's

00:49:00.860 intrinsic good. Intrinsic good. And it made me think, you know, for some people, this is an insult.

00:49:06.240 Some people, it might be a compliment, but, but I, it was very Anne Randish. And I was, I, I was struck

00:49:13.140 by that being a good in and of itself that, that sort of, you know, we've reached 33rd level persuasive

00:49:20.460 powers. And so you got to admire the guy, but if your persuasive powers are being used to not care

00:49:27.540 about the, the, the future of the environment, um, or, or to, to discriminate against people

00:49:34.400 or whatever, um, how, how is that a good, I mean, but you couldn't get him to discuss that.

00:49:41.580 And it was always bringing it back to, well, this is just part of his masterful game.

00:49:46.920 Um, which is like, great. You might be a really, really great marksman, but if you're shooting

00:49:51.820 people, I don't like you. And, and I, at this point he would tell me, well, the, I've failed 0.64

00:49:57.380 because my use of analogy, um, but, but, but I think I, I, I found it when it's all said

00:50:07.340 and done, I found it almost monstrous to, to think of a president and endorsing him for,

00:50:13.380 for doing that, for, for being good at that.

00:50:16.180 Yeah. Well, yeah. Also not to see the cost or forget about what he's persuading people

00:50:20.240 toward the fact of just having this style of communication that is so, so dishonest that

00:50:28.760 more or less there's just every assumption now is that there's something false in what he said.

00:50:36.180 Even if you're his fan, you have to bracket everything he says with this basic uncertainty

00:50:41.800 about whether he means it and the cost of, of, of that to our society and to our politics.

00:50:46.900 The downside of that is, is so obvious, but, you know, he clearly doesn't care about it.

00:50:53.980 Your question about, you know, there are these two movies and the movies seem to be operating

00:51:01.540 according to different principles too, just in terms of what counts, you know, if the whole,

00:51:09.100 the media takes Trump literally, but not seriously, people take Trump seriously, not literally.

00:51:19.380 And it's like, and this, and I guess that serious part on the Trump voters is that idea of kind of

00:51:24.680 emotional trust or the, you know, they, they trust him emotionally. And so when they, when he goes off

00:51:33.260 on some bullshit tweet storm, they know it's bullshit. They know he's lying, but he has their 1.00

00:51:39.840 emotional trust. I mean, I think that there is something right about that, at least as a

00:51:46.360 descriptive explanation for what's going on. And.

00:51:51.020 I actually think that's mostly untrue. I mean, I think I want to call bullshit on that claim too. 0.94

00:51:57.860 I mean, for instance, when Trump gets up there and says, you know, my inauguration crowd was bigger 0.98

00:52:02.300 than any that had ever been seen. I think most of his fans think that's true when he says it.

00:52:10.160 And they think it's the fake news media out to get him that is disputing it. And if they ever come

00:52:16.040 around to being convinced by the photos, which, you know, half of them probably think are doctored, 0.99

00:52:22.300 they think, well, who gives a shit? You know, he's great anyway. And so it's like, there's. 0.99

00:52:26.800 But why do they say he's great anyway? Because they trust him. They trust him. He's a fighter.

00:52:31.520 He's a businessman. He's going to fight for their.

00:52:33.460 The way Scott views him is a very unusual way of viewing him. I think people are.

00:52:39.300 They think everyone's out to get him so that most of the criticism about him and most of the fact

00:52:45.020 checking has to be purely malicious. And most of that is just a tissue of lies and conspiracy theories.

00:52:53.000 And there's probably nothing untoward happening with Russia. And, you know, he's he prize almost

00:52:58.960 certainly this really good guy who's just getting hammered by the left wing elite. But then when it

00:53:05.760 when any one piece of this shifts into the certainty column where, OK, no, Trump clearly was lying there,

00:53:14.380 then they have a piece of the Scott Adams view, which is, well, who cares? He's just you know,

00:53:20.180 that's just for effect or that's easy that that works. He did it because it works. Get used to it.

00:53:24.400 But for the most part, I don't think they're there. That's not their first perception. The first

00:53:28.820 perception is he's just under attack. There's a siege. And it's it's driven not by how far from normal

00:53:37.440 and ethical and professional and competent he is. It's driven based on just pure partisan

00:53:44.120 rancor. I mean, people like me are just unhappy to have lost an election.

00:53:48.300 Yeah. No, I mean, I think you're you're right about that. I guess I didn't want to build too much on

00:53:54.680 the psychology of the Trump voter as much as in terms of getting people in that movie to sort of

00:54:04.800 be able to talk and debate. There is something in this idea of building emotional trust. And one of

00:54:12.900 the one of the reasons why the fake news, you know, liberal skewed biased media, you know, all those

00:54:23.540 charges seem so effective. They're very effective on convincing Trump voters that he's being treated

00:54:30.820 unfairly, as he loves to say, is because there is no trust right now for those kinds of institutions.

00:54:39.120 You know, the establishment Republicans, the establishment Democrats and and the news media

00:54:44.420 in general. And so to you know, that's the I think the work that has to be done is building some of that

00:54:53.660 trust back, because without that, there's no terrain to persuade people to revise their opinion of a man

00:55:02.040 that they've put a lot of stake in. A lot of these voters, they it's they they're really motivated to

00:55:09.640 not look like they got played for a sucker to not look like they've been conned. And so only somebody

00:55:16.880 who they have a tremendous amount of trust in and and also I think some some degree of respect for

00:55:25.720 is going to be able to make progress in in changing their minds about that, because there's a lot of

00:55:31.680 biases. I think I think you're being I don't I don't think that there is on that the liberal media

00:55:39.160 has eroded trust and that this is why the people went for Trump. I think it's a much simpler story,

00:55:45.040 which is he was saying shit. A lot of people wanted to hear. They were voting in their self 0.99

00:55:49.580 interest for Trump because they really believed it. And one way to take Scott Adams view is and I

00:55:55.000 agree with both of you. I don't think this that Scott Adams represents in any way the average Trump

00:56:00.740 supporter. One way in which I think he's right is that Trump has persuaded a substantial portion of

00:56:08.480 people that he is to be trusted. And I think that that is despite all of the evidence that he is

00:56:14.680 not to be trusted. And so you say to yourself, well, how can people trust him despite all of

00:56:19.460 this evidence that he's a liar, that he makes decisions based on self-interest, not even on

00:56:24.580 principle. And I think it's because he has said a few things that people really, really wanted to

00:56:29.740 hear. And I don't think it's the liberal media has eroded trust and it needs to build it back up.

00:56:35.320 I think it's just totally directional bias.

00:56:38.360 Well, the thing is, though, it has, I mean, I can attest to the failings of the liberal media or

00:56:44.480 the mainstream media on certain topics that are so reliable that I do have a window into how a right

00:56:53.920 wing Fox and Breitbart fan could view the editorial page of the New York Times or even just the news

00:57:03.020 pages, because I've seen them commit errors of fact or to shade their discussion of facts so

00:57:11.040 reliably on certain topics. I mean, the topics of, you know, the link between Islam and terrorism 0.97

00:57:16.520 is one where I can just guarantee you I will find in an article some way in which political correctness

00:57:23.280 is distorting the presentation of stark facts. There are whole articles in places like the New York

00:57:29.980 Times talking about terrorist suicide bombings as though the motive were a mystery that is bound

00:57:38.760 to remain impenetrable until the end of time. And there's no mention of Islam. There's no mention

00:57:44.160 of religion. There's just that you have generic words like extremism and all of this to someone

00:57:49.520 who's been paying attention to this problem and is worried about the spread of specific ideas

00:57:55.240 relative to jihadism. It's a very fishy way to describe what's going on. And so it is with something like gun

00:58:02.140 control and gun safety. There'll be a shooting at a school and you'll have the response in the New York

00:58:09.220 Times and you'll just see, you'll see positions being articulated by people who know nothing about guns,

00:58:17.020 who have never shot a gun, who don't, who get everything wrong. I mean, the names are wrong. I mean,

00:58:21.660 we hear them on CNN talking about guns. They pronounce the names of gun manufacturers wrong.

00:58:26.980 I mean, it's just the level of cluelessness is so obvious. And so I can see that it's possible that

00:58:34.200 even in the valid reaction to Trump, there's something demeaning about having to respond or

00:58:43.080 feeling that you have to respond again and again and again to Trump's dishonesty and indiscretions,

00:58:48.860 because every time you do it, you're running the risk of making an error yourself, however small,

00:58:58.980 which seems to put you on all fours with Breitbart or with Trump himself. Or it's just that there's

00:59:07.280 something that erodes your credibility by just taking the time to be endlessly criticizing

00:59:13.400 someone like this for the same points. And so you, when you look at the New York Times now,

00:59:19.200 there are days where the whole paper looks like the opinion page, because they have to take a

00:59:23.100 position against this guy.

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Making Sense - Sam Harris - August 16, 2017

#92 — The Limits of Persuasion

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