Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 350 ｜ Explaining the 'Logic' of Leftist Hypocrisy ｜ Guest： James Lindsay

00:00:00.000 Hey guys, welcome to Relatable.

00:00:11.360 Happy Tuesday.

00:00:12.180 Hope everyone is having a good week.

00:00:13.780 So we've got a special episode for you today.

00:00:16.180 I am talking to James Lindsay.

00:00:19.000 He's the author of Cynical Theories.

00:00:21.880 He is also the president of New Discourses, and he's an expert on critical theory.

00:00:27.680 We're going to talk about a lot of what's going on right now with the censorship, some

00:00:33.360 of the rhetoric that we're seeing from Joe Biden and Kamala Harris about splitting up

00:00:38.060 people by their racial groups, where that comes from, where these ideas and these policies

00:00:44.160 come from.

00:00:44.820 We're also going to talk about who Biden tapped as the head of the Civil Rights Division of

00:00:51.420 the DOJ.

00:00:52.220 She had some interesting things to say about people of different races back when she was

00:00:57.260 at Harvard.

00:00:58.000 And so you're really, really going to enjoy his analysis.

00:01:02.240 He has so many interesting things to say, and I'm going to have him back on in a couple

00:01:07.380 months, too, to talk a little bit more about the philosophical origins of all of this craziness.

00:01:12.320 But I'm so excited for you to listen to this interview.

00:01:16.520 It really was supposed to be a short interview.

00:01:18.540 It ended up being it was supposed to be 10 minutes.

00:01:20.720 It ended up being like 45 minutes long because I couldn't stop talking to him and asking him

00:01:24.900 questions and I could have kept going for like another two hours.

00:01:29.500 And so I know that you guys are going to feel the same way when you listen to it.

00:01:37.600 James, thank you so much for joining me.

00:01:40.820 Thank you for having me.

00:01:42.260 Can you tell everyone quickly who you are and what you do?

00:01:44.460 I am the founder and president, I suppose, of New Discourses, which is a company that is

00:01:52.060 trying to articulate what's happening with the woke movement.

00:01:56.080 I'm trying to build a bridge, in a sense, between their academic literature, their activist

00:02:00.460 literature and everyday people or at least smart everyday people.

00:02:05.160 So it's that kind of I describe it as peeling the onion.

00:02:08.380 Um, if you think of how an onion is constructed, if you want to cook an onion and, you know,

00:02:13.920 you can do whatever you want with it, it's got that thick papery layer on the outside.

00:02:17.500 And that's sort of like what I'm trying to take off so that even if you want to fry

00:02:21.920 the onion, if you want to make onion rings, whatever you want to do with it, you can do

00:02:26.140 that.

00:02:26.380 But I've got to get the thick, tough, papery outside off.

00:02:29.340 And that's what I do at New Discourses.

00:02:30.940 Other than that, I've written some books, most recently a book called Cynical Theories that

00:02:35.060 Explains the Postmodern Elements of the Woke Movement.

00:02:38.360 And so mostly I explain the Woke Movement all the time.

00:02:41.840 My background, I have a PhD in mathematics, so I'm not from the humanities.

00:02:46.600 I don't work in the university anymore.

00:02:48.400 I do this full time.

00:02:49.940 So I think that's kind of who I am and what I do.

00:02:52.440 Yeah.

00:02:53.320 And are you surprised that the work that you do has placed you in common cause with people

00:02:59.940 on the right, that people really regard you now as a conservative, even though you might

00:03:04.160 not identify as that?

00:03:07.080 I'm not surprised, but it wasn't something that if you would have said, you know, two

00:03:13.040 years ago that I would have believed, I would have said, well, there's some hints that, you

00:03:17.480 know, the conservatives are going to be more receptive to this than the people on the left.

00:03:21.260 But I think all reasonable people will.

00:03:23.880 And that turned out not to be true at all.

00:03:27.120 Reasonable got overridden by bipartisanship.

00:03:29.900 So I've been pleasantly surprised, I think, to find quite a warm welcome from my many new

00:03:37.300 friends on the right and in religious circles.

00:03:39.880 And I think it's been been kind of more pleasant than not, to be honest with you.

00:03:46.000 It's very eye opening as well.

00:03:47.880 Right.

00:03:48.120 And you voted for Donald Trump.

00:03:50.300 And the last time I talked to you, you told me that you have voted for Democrats your entire

00:03:56.100 your entire adult life, but not this time over the past week or so, as we've seen a lot of

00:04:02.740 the chaos go on.

00:04:04.560 Do you regret that at all?

00:04:06.120 Or do you still, you know, stand by the decision to vote the way you did November?

00:04:11.240 Oh, I don't regret it a bit.

00:04:13.120 I still completely stand by that decision.

00:04:16.220 I am still very, very worried about what a Biden administration is likely to do with

00:04:26.920 regard, especially to the work that I do, which is about that woke movement.

00:04:30.300 For example, we've already heard with the events at the Capitol, Biden characterized it

00:04:34.340 as being, you know, it would have been totally different, he said, had it been black people.

00:04:41.500 He stoked that racial fire.

00:04:43.460 He's already made indications, for example, uh, openly said, I think it was on Twitter

00:04:49.260 either yesterday or the day before that we're going to have to now start doing this building

00:04:53.720 back better program.

00:04:54.880 And we're going to do that with racial equity in mind.

00:04:58.380 And he named specifically racial minority groups in the U S that are going to be favored

00:05:03.940 under his program.

00:05:04.700 That's been on his website all along.

00:05:06.640 I don't believe that any of this is going to help.

00:05:09.620 In fact, I think it's all going to make things worse.

00:05:13.460 That's even compared with the fact that, that Trump became kind of a singular object of focus

00:05:21.120 that, uh, stoked the culture war to, to the fevered pitch that it's at presently.

00:05:29.260 So no, I don't regret my decision.

00:05:30.820 And I also just to be upfront, I don't agree with the consensus view of what happened at

00:05:37.240 the Capitol, which is not to say I have an alternative explanation of what happened at

00:05:40.740 the Capitol.

00:05:41.740 My position has remained.

00:05:44.080 I don't know what happened at the Capitol and neither do you.

00:05:46.960 Um, and so I don't jump on bandwagons very easily or very quickly.

00:05:52.120 It took me months to decide even after studying all of this for so long that I would vote for

00:05:56.900 Donald Trump.

00:05:57.900 And you can see, I talked to Glenn Beck over the summer and I, he was like, are you going

00:06:01.400 to, who are you going to vote for?

00:06:02.400 I'm going to vote for myself.

00:06:03.680 And I talked to Jack Murphy before that.

00:06:05.800 And he was like, are you going to pull the trigger?

00:06:07.120 And they kind of did this whole like emotional guilt thing at the end.

00:06:09.940 And I'm like, I can't vote for Trump.

00:06:12.280 He's part of the same problem.

00:06:13.800 And so then finally it took until October or something for me to decide, to decide that

00:06:19.200 I would vote for Trump, um, and to get over that.

00:06:22.020 So I don't jump on bandwagons very easily and, um, I'm not jumping on that bandwagon

00:06:27.140 yet either.

00:06:28.500 I want to go back to something that you said in particular about the threat that you see

00:06:32.700 of wokeness within the Biden administration and tangibly what you see is the consequences

00:06:38.280 of that.

00:06:38.720 But first I want to play the clip that you talked about that we saw on Twitter of Joe

00:06:43.000 Biden saying that he is going to prioritize black, Latino, Asian, small business owners.

00:06:48.240 Our priority will be black, Latino, Asian, and Native American owned small businesses,

00:06:52.920 women owned businesses, and finally having equal access to resources needed to reopen 1.00

00:06:57.660 and rebuild.

00:06:59.520 So can you translate this for us?

00:07:02.040 Basically, he listed every demographic besides white male business owners.

00:07:07.840 Was Asian on there, by the way?

00:07:09.380 Asian was on there.

00:07:11.640 Yes, I know in the world.

00:07:12.760 Because they often get lumped into white now.

00:07:14.940 Right, right.

00:07:15.800 And some people listening to this really have no idea what we're talking about.

00:07:18.920 We're talking about wokeness or intersectionality.

00:07:20.800 So can you translate as the person who is peeling back the skin of the onion, what Biden

00:07:27.260 is saying and what he really means?

00:07:30.060 Okay, so the key thing to point out is where he says that we're finally going to give them

00:07:35.100 equal access to the resources of society, because the point of view from which they're coming

00:07:40.060 is one under a heading that's called critical race theory.

00:07:44.020 I can say that now, and people kind of know what I'm talking about, at least heard of

00:07:47.600 it.

00:07:48.300 Critical race theory begins with the assumption that racism is the ordinary state of affairs

00:07:52.340 in society, and that it has not been improved upon.

00:07:55.160 In fact, it only has been hidden better over all of the different things that we've done,

00:07:59.760 like abolishing slavery, ending Jim Crow, ending segregation in schools and in workplaces,

00:08:05.880 passing the Civil Rights Act.

00:08:07.140 Critical race theory holds that those things didn't end racism, they just hid it more successfully

00:08:13.540 from people and made them less aware that they're participating in racism.

00:08:17.080 So there's this belief that they're coming from, and Biden actually acknowledges that belief

00:08:22.080 explicitly that we're finally going to give them equal access to the resources of society.

00:08:28.480 The belief says that that is not the case, and it has never been the case.

00:08:32.260 This is truly the belief in critical race theory, that until the system itself is overthrown

00:08:38.300 and replaced with a new one constructed by these race theorists, that it's not possible

00:08:42.800 for there to be equal access to the resources and opportunities in society.

00:08:49.820 What do they mean by resources, and what do they mean by equal access?

00:08:52.800 Money and power are the resources, frankly.

00:08:58.640 And also, how do I phrase it?

00:09:01.880 Cultural, being viewed equally, like in a very culturally relativistic sense, that all cultures

00:09:08.980 are exactly identical in terms of their capacity to produce success.

00:09:15.360 So the view from critical race theory is that when you hear this phrase, cultural racism,

00:09:19.960 is that the reason that black people are actually not as successful in the United States is in 1.00

00:09:27.740 part because black culture is not held in equal esteem to white culture.

00:09:33.220 We have a predominant white culture, and that black culture is different. 1.00

00:09:36.280 You'll notice that this assigns cultures to races, which is a racist thing to do.

00:09:41.080 Um, so it's a very difficult way to think about the world until you understand how they think

00:09:48.420 about it, but this is, this is what they're talking about.

00:09:51.060 So when you talk about access to the, the, the resources of society, we're primarily talking

00:09:56.000 about money and with Biden, that's explicitly what's being, uh, discussed here and power.

00:10:01.960 And so with money, what will happen is there will be these so-called equity programs and the

00:10:06.660 equity programs are being used to prioritize access to money with the COVID pandemic.

00:10:13.140 It'll be prioritizing access to vaccines.

00:10:15.300 They've said that they're going to do this by race to, and I quote, level the playing field,

00:10:20.480 which in practice is a, literally means having to let older white and other people die of the

00:10:27.500 virus, uh, because we have to level that playing field apparently.

00:10:31.560 Um, so those are the kinds of resources that can also include freedom or ability to travel

00:10:37.800 and under, that's the, the rubric of equity and under the rubric of diversity, it will

00:10:43.260 be access to power.

00:10:44.280 So it'll be positions that are higher up in companies or in government.

00:10:48.460 You see Joe Biden appointing people explicitly doing so as he says, because that they have certain

00:10:54.100 racial or, uh, sex characteristics.

00:10:57.180 And so access to money, power, uh, including the, the, the basic liberties to participate

00:11:04.740 in society.

00:11:05.360 Like, uh, it could be connected through COVID to the ability to travel.

00:11:09.700 If they prioritize the vaccine and then say people who aren't vaccinated can't travel, then

00:11:13.860 they can do that that way and make it just your, your even basic freedom to move.

00:11:19.600 Gotcha.

00:11:20.160 And tell me the, for the people who are listening to this and they're like, you know, that, that

00:11:28.340 doesn't sound like that's actually going to be the tangible consequence.

00:11:31.260 He's just talking about equity.

00:11:32.600 Who doesn't want equity? 0.99

00:11:33.480 He's just talking about equality.

00:11:34.720 He doesn't want equality.

00:11:35.760 When I posted about this on Twitter, that this is partiality, he claims to be a devout Catholic.

00:11:40.760 The Bible explicitly speaks against partiality.

00:11:43.200 Uh, the, the pushback that I got is, well, what's wrong with finally allowing these people

00:11:49.880 to just have the same kind of power and influences money as, as white men have always had. 0.81

00:11:55.720 Why are you so hateful?

00:11:57.280 Why are you trying to push back against these disenfranchised groups?

00:12:01.000 And it's really hard, obviously, to engage in this in a, in a Twitter conversation.

00:12:05.900 Thomas Sowell calls this cosmic justice that is not actually accomplished without injustice.

00:12:11.120 You have to discriminate and hold back one group and push forward other groups.

00:12:15.200 Therefore, not seeing people as individuals who might actually be disenfranchised in some way,

00:12:19.680 whether they're white or black, but seeing people as part of a collection or a whole group

00:12:23.840 that is just from our own perspective has been oppressed.

00:12:29.660 And so it necessarily leads to some kind of other oppression or injustice.

00:12:34.500 How do I explain that in layman's terms to people who haven't read your books,

00:12:39.320 who haven't read Thomas Sowell, and, uh, who really just think that we don't want

00:12:43.800 any kind of fairness or equality for people who may or may not have been disenfranchised?

00:12:50.080 It's not easy because it really frequently comes down to haggling about the meanings of words.

00:12:57.400 Yeah.

00:12:57.640 And, uh, for example, you see the word disenfranchised, um, technically with the passage of the civil rights act

00:13:04.920 in 1964, full entran enfranchisement was given to all people of all demographics and was protected.

00:13:10.200 So nobody's been disenfranchised for a very long time in that regard.

00:13:14.600 Um, so when, when I say that I'm not trying to make a, oh, you know, blah, blah, blah, you know,

00:13:20.820 that kind of an argument it's, we have to haggle about what you mean by the word disenfranchised

00:13:27.180 before we can even start to have this conversation is the very difficult part.

00:13:31.060 Because if you look, for example, at the way that different groups are, are succeeding in society,

00:13:40.660 what you find is that the narrative that is being pushed by say critical race theory or by Joe Biden

00:13:46.780 in this, in this case bears very little resemblance to reality. For example, they are claiming that race

00:13:54.740 is a determining factor. Okay. That requires you to be able to explain why South and East

00:14:00.980 Asians and, and very dark black on average, Nigerian immigrants are the most successful 0.98

00:14:07.300 groups in the United States by most of the outcome metrics and they can't. It also requires you to

00:14:12.900 explain if white people have always had access to, to, to money and power and privilege, why white

00:14:19.300 Appalachian people are overwhelmingly statistically the poorest and, uh, most ridden with, with deep 1.00

00:14:30.340 societal problems like deaths of despair and opioid addiction and so on. And so the narrative that

00:14:35.700 they're pushing is a very simplistic one that does not match reality. Yeah. And so when you say,

00:14:40.260 well, why don't you care about the enfranchisement of these people? You have to specify which people

00:14:46.340 you mean, and then you have to then figure out how race becomes or remains the relevant variable.

00:14:52.580 And then when you push that against the, the, the picture of the civil rights act, which made it

00:14:58.340 absolutely illegal, uh, what are we talking about? 56 years ago, it made it absolutely illegal to

00:15:05.140 disenfranchise people intentionally by race, um, or by sex. It's very difficult to say what,

00:15:13.140 what's going on there. Now, by the way, speaking of, you know, you mentioned Thomas Sowell and he talked

00:15:18.100 about cosmic justice, uh, Thomas Sowell, I would, would put on a, on the good guy side of this,

00:15:23.060 uh, this argument, there's a bad guy side, uh, that, that you have to bring up this philosopher,

00:15:28.420 one of the critical theorists from the Frankfurt school named Herbert Marcuse, who was very

00:15:33.140 prominent at Columbia university. And eventually at, um, UC, I think San Diego, where he was the

00:15:39.380 mentor to the black activist, Angela Davis, who is prominent within black lives matter and so on.

00:15:44.900 He was in fact, her mentor, Angela Davis says that he radicalized her. He wrote an essay in 1965

00:15:50.020 called repressive tolerance in which he called this exactly what you're seeing discriminating

00:15:54.740 tolerance. And he also referred to the same discriminating tolerance as liberating tolerance

00:16:00.580 and as repressive tolerance. And the idea that he was pushing is that we should only, and this is

00:16:05.540 explicit in what he says. I'm not, I'm not, uh, editorializing this. He explicitly says that we should

00:16:12.740 not be tolerant of right wing movements, even if we have to use violence to suppress them,

00:16:18.260 but we must be tolerant of left wing movements, even when they are violent because of the goals

00:16:23.700 that the, the liberation goals that they seek to achieve. So what we see is a profound logic of

00:16:28.900 asymmetry that's being pushed on a narrative that doesn't like there, there are big question marks

00:16:36.980 around if racism is the determining variable, why are South Asians, East Asians, and Nigerian immigrants

00:16:42.660 the most successful groups in the United States? If you talk about their ability for educational or

00:16:47.860 financial attainment. Yeah. So you're saying the consistency is not the goal of critical race theory.

00:16:54.100 They're not concerned with, okay, well, we denounced violence. If we denounce the violence at the

00:16:59.540 Capitol, we have to denounce the violence that happened over the summer. So they're actually operating from

00:17:04.340 from what is in a very strange sense, actually a congruent worldview you're arguing that says,

00:17:10.980 um, well, the reason why someone like AOC or Ayanna Pressley can say unrest is okay because

00:17:16.900 there's unrest in their lives or protests are supposed to make people feel uncomfortable,

00:17:21.140 even as there are people who are being murdered in these riots. The reason why they don't have to

00:17:26.420 denounce those, but they can say what happened at the Capitol is domestic terrorism is because

00:17:30.980 they're actually operating not just from a place of hypocrisy, but from what they see as a very

00:17:36.260 consistent and a congruent worldview, which is that liberation, what they see as liberation,

00:17:40.660 we would obviously disagree with that. What they see as liberation is worth murder. It's worth arson.

00:17:48.020 It is worth looting whatever it takes. That's what they're going to do to accomplish that.

00:17:52.980 But these goals, whatever they may be of storming the Capitol, they're not good because they are

00:17:59.220 allegedly right wing goals and therefore violence is all of the sudden very bad. Is that kind of the

00:18:06.180 mentality? I don't even think they realize that mentality, but is that where they're coming from

00:18:10.180 without knowing it? Right. Yeah, that is the logic of repressive tolerance, which again, I'll point

00:18:15.620 out that was written in 1965. And then it circulated very rapidly. Marcuse at the time was a rock star

00:18:23.460 in radical left circles. It was written in 1965. And then we saw massive riots in 67, 68 and 69.

00:18:30.820 That logic has mainstreamed again, primarily since 2015. And what do we see through 2020 riots? And we see

00:18:38.180 people who have taken on that logic doing the exact, exactly as you just, just perfectly expressed it.

00:18:45.300 You see these people showing a very asymmetric analysis of what is and is not acceptable. Now,

00:18:51.620 to be completely fair to Marcuse, which isn't going to make him sound very good in that essay,

00:18:56.660 he says explicitly that all violence is always evil. Then he goes on in the next sentence to say,

00:19:03.220 however, when have ethics ever been relevant to the making of history? So this is the argument from

00:19:10.500 which they're coming. So they have an internally consistent logic that doesn't match with logic.

00:19:17.140 They have an internally consistent moral framework that doesn't match morality as we should understand

00:19:24.100 it in a bigger picture sense. Yeah. And they're kind of unable to explain,

00:19:27.780 I think, where it's coming from. What I've seen on social media as well, this is just different.

00:19:32.100 They are, the people over the summer, they were, you know, protesting and rioting for the safety of

00:19:38.100 black bodies. And we could even talk about that phrase and how strange it is and where it comes

00:19:43.380 from. These people, you know, they just believed a lie. This is totally illegitimate, probably not even

00:19:49.620 realizing that they're actually starting with a philosophical premise that has some kind of history.

00:19:57.620 They're just repeating the talking points. I've been very disappointed. You know, you and I have

00:20:02.740 talked about some people in the woke evangelical world who are so bravely coming out against the

00:20:09.140 Capitol storm, which I agree. I'm against political violence of all kinds. So call it out, condemn it.

00:20:14.180 Absolutely. But who had nothing to say about the communities who were destroyed last year?

00:20:19.220 I know for a fact that some of the people writing these articles like Dr. Russell Moore, for example,

00:20:25.620 that he would not call himself a critical race theorist. He probably wouldn't call himself a

00:20:29.300 leftist. He certainly wouldn't say that he subscribes to anything at the Frankfurt School. And yet we see

00:20:35.860 this lack of consistency that seems to be justified by, well, the ends justify the means kind of thinking

00:20:44.820 that it just, it really blows my mind.

00:20:48.020 You would better than I would even. Well, I don't know. The atheists are fairly astute on this point 1.00

00:20:55.540 as well. But you will understand very well that there are lots and lots and lots of people who

00:20:59.700 call themselves Christian, who may or may not qualify. And I would in fact say do qualify in 0.70

00:21:04.820 the broad sense, who have read virtually none of the Bible. They think that they're, I mean, I don't

00:21:11.780 know. And unfortunately, Russell Moore is not one of those people.

00:21:13.300 Well, this is the point that I'm making, is that he doesn't have to have read a page of the

00:21:17.380 Frankfurt School to have adopted the same belief structure. And so I know so many Christians whose

00:21:22.740 favorite Bible verse would be something like, God helps those who help themselves, which is not

00:21:28.500 only not in the Bible, it is an anti-Christian sentiment. And so it was one of those strong

00:21:37.540 agnostic or deistic sentiments from the 18th century. And that's their favorite Bible verse.

00:21:44.820 So here what you definitely can have, so that's a Christian who's taken on an atheistic worldview 0.97

00:21:50.500 without realizing it. Here you can have a person who's taken on this very broadly critical

00:21:58.020 worldview without having realized it. They can have taken on the fundamental asymmetry,

00:22:02.820 the fundamental premises of critical race theory and repressive tolerance without having fully

00:22:08.660 realized that that's what they're doing. So the second they set a different standard that's based

00:22:12.980 in race and they say, well, look at the history of injustice in this country. And then they go one

00:22:19.460 step further from that point and say that therefore makes us think that there are systemic injustices

00:22:25.300 in this country today that cause us to need a double standard. They've already adopted the

00:22:30.820 logic of critical race theory, even if they speak out against a specific tenets, just like you can

00:22:35.380 have people who have adopted in reverse. You have atheists, for example, who act in a lot of the 0.67

00:22:41.860 Christians when they're during the atheist Christian. Remember how quaint that was when we used to be able 1.00

00:22:45.700 to argue about religion. Um, how cute, how fun. Um, there were a lot of, a lot of atheists or

00:22:52.420 Christians, I'm sorry, who pointed out the atheists. You're like, well, that's a Christian belief. 0.94

00:22:55.620 That's a Christian. I just had a conversation with someone who said, I, you know, I was talking

00:23:00.260 about how secular humanism, something about it. It doesn't make sense. I don't even remember what

00:23:04.580 I said. And some secular humanist said, you know, I'm a secular humanist. We just believe in taking

00:23:09.540 care of the widow and the orphan. I'm like, yeah, that's from the book of James. That's,

00:23:13.700 that's a, that's a verse in the Bible. And so you're just adopting Christian tenets and you're

00:23:19.780 applying it to your belief in that there is no God and saying that this is actually a tenet of atheism.

00:23:26.420 It's not. No. So exactly. You see, you also see then at the same time that somebody can have taken

00:23:32.260 on the tenets of critical race theory while believing themselves to be opposed to it. And, uh,

00:23:37.860 what's actually, if we, depending on how philosophically you like to get on your show,

00:23:41.460 the, the postmodern philosopher who was actually very good at diagnosing this, but also overdiagnosed

00:23:46.820 it and made a lot of mistakes. John Francois Lyotard called this legitimation by parology.

00:23:51.300 And what parallel parology, I almost broke it down as parology or paralogic beside logic. And, uh,

00:23:59.300 so it's a fake logic. It's a different way of thinking about the world. And for Christians, 0.74

00:24:04.020 of course, because of the centrality of the logos to, uh, for example, the book of John,

00:24:08.500 um, you would have a really profound understanding of how dangerous legitimation. So making something

00:24:14.900 true or, or, or valid by means of a false logos. How, how, I mean, that's by, by definition,

00:24:24.020 I don't want to speak for Christians, but that's heresy. That's literally heresy. And so when you have 1.00

00:24:29.540 folks like, like, I think he's Dr. Moore, right? Maybe he's Mr. Moore, uh, speaking up like this,

00:24:35.540 if he's speaking out of a paralogos, he's speaking heresy. He's taken on tenants of another faith, 0.59

00:24:44.020 mixed it into his Christianity, reinterpreted it back through a Christological lens. And now he's in

00:24:50.320 a bad place and doesn't know it. And on the one hand, you have to feel a bit of pity, but on the other

00:24:55.520 hand, you have to realize that this is still, I mean, Jesus was right when it was like, you'll

00:24:59.980 know them by their fruits. This is going to bear bad fruit. And we already see the division that

00:25:05.300 it's tearing and tearing through the country at the division. It's tearing through the churches.

00:25:10.560 It's bearing bad fruit already. I can't understand why people who are so deeply aware of the know them

00:25:17.740 by their fruit gospel, the part of the gospel would not realize when they see the fruit that,

00:25:22.740 that they must be on the wrong branch of the tree.

00:25:26.160 You know, he would probably argue and we're really, we were supposed to keep this to 15 minutes, but

00:25:32.320 no, it's not your fault. I, this has just been really interesting, but I think he would probably

00:25:39.480 argue that while the fruit of so-called, you know, Christian nationalism, which is an accusation that

00:25:44.700 we're hearing from a lot of people in evangelicalism toward people who voted for Donald Trump, the fruit is

00:25:50.700 what happened at the Capitol. That is bad fruit. I'm the one bearing good fruit. And I actually agree

00:25:56.100 with so much of what his article said. My only contention with it is where is the consistency?

00:26:03.600 Where is the consistency? There were people that were hurt by the violence that happened last year.

00:26:08.040 Some of us have been condemning violence, political violence for more than one week.

00:26:12.140 And so for this, for him to take a strong, courageous stand on this one thing and not having taken the same

00:26:18.200 strong, courageous stand on another thing that would have probably had a much higher cultural

00:26:22.380 cost than making this stand. That makes me say, okay, yeah, what you're saying is true. Right on,

00:26:28.360 obviously very well written, but where were you? But, you know, you already explained kind of the

00:26:34.200 philosophical origins. That's important. That's the, I tweeted this morning that the Capitol is the

00:26:40.320 distraction. The asymmetry is the story. And that is, that's the key here. And so I also tweeted the

00:26:47.500 other day and somebody emailed me and said it was super deep. So I'm all proud of myself.

00:26:52.520 But I tweeted that when, when a society starts to reward cowardice as though it's bravery. And so it

00:27:02.080 could be a church rewarding cowardice as though it's bravery. That's when, you know, it slipped off

00:27:06.380 the rails. That's when you know that something bad is going on. And so it requires zero courage

00:27:13.940 to condemn. Maybe it requires some, if you're in Trump circles, I talked with, with, with David

00:27:19.100 French yesterday, I had a short debate with David French yesterday and, um, he has received death

00:27:25.460 threats and many of the never Trump Republicans have received death threats from hardcore Trumpers

00:27:29.940 and these kinds of lunatics that most of us all don't approve of and have been condemning from the

00:27:36.540 beginning. Uh, and so I can understand where, where you can have this, you know, feeling that it does

00:27:44.060 take some courage to stand up against the hardcore Trumpers. So I don't want to go too far with it,

00:27:48.700 but when you start rewarding in general, when you start rewarding something that only requires

00:27:54.740 cowardice or going along with the crowd as though it's brave, you've got a problem going on and it takes

00:28:00.500 very little effort to condemn what's going on at the Capitol. Even people that were at the Capitol,

00:28:05.700 I just saw a video of a guy being interviewed today that had come out, you know, he had just

00:28:12.020 been pepper sprayed or something. And he's like the people who were doing violence, that's not what

00:28:16.320 we were here for. So he's, he's there with pepper spray in his face, condemning the violence. It's

00:28:21.420 like a lot of, not very many people supported what was going on in that regard. Although altogether too

00:28:27.740 many did, but to focus on that rather than to be aware of the asymmetry, um, is, is falling

00:28:35.660 for the distraction of the moment that we will all rue. And he is right in the sense that there

00:28:41.980 has been a history of, of white supremacy in the country and in the convention. There have,

00:28:46.560 has been a problem of racism in the past in the country and in the convention, uh, Southern Baptist

00:28:52.740 convention, I mean, and those, those branches can grow poison fruit and do grow poison fruit as well.

00:29:00.440 I even said, uh, also on Twitter, another one, somebody emailed me about was that I said that

00:29:06.040 if we're all created in the image of God and colorblindness of all forms must be holy

00:29:10.760 because God can't possibly have a color. And then, uh, that would mean that racism in this

00:29:17.080 neo-racism in, in, in critical race theory would have to be evil. And so if you, if you don't

00:29:22.920 understand the asymmetry, I mean, there can be more than one bad fruit, right? You don't have to say,

00:29:28.240 that's a bad fruit. So this fruit must be, that's the opposite. It must be good. You can diverge both

00:29:33.000 ways. Right. Yep. Absolutely. Um, I think there's a force about something like the straight and narrow

00:29:38.740 or the take the narrow path or something. I'm not a biblical expert. Well, you seem to be more

00:29:43.600 biblically literate than some people who profess to be Christians. All right. I've abandoned the goal 0.90

00:29:49.320 of having this be a short interview. So I do want to ask you one more question, um, because I saw

00:29:55.460 this on the news last night and, um, I, I figured that you would probably have a take on it. So

00:30:01.700 Biden has tapped as the head of the civil rights division of the DOJ, a woman named Kristen Clark.

00:30:09.060 Now she has an interesting background. She went to Harvard and, uh, she wrote in Harvard or in the,

00:30:15.380 in the Harvard Crimson that, um, black people, according to her have superior physical and mental

00:30:21.320 abilities because of their melanin because white people can't produce as much melanin as black

00:30:26.680 people that they're actually inferior, both mentally and physically. Now this is someone

00:30:31.800 who is supposed to be a champion of civil rights and is going to be put in an official position

00:30:36.620 to champion civil rights for the country. Now this fits in to a worldview that critical race theory is

00:30:44.340 somehow going to achieve liberation and equity and equality. But for the people like you and me who

00:30:50.040 sees that, okay, this is just another form of racism and discrimination that's going to lead

00:30:54.080 to oppression. What do you think are going to be the tangible results of something like this?

00:30:59.620 There's just going to be more justification of this. What we used to call, I don't know. I mean,

00:31:05.400 some people called it reverse racism, but it is just racism. Some people now, I think very

00:31:10.200 cleverly are calling it, and I just use the word neo-racism, that they've reinvented racism.

00:31:15.360 I think the tangible aspect of this- But they would say that black people can't be racist

00:31:19.620 because they say racism is prejudice plus power. And since, according to critical race theory,

00:31:25.860 black people don't have power, they have been disenfranchised, as we talked about. It's

00:31:30.580 impossible for them- It seems to be the opposite situation now as to who has power though, doesn't

00:31:36.500 it? Right. And that's why I like this term neo-racism because all of a sudden, you know,

00:31:42.020 oh, you took racism away. Fine. You're a neo-racist. And then what does that mean? And

00:31:46.340 they look into it and it means what they are. So it means reinventing racism. I've been arguing

00:31:51.060 from when I was doing the basic research for cynical theories several, a couple of years ago,

00:31:56.160 when we were writing the chapter on critical race theory and finally really, really reading

00:32:00.720 into critical race theory to write it. I, my big discovery, and I remember, I remember contacting

00:32:06.620 Helen Pluckrose and so much excitement when I realized this is like, Helen, they reinvented

00:32:12.000 the same problem. So what happened in the 1600s was that, that white people put social significance 0.54

00:32:18.640 of racial superiority and inferiority into the categories of white and black. And then we unleashed 0.96

00:32:26.020 a monster doing that. And it took us three centuries or more, almost four centuries to fight back

00:32:32.880 against that. We had to bear on the question scientifically. We had to bear on the question

00:32:37.360 ethically. We had to bear on the question religiously. We had to bear on the question

00:32:40.440 just about every way that you can possibly imagine. Finally, we achieve abolition. Finally, 0.54

00:32:45.340 we write the Declaration of Independence, actually, and all men are created equal. And there we lay the

00:32:50.600 seeds. We write the constitution. There the seed is planted. And finally, almost 100 years later,

00:32:58.960 we get abolition. Finally, almost 100 years after that, we get rid of segregation and Jim Crow.

00:33:03.820 We finally, 30 years after that, 40 years after that, have used comedy and social discourse and

00:33:10.080 the, the interactions between everyday people to have brought racism down to a low simmer at the

00:33:15.740 worst. We've really made some progress undoing the mistake of just to put a fake date on it, 1650.

00:33:22.200 And then I said, Helen, these critical race theorists made the same mistake. They put social

00:33:28.020 significance back into racial categories. They said, it is important to distinguish

00:33:31.940 the sentence, I am black. And this is quoting Kimberly Crenshaw, who is credited as the founder

00:33:37.180 of intersectionality and the co-founder of critical race theory. She said, it is important that we

00:33:42.580 distinguish between the sentences, I am black, and I am a person who happens to be black.

00:33:47.460 And her problem with, I am a person who happens to be black, is it centers their universal humanity

00:33:52.720 rather than their race, which would be useful for identity politics. So that's reinventing the same

00:33:58.900 mistake of 1650 that took us three and a half centuries to undo the ravaging damages of. And this fits

00:34:07.720 exactly into that logic. This woman is a race essentialist. She believes that there is some 0.98

00:34:12.680 biological, this is actual biological racism coming back onto the scene, that there is a biological

00:34:18.640 reason why black people in this case are genetically superior to white people. And therefore, they have 1.00

00:34:27.180 what she said, intellectual, physical and spiritual powers that exceed that of the white. She talked 0.74

00:34:32.680 about calcified pineal glands and all of this. And she's going, if she is in a power, in a position of

00:34:39.840 using, of judging civil rights law, and she has beliefs like this, granted that was in the 90s

00:34:44.580 that she wrote that, then we have every reason to believe that what we're going to see is more of

00:34:50.820 this asymmetric treatment and stronger justifications for it, or more ability for the people in, that are

00:34:58.840 supposed to be the adults in the room to apply a biased, as we would, we would have said 20 years ago,

00:35:05.520 backwards or reversed standard. Um, but in, in plain terms, that's a reinvention of, in fact,

00:35:12.960 I got this talking to a Kenyan man on the phone, a Kenyan scholar called me a few months ago, a couple

00:35:18.180 of months ago. And he said that he was like, you're the only person who will understand. He's about to

00:35:22.500 cry. You know, they can get, they tend to be so like big emotion that the African people tend to be. 1.00

00:35:28.680 And he's like, he's like, you're the only person who'll understand they've reinvented the mistake

00:35:34.060 of 1650. And that's where I chose that date from. And so this is this, we're seeing that now being

00:35:42.020 deliberately empowered by this administration. And so tangibly, what we'll see is justifications

00:35:48.840 coming from that civil rights office to continue tilting the playing field under a guise of leveling

00:35:56.120 it. Right. And, uh, that's going to create again, problems, division, uh, alienation. If we want to

00:36:04.080 talk in Marxist terms, which I'm fluent in those two, that is going to alienate an awful lot of people.

00:36:09.520 Uh, and, and it's going to create nothing but problems. Yeah. And of course, if you react to this

00:36:16.640 as someone who says, you know, a white male, the only demographic that was left out of Joe Biden's

00:36:23.880 speech, when he was saying, you know, we're going to build back better by resourcing,

00:36:27.740 prioritizing, uh, these people, if you do react in a way that says, Hey, you know, like I, I need help

00:36:33.900 to my business closed down to, uh, whatever it is, then you are told that that is your white fragility.

00:36:41.220 That is your white privilege. And so you were told that that's actually an act of racism to say,

00:36:47.220 Hey, why, you know, why am I being punished as someone who was just born with a gender,

00:36:52.460 who was just born with a skin color, but you're not allowed to care you James as a white male

00:36:57.680 about, about those things. You're not allowed to say anything about it. And then we wonder why there

00:37:03.200 is so much division and so much hatred and so much resentment. I was reading, I'm, I don't know if

00:37:08.760 you've read CS Lewis's abolition of man, but he is talking about creating men without chests. Uh,

00:37:14.680 and he's talking about, uh, the, the, the school books at the time, how, well, I won't even get into

00:37:21.120 his whole critique, but his, uh, entire point was that we are saying that society is trying to build

00:37:28.360 these virtues or to say that, for example, sacrifice is a good virtue or that charity is a

00:37:33.340 good virtue while also rendering them impossible by what we're teaching people. And that's what I

00:37:38.500 think of when I think of you talking about repressive tolerance, or when I hear people say,

00:37:43.760 oh, you know, I just want love and unity and within the evangelical world, racial reconciliation.

00:37:49.700 Well, you are saying that you are upholding these virtues, that you are making it impossible

00:37:55.120 for us to actually manifest. You cannot find reconciliation and unity and so-called equity,

00:38:01.800 equality, liberation, whatever it is that you are trying to achieve through the vehicle of critical

00:38:07.540 race theory, because it does the exact opposite. It divides. Um, and so I see that problem within

00:38:14.680 the church. I see it in the secular world. And I truly think that there are tangible consequences.

00:38:19.140 Some people just think that we're talking or having an academic or philosophical consequence or

00:38:23.000 conversation. It's not, it's going to affect your neighborhood. It might affect your suburb.

00:38:28.180 It's going to affect your kid's school. It's going to affect how your kids act possibly like in 1984,

00:38:33.980 when Orwell talks about how everyone over 30 is scared of their kids because of how horrible they

00:38:38.800 are. They, you know, snitch on their parents and, and things like that. It's because of this kind of

00:38:44.000 mentality that is going to flourish, that has been flourishing and is going to flourish even more,

00:38:48.400 um, under the Biden administration, I'm afraid, and I'm afraid we're going to see the worst of it

00:38:53.220 in the next few years. I think so. Uh, this year will either prove pivotal or it will, uh,

00:39:01.320 become much worse over the next three. And then we'll see. And I don't know what will come. Um,

00:39:09.040 this is, this is exactly what you just described. It's things like that are already happening. We saw

00:39:14.180 a 18 year old who turned in her mother for being at the Capitol.

00:39:19.180 Not even storming the Capitol. Correct. Just there peacefully. I think.

00:39:23.820 I have no idea what the story with that is. All I know is that we have an 18 year old eagerly

00:39:29.400 turning in her mother to go viral on social media and then vigorously defending it and being

00:39:34.020 vigorously defended for doing it. Uh, so, and we, we already see this, you know, separations of

00:39:40.320 families. You talk about neighborhoods, you talk about whatever club or affinity group, even the

00:39:44.980 knitting, the knitting community somehow became like a flashpoint for this early on, like knitting,

00:39:50.800 like, you know, yeah, that's so street. Yeah. And it's, it's, it's got just out of control.

00:39:57.300 It will, it will tear the, the logic of this is to create polarization to where you have to pick a

00:40:03.600 side. And one side is the, again, we see that asymmetry. One side's always right. The other side's

00:40:09.120 always wrong. And, um, I, I mentioned the Marx analysis and alienation and all of this a few

00:40:16.620 minutes ago. The truth is what we're seeing is that people have taken it, the best, most charitable

00:40:24.160 way you can read it. You can say Marx wrote a great critique of capitalism, of the dangers of

00:40:28.620 capitalism. You can say that the critical theorists wrote a great critique and of the dangers of

00:40:32.920 fascism. You can say that the, that the postmodernists wrote a great critique of the ideas of social

00:40:38.380 power. And all of that is correct. Um, but what we have now is people who have taken those things.

00:40:45.300 And I think it may have been those, those writers intentions, but nevertheless, as instruction

00:40:50.560 manuals, if you read them as warnings and as critiques and as, uh, especially the postmodernists

00:40:56.220 are easy to read as, as warning people of what can go wrong, um, because they didn't want to commit

00:41:01.840 to anything. So they, they weren't pushing any kind of agenda. They were just playing around with words

00:41:07.000 and tearing everything apart. If you look at them as warnings, and then you realize that people have

00:41:12.340 said, Oh, those are tools we can pick up and use against society. Then you find yourself,

00:41:18.920 that's where I am now in a very awkward position of realizing just how dangerous this stuff is.

00:41:24.820 For example, critical race theory will create only division polarization in particular, not just

00:41:29.620 division. You will have to pick sides and one side will be asymmetrically viewed as evil, where the

00:41:34.880 other side will be viewed as good. Um, in a way that is, is almost incomprehensible unless you're

00:41:42.120 playing within it and nothing good happens here. So we will see all kinds of problems emerge out of

00:41:50.320 this. And if you read those theories, especially Marx and the critical theorists, less the postmodernists,

00:41:55.020 that alienation was the goal. They want critical race theory was born out of a tradition that wants

00:42:01.220 to alienate people specifically so that society will fray and come apart. And then they, by having that

00:42:09.260 asymmetric position, we'll be able to claim the mantle of power for their, their project.

00:42:14.800 Right. Right. Um, can you give anyone a little bit of optimism or at least some advice? Because I

00:42:22.480 think what people feel after this, um, even if they're not looking for some rosy picture of the

00:42:27.240 future, they just want to know, okay, what, what do I do? Because I see this in my kid's curriculum.

00:42:32.280 I see this at the college that I'm, you know, paying to indoctrinate my adult child. I see this

00:42:38.720 at work and diversity and inclusion trainings. I see this among my friends. I see this in my pastor

00:42:44.540 and they don't feel equipped to be able to say anything. And they don't know if they should say

00:42:48.360 anything. They really just want to be quiet so they don't get canceled. Um, what's your advice to them?

00:42:53.120 Well, um, you're going to get canceled. So, you know, I, I should warn you about that. So

00:42:59.720 speak up while you can speak more rather than when you won't be able to speak as much.

00:43:05.160 That said, there are a lot of reasons for optimism and there are a lot of things people can do.

00:43:08.720 One reason for optimism is that the United States was built on firm principles, good principles and

00:43:14.560 good ideas. And the constitution has not been shredded. It's just being threatened. And so

00:43:22.080 the courts may be a wonderful line of defense against this, that starts turning things back.

00:43:29.940 Um, we see already indications that the tech companies are going to be pushed on antitrust

00:43:35.940 legislation. We'll see how that pans out or an antitrust charges. At least we'll see how that works.

00:43:41.100 That, that may change some things very quickly. We see, um, schools being pressured in the same way.

00:43:48.020 So there are ways that things will turn back as a, as a point of optimism, more people are now aware

00:43:55.240 of this problem than ever before. And awareness is actually the main thing that it takes. When you

00:44:01.400 realize that these things that are happening are manipulations and you're aware of the manipulations,

00:44:05.800 they don't work, they don't work on you. And so this rapid awareness over the past first six

00:44:12.740 months or eight months or whatever. And then again, in the past week or two that has arisen

00:44:19.060 to what's going on with this, this rapidly progressing movement seems to be happening

00:44:26.140 faster than, uh, the people who are pushing it would have wanted. People have become aware that

00:44:32.160 they're in a totalitarian trap much sooner than they wanted. And they're becoming aware of the

00:44:36.180 manipulations. So something you can do is learn a little bit about, you don't have to learn a lot.

00:44:40.560 You can learn a little bit about critical race theory and these other ideologies,

00:44:43.700 and then you understand what they're doing and you won't fall for it. And then

00:44:47.700 you won't get sucked into those traps where you feel bad and you go along with it.

00:44:53.300 Another thing that you can do is just the, the, the proverb in Poland during the, or the saying in

00:45:02.020 Poland during the Polish revolution, I'm told was, was live as though they don't exist. And so you can 1.00

00:45:08.180 carry on to the degree that you need to. And I think that's actually got a very Christian

00:45:12.680 background, right? You know, the, the, the Roman persecution people certainly were not having a good

00:45:19.620 hundred years there as Christians and they still had to do their Christianity. They had to live their 0.99

00:45:25.760 beliefs as best they could as though the Roman persecution of them did not exist. And then

00:45:32.040 eventually the truth outs, the truth, reality always wins. So the bad times may last a week.

00:45:41.060 They may last a season. They may last a year. They may last a hundred years. They may last a thousand

00:45:45.400 years, but the truth in reality always went out in the end. And so people who are willing to take

00:45:52.740 the side of that now are already, you know, we always hear, yo, you have to be on the right side of

00:45:56.840 history. The right side of history is on, is, is, is whichever side is on the side of truth.

00:46:02.740 Right. Right. And that's, I think the most optimistic and hopeful thing. I mean, that more

00:46:07.900 and more people realize this and realize that there's a need to, to stand up and just not go

00:46:15.300 along with the crowd right now is, it's just a really hopeful sign to me. So there's lots of reasons

00:46:21.980 to be helpful. The U S is a good place. The truth, reality bats last, the truth wins out.

00:46:27.760 I won't be so cheeky as to make a claim about, you know, it's in God's hands and, and bear into

00:46:34.100 your faith because I don't want to come off awkwardly, but I hear a lot of Christians say

00:46:38.600 that to each other. And so to remember, I think Daryl Bernard Harrison recently said, remember that

00:46:44.220 this is God's fight. And so I'll say it through him because, uh, that way I'm not being, you know,

00:46:51.520 inappropriate or something. Yeah. You're close. You're close, James. You're going to, you're going

00:46:56.300 to be, you're going to be back on this show and you're going to tell me about how you traveled,

00:47:01.340 uh, theologically. And you realized that really the real, the only real lasting and ultimate pushback

00:47:10.440 to all the craziness that we're seeing is a theological one. And I will have a conversation

00:47:15.160 with you about that. At some point, this was supposed to be a short interview. It wasn't

00:47:20.620 because I couldn't stop asking you, uh, asking you questions. So thank you so much for taking the time

00:47:26.720 and peeling back the skin of the onion for us. Unfortunately, discourse, which is what you are

00:47:33.280 trying to do and trying to lead is getting harder and harder with that kind of repressive tolerance that

00:47:39.580 we're seeing. But while people can support you, um, how can they, where can they find you? Where can

00:47:45.520 they buy your book? So, well, I would say that normally is you can buy my book anywhere where

00:47:51.500 books are sold, but there are certain companies that sell books right now that maybe you shouldn't

00:47:55.240 use. And, uh, because they're exerting monopolistic control over the whole world. Um, so my book is

00:48:02.420 pretty easily available until it gets canceled from, from most booksellers. So, you know, pick your

00:48:07.060 favorite one that maybe doesn't sound like a jungle in Brazil and do what you will with it.

00:48:12.240 And, uh, you can find me also on my, as long as it lasts on the website, new discourses.com.

00:48:19.000 That's, uh, the home of my company, new discourses. There are lots of ways to support. There's a support

00:48:24.000 button that's easily found right at the top. So you can find ways to support it if that's what you

00:48:28.260 want to do that way. Um, if you just want to share the articles and share the information on there,

00:48:33.120 that's supporting me too. If you just want to send a nice note, that's also support. I'm very

00:48:37.740 grateful for all of that. Um, you can find me on social media everywhere that I have one so far

00:48:44.240 at conceptual James, um, mostly active on Twitter. I find more than one social media platform exhausting.

00:48:51.600 So I kind of stick to one, but, um, I do copy most of it to the other ones. So as long as I'm still on

00:48:59.060 social media, you can find me and support me there as well. Same stuff. You can, you know,

00:49:04.080 send me kind words or you can share my message and hopefully get that out there.

00:49:09.400 Or you can send, you can see your, send your disagreeing words to him too. And he typically

00:49:13.560 does respond to those on Twitter, right? Yeah, that's true. If you're rude though,

00:49:18.400 my rule is tit for tat. So if you come politely, I will be polite. And if you come rude,

00:49:23.580 I'm probably going to say something rude back. Um, yeah, that's typically how social media goes.

00:49:29.460 But it's all in good. I hope people understand though, that first of all, it is that I will

00:49:34.300 not provoke rudeness. And second of all, um, I do try to keep good humor about it. I don't try to be

00:49:40.100 mean to anybody and I don't try to make it too personal. Although some people would read it as

00:49:43.800 personal when I'm trying to be funny. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I appreciate that about you. And like you said,

00:49:49.240 truth, I, we say on this podcast, truth is like a beach ball. You can try to push it under the

00:49:54.440 water and you might be successful for a little bit, especially if you have a lot of people doing

00:49:58.020 it, eventually it's going to pop back up. And that's exactly what you were saying in your last

00:50:03.100 answer. So that is a bit of optimism for people. Doesn't mean it's not going to be a hard fight.

00:50:07.620 Doesn't mean like you said, you won't be canceled in the process, but it will be worth it. You,

00:50:12.640 you want to be on the side of the beach ball, not the people trying to push it down. So thank you

00:50:18.180 so much again. Um, we will have you back on soon. Thank you.

Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - January 12, 2021

Ep 350 ｜ Explaining the 'Logic' of Leftist Hypocrisy ｜ Guest： James Lindsay

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