Classical Liberalism’s Excremental Excuses ｜ 4⧸18⧸24
Episode Stats
Words per Minute
145.2582
Summary
Peter Boghossian has made a name for himself in the conservative sphere as a non-woke classical liberal willing to stand against the corruption of academia. And yet, he is still an unrepentant revolutionary who clings to the political leadership of the left.
Transcript
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We hope you're enjoying your Air Canada flight.
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Fast-free Wi-Fi means I can make dinner reservations before we land.
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Wi-Fi available to Airplane members on Equipped Flight.
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According to recent reports, a gay Spanish politician who belongs to the country's left-wing governing party
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has been forced to resign after pictures surface of the municipal councillor eating his own excrement.
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While incredibly disgusting, the existence of yet another degenerate politician would be unremarkable
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if not for the fact that he was defended by an unlikely ally, Peter Boghossian.
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Boghossian has made a name for himself in the conservative sphere as a non-woke classical liberal
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willing to stand against the corruption of academia.
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The former professor of philosophy felt a bizarre compulsion to take to Twitter
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and ward off those that would question the Spanish politician's behavior,
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mind your own business and leave the guy alone.
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When Boghossian inevitably received pushback for his strange reaction,
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pervasive normative rigidity that comes from Christian fear of judgment, end quote.
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Many were confused at this absurd reaction from a man who had portrayed himself as a champion
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of returning rational standards to the university system.
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But Boghossian's outburst reveals an important contradiction that lies at the heart of liberalism
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and makes it incompatible with those who seek to return order and civilization to the West.
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Like many non-woke liberals of our era, Boghossian began his political journey
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as a militant new atheist progressive who spent much of his academic career attacking religion.
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The philosopher joined forces with prominent atheists like Richard Dawkins and Michael Shermer,
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hosting debates with Christian apologists to drive out the last vestiges of religious dogma
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As new atheism waned in popularity, many public intellectuals involved with the movement
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discovered a new target for their acerbic deconstruction, wokeness.
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The social justice warriors who dominated college campuses in the late 2000s had grown up and
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taken positions as professors or administrators in the university system.
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Woke dogma was threatening the liberal order in academia, and the new atheists framed the
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successor ideology as the next in a long line of religions that needed to be defeated.
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Boghossian's most famous salvo against wokeness in academia came in 2017 when he teamed up
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with fellow new atheists James Lindsay and Helen Pluckrose to submit a series of fake scholarly
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The papers were filled with a jumble of critical theory jargon designed to draw the adoration
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of woke academics despite saying nothing of substance.
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Some of the papers drew praise from reviewers, and a few even got published before the hoax was
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Peer review is the linchpin of legitimacy for modern academic expertise, and discrediting
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the process threatened to deal a huge blow to the foundations underlying the power of our
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This revealing glimpse into the absurd system that has come to dominate many scholarly fields
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won Boghossian a fair amount of credit among conservatives and classical liberals who
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weren't interested in joining the woke revolution.
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As I've spoken about in previous episodes, like my neocon cycle, one I'll put the card,
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it should be popping up right now in the video, conservatives have a nasty habit of immediately
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accepting and even elevating to leadership liberals who hate them simply because they agree on a few
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Many disgruntled liberal atheists have suddenly found themselves on the side of the very conservatives
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that they loathed for decades in the fight against wokeness, but that doesn't mean that
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I didn't leave the left, the left left me is the refrain most often uttered by these
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liberal cast-offs, and they rarely take any responsibility for what their movement became.
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Despite his temporary embarrassment with the pace at which progressivism accelerated,
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Boghossian is still an unrepentant revolutionary who clings to every belief that inevitably led
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to the very woke order he now claims to oppose.
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As expectations for political leadership go, not eating excrement is a pretty low bar.
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It would be nice if we could demand more from those who rule over us, but asking them not
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to be so degenerate that they literally consume their own feces seems reasonable.
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But this very mild request appears to be a bridge too far for Boghossian, who sees any standard
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for sexual behavior as an absurd relic from our religious past.
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Like most liberal atheists, Boghossian refuses to connect his purposeful deconstruction of
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spiritual and moral sentiments with the dysfunctional world in which he finds himself.
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The philosopher's radical commitment to individual freedom dissolved every barrier to wokeness,
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but he simply refuses to own the consequences of his beliefs.
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When asked to place even the slightest restrictions on personal freedom, Boghossian reflexively
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strikes out at Christianity, which he still perceives as his true enemy.
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And to be very clear, Boghossian is not ignorant of the fatal flaws residing in classical liberalism,
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and to his credit, he's willing to discuss them at length.
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I personally had a cordial discussion with the philosopher during which I laid out the reasons
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why liberalism couldn't defend itself from hostile ideologies, and why a more robust
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tradition was required to ground Western society.
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I went in expecting a knock-down, drag-out fight, but to my surprise, Boghossian spent most
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of the hour-long discussion conceding every one of my points.
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But despite the posture of general retreat, Boghossian still insisted that liberalism remain
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Recent events have clearly shaken his faith, but ultimately the academic can't imagine a
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Although they often adopt the moniker of classical liberal, the leftists ejected from progressivism
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share very little with the historical movement.
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The father of classical liberalism, John Locke, famously wrote that atheism was immoral and that
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its adherents could not be trusted, especially with political power.
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In the face of overwhelming evidence that the lack of religious and moral conviction in
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public life has destroyed Western civilization, liberal atheists like Boghossian simply can't
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In theory, liberalism holds that rational discourse can resolve all issues in the public square.
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In practice, the advocates of liberalism have proven impervious to that discourse.
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The faith of the spurned liberal is, in fact, as dogmatic as the religious doctrines they sought
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The unrepentant liberal can't take ownership over the consequences of his ideology and will
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always return to his core hatred of the religious traditions it displaced.
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The West must embrace a tradition that can make demands of its citizens and uphold standards
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If liberals can't even summon the moral fortitude to demand that their leaders refrain from literally
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eating their own crap, then maybe they simply have no place in a conservative coalition.
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