The Saad Truth with Dr. Saad - The West's Suicidal Empathy - My Chat on the Coleman Hughes Podcast (The Saad Truth with Dr. Saad

00:00:00.660 Welcome to another episode of Conversations with Coleman.

00:00:04.360 My guest today is Dr. Gad Saad.

00:00:07.060 Gad is a visiting scholar at the Declaration of Independence Center for the Study of American Freedom in Mississippi,

00:00:12.980 and he is also an evolutionary psychologist.

00:00:16.260 Today, we talk about Gad's forthcoming book called Suicidal Empathy,

00:00:20.300 in which he argues that the political left has taken empathy to a dangerous extreme.

00:00:24.640 We also talk about Gad's childhood as a Jew in Lebanon and his family's experience of the Lebanese Civil War.

00:00:32.480 So without further ado, Dr. Gad Saad.

00:00:35.380 And it's not always raining

00:00:51.860 There'll be days like this

00:00:54.660 When there's no one complaining

00:00:57.600 You're good tonight

00:00:58.780 There'll be days like this

00:01:01.160 Okay, Gad Saad, thanks so much for coming on my show.

00:01:17.940 Oh, I'm delighted to be with you. Thank you, Colin.

00:01:20.520 So tell me about your background growing up as a Jew in Lebanon.

00:01:25.640 Right. Okay, so I was born in 1964, as you said, in Lebanon.

00:01:30.960 We were part of a very, very minuscule community of Jews.

00:01:37.440 At one point, there could have been a few thousand Jews in Lebanon.

00:01:41.260 But by the time we were still there in the mid-70s,

00:01:45.680 we were probably down to a few hundred people.

00:01:49.140 My parents had steadfastly refused to leave Lebanon,

00:01:53.500 perhaps not reading the writing on the proverbial wall.

00:01:57.840 Much of my extended family had left well before the Civil War broke out in 1975.

00:02:04.480 Many of them to Israel, some to France, some to Canada.

00:02:08.980 But then the Civil War broke out in April 1975.

00:02:13.040 And as you correctly pointed out,

00:02:14.980 we typically think of Lebanon as really a dynamic between Christians and Muslims,

00:02:20.820 a whole wide range of Muslims.

00:02:24.160 Of course, there was also the PLO there,

00:02:26.060 the Palestinian Liberation Organization,

00:02:27.480 which was also involved in a lot of haying.

00:02:29.960 But the bottom line is, if you were Jewish,

00:02:32.920 there weren't too many places that you could hide in peace.

00:02:37.760 And so it became impossible to be Jewish in Lebanon.

00:02:40.980 We ended up leaving at the end of that first year of the Civil War.

00:02:46.560 But I often remind people that even before the Civil War broke out,

00:02:51.520 where it really became an imminent threat of execution to be Jewish,

00:02:56.120 it's not as though the romanticized view that people have of Lebanon,

00:03:01.360 you know, the Paris of the Middle East and the Switzerland of the Middle East.

00:03:05.120 I mean, yes, there is some of that.

00:03:06.580 Lebanon was, quote, a progressive, tolerant place.

00:03:10.520 But those words are in the context of the Middle East.

00:03:14.140 It's progressive and tolerant.

00:03:15.540 That doesn't mean that a Jew could aspire to be prime minister or president of Lebanon.

00:03:20.440 As a matter of fact, in Lebanon, it's a confessional parliament,

00:03:24.980 meaning that seats are assigned in parliament as a function of,

00:03:30.700 you know, how important that particular religious group is.

00:03:34.440 And each of the positions, whether you are prime minister or president or speaker of the house,

00:03:39.760 is reserved to a particular individual of a particular religion.

00:03:44.960 As you might imagine, Jews did not get many seats in the Lebanese parliament.

00:03:51.020 So growing up, I did face Coleman with some Jew hatred, a lot of Jew hatred.

00:03:56.560 I'll give you a few examples.

00:03:57.960 Many of these I explain in the parasitic mind.

00:04:01.080 And so, for example, when I was five years old, in 1970, Gamal Abdel Nasser had just died.

00:04:09.220 He was the very popular pan-Arabist Egyptian president who was trying to unite all Arabs

00:04:16.220 as one people against the evil Jews and so on.

00:04:19.360 And as you might imagine, he found a large population that was willing to support his message.

00:04:25.140 Well, when he passed away and the people would go into the streets to lament his passing,

00:04:30.800 all I kept hearing as a five-year-old, that was the first sort of memory I have of Jew hatred,

00:04:35.760 was death to Jews, death to Jews.

00:04:38.020 Everybody was proceeding down our street screaming death to Jews.

00:04:41.320 I turned to my mother and asked her, well, why are you saying death to Jews?

00:04:44.380 She says, shut up, keep your head down, be quiet.

00:04:47.520 So that was the first time.

00:04:48.460 I'll just give you one or two other stories and I'll turn it back to you.

00:04:51.120 Now, when I was about eight years old, so maybe about two years before the Civil War started,

00:04:56.240 the teacher asked the kids to stand up and tell us what we each wanted to be when we grew up.

00:05:02.440 Oh, I want to be a doctor.

00:05:03.800 I want to be a soldier.

00:05:04.700 I want to be a fireman.

00:05:05.660 I want to be a nurse.

00:05:06.500 Well, the kid stood up knowing full well that I was a Jewish kid.

00:05:11.200 And he said, when I grow up, I want to be a Jew killer to thunderous, raucous applause and laughter.

00:05:16.960 Now, that kid wasn't expelled.

00:05:18.680 It was totally part of the DNA and the fabric of Middle Eastern society to, you know,

00:05:24.320 flippantly say that you want to kill Jews when you grow up.

00:05:27.320 And then finally, one story from my brother.

00:05:31.200 And then if you want to hear more, I can give you more stories.

00:05:34.960 My brother was Lebanese champion in judo for many years in a row.

00:05:39.140 And that was becoming embarrassing to the Lebanese authorities because we don't want a Jew to be winning in a combative sport.

00:05:46.540 And so he was visited in about, I think it was maybe 1973.

00:05:50.540 So this is about two years before the Civil War.

00:05:52.520 He was visited by some men who explained to him that it was time for him to retire, lest there might be an accident, unfortunate accident that happens to him.

00:06:00.220 Well, he did want to retire.

00:06:01.760 So he ended up forcibly having to leave Lebanon.

00:06:04.860 This is before the Civil War.

00:06:06.040 And continuing his judo career in Paris, France.

00:06:10.880 Now, in 1976, life can be ironic at times.

00:06:15.780 In 1976, the Olympics were happening in Montreal, where we had immigrated to.

00:06:20.680 And he ended up representing Lebanon in the Montreal Olympics.

00:06:25.960 So the guy who suffered from the problem of being Jewish in 1973, we could overcome his fatal disease of being Jewish when he can represent us at the Montreal Olympics.

00:06:37.080 So that's what it was like growing in Lebanon as a Jew.

00:06:40.760 So when you went to school, did you speak French or Arabic?

00:06:45.660 Both.

00:06:46.180 So I went, you may or may not know this, but at one point, well, Lebanon used to be a French protectorate.

00:06:53.240 And so in Lebanon, at the time, a lot less now, the sort of, quote, educated class, of course, would learn Arabic.

00:07:02.140 So Arabic is my mother tongue.

00:07:04.040 But we also went through the French school system.

00:07:08.420 French meaning from, I love France.

00:07:11.060 And I make that distinction because now I live in Montreal, where we also, there is French, but it's Quebec French.

00:07:17.100 It's a completely different system.

00:07:19.100 And so I went to a school called Lycee des Jeunes Filles, which is like the Lyceum of young girls, even though it was a co-ed institution, both boys and girls.

00:07:30.460 I couldn't tell you the exact breakdown.

00:07:32.580 But in my class, there were a lot of Muslims, a lot of Christians, and there was one other Jewish kid.

00:07:41.900 So do you think there's any way in which your childhood in Lebanon affected your views on identity politics?

00:07:50.800 Right.

00:07:51.140 So, I mean, there are several ways.

00:07:52.780 There's one way, and that was one of the, I mean, there are several reasons why I decided to introduce my personal history in the opening paragraph, chapter of the Parasitic Mind.

00:08:04.600 Because, so, identity politics, which is viewed as a laudable way to organize society in the West, certainly by one of the political parties.

00:08:13.120 Well, Lebanon is the ultimate manifestation of what happens to a society that is organized along identity, you know, with the ethos of identity politics.

00:08:24.780 In this case, it's your religion, but it could be, in the West, it could be whether I'm trans or not, whether my skin color is dark enough or not.

00:08:32.560 But the idea of identity politics has certainly shaped my deep aversion towards that ethos.

00:08:41.060 But originally, I experienced the Lebanon.

00:08:42.920 So that would be one answer.

00:08:45.200 But even more poignantly, understanding what happens to religious minorities in societies that eventually become dominated by Islam is one hell of a lesson to learn.

00:09:00.440 And so one of the things that I've kept, you know, screaming from the top of the mountain, at first, very few people were listening to me.

00:09:08.720 And now there's a bit more people listening to me.

00:09:10.940 But in my view, not enough are listening, is that we need to decide whether it's a good idea to have more or less incursion of Islam in the West.

00:09:22.140 Now, I hate to say this because I find it, frankly, it's offensive to have to always start with this preface.

00:09:27.940 Because I know more Muslim people than most people will ever meet.

00:09:32.080 All of them have been soccer player friends of mine, and we have fun together, and none of them have tried to kill me.

00:09:38.740 And so the fact that I say that Islam is a profoundly antithetical ideology to our Western liberties and freedoms in no way is bigoted towards individual Muslims.

00:09:49.860 So probably the most poignant and powerful lesson I've learned from having grown up in the Middle East as a Lebanese Jew is that you might want to carefully think about whether you wish to increase immigration from Islamic societies.

00:10:03.760 So what would you say to the argument that some people make, which is that you've got the Ottoman Empire for hundreds of years, and Jews and other minorities are living in relative peace.

00:10:18.420 And by relative, I mean relative to Europe, where Jews are being persecuted left or right.

00:10:24.460 And for many people, this is proof that Islam is not, or over the grand sweep of history, is by default less anti-Semitic than Christendom was.

00:10:36.920 So what do you make of that argument?

00:10:39.180 Right.

00:10:40.920 So I'll draw this analogy, and I'm not trying to be facetious towards you, but hopefully, you know,

00:10:47.500 analogical reasoning is an important tool to understand the veracity and power of an argument.

00:10:54.080 Jeffrey Dahmer and Ted Bundy, if we look at the number of days that they lived, and we calculate the percentage of days of those days that they've lived where they've killed somebody,

00:11:05.860 it'll come out to about 99.9% of the days that they lived, they never killed anybody.

00:11:10.940 Yet nobody would say, but come on, bruh, I mean, John Wayne Gacy, you're talking about only 27 kids he killed, or whatever it was.

00:11:19.660 That's 99.97% of the time where he was totally lovely to kids.

00:11:24.160 So Islam is a very bad place for religious minorities to be.

00:11:29.380 That doesn't mean that for 24 hours a day, seven days a week, for 1,400 years, they go about slaughtering everybody.

00:11:41.120 The Ottoman Empire also had this little thing called the Armenian Genocide.

00:11:45.420 So apparently, you know, they were very nice until they weren't very nice to 1.5 million people.

00:11:50.880 So it is, I'm not in the least bit sympathetic to that argument.

00:11:56.140 The other one that we usually hear is, but come on, Al-Andalusia, everybody lived in peace.

00:12:03.180 Well, I can cite you all sorts of references, including a professor that specializes in this field at Northwestern,

00:12:12.000 who tells us that Andalusia was anything but a cakewalk for Jews and Christians under Islamic domination.

00:12:19.160 If you live as a dhimmi, that's the Arabic word for ahl al-kutb, which means in Arabic, the people of the book,

00:12:28.960 meaning the Christians and the Muslims that live under Islamic dominion,

00:12:33.140 we tolerate you, but we also pat you on the back and say, don't be too Jewish, Jew.

00:12:39.900 And we also have to pray really hard that our daughter is not super sexy,

00:12:45.200 because when my Islamic overroar comes to me and says, it's time to fork up that really pretty daughter,

00:12:50.880 then I have to do it as a good little dhimmi.

00:12:54.000 And so, yes, there were periods where it was worse to be Jewish under Christian dominion.

00:13:01.480 That doesn't mean that I long for the day to be under Islamic rule.

00:13:05.340 I'm aware that in Lebanon, there is a system that they developed at the end of the Lebanese Civil War,

00:13:13.140 where 50% of the seats in parliament are reserved for Christians and 50% are reserved for Muslims.

00:13:21.100 And some Lebanese people defend this system.

00:13:25.120 From a Western perspective, we would see this as a breach of democratic norms, right?

00:13:31.480 Like, we wouldn't reserve a certain number of seats in Congress for Christians or any religion, right?

00:13:36.960 But in Lebanon, they do, even though Christians are only something like 30% of the population.

00:13:42.640 So they're, in a way, overrepresented systematically in the government in a way that we find undemocratic.

00:13:48.640 But for the standards of the Middle East, some people would defend it and say, well, that's—

00:13:53.840 it works for them, and it's necessary to keep the peace.

00:13:56.700 And it came out of a particular history.

00:13:59.500 So what do you make of that defense of the Lebanese system?

00:14:04.680 So I didn't know about the 50-50 split.

00:14:08.680 So this is—I can't comment to the veracity of that, but I trust your numbers.

00:14:14.060 No, there is no way for me to defend that because, I mean, of course, as you know, Coleman,

00:14:18.640 there are many foundational deontological principles that made the West great,

00:14:23.720 one of which is individual dignity over collective tribalism.

00:14:29.500 And, you know, if you wish to abide by that freeing ethos of individual dignity,

00:14:36.200 then there is no way to ever justify, you know, allocating parliamentary seats based on religion.

00:14:43.940 Look, one of the best ways that—or one of the most direct ways that people got killed

00:14:49.060 at the early stages of the Lebanese civil war—I'm just making a link now with this identity politics

00:14:55.680 in terms of religion.

00:14:57.400 So in Lebanon, there's a thing called haoui.

00:14:59.540 Haoui is the Arabic word for, like, your internal ID card.

00:15:04.140 So it's kind of like a passport, but it's one that if the cops stop, they'll say, show us your papers.

00:15:10.000 Well, it turns out that what's most important on that ID card is—and this, again, predates the civil war.

00:15:18.400 It's just that during the civil war, it became really problematic, and you'll see in a second why.

00:15:22.800 That ID card, yes, it might have your height and your eye color and your weight,

00:15:28.400 but those are not nearly as important as what your religion is.

00:15:32.040 And so one of the ways that you would get killed in the early stages of the Lebanese civil war

00:15:38.460 is there would be—because this was a very, very brutal, you know, house-to-house civil war.

00:15:43.840 So different neighborhoods, the militia of that neighborhood would set up a roadblock

00:15:48.740 for you to decide if they're going to let you pass or not.

00:15:52.420 And so they would ask for your haoui, your ID card.

00:15:55.840 And if your ID card had the wrong religion, that wasn't going to end up well.

00:16:01.480 That was one of the reasons why it was very difficult for us to actually leave the house in Lebanon,

00:16:07.100 even to go to a bread queue.

00:16:09.680 Because if you, God forbid, were stopped by the wrong militia,

00:16:13.180 and there weren't too many militias, it would be very friendly to somebody that has—

00:16:17.660 by the way, in my haoui, in my card, it wasn't written Jewish.

00:16:23.320 It was written Israelites.

00:16:25.160 In Arabic, the word for Jew is Yahudi, whereas Israeli means you're Israelite.

00:16:33.620 So I lost my Lebanese marker.

00:16:36.920 I was an Israelite, right?

00:16:39.060 Not a Lebanese Jew.

00:16:41.400 And so, no, it'll be—it'll take a lot of mental gymnastics for me to be able to ever support such a system.

00:16:48.280 So I remember reading a book by the Yale psychologist Paul Bloom many years ago called Against Empathy.

00:16:56.240 And it affected me quite a bit because he made the very counterintuitive argument that

00:17:01.600 although empathy is a great emotion to have in the appropriate context,

00:17:08.620 when it misfires, it actually leads to great harm in the world.

00:17:13.200 So, to me, this seems similar to your idea of suicidal empathy,

00:17:20.860 which I know is the topic of your next book and has gotten a lot of play on Twitter.

00:17:26.280 So tell me what you mean by suicidal empathy.

00:17:29.980 Yes, thank you for that great question.

00:17:32.180 And, I mean, it's nice the way you framed it,

00:17:35.100 because I'm already receiving tons of hit pieces written against me about how, you know, I am the dark over—

00:17:42.660 I'm the Jew behind Elon Musk who's trying to create a dark world where we kill empathy.

00:17:50.140 And sure, I mean, Elon Musk might be worth $400 billion, so you might think he's powerful.

00:17:55.160 But really, there's always a Jew puppeteer that's kind of architect—

00:17:59.080 that is the architect of the diabolical plan to kill empathy.

00:18:01.980 Okay, so having said that, let's explain what I mean here.

00:18:06.580 There are many psychiatric ailments that, when expressed within adaptive ranges,

00:18:14.060 are evolutionarily appropriate.

00:18:17.100 But the problem arises when they become dysregulated.

00:18:21.540 So let's take—before I give you psychiatric examples of that, let's do another example.

00:18:27.100 Well, cancer cells are cells, except that they've gone rogue,

00:18:33.660 and that despite the fact that cancer cells are meant to replicate,

00:18:40.060 cancer cells don't have a mechanism of stopping that replication.

00:18:44.480 So what started off as an adaptive process that you would expect,

00:18:49.380 cells divide, becomes maladaptive, and it can kill you when it is expressed, in this case,

00:18:57.380 in a manner where there's no stopping mechanism.

00:18:59.940 Okay, now let's apply that principle to, say, obsessive-compulsive disorder,

00:19:05.020 which is a phenomenon that I've actually written academic papers on.

00:19:09.660 OCD is the maladaptive expression of an otherwise adaptive process.

00:19:18.340 So that's a lot of fancy academic lingo, but let's break it down very easily.

00:19:24.200 For me, I meet Coleman.

00:19:26.760 Regrettably, I don't remember—I don't think that we did meet at the University of Austin,

00:19:31.180 but had I had the pleasure of meeting you,

00:19:33.500 and I would have noticed that before you shook my hand,

00:19:35.940 you sneezed into your hand, and then we're about to shake it,

00:19:39.800 then it would make perfect adaptive sense for me,

00:19:42.760 quietly and discreetly, after I've shaken your hand,

00:19:45.980 to go to the bathroom and wash my hands,

00:19:47.780 because I don't want to catch Coleman's cold.

00:19:50.800 Therefore, having a germ-contamination fear is perfectly adaptive.

00:19:56.700 However, if it becomes hyperactive to the point whereby I spend eight hours a day

00:20:03.600 at the sink in front of scalding hot water where my skin is falling off

00:20:09.480 because I am obsessively washing my hands,

00:20:12.520 I can't get to work, and therefore I've now lost my job,

00:20:16.120 that's germ-contamination OCD symptomatology.

00:20:20.480 What started off as a very adaptive mechanism to avoid Coleman uses cold

00:20:26.020 becomes a very debilitating problem.

00:20:29.420 So now you can see where I'm going to go with empathy.

00:20:32.840 Empathy is a perfectly adaptive, noble virtue when properly expressed.

00:20:39.980 For you and I to have a meaningful conversation,

00:20:43.160 we both have to have theory of mind,

00:20:46.260 which is to be able to put ourselves in the mind of the other

00:20:49.140 in order for us to have this valuable conversation.

00:20:53.420 Autistic children, by the way,

00:20:54.880 the way that we're able to establish that they are autistic

00:20:57.480 is we give them early in life a theory of mind test,

00:21:01.400 which they fail.

00:21:02.860 There is no blood test that you could give to establish that a child has autism,

00:21:07.180 but typically they fail the theory of mind test, right?

00:21:12.160 And so therefore, while it is perfectly reasonable for a social species like Homo sapiens

00:21:18.580 to exhibit empathy,

00:21:21.200 the hyperactivation of empathy

00:21:24.120 and the erroneous targeting of who should be privy to our empathy

00:21:30.240 becomes suicidal empathy.

00:21:33.240 And so let me give you an example.

00:21:34.700 The classic trolley problem that you see in moral philosophy,

00:21:38.700 where you say,

00:21:39.860 should you press the lever to kill one person here or five people here?

00:21:43.980 Well, when you study that problem or many, many other types of problems,

00:21:49.340 people have an evolutionary-based calculus

00:21:52.840 that determines whether if you place a gun to my head,

00:21:57.840 am I more likely to save my biological child or a random child?

00:22:03.440 Well, it may not surprise you to know, Coleman,

00:22:05.700 that most people, roughly 99.9% of people on Earth,

00:22:09.680 if given, if the forced choice of choosing

00:22:13.540 would be more empathetic and jump in front of a bus

00:22:16.860 to save their own child rather than a random child.

00:22:19.960 That doesn't make them callous.

00:22:22.040 It doesn't make them evil.

00:22:23.460 It simply makes the point that our cognitive, emotional,

00:22:28.700 moral, perceptual, behavioral systems

00:22:31.900 have evolved to solve evolutionarily relevant problems.

00:22:35.840 But what suicidal empathy does,

00:22:38.680 and we can get into the reasons why suicidal empathy arose

00:22:41.860 after I explain the mechanism,

00:22:44.260 suicidal empathy says no.

00:22:47.620 The felon who's only been arrested 137th times before,

00:22:53.160 therefore he deserves a second chance

00:22:55.020 because white supremacy is more deserving of a 138th chance

00:23:01.180 than, you know, the person who ended up being clobbered by him,

00:23:04.660 as we saw in the recent case with the Ukrainian woman

00:23:07.860 on the bus or subway or whatever it was, right?

00:23:10.920 So we care more about the rights of the felon

00:23:14.000 than we care about the victims.

00:23:15.880 We care more about the rights of the Muslim noble rapists in Britain

00:23:20.920 than we care about those whiny, entitled British white girls.

00:23:26.060 So when it comes to the moral calculus of

00:23:28.560 should we have greater ire towards the ones

00:23:32.440 who gang rape 12-year-old girls for six months?

00:23:36.900 But that would necessitate that we say

00:23:39.780 that they were all coming from a Muslim background.

00:23:42.480 Well, no.

00:23:43.420 Our empathy module, our suicidal empathy model module

00:23:47.280 should much more target, you know,

00:23:50.700 being kind towards the Asian men

00:23:53.620 because we have to come up, by the way,

00:23:54.840 with euphemisms to hide their identity.

00:23:57.640 Japanese men are Asian.

00:23:59.640 Lebanese men are Asian.

00:24:00.980 But it turns out that when we're talking about Asians here,

00:24:05.080 wink, wink, we're talking about largely 99.9% of Pakistani Muslims.

00:24:10.560 So we care more about the homeless people

00:24:13.800 who are shooting up heroin in the public part

00:24:17.320 than about the rights of your children and mine

00:24:20.060 to be able to be in that part

00:24:22.060 because we pay taxpayer money

00:24:24.020 so that we don't have to avoid the needles in the part.

00:24:28.580 So what I show in the book

00:24:30.000 is that most of the domestic and foreign policies

00:24:34.040 that are orgiastically destroying the West

00:24:37.660 stem from this misguided empathy.

00:24:43.020 So how did Western cultures come to adopt

00:24:46.620 this trait of suicidal empathy?

00:24:50.000 Where does it come from?

00:24:50.820 Yeah, that's a great question.

00:24:52.860 I get into all that in the book.

00:24:54.560 So let me give you a few, you know, psychological factors,

00:24:59.520 but we can also get into historical factors and so on.

00:25:04.740 Suicide exists throughout history

00:25:07.740 for all sorts of reasons.

00:25:10.420 And some of those reasons, by the way,

00:25:13.060 could be explained via an evolutionary lens,

00:25:15.620 which sounds paradoxical at first

00:25:17.920 because suicide is the ultimate manifestation

00:25:21.480 of lack of a survival instinct.

00:25:23.660 Yet it turns out that even that,

00:25:26.340 even the erasing of one's life

00:25:28.520 could itself be an adaptive evolutionary-based mechanism.

00:25:33.300 But let me give you a few examples

00:25:34.760 of historical manifestations of suicide

00:25:37.660 and then we can get into the specific manifestation

00:25:40.420 of the current suicidal empathy.

00:25:42.080 So seppuku, in Japanese culture,

00:25:46.640 which is a highly high honor, honor and shame culture,

00:25:50.240 not unlike the Middle East,

00:25:51.540 there is nothing worse for a honorable Japanese warrior

00:25:57.680 than to do something that brings about this honor.

00:26:01.340 So for all sorts of reasons,

00:26:03.500 we could decide whether placing that value,

00:26:08.320 honor, as the most important virtue

00:26:10.720 and to never want to lose it,

00:26:11.980 we could debate whether that's a good idea or not.

00:26:13.860 But for various reasons,

00:26:15.400 that becomes the fundamentally most important thing

00:26:19.040 to ascribe as, as the ultimate apex value.

00:26:22.580 And if I engage in any behavior

00:26:24.640 that makes me lose that honor,

00:26:26.960 then the only way to remedy that,

00:26:30.240 the only redemptive path,

00:26:32.400 is for me to engage in seppuku.

00:26:34.820 I just, I literally, you know, put the knife in

00:26:37.580 and then therefore I can expatiate

00:26:40.440 the shame that I brought for being a dishonorable man, right?

00:26:43.980 There are many cases, for example,

00:26:46.100 Masada in the Dead Sea,

00:26:47.960 where the Jews, knowing that

00:26:49.520 they were likely going to face a very ugly reality,

00:26:53.900 decided to commit, you know, collective suicide.

00:26:57.580 There are cults where people commit suicide

00:26:59.580 for some transcendental reason.

00:27:02.380 And so the concept of suicide itself

00:27:05.340 can be studied through historical,

00:27:07.680 cultural and evolutionary lens.

00:27:09.780 But then the question to your point,

00:27:11.920 what, you know,

00:27:12.740 why is the inequality of empathy in this matter?

00:27:15.860 Imagine if I can convince

00:27:17.920 a large swath of population

00:27:20.340 that there is nothing more noble,

00:27:24.140 nothing more,

00:27:25.940 there's a beautiful term,

00:27:27.860 I don't remember the gentleman,

00:27:28.920 he called it moral preening, right?

00:27:31.020 So imagine peacocking, right?

00:27:32.720 Imagine, right?

00:27:33.920 We know, for example,

00:27:34.880 that the peacock's tail

00:27:35.920 could not have evolved

00:27:37.100 because it confers a survival advantage.

00:27:40.320 It only evolved through sexual selection

00:27:42.300 because it provides mating advantage.

00:27:45.780 It is basically saying to the female peahens,

00:27:48.440 despite this very burdensome tail,

00:27:51.920 look at me,

00:27:52.720 I'm still surviving.

00:27:53.820 Don't you think that

00:27:54.420 that's an honest signal of my quality

00:27:56.080 and therefore you should choose me?

00:27:57.680 So now imagine,

00:27:59.020 and then if you want,

00:27:59.980 we can drill down further

00:28:01.600 why that is the case.

00:28:02.880 But imagine if I can develop

00:28:05.300 a contagion,

00:28:07.640 in this case called suicidal empathy,

00:28:10.000 that renders it

00:28:11.120 that the greatest goal

00:28:13.120 that I could aspire to be

00:28:14.800 is to be so committed

00:28:17.060 to my progressivism,

00:28:19.340 so committed to my non-racism,

00:28:22.120 that if I have to commit

00:28:23.580 civilizational seppuku,

00:28:25.860 a term that I introduce in the book,

00:28:27.620 in order to demonstrate that,

00:28:29.540 so be it.

00:28:30.460 So in the same way that

00:28:32.120 Narcissus in Greek mythology

00:28:34.300 was so enamored with his beauty

00:28:36.860 that he ultimately ended up

00:28:38.680 drowning because he fell into the well

00:28:41.060 when he was looking at his,

00:28:42.500 you know,

00:28:42.880 beautiful morphological feature

00:28:45.160 on his face.

00:28:47.280 As a suicidally empathetic person,

00:28:49.720 I would like to look

00:28:51.160 at the moral mirror

00:28:52.760 and what I want to see

00:28:54.740 as a reflection is

00:28:56.080 I will not discriminate

00:28:58.440 against my rapist.

00:29:00.340 I will not wish ill

00:29:02.400 towards my rapist.

00:29:03.640 As we know, by the way,

00:29:05.200 from a 2013 case

00:29:07.260 where a Norwegian man

00:29:09.040 was sodomized by a noble Somali

00:29:12.620 and after the noble Somali

00:29:14.940 had a very short sentence,

00:29:17.460 three, four years,

00:29:18.220 because the Scandinavians

00:29:19.260 are more virtuous than we are,

00:29:22.520 they don't believe

00:29:23.180 in severe punishments,

00:29:25.360 when he was going to be

00:29:26.880 returned to Somalia,

00:29:29.160 the one who had been

00:29:30.020 sodomized by him,

00:29:31.740 by the way,

00:29:32.600 he writes that he is a feminist

00:29:34.580 and anti-racist

00:29:36.080 as his fundamental marker

00:29:37.600 of his identity,

00:29:38.320 was wracked with guilt

00:29:40.980 that he was going to be,

00:29:42.820 he, the sodomizer,

00:29:44.420 was going to go back

00:29:45.440 to Mogadishu.

00:29:47.040 Imagine the horror, Coleman,

00:29:49.180 that that sodomizer

00:29:50.860 will not be able

00:29:52.220 to self-actualize

00:29:53.700 the way Abraham Maslow

00:29:55.140 taught us to self-actualize.

00:29:57.220 So suicidal empathy

00:29:58.660 is a form of moral lobotomy

00:30:01.220 where you no longer

00:30:03.480 are abiding

00:30:05.380 by all of the evolutionary-based

00:30:07.920 computational systems

00:30:09.560 in your mind

00:30:10.220 because you've transcended that.

00:30:12.700 You are on a higher moral plane.

00:30:15.020 I don't know if I've been

00:30:15.900 too philosophical here,

00:30:16.920 but I hope I've answered

00:30:17.640 your question.

00:30:18.980 So I want to just linger

00:30:20.260 on the example

00:30:21.700 you've been talking about

00:30:22.720 a bit because

00:30:23.760 if you haven't heard of it,

00:30:25.540 it actually sounds like

00:30:26.640 something out of

00:30:27.740 a white supremacist

00:30:28.800 dark fantasy

00:30:29.720 or it just sounds like

00:30:31.260 far-right misinformation.

00:30:32.280 But there actually

00:30:34.680 has been

00:30:35.720 for at least

00:30:38.300 10, 15 years

00:30:39.480 and if not earlier,

00:30:41.620 scandals

00:30:42.440 in the United Kingdom,

00:30:44.220 the Rotherham scandal

00:30:45.780 being, for instance,

00:30:47.140 the most famous

00:30:47.880 where you literally

00:30:50.440 have grooming gangs

00:30:51.900 of mostly what

00:30:52.880 they call

00:30:53.600 in the UK Asian,

00:30:54.880 but we would call

00:30:55.460 Pakistani men

00:30:57.500 that have

00:31:00.100 raped young girls

00:31:01.620 in numbers

00:31:02.360 that are

00:31:03.480 difficult to believe

00:31:04.580 when you actually

00:31:05.280 read them

00:31:05.820 and this has been

00:31:07.520 reported in

00:31:08.300 even mainstream sources,

00:31:10.020 mainstream left-leaning

00:31:10.840 sources like

00:31:11.520 the New York Times

00:31:12.180 and the BBC

00:31:12.720 and so forth

00:31:13.680 and there's

00:31:14.980 obviously a frothy

00:31:16.480 element of the far-right

00:31:17.600 that loves to

00:31:19.580 linger on these details

00:31:21.440 and probably

00:31:22.940 exaggerate them,

00:31:23.860 but the truth is

00:31:24.520 even without

00:31:25.100 exaggerating them,

00:31:25.980 the details of those

00:31:27.280 scandals are just crazy

00:31:28.360 and they would be

00:31:29.940 enough to make

00:31:30.600 someone a single

00:31:31.640 issue right-wing

00:31:33.180 voter and an

00:31:34.820 immigration

00:31:35.240 restrictionist

00:31:36.360 in the context

00:31:37.720 of the UK.

00:31:39.860 And so that's

00:31:42.040 an example of

00:31:42.940 left-wing

00:31:44.100 suicidal empathy

00:31:45.580 in my view.

00:31:48.120 Meanwhile,

00:31:49.120 on the right,

00:31:50.780 I want to ask you

00:31:51.520 this because

00:31:52.260 you know,

00:31:54.040 is the concept

00:31:55.840 of suicidal

00:31:56.400 empathy

00:31:56.840 just sort of

00:31:57.920 a stand-in

00:31:58.520 for the

00:31:59.080 left-right

00:31:59.900 debate in

00:32:00.660 general

00:32:01.000 or is there

00:32:01.900 an example

00:32:03.500 of problems

00:32:04.420 with empathy

00:32:04.940 on the right?

00:32:05.560 So for example,

00:32:06.840 in America,

00:32:07.760 we've had this

00:32:08.940 debate

00:32:09.400 on U.S.

00:32:11.180 aid

00:32:11.400 for quite a while.

00:32:13.160 Now,

00:32:13.660 whatever you think

00:32:14.320 of U.S.

00:32:14.880 aid right now,

00:32:15.920 of us

00:32:16.400 sending taxpayer

00:32:17.500 money to Africa,

00:32:18.820 it's not disputed

00:32:20.840 that we saved

00:32:21.860 tens and tens,

00:32:23.420 maybe hundreds

00:32:23.940 of thousands

00:32:24.400 of lives

00:32:25.060 by sending

00:32:26.680 aid to Africa

00:32:27.420 in the 2000s

00:32:28.700 during the AIDS

00:32:29.940 crisis.

00:32:30.520 And this was

00:32:30.900 George,

00:32:32.220 this wasn't

00:32:32.920 a woke policy,

00:32:34.060 this was George

00:32:34.560 Bush,

00:32:34.900 and it was one

00:32:35.320 of the crowning

00:32:35.800 achievements

00:32:36.200 of his presidency.

00:32:38.860 And,

00:32:39.360 you know,

00:32:40.260 regardless,

00:32:40.940 I'm open to the

00:32:41.580 idea that

00:32:42.280 that has

00:32:44.100 outlifted

00:32:44.620 its usefulness.

00:32:45.440 You know,

00:32:45.600 I'm not an expert

00:32:46.260 on foreign aid,

00:32:47.000 and really most

00:32:47.720 of the people

00:32:48.100 talking about

00:32:48.660 the subject

00:32:49.060 aren't.

00:32:49.620 But there is

00:32:51.140 a certain

00:32:51.520 casualness

00:32:52.360 with which

00:32:53.280 people on the

00:32:54.120 right are just

00:32:55.260 happy to terminate

00:32:56.500 our foreign aid

00:32:57.780 all around the

00:32:58.420 world without

00:32:59.680 a deep sense

00:33:01.780 that,

00:33:02.520 well,

00:33:03.120 we should really

00:33:03.880 check if this

00:33:05.300 one isn't still

00:33:06.240 saving thousands

00:33:07.160 and thousands

00:33:07.640 of lives before

00:33:08.540 we just turn

00:33:09.700 off the tap.

00:33:10.940 So,

00:33:11.680 my question is,

00:33:12.520 is there a

00:33:13.240 problem with

00:33:14.260 too much empathy

00:33:15.620 or too little

00:33:16.500 empathy on the

00:33:17.780 right?

00:33:18.080 How do you view

00:33:18.600 the relationship

00:33:19.200 between empathy

00:33:20.300 and the

00:33:20.920 political right?

00:33:21.820 Beautiful question.

00:33:23.440 Before I answer

00:33:24.480 it,

00:33:25.040 I will address

00:33:26.380 the exact same

00:33:27.360 question as

00:33:28.320 relating to the

00:33:29.100 parasitic mind

00:33:29.940 because a lot of

00:33:31.120 people asked me

00:33:32.720 as I was

00:33:33.960 lecturing about

00:33:34.820 the parasitic mind,

00:33:36.280 and this is why

00:33:37.180 I actually made

00:33:38.460 sure to include

00:33:39.040 a section early

00:33:39.900 in that book

00:33:40.540 addressing your

00:33:41.560 question about

00:33:42.520 left versus

00:33:43.180 right,

00:33:43.860 but as relating

00:33:44.560 to parasitized

00:33:46.000 ideas,

00:33:46.900 idea pathogens.

00:33:47.760 look,

00:33:48.980 I live in

00:33:50.120 the world of,

00:33:51.240 I inhabit the

00:33:52.040 world of

00:33:52.540 academia.

00:33:53.680 Academia is

00:33:54.700 astoundingly

00:33:56.060 leftist.

00:33:57.500 Therefore,

00:33:58.240 all of the

00:33:59.220 degenerate

00:34:00.740 and basilic

00:34:01.600 parasitized

00:34:02.520 ideas that I

00:34:03.740 discuss in the

00:34:05.080 parasitic mind

00:34:05.840 effectively stem

00:34:07.180 from the left.

00:34:08.480 That's

00:34:08.880 incontestable.

00:34:11.340 That doesn't

00:34:11.880 mean,

00:34:12.140 so to your

00:34:12.540 point,

00:34:12.880 I'll specifically

00:34:13.740 answer the

00:34:14.640 suicidal empathy

00:34:15.380 part,

00:34:15.840 but I want

00:34:16.260 to give a

00:34:16.560 broader answer

00:34:18.360 first.

00:34:19.800 But to your

00:34:20.400 point,

00:34:20.900 that doesn't

00:34:21.400 mean that

00:34:21.840 people on

00:34:22.440 the right

00:34:22.920 cannot be

00:34:23.800 parasitized by

00:34:24.760 bad ideas.

00:34:25.760 And I'll

00:34:26.020 give now an

00:34:26.660 example demonstrating

00:34:27.780 that using my

00:34:28.940 own field of

00:34:30.460 evolutionary

00:34:30.880 psychology.

00:34:32.300 When it comes

00:34:33.320 to the rejection

00:34:34.320 of the theory

00:34:35.620 of evolution,

00:34:36.700 just evolution

00:34:37.360 as the mechanism

00:34:38.120 that explains,

00:34:38.860 for example,

00:34:39.300 speciation,

00:34:40.740 people on the

00:34:41.400 right are more

00:34:42.040 likely to disagree

00:34:42.920 with that because

00:34:43.740 it attacks their

00:34:44.640 fundamental religious

00:34:45.620 beliefs.

00:34:46.560 But when it

00:34:47.160 comes to the

00:34:47.960 instantiation of

00:34:49.320 the theory of

00:34:50.060 evolution to the

00:34:51.180 study of the

00:34:51.800 human mind,

00:34:52.940 which is called

00:34:53.580 evolutionary

00:34:54.060 psychology,

00:34:55.200 it's people on

00:34:56.040 the left that

00:34:56.980 detest that idea.

00:34:58.380 Because how

00:34:58.880 dare you,

00:34:59.480 Professor Saad,

00:35:00.200 say that there

00:35:01.140 are biological

00:35:01.880 imperatives,

00:35:02.660 that we are not

00:35:03.240 all born

00:35:03.880 tabula rasa

00:35:04.580 with equal

00:35:05.040 potentiality.

00:35:06.160 So using the

00:35:07.340 general idea of

00:35:08.620 evolution versus

00:35:09.520 evolutionary psychology,

00:35:11.240 I've shown you that

00:35:12.120 it could be either

00:35:12.820 the right that act

00:35:13.800 like morons or

00:35:14.620 it could be the

00:35:15.100 left that act

00:35:15.720 like morons.

00:35:16.440 So having said

00:35:17.440 that, suicidal

00:35:19.480 empathy by the

00:35:20.960 very nature of

00:35:21.940 the hyperactivation

00:35:23.240 of the noble

00:35:25.660 virtue is more

00:35:28.180 a problem of

00:35:29.020 the left.

00:35:30.280 And I can give

00:35:31.020 you a few

00:35:31.480 psychological

00:35:32.080 reasons that

00:35:33.200 explain why that

00:35:34.800 is more likely

00:35:35.340 to happen.

00:35:36.840 There is

00:35:37.500 something in

00:35:37.940 psychology called

00:35:38.620 the self-serving

00:35:39.360 bias.

00:35:40.660 The self-serving

00:35:41.720 bias explains how

00:35:43.520 we ascribe

00:35:44.540 causality to

00:35:46.360 events in our

00:35:47.160 lives.

00:35:48.400 Most people

00:35:49.420 tend to

00:35:50.880 ascribe

00:35:51.480 successes

00:35:52.560 internally.

00:35:53.240 I did well on

00:35:54.320 the exam because

00:35:55.160 I'm really smart.

00:35:56.560 And they

00:35:57.320 ascribe

00:35:58.080 failures

00:35:59.080 externally.

00:36:00.340 I did

00:36:01.040 poorly on

00:36:01.860 the exam because

00:36:02.740 Professor Saad is

00:36:04.060 an asshole.

00:36:04.660 He's unfair.

00:36:05.620 Okay?

00:36:06.200 And it is a

00:36:07.280 mechanism that

00:36:08.040 actually serves as

00:36:09.040 an ego-protective

00:36:10.100 strategy, right?

00:36:11.380 Most of us want

00:36:12.240 to navigate through

00:36:13.420 the difficulties of

00:36:14.300 the world thinking

00:36:15.360 that when we do

00:36:16.140 things well it's

00:36:16.900 because of our

00:36:17.520 great talents and

00:36:18.320 when we do

00:36:18.640 something badly it's

00:36:19.820 due to the

00:36:20.200 outside world.

00:36:20.880 Now why is that

00:36:21.460 related to what

00:36:22.020 we're talking

00:36:22.360 about?

00:36:24.520 People on the

00:36:25.480 left ascribe

00:36:27.200 all negative

00:36:29.240 outcomes in

00:36:30.200 life to

00:36:31.140 external factors,

00:36:32.980 right?

00:36:34.020 You are poor,

00:36:35.340 it's only

00:36:36.380 because of

00:36:37.540 whatever.

00:36:39.280 If you're

00:36:40.180 black and

00:36:40.700 poor it's

00:36:41.100 because of

00:36:41.480 white supremacy.

00:36:42.480 If you're

00:36:43.060 homeless it's

00:36:43.840 because of

00:36:44.680 greedy Jewish

00:36:46.060 capitalist

00:36:47.140 overlords.

00:36:48.940 If it's

00:36:49.740 you're

00:36:51.100 addicted to

00:36:52.520 opiates,

00:36:53.240 well it's the

00:36:53.800 Sackler family,

00:36:54.700 which by the

00:36:55.260 way is a

00:36:55.740 Jewish family.

00:36:56.420 So here again

00:36:56.920 the Jews are

00:36:57.680 poisoning our

00:36:58.920 streets.

00:37:00.780 Human beings

00:37:01.580 don't have

00:37:02.220 personal agency

00:37:03.420 especially if

00:37:05.000 they have

00:37:05.440 ascended in

00:37:06.360 the hierarchy

00:37:07.040 of who is

00:37:08.180 worthy of

00:37:08.780 our empathy.

00:37:09.960 Therefore it

00:37:10.660 could never

00:37:11.320 be that the

00:37:12.700 guy who

00:37:13.520 just killed

00:37:14.240 the Ukrainian

00:37:14.960 white woman

00:37:15.960 is a degenerate

00:37:17.620 that should be

00:37:18.280 slowly executed.

00:37:19.980 It's probably

00:37:20.880 because he

00:37:22.080 is a victim

00:37:23.100 of the white

00:37:24.120 supremacy.

00:37:25.080 So why would

00:37:25.900 you go out

00:37:26.620 of your way

00:37:27.200 to double

00:37:27.940 penalize him?

00:37:29.220 He's already

00:37:30.020 had to live

00:37:30.760 as a black

00:37:31.420 man in this

00:37:32.620 disgusting society

00:37:33.680 called the

00:37:34.120 United States.

00:37:34.720 Now you're

00:37:35.440 going to

00:37:35.660 punish him

00:37:36.320 for what

00:37:37.080 whites have

00:37:37.680 done to

00:37:38.060 him?

00:37:39.140 So yes,

00:37:40.620 I'm sure

00:37:40.960 that if you

00:37:41.420 and I

00:37:41.740 sat down

00:37:42.240 together we

00:37:43.040 could come

00:37:43.500 up with

00:37:43.940 ways by

00:37:44.820 which people

00:37:45.480 on the

00:37:45.960 right might

00:37:46.660 have a

00:37:47.520 poorly

00:37:48.280 calibrated

00:37:49.360 mechanism

00:37:50.320 tied to

00:37:50.960 empathy.

00:37:51.880 But I

00:37:53.060 hate to

00:37:53.500 say it,

00:37:53.860 maybe that's

00:37:54.240 not the

00:37:54.500 answer you

00:37:54.860 wanted to

00:37:55.220 hear,

00:37:55.520 Coleman,

00:37:56.240 much of

00:37:57.320 the

00:37:57.540 manifestations

00:37:58.340 of suicidal

00:37:59.240 empathy that

00:37:59.900 I can think

00:38:00.500 of,

00:38:00.980 by definition,

00:38:02.440 will come from

00:38:03.220 the truly

00:38:04.040 noble and

00:38:05.180 kind and

00:38:05.780 compassionate

00:38:06.340 liberals.

00:38:07.740 So I'll give

00:38:08.020 you what I

00:38:08.440 think could

00:38:08.840 be an

00:38:09.080 example.

00:38:10.500 The timber

00:38:11.480 industry in

00:38:13.000 the northwest

00:38:13.440 of the United

00:38:14.060 States,

00:38:14.520 like Oregon

00:38:15.080 and Washington,

00:38:15.800 used to be

00:38:17.240 massive.

00:38:18.280 And then,

00:38:19.120 partly because

00:38:20.140 jobs started

00:38:21.340 getting shipped

00:38:21.940 overseas because

00:38:23.000 of globalization,

00:38:24.580 a lot of

00:38:26.180 these guys

00:38:27.380 that used

00:38:27.820 to,

00:38:28.400 they were

00:38:30.600 loggers,

00:38:31.980 their fathers

00:38:32.440 were loggers,

00:38:33.080 their grandfathers

00:38:33.700 were loggers,

00:38:34.480 all of a sudden

00:38:35.320 this industry

00:38:36.020 contracted

00:38:36.680 massively and

00:38:38.280 literally whole

00:38:39.180 towns that

00:38:39.740 were based

00:38:40.300 on timber

00:38:41.180 ceased to

00:38:42.960 be financially

00:38:43.640 economically

00:38:44.300 viable.

00:38:45.840 And you

00:38:47.100 would hope

00:38:47.600 that those

00:38:48.540 men would

00:38:49.060 just get

00:38:49.880 the next

00:38:50.400 best job

00:38:50.940 in a

00:38:51.160 different

00:38:51.360 industry,

00:38:51.860 but the

00:38:52.360 social reality

00:38:53.180 is a lot

00:38:55.080 of them

00:38:55.360 stopped in

00:38:56.840 the timber

00:38:57.200 industry on

00:38:57.880 Monday and

00:38:58.300 started drinking

00:38:58.900 on Tuesday

00:38:59.440 and all of

00:39:00.260 the externalities

00:39:03.380 that come

00:39:03.780 along with

00:39:04.240 that.

00:39:05.840 And a lot

00:39:06.860 of people

00:39:07.200 on the

00:39:07.820 right,

00:39:08.700 because these

00:39:09.160 are,

00:39:09.580 you know,

00:39:09.820 we're talking

00:39:10.220 mostly working

00:39:10.980 class white

00:39:11.560 communities,

00:39:12.200 a lot of

00:39:12.580 people on

00:39:12.900 the American

00:39:13.280 right have

00:39:13.880 a lot of

00:39:14.440 empathy

00:39:14.900 for that.

00:39:16.720 And in

00:39:17.100 the name

00:39:17.440 of that

00:39:17.720 empathy,

00:39:18.420 they will

00:39:18.740 support a

00:39:19.420 policy like

00:39:20.140 Trump's

00:39:20.640 tariffs,

00:39:21.180 right?

00:39:21.480 We're going

00:39:21.800 to tariff

00:39:22.340 timber

00:39:23.020 from the

00:39:23.420 rest of

00:39:23.700 the world

00:39:24.100 to bring

00:39:24.760 back

00:39:25.180 manufacturing

00:39:26.060 jobs into

00:39:26.680 the country.

00:39:27.820 And who

00:39:28.540 cares that

00:39:28.960 it's going

00:39:29.160 to raise

00:39:29.460 prices everywhere

00:39:30.160 and who

00:39:30.440 cares that

00:39:30.860 every single

00:39:31.500 economist

00:39:31.980 that's ever

00:39:32.400 studied the

00:39:32.880 issue is

00:39:33.880 unanimous

00:39:34.620 in opposing

00:39:35.520 tariffs.

00:39:37.400 We're going

00:39:38.040 to support

00:39:38.360 them anyway,

00:39:39.160 basically out

00:39:39.840 of genuine

00:39:40.780 empathy for

00:39:41.540 this one

00:39:42.300 population of

00:39:43.440 people that

00:39:43.920 we believe

00:39:44.340 have been

00:39:44.700 screwed over

00:39:45.300 by a

00:39:46.320 policy that

00:39:47.240 is perhaps

00:39:49.260 net good for

00:39:49.900 the country

00:39:50.280 but has

00:39:50.760 losers,

00:39:51.260 right?

00:39:51.440 Would that

00:39:52.760 potentially be

00:39:53.380 an example?

00:39:54.780 Yeah,

00:39:54.980 that's a good

00:39:55.440 example.

00:39:55.960 I mean,

00:39:56.140 I would

00:39:56.540 probably put

00:39:57.720 that under

00:39:58.440 more the

00:39:59.220 general rubric

00:40:00.220 of ascribing

00:40:01.940 wrong causality

00:40:03.420 for a particular

00:40:04.920 phenomenon.

00:40:06.320 You know what I

00:40:06.720 mean?

00:40:06.880 It's stretching it

00:40:08.100 to try to fit it

00:40:09.080 within the rubric

00:40:10.100 of suicidal

00:40:10.800 empathy.

00:40:11.640 But you're

00:40:12.180 exactly right.

00:40:13.320 Why is this

00:40:14.180 guy suicidal

00:40:15.080 himself?

00:40:15.920 Why is he

00:40:16.860 depressed?

00:40:17.660 Why is he

00:40:18.240 sitting at

00:40:18.720 home drinking

00:40:19.380 because he's

00:40:19.920 lost a job?

00:40:20.940 There are

00:40:21.460 many ways by

00:40:22.260 which we

00:40:22.680 could ascribe

00:40:23.540 the key

00:40:24.520 causality for

00:40:25.480 that tragic

00:40:26.260 reality.

00:40:27.440 And perhaps

00:40:28.240 sometimes people

00:40:29.700 on the right

00:40:30.580 will over

00:40:31.900 ascribe factors

00:40:33.500 that are out

00:40:34.400 of my control

00:40:35.300 to personal

00:40:36.160 agency.

00:40:37.160 So in that

00:40:37.740 sense, I would

00:40:38.460 concede the

00:40:39.040 point to you,

00:40:39.480 right?

00:40:39.700 I mean, but

00:40:40.320 that effectively,

00:40:41.800 Coleman, becomes

00:40:42.700 the grand

00:40:44.140 story of

00:40:45.180 are you

00:40:46.300 able to

00:40:47.140 always

00:40:47.840 ascribe

00:40:48.940 the right

00:40:50.000 reasons for

00:40:51.040 why you are

00:40:52.020 in a particular

00:40:52.860 place in your

00:40:53.500 life?

00:40:53.700 By the way,

00:40:54.200 there's a

00:40:54.740 humorous story

00:40:55.820 that speaks

00:40:56.360 to this.

00:40:57.160 I remember

00:40:57.560 I first

00:40:58.220 heard of it

00:40:59.000 in an

00:40:59.560 advanced

00:41:00.620 social psychology

00:41:01.480 course I took

00:41:02.160 in my first

00:41:02.900 semester as a

00:41:03.600 doctoral student.

00:41:04.940 It was by

00:41:05.420 a professor,

00:41:07.440 my professor,

00:41:08.160 his name was

00:41:08.760 Dennis Regan,

00:41:10.060 and he was

00:41:10.680 talking about

00:41:11.200 the fundamental

00:41:11.820 attribution.

00:41:12.700 which is

00:41:13.420 exactly the

00:41:14.460 idea that we

00:41:15.060 often attribute

00:41:15.800 things to

00:41:16.980 dispositional

00:41:17.840 factors rather

00:41:18.720 than situational

00:41:19.560 factors.

00:41:20.480 And he was

00:41:20.780 talking about,

00:41:21.760 I think it

00:41:22.580 was a study

00:41:23.160 whereby if

00:41:24.320 you're trying

00:41:24.860 to increase

00:41:25.600 your chances

00:41:26.420 of having

00:41:28.480 a, I hope

00:41:29.060 I don't

00:41:29.300 butcher this

00:41:29.800 example,

00:41:30.300 someone will

00:41:30.780 probably explain

00:41:32.540 it in the

00:41:32.960 commentary section

00:41:33.820 in your,

00:41:34.560 so like you

00:41:35.200 want to go on

00:41:35.840 a second date

00:41:36.640 with someone

00:41:37.200 and you're

00:41:37.860 going to have

00:41:38.560 a kiss with

00:41:39.220 them, so you

00:41:40.020 want there to

00:41:40.600 be the

00:41:40.940 physiological

00:41:41.380 arousal

00:41:42.320 state of

00:41:42.940 sort of

00:41:43.380 the

00:41:43.520 butterflies,

00:41:44.600 try to

00:41:45.220 have that

00:41:45.740 kiss on

00:41:46.300 it in a

00:41:46.700 suspension

00:41:47.180 bridge or

00:41:47.760 something,

00:41:48.180 right?

00:41:48.680 Or something

00:41:49.580 to that effect.

00:41:50.200 But the

00:41:50.620 point that I'm

00:41:51.060 trying to

00:41:51.320 make here

00:41:51.780 is that even

00:41:52.760 though there

00:41:53.460 might be

00:41:53.940 movement in

00:41:54.980 this case

00:41:55.520 that is not

00:41:56.560 officially

00:41:57.700 ascribed to

00:41:58.440 the fact that

00:41:59.000 you've had a

00:41:59.540 good date,

00:42:00.720 the fact that

00:42:01.640 physiologically

00:42:02.460 there is an

00:42:03.060 arousal state

00:42:03.840 that's coming

00:42:04.320 from something

00:42:04.900 else could

00:42:05.900 then result in

00:42:06.980 that person

00:42:07.480 saying, you

00:42:07.960 know, I

00:42:08.160 really felt an

00:42:09.080 arousal state,

00:42:09.800 maybe I

00:42:10.140 need to

00:42:10.420 go out

00:42:10.740 with this

00:42:10.980 person again.

00:42:11.600 So I

00:42:11.960 think that

00:42:12.420 the general

00:42:13.060 lesson of

00:42:13.940 that story

00:42:14.520 is those

00:42:15.840 of us who

00:42:16.380 are best

00:42:17.420 able on

00:42:18.320 as many

00:42:18.800 occasions as

00:42:19.580 possible

00:42:20.040 throughout our

00:42:20.740 lives to

00:42:21.560 ascribe the

00:42:22.460 right causality

00:42:23.420 to the event

00:42:24.180 are the ones

00:42:25.000 who are going

00:42:25.440 to win in

00:42:25.960 the game of

00:42:26.360 life.

00:42:27.080 So my next

00:42:27.940 question came

00:42:29.540 from a

00:42:30.080 conversation I

00:42:30.740 had with two

00:42:31.460 brothers who

00:42:32.100 are political

00:42:32.560 scientists.

00:42:33.840 I think their

00:42:34.340 names are

00:42:35.140 Verlin and

00:42:36.520 Hyland

00:42:37.100 Lewis.

00:42:37.800 I could be

00:42:38.660 getting that

00:42:39.080 wrong, but

00:42:39.680 they're the

00:42:39.960 Lewis brothers.

00:42:40.740 They wrote a

00:42:41.500 book, I had

00:42:42.140 them on my

00:42:42.460 podcast, where

00:42:43.560 they argue

00:42:44.200 that the

00:42:46.080 political tribes

00:42:47.040 of left and

00:42:47.920 right are

00:42:48.780 just that,

00:42:49.780 they're tribes.

00:42:50.900 There's nothing

00:42:51.900 more to the

00:42:53.160 left and the

00:42:53.680 right at a

00:42:54.360 conceptual level

00:42:55.440 than it's just

00:42:57.200 two tribes of

00:42:57.960 people, like

00:42:59.640 two sports

00:43:00.240 teams, that

00:43:01.960 have as

00:43:04.420 their badge

00:43:05.160 of inclusion

00:43:05.920 and the

00:43:06.340 tribe, just

00:43:07.500 a rotating

00:43:08.240 basket of

00:43:09.300 beliefs that

00:43:10.600 don't have

00:43:11.380 anything inherent

00:43:12.300 to do with

00:43:12.920 each other.

00:43:14.580 And the

00:43:15.160 reason this

00:43:15.600 is, if

00:43:16.440 true, this

00:43:16.920 is a

00:43:17.160 profound

00:43:17.620 statement, is

00:43:19.540 because there

00:43:20.840 are many other

00:43:21.420 serious people

00:43:22.020 that believe the

00:43:22.680 left and the

00:43:23.220 right represent

00:43:24.400 something deep.

00:43:25.900 There are people

00:43:26.320 who believe the

00:43:26.900 left and the

00:43:27.380 right represent a

00:43:28.780 certain genetic

00:43:29.500 profile.

00:43:30.280 In other words,

00:43:31.320 people with

00:43:31.840 certain types of

00:43:32.420 genes tend toward

00:43:33.300 left-wing beliefs,

00:43:34.160 and other

00:43:35.340 types of genes

00:43:35.880 tend toward

00:43:36.400 right-wing

00:43:36.780 beliefs, that

00:43:38.380 it's certain

00:43:38.780 types of

00:43:39.160 personality

00:43:39.680 profiles, like

00:43:40.560 if you have

00:43:40.940 more of an

00:43:41.300 authoritarian

00:43:41.660 personality, you

00:43:42.660 go to the

00:43:43.000 right.

00:43:43.340 If you have

00:43:43.620 more of a

00:43:44.260 high-end

00:43:44.720 trait, open-mindedness,

00:43:46.180 you tend to go

00:43:46.800 towards the

00:43:47.480 left, so that

00:43:49.060 the right and

00:43:49.480 the left actually

00:43:50.200 represent different

00:43:51.060 psychological

00:43:51.660 tendencies within

00:43:52.680 the human

00:43:53.200 species and are

00:43:54.200 actually different

00:43:55.100 in some way

00:43:56.040 behaviorally,

00:43:56.840 cognitively.

00:43:58.220 And then there

00:43:58.640 are people like

00:43:59.060 Thomas Sowell that

00:43:59.920 argue that there

00:44:02.000 are two basic

00:44:03.120 philosophies in

00:44:03.980 politics, the

00:44:05.180 tragic vision, and

00:44:06.360 the utopian

00:44:06.880 vision.

00:44:07.540 The tragic

00:44:08.260 vision sees

00:44:08.980 human nature as

00:44:10.160 inherently flawed,

00:44:11.760 inherently imperfect,

00:44:12.860 and you have to

00:44:13.640 accommodate that with

00:44:14.540 your political

00:44:14.940 system.

00:44:16.680 And the utopian

00:44:18.020 vision sees human

00:44:19.100 nature as

00:44:19.760 perfectible in

00:44:20.800 principle, like we

00:44:21.560 can all become

00:44:22.300 better in principle

00:44:23.700 and live like one

00:44:24.500 big happy family.

00:44:26.840 And so, where in

00:44:29.760 that debate do you

00:44:30.700 sit?

00:44:30.920 Do you think that

00:44:31.700 the left and the

00:44:32.420 right represent

00:44:33.160 real conceptual

00:44:34.960 phenomenon, or do

00:44:36.300 you think that

00:44:36.860 they're just

00:44:37.660 tribes?

00:44:39.440 It's a bit of

00:44:40.400 both.

00:44:40.800 And again, I

00:44:42.040 expected nothing

00:44:43.360 less of you.

00:44:44.320 I love your

00:44:45.200 deep questions, so I

00:44:47.440 appreciate them.

00:44:49.220 So let me start

00:44:50.320 with the part that

00:44:51.220 seems to agree with

00:44:52.620 the Lewis brothers.

00:44:54.540 There's a great

00:44:55.640 book, and I

00:44:57.020 always feel as

00:44:57.840 though I should be

00:44:58.380 getting some of

00:44:59.140 their book royalties

00:44:59.980 because I keep

00:45:01.880 promoting their

00:45:03.460 book.

00:45:04.000 There are two

00:45:04.620 French psychologists

00:45:05.960 by the name of

00:45:06.880 Hugo Mercier and

00:45:08.520 Dan Sperber.

00:45:09.460 They wrote a book

00:45:10.080 called The Enigma

00:45:10.920 of Reason.

00:45:12.400 And in the book,

00:45:13.080 they're evolutionary

00:45:14.160 psychologists, and in

00:45:15.440 the book they argue

00:45:16.760 that there isn't a

00:45:19.740 sort of domain

00:45:21.040 general quest for

00:45:23.400 humans to seek

00:45:24.800 truth, meaning our

00:45:26.740 reasoning capability

00:45:27.980 didn't evolve to

00:45:29.700 seek some objective

00:45:31.480 truth, but rather

00:45:32.940 to win arguments.

00:45:34.760 So to your point

00:45:35.600 about tribalism.

00:45:36.700 So it doesn't

00:45:38.360 matter if Donald

00:45:39.540 Trump, you know,

00:45:41.420 finds a way to

00:45:42.240 cure cancer himself

00:45:43.580 in the lab, because

00:45:45.000 then the left will

00:45:46.520 say, as you probably

00:45:47.420 heard the quip at

00:45:48.180 this point, this

00:45:49.200 means that there'll

00:45:49.960 be a lot of

00:45:51.120 oncologists who

00:45:52.000 would lose their

00:45:52.660 job, and therefore

00:45:53.780 he's really a bad

00:45:54.620 guy because he's

00:45:55.240 hurting the economy

00:45:56.020 by solving

00:45:56.820 cancer, right?

00:45:58.420 So therefore, there

00:45:59.740 is an element of

00:46:01.040 truth to what the

00:46:01.800 Lewis brothers are

00:46:02.560 saying, that a lot

00:46:04.420 of the disagreements

00:46:05.460 really are not about

00:46:07.120 right or left

00:46:08.120 substantive issues.

00:46:09.520 I just want to say

00:46:10.860 what is exactly

00:46:11.760 opposite to the

00:46:12.580 other camp, because

00:46:13.680 it is terribly

00:46:14.780 satisfying for me

00:46:15.880 to demonstrate

00:46:17.060 that I'm right.

00:46:18.600 And I'll just make

00:46:19.500 one more point about

00:46:20.200 this, then I'll

00:46:21.080 argue for the

00:46:21.660 opposite position,

00:46:22.880 that there are

00:46:23.700 inherent differences

00:46:24.780 between the two

00:46:25.360 tribes.

00:46:26.020 I was once

00:46:27.240 on a show

00:46:27.860 about a year

00:46:28.380 and a half

00:46:28.800 ago, hosted

00:46:29.560 by a British

00:46:30.120 psychiatrist, and

00:46:31.240 he was the

00:46:31.920 only one in

00:46:32.780 the thousands

00:46:33.280 of shows

00:46:33.720 that I've

00:46:34.000 done to

00:46:34.680 ask me the

00:46:35.160 following

00:46:35.460 question.

00:46:36.420 He asked

00:46:36.840 me, Professor

00:46:38.320 Saad, in

00:46:38.820 all the years

00:46:39.480 that you've

00:46:39.820 been a

00:46:40.560 professor and

00:46:41.560 behavioral

00:46:41.820 scientist, what

00:46:42.460 is the

00:46:42.740 single phenomenon

00:46:43.920 that has

00:46:44.440 most surprised

00:46:45.760 you about the

00:46:46.280 human condition,

00:46:47.020 which is a

00:46:47.600 tough question

00:46:48.360 to answer

00:46:48.920 off the top

00:46:49.500 of your head.

00:46:50.220 And I paused

00:46:50.920 for a second

00:46:51.440 or two, and I

00:46:51.980 said, probably

00:46:52.900 the inability

00:46:53.720 for people to

00:46:55.200 change their

00:46:55.840 minds once it

00:46:56.840 is anchored

00:46:57.560 solidly in

00:46:58.880 cement, right?

00:47:00.300 I could offer

00:47:00.860 you all the

00:47:01.420 evidence in the

00:47:02.040 world, and

00:47:02.940 nothing is going

00:47:03.580 to alter your

00:47:04.200 position.

00:47:04.660 So I think

00:47:05.100 there is

00:47:05.340 definitely

00:47:05.760 something to

00:47:06.980 be said about

00:47:07.500 Lewis' position,

00:47:09.000 but it isn't

00:47:09.740 true that it's

00:47:10.300 all bullshit and

00:47:11.100 there aren't

00:47:11.560 any stable

00:47:12.740 traits that

00:47:14.340 differentiate between

00:47:15.220 these two

00:47:15.740 visions.

00:47:16.180 And in that

00:47:16.580 sense, I'm

00:47:17.420 much more in

00:47:17.960 line with the

00:47:18.960 great Thomas

00:47:19.560 soul.

00:47:19.980 One of my

00:47:20.380 great regrets

00:47:22.160 in life, he's

00:47:23.180 still alive, is

00:47:24.320 that we came

00:47:25.000 very close to

00:47:25.680 holding a chat

00:47:26.220 together, but

00:47:26.780 then it didn't

00:47:27.240 end up happening.

00:47:28.000 I still hold

00:47:28.800 out a very

00:47:29.780 minuscule hope

00:47:30.540 that maybe one

00:47:31.120 day we'll be

00:47:31.860 able to have a

00:47:32.440 chat because

00:47:32.940 he's the OG

00:47:34.100 of fighting all

00:47:35.060 of this woke

00:47:35.640 nonsense when

00:47:36.600 we were in

00:47:37.120 diapers, if not

00:47:38.080 even born.

00:47:39.820 So let me

00:47:40.460 explain what

00:47:40.900 are some of

00:47:41.280 these fundamental

00:47:41.920 differences.

00:47:42.880 And I'm

00:47:43.220 going to use

00:47:44.080 now, rather

00:47:44.700 than personality

00:47:45.860 traits, explaining

00:47:47.480 the two tribes,

00:47:48.740 because there is

00:47:49.420 a lot of

00:47:49.840 evidence in

00:47:50.360 support of

00:47:50.760 that, I'm

00:47:51.500 going to

00:47:51.880 actually do

00:47:52.720 something that

00:47:53.280 might surprise

00:47:53.980 you and your

00:47:54.420 audience.

00:47:55.180 There are

00:47:55.600 morphological

00:47:56.940 differences between

00:47:58.420 members of the

00:47:59.560 two tribes.

00:48:01.060 And so it

00:48:01.680 turns out that

00:48:03.580 the physical

00:48:04.380 formidability of

00:48:06.200 a man, as

00:48:07.680 measured by a

00:48:08.440 whole bunch of

00:48:08.960 metrics, including

00:48:10.000 for example, his

00:48:11.580 just physical

00:48:12.560 strength, determines

00:48:14.540 his positions on

00:48:16.580 a whole bunch of

00:48:17.800 issues that are

00:48:19.340 either left or

00:48:20.160 right.

00:48:20.420 So let me give

00:48:20.880 you an example.

00:48:22.280 Or maybe, forgive

00:48:23.160 me, I hope I

00:48:23.740 don't put you on

00:48:24.200 the spot, but

00:48:24.660 maybe I'll ask

00:48:25.340 you to predict.

00:48:26.400 Who do you

00:48:27.000 think is more

00:48:27.900 for egalitarianism,

00:48:29.960 whether it be

00:48:30.540 economic egalitarianism,

00:48:32.340 social egalitarianism?

00:48:33.760 Do you think it's

00:48:34.640 men who are very

00:48:35.460 strong or men

00:48:37.060 who look like

00:48:37.720 Mamdani?

00:48:38.920 Well, I think I've

00:48:39.540 seen the abstract of

00:48:40.560 this study on

00:48:41.220 Twitter, so I know

00:48:42.240 it's the latter.

00:48:44.220 Yeah, well,

00:48:44.760 probably that abstract

00:48:45.760 comes from stuff that

00:48:46.700 I've been writing

00:48:47.560 about.

00:48:47.920 Yeah, so it was

00:48:49.200 probably your

00:48:49.680 Twitter.

00:48:50.200 Yeah, probably my

00:48:51.000 Twitter, exactly.

00:48:52.080 Well, because the

00:48:53.160 idea is that if I am

00:48:54.740 physically strong, I'm

00:48:57.500 likely to appreciate

00:48:59.600 the fact that life is

00:49:01.800 competitive and

00:49:02.960 therefore I recognize

00:49:04.860 existentially that when

00:49:06.860 we step into the ring

00:49:08.180 and if Coleman Hughes

00:49:09.480 is smarter than me, he

00:49:12.020 will beat the hell out

00:49:12.960 of me rhetorically.

00:49:14.200 If he's physically

00:49:15.180 stronger than me, he'll

00:49:16.240 beat the hell out of me

00:49:17.220 literally, physically.

00:49:18.600 And I understand that

00:49:19.900 to be true because

00:49:21.020 life is a competition.

00:49:22.800 On the other hand, if I

00:49:24.280 think that we should

00:49:25.720 all end up equally

00:49:27.640 at the same place

00:49:29.720 because it's unfair to

00:49:31.020 have any instantiation

00:49:32.520 of inequality, then I'm

00:49:34.300 much more likely to

00:49:35.200 support egalitarianism

00:49:36.680 because that's more

00:49:37.340 fair, because that's

00:49:38.560 more empathetic.

00:49:39.680 But now let me tie all

00:49:41.160 this together to

00:49:41.940 evolutionary theory.

00:49:44.300 E.O.

00:49:44.640 Wilson, the very

00:49:45.580 famous evolutionary

00:49:46.840 biologist, he's not

00:49:48.500 the only one, by the

00:49:49.220 way, to have made that

00:49:49.900 point.

00:49:50.200 He was an expert on

00:49:51.760 social ants.

00:49:53.060 Social ants are

00:49:54.220 communistic.

00:49:55.280 There is one

00:49:55.780 reproductive queen and

00:49:57.280 then just an entire

00:49:58.580 cast of indistinguishable

00:50:00.320 warrior and worker

00:50:01.980 ants.

00:50:02.880 Social ants are

00:50:03.660 communistic.

00:50:04.800 Human beings are not

00:50:05.840 communistic.

00:50:06.580 So when he was

00:50:07.220 asked, Professor

00:50:09.040 Wilson, what are your

00:50:09.940 thoughts on communism

00:50:10.860 and socialism, he

00:50:12.320 said, great idea, wrong

00:50:14.060 species.

00:50:15.160 Why did he say that?

00:50:16.360 One of the greatest

00:50:17.080 comebacks I've ever

00:50:17.980 heard, because in that

00:50:19.360 little sentence, he

00:50:20.440 explained that the

00:50:21.980 phylogenetic history of

00:50:23.380 a species matters when

00:50:25.680 you are creating

00:50:27.520 sociopolitical and

00:50:29.060 economic systems.

00:50:30.560 Those that are

00:50:31.520 congruent with our

00:50:33.380 human nature are more

00:50:35.060 likely to succeed and

00:50:36.320 those that are not

00:50:37.340 will fail.

00:50:38.300 That's why communism

00:50:39.160 has been tried 14

00:50:40.520 trillion different

00:50:41.520 ways, but it has

00:50:42.820 always failed.

00:50:43.700 But of course,

00:50:44.580 Mamdani is going to

00:50:45.560 solve that because he's

00:50:46.380 going to institute the

00:50:47.700 true socialism in

00:50:49.860 New York City.

00:50:50.600 So, yes, there is

00:50:52.480 something to be said

00:50:53.240 about the Lewis

00:50:53.780 position, but hail to

00:50:55.800 Thomas Sow.

00:50:56.720 Okay, so I want to

00:50:57.860 dig a little deeper

00:50:58.760 into that because it

00:50:59.680 could seem potentially

00:51:01.040 contradictory.

00:51:02.560 So, on the one

00:51:03.720 hand, what you're

00:51:04.260 saying is there are

00:51:05.940 these studies showing

00:51:07.260 that the winners in

00:51:09.480 life, you know, the

00:51:10.600 men that are stronger,

00:51:11.900 more successful,

00:51:12.900 smarter, because of

00:51:14.560 that, they're more

00:51:15.340 likely to favor market

00:51:17.280 capitalism because

00:51:18.220 that's a game where

00:51:19.460 they can win because

00:51:21.260 they're winners,

00:51:22.200 whereas, essentially,

00:51:23.560 the losers, the

00:51:24.220 people that are

00:51:24.640 weaker and less

00:51:26.220 smart, less likely to

00:51:27.380 win, are the ones in

00:51:28.780 favor of redistribution

00:51:29.960 because they're not

00:51:31.140 going to win the game

00:51:31.940 if they play the game,

00:51:33.160 right?

00:51:33.440 But, at the same

00:51:35.020 time, you're saying

00:51:35.760 that America has a

00:51:37.280 culture of suicidal

00:51:38.920 empathy where,

00:51:41.260 essentially, what's

00:51:42.820 rewarded is signals

00:51:46.220 of empathy, right?

00:51:50.460 Like, or redistribution.

00:51:51.940 So, if you think of a

00:51:52.820 guy like Gavin Newsom

00:51:53.800 or whatever, he's

00:51:54.440 clearly, like, by any

00:51:55.940 metric, he's a winner.

00:51:57.240 He's an alpha male.

00:51:58.440 He's tall.

00:52:00.120 He's handsome.

00:52:00.740 He's successful.

00:52:01.580 He's the governor of

00:52:03.420 the state.

00:52:04.840 And, yet, in the

00:52:07.900 culture, at least, of

00:52:09.300 blue America, he

00:52:10.820 can't really be pro-

00:52:12.540 market capitalism or

00:52:13.960 pro, you know,

00:52:16.500 meritocracy so much

00:52:18.000 because he exists in a

00:52:19.580 value structure where

00:52:20.480 he actually gets

00:52:21.080 rewarded for saying the

00:52:22.480 opposite.

00:52:23.380 So, how do you

00:52:24.560 reconcile those two

00:52:26.040 ideas?

00:52:28.020 Yeah, I'm not sure I

00:52:29.700 see the contradiction,

00:52:30.880 but I'll try to answer

00:52:31.820 it as best as I can.

00:52:32.800 And if I haven't

00:52:33.700 hit it, please, you

00:52:35.180 know, challenge me

00:52:37.280 again.

00:52:40.100 I'm friends with

00:52:41.280 Elon Musk.

00:52:42.100 I know him well.

00:52:42.960 He's maybe 6'3", 6'4".

00:52:46.260 He's got $400 billion.

00:52:49.220 I'm not 6'4", and I

00:52:51.460 don't have the money

00:52:52.920 that he has.

00:52:54.240 Yet, I'm not in the

00:52:55.520 least bit intimidated

00:52:56.540 by him, nor do I hold

00:52:58.180 any rancor towards him

00:52:59.560 because he's taller than

00:53:01.640 me and has more money

00:53:02.740 than me.

00:53:03.180 I understand that there

00:53:04.160 are vagaries in life

00:53:05.220 that we can't control,

00:53:06.560 my height, but there

00:53:07.880 are other parts where

00:53:08.920 we can control.

00:53:09.800 So, for example, if

00:53:11.280 mate choice were a,

00:53:13.400 and let me, sorry, I'm

00:53:14.400 going to use like

00:53:15.440 academic language, but

00:53:16.680 then I'll explain it.

00:53:18.280 If mate choice were a

00:53:19.900 non-compensatory process,

00:53:21.820 then I would have been

00:53:23.400 doomed to a life of

00:53:24.460 celibacy.

00:53:25.000 Now, what does that

00:53:25.780 mean?

00:53:26.880 If every woman on

00:53:28.280 earth said, there is

00:53:29.640 no chance in hell that

00:53:30.940 I will ever mate with

00:53:32.220 a guy who's under 6

00:53:33.500 feet, I'm not 6'4",

00:53:35.800 therefore, I'm dead.

00:53:37.700 But that would be if

00:53:39.100 mate choice were

00:53:40.000 non-compensatory, meaning

00:53:41.520 I cannot compensate for

00:53:43.700 literally a shortcoming

00:53:45.100 by having other

00:53:46.280 qualities that women

00:53:47.200 find very desirable.

00:53:48.780 But, notwithstanding

00:53:50.540 that Elon Musk exists

00:53:52.220 and is tall and makes

00:53:53.540 a lot of money, there

00:53:54.900 is still an ecosystem

00:53:56.300 that I can fit in.

00:53:58.220 There is still a niche

00:53:59.060 that I could fit in.

00:54:00.560 I'm not, I'm rather

00:54:01.780 easy on the eyes.

00:54:03.420 I have, I have some

00:54:06.620 charm, I'm funny, I'm

00:54:08.680 educated, I've

00:54:09.960 accomplished something

00:54:10.740 of my life that is

00:54:11.840 very attractive to a

00:54:12.860 lot of women.

00:54:13.740 So, I was able to

00:54:14.980 compensate for many

00:54:16.860 of my shortcomings by

00:54:18.280 doing well on others.

00:54:19.780 That, to me, sounds

00:54:20.940 like a very freeing

00:54:23.460 message, right?

00:54:24.320 It says that even

00:54:25.660 if you are too

00:54:27.280 short or not

00:54:28.700 enough this or not

00:54:29.680 enough that, if you

00:54:31.240 get off the couch, and

00:54:32.380 I mean, by the way,

00:54:33.120 that's why Jordan

00:54:34.040 Peterson's message has

00:54:35.140 resonated so well, but

00:54:36.100 he was hardly the first

00:54:37.120 to tell people to get

00:54:38.480 off the couch, right?

00:54:39.800 But that message says

00:54:41.700 that I can ascribe

00:54:43.380 causality to my life

00:54:45.060 because of my

00:54:46.500 internal dispositions.

00:54:48.140 That's very freeing.

00:54:49.860 That's very

00:54:50.600 empowering, right?

00:54:53.780 But the left says,

00:54:55.420 look, something

00:54:58.260 happened in the

00:54:59.940 St.

00:55:00.460 Lawrence River

00:55:01.240 in 1733, where

00:55:04.580 the Iroquois and

00:55:05.800 Algonquins were

00:55:07.500 stolen, whatever,

00:55:09.500 because they were

00:55:10.060 promised this in

00:55:11.020 Treaty 7.

00:55:11.680 So, 400 years

00:55:13.940 later, we need

00:55:15.580 to still

00:55:16.860 find ways

00:55:17.960 to apologize

00:55:19.040 to you and

00:55:19.800 give you special

00:55:20.560 treatment because

00:55:21.600 what happened in the

00:55:22.760 St.

00:55:22.980 Lawrence River

00:55:23.500 in 1732.

00:55:24.900 Let me draw that

00:55:26.220 model compared to

00:55:27.520 a real story of

00:55:28.460 victimology.

00:55:29.420 You ready, Coleman?

00:55:30.520 We escaped

00:55:32.180 imminent execution

00:55:33.580 in Lebanon.

00:55:34.820 This is not

00:55:35.340 in 1732.

00:55:36.600 This is in my

00:55:37.300 lifetime.

00:55:37.680 I saw things

00:55:39.020 in my childhood

00:55:39.860 that I wouldn't

00:55:40.940 wish on my

00:55:41.600 worst enemies.

00:55:42.880 My parents

00:55:43.520 were kidnapped

00:55:44.180 by Fatah

00:55:45.060 and tortured.

00:55:47.560 My grandparents

00:55:49.520 escaped from

00:55:53.360 Syria because

00:55:54.660 they were Syrian

00:55:55.660 Jews escaping

00:55:56.800 the noble

00:55:57.520 religion of

00:55:59.120 peace.

00:55:59.760 My wife's

00:56:00.760 family is

00:56:01.860 Armenian.

00:56:02.940 They escaped

00:56:03.780 the Armenian

00:56:04.500 genocide.

00:56:05.820 My brother-in-law's

00:56:07.360 family are

00:56:08.380 Egyptian

00:56:09.780 Alexandrian

00:56:10.780 Jews who

00:56:11.600 in the

00:56:11.940 50s had

00:56:12.740 to leave

00:56:13.420 Egypt under

00:56:14.680 imminent threat

00:56:15.560 of death

00:56:16.200 because they

00:56:17.060 were Jews.

00:56:17.780 This is in my

00:56:18.780 lifetime, not

00:56:19.900 what happened

00:56:20.580 to the

00:56:20.940 Iroquois in

00:56:21.720 1732 or

00:56:23.400 slavery and

00:56:24.500 whatever.

00:56:25.480 I'm not

00:56:26.380 denigrating or

00:56:27.300 minimizing those

00:56:28.060 things.

00:56:28.740 But I come

00:56:29.720 from a

00:56:30.200 stock that

00:56:31.300 says stop

00:56:32.500 whining.

00:56:33.400 That

00:56:33.660 victimology

00:56:34.460 narrative is

00:56:35.160 part of my

00:56:35.760 story.

00:56:36.200 When it

00:56:36.900 is appropriate

00:56:37.560 for me to

00:56:38.420 say it, as

00:56:39.700 I am saying

00:56:40.260 it on the

00:56:40.640 current show,

00:56:41.460 I will say

00:56:42.200 it because

00:56:42.520 it's part of

00:56:43.080 my regrettable

00:56:43.800 history.

00:56:44.840 But what

00:56:45.240 defines me is

00:56:46.680 that I've

00:56:47.620 overcome it.

00:56:48.820 To be able

00:56:49.500 to sit now

00:56:50.320 and have a

00:56:50.780 wonderful

00:56:51.100 conversation with

00:56:52.180 Coleman News,

00:56:52.940 I don't

00:56:53.620 wallow

00:56:54.540 forevermore

00:56:56.260 boo-hoo-hoo

00:56:57.300 in what

00:56:57.940 happened to me

00:56:58.740 in my

00:56:59.020 childhood.

00:56:59.940 And by the

00:57:00.280 way, that's

00:57:00.620 one of the

00:57:00.940 reasons why

00:57:01.380 it's very

00:57:01.760 hard to

00:57:02.280 cancel me

00:57:02.840 because people

00:57:03.260 say, how

00:57:03.880 is it

00:57:04.200 possible that

00:57:04.840 someone who

00:57:05.320 is so

00:57:05.680 outspoken like

00:57:06.600 you is able

00:57:07.520 to survive

00:57:08.200 in academia?

00:57:09.220 Well, because

00:57:09.680 even on the

00:57:10.740 metrics of

00:57:11.500 victimology that

00:57:12.540 are so important

00:57:13.380 to the degenerate

00:57:14.300 left, I come

00:57:15.500 out as the

00:57:16.200 Olympic medalist,

00:57:17.280 right?

00:57:17.660 Therefore, it

00:57:18.200 becomes very

00:57:18.800 hard for you

00:57:19.660 to accuse me

00:57:20.600 of white

00:57:21.060 supremacy and

00:57:21.880 so on once I

00:57:23.160 pull out my

00:57:23.840 victimology card.

00:57:24.960 I'm not

00:57:25.320 Jussie Smollett,

00:57:26.460 I'm Gadsad.

00:57:27.400 I have a real

00:57:28.080 victimology story.

00:57:28.980 So the

00:57:30.200 bottom line

00:57:30.880 is that when

00:57:33.280 it comes to

00:57:34.380 finding a

00:57:35.840 socioeconomic

00:57:36.760 political system

00:57:38.040 that imparts

00:57:40.180 the maximal

00:57:41.260 amount of

00:57:42.160 happiness to

00:57:43.160 the greatest

00:57:43.700 number of

00:57:44.420 people, there

00:57:46.040 is a tribe

00:57:47.140 that is more

00:57:48.100 likely to offer

00:57:49.120 ideas to

00:57:50.120 achieve that

00:57:50.740 objective, and

00:57:51.980 it's not the

00:57:52.540 left.

00:57:53.560 Okay, so

00:57:53.900 final question.

00:57:55.400 What can we

00:57:55.920 actually do about

00:57:57.100 suicidal empathy?

00:57:58.360 Obviously, you're

00:57:59.360 doing your best by

00:58:00.300 writing this book

00:58:01.080 and trying to

00:58:01.680 persuade people, but

00:58:03.560 what can the

00:58:04.200 rest of us who

00:58:05.480 care about this

00:58:06.360 issue actually do

00:58:07.900 about it?

00:58:08.560 I love that

00:58:09.400 question because

00:58:10.140 both in the

00:58:11.100 parasitic mind and

00:58:12.200 in suicidal

00:58:12.680 empathy, the

00:58:13.900 final chapter is a

00:58:15.600 prescriptive

00:58:16.760 action, you

00:58:17.940 know, call to

00:58:19.020 action precisely to

00:58:20.480 address your

00:58:20.860 question, which

00:58:21.260 is there's no

00:58:22.140 point in going to

00:58:23.140 your physician and

00:58:24.580 he or she telling

00:58:26.100 you that you have

00:58:26.800 a disease, and

00:58:27.440 then when you

00:58:27.820 say, well, so

00:58:28.340 what's the cure

00:58:28.980 doctor?

00:58:29.380 I don't know what

00:58:30.340 the cure is.

00:58:30.880 I just know that

00:58:31.560 you're going to

00:58:31.960 die.

00:58:32.340 So there are

00:58:32.940 several.

00:58:33.940 I actually have a

00:58:35.000 whole bunch of

00:58:35.460 these.

00:58:35.620 I don't want to

00:58:35.960 bore you with all

00:58:36.580 the different

00:58:36.960 ones, but the

00:58:38.440 most important

00:58:39.220 sort of 30,000

00:58:40.420 foot prescription I

00:58:42.020 can offer is to

00:58:44.380 recognize that

00:58:46.120 empathy, empathy is

00:58:47.980 a noble virtue, but

00:58:49.960 in exactly the way

00:58:51.240 that Aristotle

00:58:52.040 explained to us

00:58:53.040 thousands of

00:58:54.820 years ago in his

00:58:55.760 Nicomachian

00:58:56.720 ethics, all

00:58:57.960 things at the

00:58:59.360 right time, at

00:59:00.200 the right place,

00:59:01.600 to the right

00:59:02.360 target, in the

00:59:03.180 right situation,

00:59:04.380 that's the game

00:59:05.880 of life, right?

00:59:06.680 Knowing when to

00:59:07.720 invoke what and

00:59:09.560 what amount.

00:59:11.240 There is nothing

00:59:12.380 noble about

00:59:14.620 ascribing empathy

00:59:16.800 towards a child

00:59:18.540 rapist.

00:59:19.360 He's not deserving

00:59:20.620 of a second chance.

00:59:21.540 It doesn't make you

00:59:22.720 superior to me

00:59:23.940 morally by being

00:59:25.840 kind to that

00:59:26.880 person, right?

00:59:28.140 Sometimes empathy

00:59:29.380 requires harshness

00:59:31.160 in the same way

00:59:31.960 that, you know, the

00:59:32.980 old argument to,

00:59:34.100 you know, to seek

00:59:35.060 peace, you have to be

00:59:36.040 ready for war and so

00:59:37.060 on, right?

00:59:37.680 So people have to be

00:59:39.600 mindful that it's

00:59:41.260 not a linear

00:59:42.200 function, more

00:59:43.640 empathy, always

00:59:45.160 better than less

00:59:46.160 empathy.

00:59:47.000 It's an inverted

00:59:47.920 you.

00:59:48.680 Too little empathy

00:59:49.680 is not good.

00:59:50.940 It makes you a

00:59:51.640 psychopath.

00:59:52.960 Too much empathy

00:59:54.180 makes you suicidally

00:59:55.620 empathetic.

00:59:57.320 And the trick in

00:59:58.160 life is to find

00:59:59.200 that sweet spot.

01:00:00.060 So if nothing

01:00:01.140 else but to be

01:00:02.700 mindful of that

01:00:03.660 general lesson,

01:00:05.300 hopefully we can

01:00:06.260 inoculate people

01:00:07.300 against suicidal

01:00:08.100 empathy.

01:00:08.900 Okay, Gad, thanks

01:00:09.700 so much for coming

01:00:10.240 on my show.

01:00:10.900 And your book is

01:00:12.120 going to be

01:00:12.540 Suicidal Empathy.

01:00:14.180 People can follow

01:00:14.980 you on Twitter, I

01:00:15.760 assume, and if you

01:00:16.580 have a website, now

01:00:17.580 would be a good

01:00:18.240 time to plug it.

01:00:19.680 My website is

01:00:20.780 gadsaad.com and

01:00:22.240 I would be remiss

01:00:23.240 in not saying that

01:00:24.040 I recently started

01:00:25.560 a new affiliation

01:00:26.680 at Ole Miss,

01:00:28.640 the Declaration

01:00:29.740 of Independence

01:00:30.640 Center for the

01:00:32.120 Study of American

01:00:32.940 Freedom.

01:00:33.560 You need a Canadian

01:00:34.520 to teach Americans

01:00:36.020 about American

01:00:36.900 freedoms, so people

01:00:38.000 should go check out

01:00:38.760 that center because

01:00:39.600 they're doing

01:00:40.040 amazing things.

01:00:40.800 They're exactly the

01:00:41.640 opposite of the

01:00:42.480 woke university.

01:00:43.400 So thank you so

01:00:43.940 much, Coleman.

01:00:49.740 God bless and

01:01:13.240 they're going to be

01:01:13.960 on behalf of the

01:01:15.940 community.

The Saad Truth with Dr. Saad - October 21, 2025

The West's Suicidal Empathy - My Chat on the Coleman Hughes Podcast (The Saad Truth with Dr. Saad_901)

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