Nick Gillespie and Michael Shermer on Postmodernism, Rationalism, and the Intellectual Dark Web
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- čas přidán 20. 12. 2018
- Livestream with Reason editor-at-large Nick Gillespie and Skeptic Magazing publisher Michael Shermer, who will discuss criticism of the "Libertarian Postmodernism" video, which you can watch here: • Libertarian Postmodern...
0:34 Introduction
2:38 Addressing a few things
5:01 Starting off with a clip
6:03 Nick Gillespie and Michael Shermer
7:05 Definition of Postmodernism
= Incredulity (skeptical) toward Metanarratives (large comprehensive theories and foundations of said theories)
11:11 Metanarratives are not created equal. Truth (Small t)
14:00 Excerpt from Shermer’s book
16:00 Search for truth or search for social justice?
16:47 Darwin, Marx, Freud
18:20 Where Postmodernists are wrong
20:27 Genealogy
21:22 Overprescription of ADHD medication.
22:35 “Medical illness”
25:00 Alan Kors
26:00 Thomas Saws
26:40 Steel Maning (the opposite of straw maning?)
27:33 The Job of The historian, the writer and the context
---------------------------
57:00 The Bible. Is the whole thing the word of God? What really happened at the Crucifixion? Are there Scientific explanations for The Flood?
59:09 Why should we care about liberalism? We know what happens when the Collective rises above The Individual.
1:01:52 Nazi Post-Enlightenment Blood and Soil (and IRON, Third Reich came after Bismark's Second Reich)
1:07:00 Are we conflating postmodernism with skepticism?
1:08:40 Modern Postmodernism? Oppression Olympics? Spilling over into Science?
1:10:45 Replacing Either/Or thinking with Spectrum thinking as closer to the truth
1:12:15 Where does your individualism come from?
1:13:15 Oppression Olympics, Intersectionality taken too far, was coined by a Latina.
1:15:00 Hayek clip
1:18:00 Final Thoughts. Fear of China.
czcams.com/video/zmYegIGhwtc/video.html&
In order for me to support you in any way, I would need to have 1 question answered; How are you funded?
This was soooo helpful THANK YOU
PLEASE DO continue with these conversations. LOVE them!
Yes. Agreed. I could watch these kind of conversations every day. The world needs this.
Can y'all please add these to the Reason Podcast, so I can listen to them more easily in the car?
This was great! I couldn't watch this live but came to this 4 hours later.
I loved the conversation and found my ignorance of Postmodernism diminished, at least to a degree. Thanks Nick and Michael, bravo! Thanks for identifying both positive and negative attributes of the subject. That’s quite helpful.
I like the back and forth discussion. The format is promising. I would ask that you try to improve the production value with a better microphone for Dr. Shermer. The topic is a bit inaccessible for a civilian like me. Thank you for this work.
Can we not understand across group identity lines? It seems to me that arguing a white person can't understand the black experience is like saying only 19th century Russians can understand Dostoyevsky.
A white person won't intuitively and automatically understand, but they can read, research and draw analogies and inferences to and from their own lives.
It's not rocket science nor does it require extraordinary amounts of empathy to understand how one would react to being discriminated against.
The concept of perspective being influenced by group identity is useful, but the non-nuanced opinion of groups not being able to understand each other is the first step to the "oppression Olympics"; which is a very logical conclusion if that opinion is true.
That's exactly right.
This is/was IMO what fundamentally made.the PC culture, SJW, and extreme progressive leftist grow and relate to each other strongly where the group came together to fight true libertarian who believe in individualism and the pursuit of happiness in a completely free society.
Growing up born in 1991. Before millenials or post millenials started gaining traction to be SJW and were the arbiters of "fake news" that minorities would dismiss any white cis gender males bu this exact premise. You are X therefor you CANT really identify, comprehend, and explain the problems of race Y.
For.me this is how the SJW progressives has always felt now they tackled on more ridiculous things like the new feminism movement, PC culture, words hurt other people so regulation speech, micro agression. These were added on onto their original premise once they gained political and economic power.
This is anaedotal and completely opinion based, but this premise has always been floating around wellll before the SJW and 3rd wave feminism movement.
I always felt that people making these identitarian arguments really just lack empathy in the technical sense. They can't fathom a man understanding the plights of a woman, a European of an African, etc. Of course I can. I have a really good feeling what it's like being in a concentration camp, hiding in an attic, being a slave, being raped, being abused, etc. Do they lack all imagination?
I agree with you but I think you're analogy is a bit off because while non blacks can have extreme empathy for blacks & their plight it's kinda arrogant to say a white, Asian, Arab or even Hispanic American can fully understand the black American experience. This is an idea that both conservatives & liberals have shit the bed on completely. On the right - decades of simplistic & exclusive blame ie. pull yourselves up by your bootstraps. The left - we'll treat you as victims, take away any kind of accountability and pay you lip service.... So long as you vote for us... Even though we are just as bad as the Republicans cause we wrote the crime bill in the early 90's that exploded the prison industrial complex by throwing the poorest black and brown populations in cages for the most petty nonviolent offenses.
So getting pulled over by a trigger happy, probably scared cop is something as a white dude can't understand what that must be like.
I really loved this conversation. I don't hear enough people speaking knowledgably and fairly about the post modern texts in their criticisms. A historian of science and a literary analyst is a great combo for better understanding!
I heartily recommend James Burke's "Connections" and "The Day The Universe Changed"
Enlightening! Lucky to have found this.
I recommend skipping to 1:06:30 if you are interested in the version of Postmodernism that the Intellectual Dark Web rails against, as opposed to Postmodernism as a broad philosophical approach.
I'm a huge fan of Reason TV. I hope that live streams will continue. That said, I found the discussion about metanarratives to be a bit theoretical for me. I would prefer topics about big issues of the day such as free speech, the opioid epidemic, minimum wage, the welfare state, healthcare, infrastructure, corporate welfare, crony capitalism, etc.
I guess it is more meta/post-modern to just talk ABOUT his critique, but it would be great to have actually added Jordan Peterson to this (or a similar) conversation. Not sure if that could be accomplished, but it would be interesting.
Is there an example of an autocracy that has been clearly successful for longer than a single ruler?
"Interests" are generally limited to the types of things/acts presented to a person. You couldn't be interested in computers until they came into use. So a woman may seem uninterested in X, but perhaps X was not really an option open to them or was socially less acceptable to desire.
Finding "meaning" or "morals" or "ethics" can be fun and interesting, but none are real, just stories you (and likely others who share your POV) tell.
Your comment assumes that women don't get exposed to 'X' (fill in STEM: Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics). This is absurd.
The current education system does everything it can to expose females to STEM and yet they are not pursuing these areas at same rate as males.
This sounds very similar to the problem of post-modernism in that the idea pushes 'how do we know' into 'we can never really know'. Again, this is absurd.
Maybe our judicial system is sexist because 93% of the prison population is male. Is this absurd? Or maybe biology is playing a part? Oh my, did I say something that doesn't fit your ideology?
Even without the technology,the Chinese have the Stasi beat in terms of social control.
Yeah no Yoko Ono was wrong about women being the N-word of the world, and her whole involvement with John Lennon should have been proof enough given how much she controlled him from the beginning. Women in fact have it better than men in general, yes even in the muslim world, but erasing half the picture, only looking at what men do and what women feel and not caring about what women do and what men feel is a great way to make it look like men have it better.
Apart from that, this was a great conversation.
For years, Yoko has sued McCartney to prevent him from getting full credit for songs he wrote exclusively (e.g. Yesterday) or from even rearranging the order of the names to give Paul first credit for songs he wrote without John. Yoko steals credit.
Nick Gillespie is easily one of the most interesting minds around today. And I love the width of his knowledge in various intellectual venues.
Nick needs wire management. That mess behind his left ear is making me crazy ;-)
First of all, thanks for asking my question on stream. Nevertheless, Michael's answer isn't very satisfying, he's begging the question. My assertion is not that wild. It's that Hume is right. You'd see overwhelming support for this among philosophers. You can not create ought from is. Schermer, Harris, and Dillahunty are all hopelessly drifting around on this issue.
Michael said the reason why we know a society focused on achieving a glorious state is worse than one based on individualism, is because such societies produce worse outcomes for the average person. That's a non-sequitur. Why should we care about the wellbeing of average people? Where does that come from? That's a "religious," but certainy a non-rationalistic prior assumption. Go ahead and prove scientifically that we ought to have that goal. Show me how to falsify that claim. You might believe so, and I'm inclined that way (not really, I personally believe the most free society is the ultimate value, no matter the outcome). But Mussolini would disagree. So would pretty much every single Athenian and Spartan back in the day. The idea that a society of comfortable, well-off individuals is better than one in which warriors fight honorably for glory would be preposterous to them. And there's no way to disprove them with pure reason.
And that's what Peterson is right about, and why he didn't lose his debate with Dillahunty, despite a lot of commenters. Dillahunty takes certain popular goals as a given. Nevermind that when it comes down to it, he has no way of prioritizing different competing normative goals, other than gut feeling. Nevermind the fact that he ultimately bases all of those on nothing but instinct. Personally, I'm an atheist, so I'm not agreeing with Jordan all the way. But at least he's honest enough that there's no rational basis to construct morality upon. The anti-natalists he's debating are perfectly rationalistic, and come to the conclusion that existence is pain, and therefore should be ended. If Matt, Michael and Sam were serious, they'd work all their time to disprove those claims, or otherwise kill themselves. But they obviously won't. We all take that leap of faith. That existence itself is fundamentally worth something. That's a transcendental presupposition.
Normative is normative and positive is positive... never the twain shall meet...
No sir, not buying it.
In light of not having a clear justification for "Ought", the most reasonable way to proceed is is to leave enough space/fertile ground for people to pursue their own little "o"" ought. That is essentially Hayek's argument and the argument for individualism (and by degree post-modernism)- NONE of us have divine insight as to "best" society and simply have to muddle through as best as we can for ourselves. I don't have to prove Mussolini or Sparta wrong. I only have to leave like-minded people to work it out for themselves, and ask for the same courtesy in return. We now have a basis to construct a morality upon.
And this is what Peterson gets wrong: if his answers work for you, hey great. They don't work for me.
But I'm not going beat him over the head with my redemption-via-hedonism. Let him clean his room. I'm simply going to remind him his room isn't the entire earth.
Good talk anyway. Nice to see Reason branching out.
@@quintessenceSL I think it'd be hard to find an example of Peterson confusing his room for the entire earth...
@@naughtyskweet6
Uh-huh.
Peterson is essentially making a categorical big O, Ought, confusing process with result. That's not a lot of wiggle room to explore. I mean have you ever seen Einstein's desk? Good thing Peterson wasn't his life coach.
Or put another way: was your room cleaned before making your comment? Then why are you bugging me?
He is just as dogmatic as those he criticizes for being dogmatic.
The wording here may be confusing your point. You absolutely can derive ought from is: facts about the world (is) can tell you what you should do to achieve what you want (ought). Now, I realize that's not exactly what you mean when you use that phrase. You're saying that "value" cannot be derived from facts. Value is the thing toward which "ought" would point.
To be clear then: it should be readily agreeable that the means to achieving what we want can be derived from facts. This leaves the question of whether or not what we want can be derived from facts.
Well, most things that we want are not necessarily ends in themselves. They themselves are means to further ends. This means that many of our values (ends) turn out to be means, and therefore derivable from facts. Great. A step closer.
Here we start to see a hierarchy of values - we want many things, we value many things. Either many of these things point to several distinct values as ends in themselves, or all values point toward one foundational end in itself. I tend toward the latter understanding.
If this is true, then so far we can see that all values but one can be derived from facts about the world. But what is this final, foundational value? Well, one can discuss and sharpen it up, of course, but ultimately life (meaningful life with as little suffering as possible) would have to be that foundational value. As Shermer briefly mentions here, we know this to be true as a fact, simply by asking people: do you prefer pain or no? Do you prefer life or no?
While it's true that people have conflicting desires, and may even sometimes wish to end their lives, by the nature of conscious life (a fact) this foundational value, if not obvious, can at least be revealed and understood.
So, yes. One can derive ought from is.
57:00 The reason that the bible was alluded to as the unalterable word of god is very much the same reason that the comma is very important in the 2nd amendment.
@25:58 the moderator should have allowed Michael to respond!!
One of the most important reminders I take from postmodern thought is that in every theory is a margin of error. A theory is an approximation of reality, whether it is a political, philosophical, physical, or even mathematical theory.
This is why no theory should be practised to its logically absolute end, for the relative error compounds as one reaches that end. Physicists generally have an idea of the limits of their theories, so they know not to use quantum theory to predict the movements of large celestial bodies under the influence of gravity. Philosophers and and ideologues tend not to be aware of the marginal errors in their ideologies, leading to gross miscalculations such as mass famine and genocide when they apply their theories too absolutely or towards systems that are not accurately modelled by those theories.
In other words, humility, skepticism, and a measure of tolerance are essential to being a good person.
I'm surprised that Gillespie buys into the BS.
29:00 What Michael is describing is Socratic Dialectic.
Bless these thinkers - I adore them.
Nick Gillespie, over a few years, has gradually assumed hero status for me.
I appreciate and admire you can have a civilized conversation with respect for each others argument. If this had been Sweden they had condamnd each other and had throw ugly word on each other as nazi, racist, and fascist. That is the normal level on a common Swedish academic "intellectual" conversation.
Follow up on my previous comment about M. Shermer being wrong about death penalty purpose. In a similar sense, inmates stay incarcerated until they complete their sentence or are paroled. They do not stay in prison until they are rehabilitated, or until they "see the light", "learn their lesson", "find Jesus" and then they are released. The purpose of a sentence, whether 10 yrs, life, or death, is as a consequence, NOT as a deterence to others.
@ 34:00 Michael S, quoting himself from one of his books or essays, makes the mistake, again, that the death penalty does not curb crime. The fact is true, but he is wrong because the PURPOSE of the death penalty is not and NEVER WAS to curb crime. The purpose, just like every and all sentences, is AS PUNISHMENT/CONSEQUENCE of the crime. Life sentences are not given to someone convicted of a crime to deter someone else from commiting a similar crime. (It would be nice if that were a reaction, but the purpose is as a consequence). I used to get tired of hearing inmates say I'm not in here for punishment, but as a punishment---which was true; I just thought some of those guys should have been in there for punishment.
Freaking unable to find a Facebook Page nor dedicated CZcams Channel for Nick Gillespie, what's going on there please? Thanks
Creationist aren't Postmodernist. That's dishonest.
What the fuck is on with this chat. Listen to some knowledge, will help y'all.
Don't take a shot each time Nick says, 'simpatico,' or you'll die today.
Good
Great. Postmodernism is not about wiping out science it is about keep on questioning everything we 'know'
Great clip. Would love to see Nick and Stephen Hicks do one of these.
Maybe the bar of entry to begin imposing postmodern arguments against structuralist ideas is set too low?
Any moderately acute person can concoct a deconstruction of anything.
This is a love fest, not the dialectic I was expecting. How disappointing.
It's a shame that Michael Shermer considers himself (or is considered by others to be) among the likes of bitter whiny Peterson, sleepy dopey Harris, blinking rational Weinstein & Weinstein, toady Rubin, Peter Shapiro Pan, etc. etc.
This talk was extremely difficult to follow and also appears to be revising was Post-Modernism actually means, which made this discussion that much harder to follow along.
Postmodernists are critical/ suspicious of reason, of science, of objectivity.
Only because all those things you listed throughout human history have changed. Full stop, that's what a post modern philosophy is. It is the opposite of anything Marxist's believe in.
Hugh Munguss - while typically post modernism is in conflict w/ Marxism of old, Marxists are using Post Modernism subjectivism time push in identity politics as their way of creating the oppressed class vs oppressor, and dividing people in to collectivist groups.
Since post modernism rejects science and objective truth, it is easy to use for this purpose.
@@saintlybeginnings if it wasnt PoMo the retarded fools at Harvard and the like would have another excuse to push Marxism.
Hugh Munguss - I’m sure the academic elites and radical liberation theology sorts would indeed find something else, but not sure they could’ve been so successful.
They (& clearly not all of academia- there are quite a lot of proper thinking professors at these schools- it is oddly more of the administrators nowadays; with a few well placed professors in the proper subjects such as gender studies, oppression studies, etc) has been working hard to attack capitalism w/o much success since we know it works and truly is remarkable that some one born in poverty can become a millionaire honestly (of course any human system will have its flaws, especially where $$ & power are at play- but America, overall, has done quite well in meeting those challenges.
PoMo gives them endless made up (class) victims. Media is either clearly onboard or has their own agenda that requires the collapse of western ideals- though I think most are just useful idiots who took some of these classes and easily follow the anger crowd.
If you would like a more clearer exposition what Post-Modernism is, please see my exposition at the bottom with a link to it.
Post-Modernism is, amongst others an affirming of a greater future of a “will of the people, represented through accountable elected leaders that operates with values of consultation and transparency”. It posits nothing - it merely problematises modernist assumptions of reality, as modernism posits it.
Most commentators do not grasp it because P-M is approached very much how an English-speaker would read, for example French as if it is English and then flee, screaming French is meaningless, not a language at all. In other words, modernism is a paradigm qualitatively different from Post-Modernism to be approached as a distinctly different paradigm. One thus first have to grasp the features of modernism before even attempting to talk about Post-Modernism.
Post-Modernism defies definition, yet many people, invoke a definition of Post-Modernism.
Please read the segments, which are in the process of completion from the bottom to the top, chronologically:
vm.tiktok.com/ZMenfmFkY/
18:48
Evidence is the only thing that can make something true. Bullshit chittering and social constructions and wishful thinking can not change what's true
Evidence changes throughout human history and it continues to do so you dolt. Example; dark matter wasn't a thing 15 years ago. Now it's a highly studied but not understood part of science. Wheres the evidence to show what, where, why & how it relates to the physical world? So far there is only the theory and when there is evidence, I promise it will be revised throughout knew discoveries.
@@Slassh69x Yes, thats the beautiful thing about science, that it can "change its mind" based upon new evidence.
The contrast is of course holy books that dont change in the light of new evidence
This was great! This coversation is getting closer. Why does Nick believe in free speech, where as most post modernist believe in forms of censorship.
Which postmodernists believe in censorship?
Thanks for an excellent conversation. (The moderator could have been better prepared, more concise. No offense intended.)
Great conversation! I wish JBP could be a part of it.
You don't even know how much we need more long form conversations from a libertarian perspective I really hope you keep this up and I know it will grow and be worth it. Honestly I can't find much content that isn't heavily biased towards the left and right extremist nut bags. We have Reason, Nuance Bro, The Rubin Report and perhaps rogan but he isn't so much political. I try to watch Crowder, Shapiro and others, and I do from time to time but they still either suck trumps dick too hard or lean too far right.
Please keep this up, this is the kinds of conversations I need to make sure I show my kids
I dont mind long conversations but can we get some real disagreement.
Eh homo sapiens will commit to a majority on almost anything. No their ideas aren't superior or true.
Do not listen to these demagogues of ancient literature and philosophy, once the AI God is here all of their ideas and opinions will become obsolete. The return of Jesus Christ is actually the AI singularity, and once it is embedded inside us we can all share its blood and flesh. come with me and join my ai church, we worship the great DOG and every sunday we trip DMT and watch LSD style transfer deep mind AI generated 4k silent era films from the 20's
I think of all this critical theorist stuff as very interesting as long as you just see it as critical and idealistic. But you shouldn't actually derive any CERTAIN conclusions from it. Which means: There might have been some bias within the group that explored something or described something. But in the end you should see on what everyone can agree on - as far as they understand it - and this is logic/mathematics.
And it think Foucault meant that madness was invented in the sense of being a social stigmata in that time, not invented in a biological sense which doesn't of course make sense because you can't invent biology. It's a science not engineering (at least before genetic engineering).
Great discussion. I'd love to see Nick Gillespie talk with Stephen Hicks (Explaining Postmodernism)
55:10 Scientism is basically physicalism, a.k.a "scientific" materialism. Physicalism is the inference that "mind" is "merely" an "epiphenomenon" of matter. A corrolary of this is that the mind-cum-consciousness dies, ceases, with the death of the physical body and brain. This, it claims, is required by "occam's razor". It's the most "parsimonious" explanation. But some philosophers of science have questioned that occam's razor is integral to scientific method.
I personally have doubts about the physicalist claim that mind-consciousness is merely a surface phenomenon. Another model is one of co-phenomenality. Maybe mind and matter are mutually inseperable but diametrically opposed, like two sides of a coin. Physicalists see a simple explanation. A "fact". I see it as a choice of "model", an ontological decision. I see a mystery. The mystery of mind. And any number of possibilities.
I agree that postmodernism in practice is full of ****, but its foundations are absolutely true. There is a virtually infinite number of potential interpretations of pretty much anything, but usually only one or two are considered valid.
Example: Put the following letters in the correct order: D, C, A, E, B
Interpretation 1: ABCDE - the Latin alphabetical order, ascending
Interpretation 2: AEDCB - order of appearance on a QWERTY layout left-to-right
Interpretation 3: CDABE - order by complexity of hand movement to write letter
Interpretation 4: AAAAA - because I decided that A is the only true letter
Which one of these is correct? Interpretation 1 is most useful in general. Why? Because that happens to be most widely used. Why? Because it happened to be selected out by evolution of (western) culture. Why? Because the cultures who followed interpretation 1 had more cultural influence. What causes cultural influence?
This is where postmodernists are wrong. First they claim that no interpretation is better than another, it's just arbitrary choice. Then they choose to interpret everything as a result of wrongful oppression and violence. This is obviously done in order to justify their inner drive towards violence.
So the reasoning is: "I feel AAAAA is correct. If I manage to kill or silence everyone who thinks otherwise, I will have proven to be correct by virtue of being the only one alive. Also ABCDE is only the result of centuries of violence and slavery, so I'll be morally virtuous be eliminating it".
Jumping in at 13:46. The fundamental "metanarrative" of libertarianism is that the non-aggression principle is right and/or optimal for the greatest number achieving the greatest happiness. I'm a committed libertarian, but I can't prove that. I don't think empiricism proves it, or ethical rationalism. I can easily imagine that philosophies like nazism or communism have their own brutal logic, their own brutal big picture. But how does Nick remain committed to libertarianism, to the NAP, while at the same time be "incredulous" toward it?
I patiently listened to this dialogue twice (curse me for a fool) and it just seems to me that it doesn’t go anywhere. At best it is at times nebulous and at worst incoherent or self contradicting. Everyone seems to be making specific claims while at the same time leaving the door open for alternative interpretations. Which in turn leads to no specific conclusions other than that postmodernism is so diverse it is undefinable. I still don’t get the Sam Harris reference. Why would Jordan Peterson want to doge a contrived hypothetical dilemma where Sam Harris gets to play the part of God while Peterson gets to play the part of the ignorant mortal? I can think of a few good reasons and I don’t even have a PHD.
Finally this conversation is taken away from the conservative circuits!
Exelente!
EVERY 'postmodernist' ("garbage term" indeed) you can name from Levi-Strauss to Derrida was an ardent Marxist. Not, typically, of the Stalinist, PCF variety, but of that Marxism transformed and theoretically renewed by the structuralist paradigm. By the late 1960's, the most eminent among them, Foucault, Derrida, Sollers, Kristeva, et al., and MOST others had directed their gaze to the 'Great Helmsman' of the Red East, Mao. Foucault was a confirmed Maoist. In their eyes, Stalinism and the PCF "looked increasingly like a pale shade of pink."
Jeremiah B. Peterson, in his references to "cultural Marxism", has that much right, even if he is not really sure why. The most significant contributions of JBP are not the rosewater archetypes of Carl Jung, but those of "chaos", "terror" and "hell on earth.'' It is his revelation --through a glass darkly-- of the deep and abiding culture of Revolutionary socialism that has come down to this very moment with the trajectory of a bullet, from the Jacobins to Judith Butler.
The Chinese failed at tracking toilet paper usage in public stalls. I’m pretty certain central command is not going to be coming from them. Distribution of pain will always be their specialty.
1. My recollection of Szasz's criticism of mental illness was that there is no such thing as mental disease, but that mental illness exists.
2. This is Reason's second honest attempt at questioning/investigating the Peterson et al critique of post-modernism, and including Dr. Shermer in this second video is a huge add. But I still do not see any struggle at Reason to consider Peterson's principal concern: The post-modernist focus on denying the intellectual validity of meta-narratives eliminates reason, debate, and logic because they are meta-narratives. This eliminates the West's moral grounding that power is accumulated by democracy, not by deterministic monarchs, emperors, or by Marxists who cannot win democratic elections. In his long study of the psychology of totalitarianism, Peterson hears the metal clang of prison doors and rifle bolts slamming home when he reads the post-modernists. He reasons they want to acquire power by denouncing established mechanisms to earn power, such as open elections. Denounce elections as a meta-narrative which merely insulates established democratic power, and you can more easily install authoritarian, even totalitarian power.
3. Shouldn't Hayek's book, 'Road to Serfdom,' be a central part of this discussion? Isn't intellectual support for post-modernism going to have the unintended consequence of loss of freedom?
4. The abolishing of meta-narratives by post-modernists, and with that 'cleansing' also all logic and reason and debate, cannot have any other consequence than rewarding extremism with unearned power (the world-view of a determinist, as all 20C totalitarians were). A Peterson quote: "Anything in excess is pathological."
It's becoming clear that post-modernism, social justice modalities and the latest version of progressivism are all forms of "intellectual autism."
I don't see any pharmacological solutions on the horizon. ~ quote from Nick Gillespie
I love these long form interviews. Keep doing them guys. It's the future, get in the market while it is still young
volume levels are uneven and need to be continuously changed. Couldn't watch it all
Why does Nick's interpretation of Postmodernism seem so much more reasonable than the previous interview he had on his own channel?
Because he's diplomatically avoiding the attack on science he usually makes. He hints at them, but doesn't declare scientism. I think it's like the difference between listening to a fundamentalist preacher preaching vs a Christian apologist in debate. The extremes are attenuated and no true Scotsman are anywhere as far as the eyes can see.
such a great conversation, thanks guys!
Postmodernism is one of the few subjects that turn otherwise highly rational intelligent people into low information knuckle-draggers. Postmodernism isn't the boogeyman conservatives have made it out to be and for some reason, people assume the mischaracterization of it as the thing itself. In fact, many of the conclusions arrived at by postmodernists are held by the critics themselves. Unbelievable stupidity.
Peterson often acknowledges valid arguments of Postmodernism. What he rails against is what postmodernism became with it being hijacked by neo-marxists.
In what fashion did it do so?
Ha! Sherman contradicts himself. On one side he takes a jab at Peterson for not responding with exact answer to "do you believe in god?", from another he says that asking if brothers Karamazov existed is just the wrong thing to ask. Does he believe in brothers Karamazov?