Get a copy of Chris's New York Times Bestseller, "America's Cultural Revolution: How the Radical Left Conquered Everything": www.amazon.com/Americas-Cultural-Revolution-Conquered-Everything/dp/0063227533

I teach in a school of education and psychology. There are 120 Democrat professors and 0 Republicans. (I’ve been independent since the Cold War ended.)

Man Peter please keep up these high level conversations! I could listen to you and your guest for hours. Great topics and conversations. Thank you!!

This has been my very first exposure to Mr Rufo - what a conversation! Loved it! What an entertaining, enlightening, courageous and informative discussion. Thanks to you both.

It's clear that most people do not understand that racial equity is the OPPOSITE of racial equality. And that is VERY frustrating

Fantastic. I've been aware of Rufo for a while, and I'm still trying to work my way through everything he's saying, but what I enjoy about him is that he's fearless in the way that he critiques contemporary culture... and we need A LOT more of that. What I HOPE he's saying is that our academic establishment must embrace fact over ideology and, ultimately, find the truth no matter where it resides. If so, then yes... give us more Rufos. A lot more.

Two things you should teach your children 1/ To understand the difference between intelligence and wisdom... 2/ To have the ability to reject nihilism and anger the two main pathways that lead to degeneracy/self hate and cruelty

Thanks for a wonderful video. Important, timely and necessary!

Chris and Peter making the rounds. On top of it.

Excellent interviews, keep em coming! And please include some opposing viewpoints, these conversations are not impossible!

Anti woke Stuff I did so far: Post freedom news. I went to a school committee meeting and asked to replace their pride flag with an everyone flag. I shared the video of that. I made a paper guide and gave it out. I advertise Woke stuff my family and past friend do. I voted republican for the first time.

Thank you, Peter, for saying you don't understand things and asking for them to be explained - I'm sure you have a much better grasp than you are letting on in these conversations - but these in depth clarifications you elicit from your guests really help to put a solid foundation under concepts which would otherwise have to be taken on their authority. Unfortunately to combat the many bad ideas that are floating around us, those who challenge them, have been put in the position of having to defend both themselves and their ideas while navigating a labyrinth of cleverly worded pitfalls. One ill chosen word and any debate is derailed and will turn instantly into an inquisition. If however, it is possible to strike through with some argument, it is vital to know that it stands on something more than the substance of someone else's opinion. The target is not however the indoctrinated, they have looked into the abyss far too long, as ever, the target is the fence sitters in the audience.

Brilliant convo. So many concepts and ideas became clearer. Thanks Peter and Chris. 🙏🏽

Thank you for making this easy to understand!!!!

Now one of my favourite podcasts.

First off, thank you Peter and Chris. You're both doing fantastic work in combating this lunacy. A couple of points if I may: As an atheist, I found myself a little erked by the, in my view, tenouos link between woke ideology and the lack of belief in god. It is most definitely possible to be atheist and oppose this destructive ideology at the same time. The Dawkins comparison between transubstantiation and trans is actually quite a good one. Both maintain that reality can literally change simply by incantation.

I disagree with you on a lot Peter, but I very much respect your commitment to the pursuit of truth and open dialogue. And similarly, I want to go about reducing the number of things that I believe that are untrue, and increase the amount of things I believe that are true. I'd chat you up in good faith!

Peter, I've heard you ask the question multiple times why certain people get hoodwinked hook, line and sinker and others don't. I'm sure you have reached your own conclusions in this regard. I think that it is a definitely a disposition of mild cynicism developed by people who almost have an innate propensity for observation and idea dissection. This is the core difference between somone who is gullible and someone who is constructively skeptical. This is what I used to think people meant when they would say "seeker" (although now I am sure they didn't). In my mind real seekers of truth know that they will always be on that path because they know that at any given time they could be proven wrong. Therefore none of their own identity becomes tied to their current conclusions or assumptions and they are extremely cautious not to become attached to any group think as the natural human need to belong will lock them into ideological structures that end up taking away their freedom of thought. Anyway I'm rambling on a bit so I'll leave it there. Thanks for another great interview!

I love that Peter managed to work in a Deep Space 9 reference - and a very apt one at that! 😂

This should be required watching for all Americans.

Thanks for this conversation! Is there any way we can see some of the answers to the survey/poll questions you asked ? (Aside from what was shown during the live ) I’m curious to see all the answers.

I can’t wait to read this book!

Good discussion Peter! You might want to get Thaddeus Russell on your show - he’s a former professor with interesting views on academia .

One thing I wish Peter would address with both Rufo and Lindsay, is the "groomer" rhetoric. It's actually hurting "regular" gays that have nothing to do with woke ideology or gender nonsense. Because it's used as a weapon like it was in the 80's and 90's when evangelicals and right wingers called ALL gays "groomers/pedophiles" etc. It took decades to get past that. Most people think of the word groomer as synonymous with pedophile. For people who think language is so important [Lindsay, Peter, Rufo], it's irresponsible not consider this ripple effect of "groomer".

great talk, thanks gents.

Totally agree that it's insane that politicians don't know the difference betwen equity and equality.

Best podcast I’ve heard today!! Enlightening perspectives. Thanks guys

I'm addicted to your channel😅

Thx

Excellent questions. I wonder as well why people are becoming believers of illogical things. I'm learning history in order to figure this out.

Peter you've inspired me to read Chris' book. Wow. I have a stack of as-yet unread books to dive into. While we may have a long way to go, I'm heartened by the growing number of voices of reason getting their ideas out there. Thanks for your work which is a part of the catalyst!!!

Is there a schedule for these? I always miss them, but never seem to see them as upcoming in my subs.

Yes! Take Back the Institutions!! I just toured a Christian University in Texas, with the hopes it may have the one non-woke psych program for me to help balance out the “all gender-affirming care” counselors I found that the graduate school psych professors post their pronouns and they have a DEI dept. I am So disappointed. I was musing over it, not long before this talk, that maybe I still could go and be the voice of reason among them, not afraid to call professors out on BS- just as I did in undergrad before. If you’re recruiting, sign me up! It’s Kismet. ❤

Thank you so much for sharing this, Peter.

Peter. I can only imagine your x students reaction to the Socratic method. Love you.

Chris rUFO 👽👽👽

@drpeterboghossian Love that DS9 drop. For Picard Season 3(only season of it i watched) i really thought the reveal in Jacks mind was going to be related to the Pah-wraiths (evil prophets from that wormhole). Just in case you havent seen Picard season 3, which you really should, i dont want to spoil it but the writer.and showrunner for that season nailed it. Just like this interview. Cheers.

YES, DS9 shout out at 21:21 !!!

People that are woke, how many of them used to be religious and then became atheist. And people who never buy into the woke culture - how many where never religious?

I think the answer to Peters question of why some people are more gullible than others has got to do with the way they were raised as children. If they were strongly exposed to and influenced by religion then they are more likely to accept an idea or belief based on emotion rather than on evidence.

Hearing things like "I go to a conservative gym" blows my mind. I can't believe how divided this country is..

I loved the question about why some people have no problem accepting all this nonsense. I can’t believe the ‘smart’ people I know who just accept these ideas as truth.

"FIRE is a net negative" - Chris Rufo You heard first here folks !

Matt Dillahunty was someone I really looked up to in the atheist community, but unfortunately he fell to the woke mind virus. rip Matt

I love street epistemology. 2020 my mind was set free

Equity = equality of outcome (irrespective of inputs). That means, for example, that those cultures that privilege education and hard work cannot gain more from the system than those culture that do not value those elements; it means that a reward system in a company is deemed ‘inequitable’ if the outcome is that women are paid less than men, irrespective of the jobs they choose to do, levels of seniority they aspire to, and the career choices they make: leaving to have children, for instance. A country based on these principles would soon decay: people would be appointed not on merit but to fulfil equality of outcome quotas and there would be no incentive for people to aspire to do better through hard work and education as the fruits of their work would be redistributed to others who might not merit them. Productively would plummet, incompetence would be rife, and the best and most motivated would be discouraged. The enemies of the West would rejoice.

Oh my

Peter is unfamiliar with the verse " bend like the reeds in the wind" And, who the Prince of the Air is.

What were really saying is universities and colleges have stopped teaching facts, and truth that is secondary

Peter you are doing the Lord's Work, hahahaha!

Chris is one of the most important and influential men in the US if not the world today.

I think the answer to Peter’s other question about why some people just accept a narrative and others don’t has to do with their neurological underpinnings. Most people are linear thinkers and a small minority of people just aren’t. To understand this, one could use the Myers Briggs ‘personality’ assessment as a guide. It’s not really about personality, which is a result of neurology -> personality is down stream of the way your brain is wired. Anyway, neuro-divergent people don’t think in terms of going from point A to point B to point C. It doesn’t mean they can’t think linearly, they can. It’s just not their primary function, in Myers Briggs terms. They tend to think non-linearly through intuition - which is a subconscious collection of information that comes in from all directions through a variety of channels and then gets processed. Linear thinkers, when they’re standing at point A are looking/waiting for something labeled point B. Non-linear thinkers are considering point B… among many destinations, they don’t just jump to point B because someone told them over there is point B. As a matter of fact, non-linear thinkers don’t even label the points - they consider labeling points to be totally arbitrary. Even if the point labels make sense and are valid most of the time, neuro-divergent people don’t think linearly. So they just see point labels as a popularity contest. Sometimes people and things are popular for good reason, and sometimes they’re not. We don’t actually live in an age where popularity’s generally built on sound assessments of value. Just saying. And non-linear thinkers are the first to notice that. P.S. I personally am dyslexic. My brain doesn’t recognize point B as the next logical step from point A. We literally have difficulty alphabetizing. Not kidding. We actually have to stop and think about what comes next in the sequence even if we know, we don’t know. Yep, we have to sing the little alphabet jingle in our heads. We can’t tell our Right from our Left either. Again, we HAVE TO stop and think every time. Call them natural neurological roadblocks that keep us from jumping to conclusions, or being easily lead somewhere. These are stumbling blocks that are widely recognized; but I am sure there are dozens of others that exist subconsciously. That’s what makes us non-linear thinkers. Kind of like being gay, no one would choose to make life more difficult and no one really thinks it’s fun to be out of sync with the rest of society. One may be used to it and even come to embrace it, but when you are a kid you freakin hate it. Society is not pleased to welcome the neuro-divergent (that’s Woke bs) . It has to be some organic glitchy thing. P.P.S. The first time I really considered that I don’t think linearly came up when I realized I tend to think metaphorically as opposed to literally. When it comes to words, I often get lost in all the nuanced meanings and don’t notice then something is meant literally. Most people don’t have the considerations of multiple meanings as a problem. They have no problems stepping to point B which is the literal meaning. Some people stay there. They have the opposite problems from people like myself, it the other end of the neurological spectrum (autism) - they get stuck on literal meanings.

Because some people are simply nor that smart. People generally don't like to point that out. We have no problem saying Dawkins is brilliant. And admitting most of us aren't as smart. But we can't admit that the sane comparison exists at a lower tier.

I think lack of transparency in any institution is what's so detrimental. Also the way algorithms are feeding the binary tribalism through suggestion, ads and sponsorhips.

Off topic but related, we have the same type of problem in medicine. There’s a medical ideology surrounding treatment plans that says the doctor is the authoritarian and any questioning of that authority is disallowed, especially regarding vaccination of all children, at all times in every situation. If you dion’t you’re kicked out of their practice. Physicians who have refused to become the red guard for the health regulatory institutions are paralyzed with fear to speak against it.

I wanted to watch this but found the audio and video quality quite poor.

Why are some people immune? Disposition, character, values...etc.

Christopher choked on the last, loaded, question: "Are you against gay people?" He should have said, "What do you mean against?"

Sound was poor quality on this one, Pete. Other than that, good conversation.

My 2 problems with Chris's arguments are as follows. 1) He puts forward the argument against equity succinctly and seems to understand this, but then he proposes that there should be a set number of conservatives installed into academic institutions using the arguments for equity. 2) Under the banner of states rights he argues that it is correct for California to subject their children who believe they are Trans, to surgical interventions. This is not a conservative position (for people who believe in objective morality) or a morally defensible position. If you believe in universal human rights and believe this surgery is immoral, then you must believe that children have the right to be protected from adults who are their carers that plan to do them harm. When he meets contradictory positions he seems to arbitrarily choose one over the other rather than this causing him to question the foundations of his beliefs and how he came to these contradictory positions, and I think that is the difference between an activist such as him and a true academic such as Peter.

1:12:00 I was a Security Policeman in the AF (back when dinosaurs walked the Earth). When I was on duty I could be court marshaled for sang Good Morning to someone walking by. Reason, AF Regs. stated I was Not to speak to anyone except In The Line Of Duty. Now this is obviously an Extreme example and as far as I know it never happened...But it could. If you are in the military the Bill of Rights May Not always apply to you.

People who succumb to Woke lack courage then there's the blackmail. The upper class have licenses they can lose.

They’re not just teaching nonsense they’re teaching a mental disorder or colleges and universities

💕

15:00 Classical liberalism is a very vague term Not really, it just means courts should be impartial to all claimants, including the Crown

Okay, there is a bit that is getting missed in the talk about Locke. It is not a choice of Florida vs California and if you don't like what got elected in California you can get up and leave. Locke tells you what happens when the government fails or otherwise breaks the social contract. The people can kick out the government and replace it with one that better reflects the will of the people. There is also a hard limit on what citizens can tolerate from government. Government may not decide to do wicked and evil things and mutilate or murder the citizens. That breaks the social contract by breaching natural law. By breaching your innate right to defend yourself. If you want the Bible reference to make sense of that if you are a (conservative) Christian it's in the Old Testament. If someone is coming to kill you, get up early, kill them first.

On the question of why some people succumb to ideologies and some don't, I have a theory! Only a theory of course, but.. It seems to me that some people are naturally sceptical and some people have a tendancy to latch onto ideology. In the Atheist movement I suspect that there is a correlation between the atheists who used to be full-on believers, who subsequently adopted wokeness, and the atheists who were never really religious, not doing so. I would love for someone to study this!

So critical trace theory pushes some people down, rather than lifting people up? It seems pretty negative and now I am required to feel guilt for putting effort into my life? Have I got it right?

Something that I don’t fully understand is why we have to define (for example) transgender medicine as a conservative or ‘progressive’ position. Personally, I believe in science. You can have all of the plastic surgery in the world, but you can’t change your chromosomes. If you’re a guy with a beard, I don’t care if you say your name is Kayla - you’re a guy & you need to get the hell out of my spa, change room, etc. That said, it has nothing to do with religion. I was baptised Greek Orthodox, but it’s more cultural for me than specifically religious. I’m engaged to an atheist. That doesn’t change the facts of a matter. It shouldn’t be a ‘conservative’ position to say, ‘sex is not a spectrum’ and ‘no, you can’t teach 5 year olds about gender, sex and trans people, nor is it appropriate to take children to have drag queen story time.’ My problem with Christopher Rufo in much of this conversation is his comment regarding not wanting ‘diverse opinions’ because the term is ‘loaded & puts my side at a disadvantage’. Really? I understand what he’s getting at, but as someone who is probably a bit left of center (in general) it seems like it’s tough to find common ground when you’re a classical liberal/liberal republican/right leaning democrat/whatever, we need to have conversations without making it specifically an ‘us vs. them’ type thing. Don’t get me wrong - I believe we do *have* the common ground. Conversations like this show it! My genuine concern is that I don’t want (very) conservative schools or people to veer in the other direction so that we’re teaching kids the earth is only 6,000 years old, people lived side by side with dinosaurs & everything that happened in the bible is fact. I attended a religious private school, but it was an independent prep school. We had theology, but fact was paramount. The fact that Rufo considers the Catholic Church, ‘liberal’, is genuinely bizarre. You can make that argument about individuals, but not about the Catholic Church itself. There is no question that the so-called ‘progressives’ are anything but. Unfortunately, I don’t believe Rufo is really a person who is doing what he’s doing for the right reasons. People can believe in God & science while also not being religious in the church-going, bible reading sense. Humans & their behaviours are all nuanced. Wanting something to be true will not make it true. The ‘lived experience’ of 1 person does not necessarily make something a fact. Someone who can teach a class and be objective in presenting facts & invite students to question them & one another & keep a genuinely open dialogue and learning should be the goal. A ‘noble vision’ is subjective. Much as I agree with the fact that we need to get rid of the insanity that is capturing institutions & return it to a free marketplace of ideas & curiosity, Rufo’s language comes across as someone who may well make the situation in to a war of religions - the religions of The Woke vs. Evangelical Christian types. There is a lot of nonsense in America right now. Unfortunately, I am finding Rufo’s ideas and commentary to be almost banal & uninspired because of the point society has reached. To Peter, I’d love to discuss beliefs with you as someone who has never been sucked in to the nonsense of CRT, gender ideology, etc. You’d probably be surprised because one of my traits is actually ironic re the gender ideology. I’m not trans, but I do have Asperger’s. Most wouldn’t be able to tell unless I’ve told them, but I’d love to expand on that. I am glad you are using your platform to reach a large variety of people.

Public employees do not have First Amendment Rights while executing their duties. Public schools cannot teach anything they want in the same way that Kim Davis, the Kentucky country clerk, did not have the right to not issue a same sex marriage license because of her religious beliefs.

Meanwhile no one can pass a polygraph test per AEC protocol

Academia is controlled by powerful centres depending on the subject (Bordieux). Put the conservative professors there. BYU is also a conservative instituion.

I suspect that everyone holds some beliefs that could be described as religious. People like Dawkins usually have a strong (pseudo-religious) value system that doesn't depend on supernatural beliefs but still holds the positions within their heads that traditionally religious beliefs hold in traditional believers' heads. The problem arises when lazy thinkers abandon traditional religious beliefs and they have no strong critical thinking skills to prevent the woke group-think from taking hold. The cure is teaching critical thinking to small children.

28:00 the anti-Henry Giroux

As long as we are 'affirming' the gender/sex a person was at birth, affirming someone's gender is fine by me- but only then.

I love Peter, and I'm actually reading Rufo's book (which is frequently inaccurate.) I'm sort of with Rufo anyway as far as cultural controls. But Tucker and Trump are much too far to the right. The proper position is in the center. I'd like to see us move toward social democracy, but at the political-economic level-- hands off controlling individuals. Equality not equity.

Hey, I'm with you... but.. under this bill which ensures that teachers stick with the curriculum, do they teach that dinosaurs walked the earth 6 thousand years ago?

We need to create a human-centered ecology.

Opening a journal is not that difficult if it is online and diamond open access. I think. I have seen a few open access journals being started, and now a couple of diamond open access are in the way. With a few big names among the editors they seem to start off quite well. And if that's an open access journal, you don't need to convince libraries of anything. If the journal is self managed and doesn't have a big pool of people doing small useless edits to enhance appearance, it would probably be ok to run even with help of a small conservative donor. Getting 1000 profs hired would probably be more difficult...

i like christophers optimism, but it's undeniably over for liberal arts faculties in colleges in terms of overturning ideological capture, it's here to stay. i don't see any horseshoe effect occurring and the implications this has had on the institutions these students have been employed in has undeniably also reinforced this. interesting conversation though, enjoyed it.

Fascism: When I can't scream "f*ck" in a room full of first graders ;)

About group think and why people join mass delusions? Interview Mattias Desmet about Mass Formation. Also Read Delusion and Mass Delusion by Meerloo

I love these conversations. James Lindsay, Jordan Peterson etc. Very helpful and educational. The irony is I believe ultimate truth is found in the Biblical God. So it's interesting how much I agree with, and how many of these ideas align with the Bible.🙂

40:06 what follows here is exactly what they said in the EPATH conference in Killarney April 2023 - the evidence didn't catch up with the practice to trans people and see happy outcomes!

Rufo is right in his characterization of Biden regarding all the DEI stuff. To put it another way, Glen Loury calls Biden an avatar for the left. That's about as concise as it gets. I don't hate Biden, because he's just a tool and an old man. He's not a terrible person or president. But if he does run again--which it seems he intends to--and is not adequately challenged for the nom, then I will not vote for him this time around. Last time around, I voted against Trump. But I have to add that assuming that Trump does get the nom, I won't vote for him either. I'll write in a candidate. I hate this effing WOKE virus, and see it as a threat to democracy, but so do I see Trump as a threat. Both are forms of authoritarianism that must be defeated. But I don't see this happening, actually. One way or other, I think that we are being inexorably drawn towards one chasm or another, after which the outcome remains very uncertain. The next decade or less may determine whether we survive as a nation in the context of democratic principles. I'm not optimistic.

Woke language games, often with double meanings. Please add. Decolonisation (taking the post war, decolonising processes when they are really taking about Fannon's psychic possession theory) Abolition (taking Fred Douglass abolishing of slavery when they are talking about ending police and prisons in a racial frame) Diversity, equity, inclusion. (All obvious) Gender affirming care - really, sex negating mutilation Sex assigned at birth

Another Star Trek analogy with this kind of social structure, i.e., Borg-like.

Are these entrenched views linked to people with psychopathic personalities? A superb conversation, but catalysing change in universities and the wider political landscape is a huge task.

Love Rufo but there's no way to contact him even for a science project that would help the prestige of his college. The staff and board of directors are useless.

Bernie Sanders wasn't ignorant to the equity/equality question.... he was lying.

Dawkins stayed sane. But PZ Myers went deep. Dillahunty and Seth Andrews lean woke. Aron Ra seems to have fallen for transism.

The balkanisering of California would be immoral for you do not only leave them to their own devices but the many innocent children will be the victim of the unmitigated chaos.

When it comes to UFO's Joe Rogan is interesting. He has had three three hour long podcasts about this and yet he manages to remain open to it either way. When it came to Covid he deferred to people who claimed to have a better response/treatment than that being promoted by the government. Joe is high in trait Openess, but also low in trait Agreeableness. Strong minded, but open minded.

Dawkins didn't??! Didn't you see his -even current- responses to COVID, vaccines...?

People aren't immune to indoctrination, but some people, who are skeptics, are very resilient to indoctrination because their mind basically knows no overton window. They may accept others overton window however, so they will probably abide from playing devils advocate for shunned topics in public for self-preservation reasons. But if you wanted to test that theory, you could do a study and ask people to play devils advocate for an indefensible ideology. The skeptics I'm talking about would, given enough time, be able to argue as the devil, but "normal" people would at best be able to argue very, very weakly, because they literally can't put themselves into the perspective of others.

ffs, get my internet sorted , jeeebazzz

I’ve never seen someone who knows about crt want a nation of automatons lol

It’s clear both of you are captured as Well! Move on to James Lindsey! And Vivek

Did he say a defartment of sociology?

Thank you very much, sir thank God for United States Supreme Court thank God for United States Constitution everyone is equal the only people do not believe they’re equal all the left