Helen is a treasure, I wish she was on more of these long-form shows.

Helen Pluckrose is a beautiful human being. She is a very clear communicator and I have learned much from her presentations.

"An ideology mill of self-replicating dogma...the system is crippled by third-rate idealogues" - Peter Boghossian hits it out of the ball park!

Wow, Helen gave one of the clearest descriptions of postmodernism I've ever heard in about 30 secs!

I am a conservative Christian; and what I'm learning from your channel is so valuable to who I want to be. Thank you for helping me to move towards my goal of being present in all sides of a conversation. So much Wisdom shared in this video-thanks to all who participated.

Great to hear from Ms. Pluckrose. There have been a number of interviews of Peter & James, but many lacked Helen. It is obvious that she was a major contributor to the work, so nice to hear her perspective on all this.... thank you!

Pretty telling that the gender studies "professors" refused to meet on each and every occasion they were offered. Really says all you need to know about the rigor of their intellectual arguments

Helen has interesting insights from all sides it interesting to listen to what she says

I am a family practice physician, and I translate what I learned from Rebel Wisdom to my practice. I constantly ask myself how I know what I know when giving advice to patients. As soon as I learned that I have been giving some advice that is without foundation I let my patients know. I try to find the historical roots of lifestyle advice that physicians give. Often with further investigation I find that the advice doctors give is unfounded. By explaining to my patients what I have learned and confessing errors I become forgivable.

We really need to get Helen on bigger shows.

Kudos to Helen Pluckrose. Brilliant analysis.

Helen, I was raised liberal. The second I "push back" against these radical ideologues, I get labeled as "far right wing". These folks' worlds will get smaller and smaller until they have to give up their ideology. People are catching on and I think people are going to stop being interested in what they have to say.

Brilliant discussion with Helen. The more I hear Helen, James, & Peter & yourself expand epistemic awareness the more comfortable I am rolling these concepts around in my head. Therefore, perhaps giving me a little more confidence when this discourse is opened, day to day. Thank you all.

We love you Helen. You’re so calming and enjoyable to listen to. My husband and I and four kids all listen to your talks and enjoy them immensely. The three of you guys are a force to be reckoned with! And as a mother of four who has three kids about to enter the University, we support you and praise your efforts at cleaning up this mess that has been created in the academic arena!

When I find myself in times of trouble Peter, James, and Helen come to me...🎵

A lot of media sounds like junior high school to me with the amount of name calling without reason to back up the name calling.

It's rather disappointing to see how the term "intersectionality" has evolved. I discovered it in a rhet/comp grad program during the mid 90's via people like Julia Kristeva, Luce Irigaray and Mikhail Bakhtin. At the time it appeared similar to the concept of "discourse communities", which basically held that different groups talked to each other in particular ways and that our perspectives are always shaped by how these "texts" overlap and intersect. I thought it was about finding common ground. But then, I also thought deconstruction was about transcending text in order to include more perspectives, not laying to waste one's academic rivals or dominating thought. Until we can begin to see all theory as informative, yet always incomplete and limiting, it will continue to be just another tool for winning some abstract debate. Those of us who exist outside of all this "winning" are stuck waiting for everyone else to catch up. Bonne chance mes amis.

The unwillingness to have a convo should be a red flag to anyone trying to evaluate a position.

Evergreen Alum here. Thank you for this video. I will share it widely within my sphere of influence.

I could listen to Helen Pluckrose talk all day long on these issues

University donors need to remove their support until these Universities and schools stop pushing this poor scholarship.

What a breath of fresh air in this crazy world

In this video, it was refreshing to get away from Peterson's beliefs and to see clear distinctions between postmodernism and Marxism, and to see the devolving process of recent versions of postmodernism. I would have liked to see Helen and Peter asked about the benefits of postmodernism. The big benefit of it, or potential benefit of it, is that it can snap people out of their beliefs. When it is pointed out that you are reproducing capitalist discourse, for example, it can trigger surprising objectivity regarding your normal way of thinking. It's like exiting a stream of habitual thinking that you thought was reality. It's like a Zen Satori. In relation to Spiral Dynamics and Integral Theory, this better version of postmodernism is actually a step forward from Orange to Green, and we need to go through it to reach Yellow, which is objectivity about all systems of knowledge.

Such an important conversation to raise against the ideologues and pseudoscience

This is a real gem. I’ve despaired that the only conversation from now on about the extreme left/SJW types would be complaining about them instead of steps towards further understanding the problem and suggesting solutions. You’ve done both here. Thank you.

The way you guys talk to each other, is how I talk inside my mind!

Great, Helen. So clear, so true.

“The political left has never understood that, if you give the government enough power to create “social justice,” you have given it enough power to create despotism. Millions of people around the world have paid with their lives for overlooking that simple fact.” - Thomas Sowell

Helen you are my hero. Please continue all your good work.

Thank you Helen and Peter. You are doing good work. I have been trying to find someone on KZfaq that would make the case for identity politics, but have had little luck. I am not satisfied when I only hear cases against a school of thought, but perhaps identitarians (?) really don't want to have a discussion. I heard some sweet young adults on a Facebook video speak of intersectionality, etc, wrt concerns about a just world peace. It would not be easy for many to follow, unless familiar with the terms and ideas. It was poignant for me to see such fine people with what is apparently a one-dimensional theory. I will keep trying to learn about this.

illuminating these concepts couldn't be more important...rational, intelligent pushback is necessary.

Very smart woman. We need more people like her who believe in rational thought and truth.

Please start by going to just before the 9 minute mark and watch Helen nail the difference

Love the content. However, as someone who cut their intellectual teeth on critical theory, I have yet to see a convincing or deeply informed steelmanning of postmodernism. As someone who has read Derrida, Foucault, Baudrillard, and especially Deleuze and Guattarri, I've never made the connection, especially from the work of Deleuze, to anything that's now considered second and third wave postmodernism. I'd like to see someone give a full throated defence of critical theory debate with Helen et all.

I'd like to see both of these interviewees on more shows. They both have a good handle on things which they explain well, and in intelligible language. Helen's unpacking of the post-modern/marxist differences was particularly good, I thought, and could be important in knowing how to engage with these world-views when they inevitably show up. If we can pick them apart, to some degree, then we have a better chance of holding up against the non-sense.

A flawed presupposition that the “ reasonable left” will solve this. Here’s the problem , balance is required and to analogise , the more weight placed on one side of the scale the greater counterbalance required to achieve equilibrium. The reasonable left do not “weigh enough” to counterbalance this situation out, we have had our time to act and failed to do so in significant enough numbers, as a centrist myself I seem to be on the far right of far too many people, I haven’t changed my views, the left has moved so my views no longer fit. so my conclusion is it’s going to be the societal groups disenfranchised by intersectional identity politics like MGTOW, Incel’s, ethnonationalists and populists who will be likely to play a large part in moving first the Overton window and then changing the whole narrative. Sadly this means it will inevitably go too far right, this is because our political, media class and society as a whole have not been proactive enough in seeing that the above mentioned are symptoms of an imbalance and not the reason for it. So because of basic cowardice they have chosen to first ignore, ridicule and then imprison or silence these factions and individuals, they and we have had a choice for a long time.... clothe the emperor or silence those calling out the lack of clothes...I’ve been calling it for years and it’s a lonely place at times, back up is finally arriving but it’s way late and I’m tired. We have been on the whole cowards and chosen what’s expedient rather than what’s right, despite all the signs and the required suspension of basic humanity to continue on this path of ignorance. We will now reap the whirlwind.

Has Helen published that book she mentioned or is it still being written? Helen makes alot of sense, I really hope she gets significant traction, she explains post-modernism so well. Particularly enjoyed the discussion about the 3 waves of postmodernism and how it is has "morphed" over the years. I am sensing some sort of social-evolutionary lens would be beneficial to help unpack how postmodernism has developed, from the original thinkers who mostly wanted to deconstruct power relationships but maintained a sense of uncertainty in doing so, to what appears to be a re-construction with an "absolute" certainty!

As Jordan Peterson says: "Postmodernism says there are no grand narratives except the grand narrative that there are no grand narratives". An ideology that is founded on glaring contradictions and flaunts them proudly.

"I went back to university quite late" - HP. It's funny that postmodernism doesn't have the same traction amongst mature scholars as it does amongst kids that don't know their arse from their elbow. Funny that. "Give me the child for the first 5 years of his life and he will be mine forever..." - Lenin.

...just subscribed. Thought i had already done, but just rectified my miss. Gteat job on this interview. i first encountered RW with 'A Glitch in the Matrix' ... an amazing event - thst interview, and an excellent film from RW. i tend to get involved with your films comment-wise, so the content is clearly inspiring to me. Was shocked to see i had not subscribed -- as said above, rectified. Keep on with the good work. One constructive criticism: It would be wise to have a small graphic identifying the incoming shift in speaker. You are framed as the questioner - yes, the background is different -- but it is a bit of a shock when Helen becomes Peter and vice versa. The ideas demand a certain concentration that may not allow the viewer to anticipate that the speaker has changed. Just a little, "Back to Helen in England", or some such thing, as you are stating your question would add greater smoothness to an already very smooth production code. Either way, your work is excellent. Thank you.

Well, you've got me. Subscribed. You are a talented interviewer. I started with John Cleese and ended up here. There's no cure for curiosity, I've been told.

Fascinating! Thanks!

I'm doing a book on the IDW, and of the thousands of videos and podcasts I'm working through, I keep coming back to this one. Only 40k views. But Helen says so much. And she says it so clearly and calmly. It is a pity that the stage is so often taken by the bolder characters such as the Jordan Petersons.

This woman is a gem.

Wonderful, illuminating conversation. Listening now two years after the time of filming, I found much that seems relevant to my many thwarted attempts to engage people in dialogue about the pandemic narrative. Logic and reason have gone out the window, along with the sacred right of free speech, and I have been demonized by friends and family for even questioning the official party line. Perhaps the problem goes beyond particular ideologies to a way of thinking, or rather not thinking...to something deeper and more fear-driven, related to the total splintering of public discourse and the dehumanization of society in the age of digital communications and technocratic control. God help us!

Both Helen P and Peter B are enjoyable to listen to in this video. I think they are well suited to sort of mediate conversations between very polarized view points. I am not fond of what she would call people identifying with their condition. This is a thing that detracts me from identity politics. From a high value of equality I tend side with people who are involved in idpol kind of stuff because two things. 1. The perspectives they communicate through there strong identity can be both informative and interesting. Since the thought is put forth from such strong attachment to condition or their clinging to a specific, limiting identity, it needs to be deconstructed to get at what is just nonsense and the bits that may shed light on some actual issues and inappropriate dynamics in society that need not be issues and can be addressed. 2. Awww. I forget but there was a second reason. I am sure of it. Helen sounds to have a good understanding and that's relatable. We don't get to see a good, non "demonizing" of the identity politics of the left on social media here. If it helps, I'll stop referring to what I like to employ in my thinking as post-modernist. I don't want don't even know where I'd stand on the spectrum. All we can do without a strong attachment to our identity as if it were not a dynamically changing thing is instantaneously get placed. I am right smack where Noam Chomsky is. lol He just needs to realize we don't think in language, and we are all good. I think that targeting the mistaken sense identity itself is good to combat polarized identitarians if you will (I know a left idpol activists would point out that is a right wing Nazi type thing but how are we to refer to the phenomenon and the collective group?) Then I'd probably get objection from anyone with a irrational fear of turning everyone into nihilists. Lions and Tigers and Bears Oh My! Unfortunately the center neo-liberals to push up against institutionalized extreme leftism you will need to make it profitable. Hmmm sounds like a lot like something I have been hearing about. What was that again?

I wish the media would spend more time informing me about things that as “A peasant” I couldn’t possibly know.

Love Helen. A Goddess!

Excellent content.

This is gold. Why such a small reach?

Peter's commitment to intellectual honestly is impressive. I may disagree with him at times, but I have no doubt that he is absolutely committed to the truth.

Helen and Peter are my heroes and role models

She doesn't seem to understand that the people who she thinks are confused are driven by hate.

it's not Post-Modernism, it's Narcissism

Comparing Nietzsche's "philosophying with a hammer" with some sjw writing mean comments on twitter, by which you feel constantly hammered, is an unfortunate equivocation.

I've never heard anyone like me before, Helen, I am your number one fan I am a drop out but I am so grateful for what you have to say. I have no one to recommend you to because well no one here is academic but I am so very intellectually your number one fan in America, Helen and by extension Peter and the other fellow but in particular Helen, Have you read Habermas?

Hellen, you are a saint!

AWESOME!

The way the information ecosystem has been built to let anyone join has had a widening effect of interpretation. People are reading the way someone interprets something, to define who they are. As people have preferences for different types of people, this leads to groupings and as those groupings evolve, interpretations from outside become less clear, while expected from many to be clear. What works in media is being clearly defined, so people who became representatives of an idea are the people least likely to back down. This reassures supporters, their way of thinking is right. An unknown person telling a group they're wrong in some way can, therefore, be rebuffed by a very low generalization via their world interpretation. The hard scientific interpretation these are a proponent of has a level of universality about known stuff. The grievance studies interpretation is the hope-distress dynamic towards more ambiguously known stuff (the unknown component often referred to as feelings). It is hard to reconcile both these interpretations in the same place. There is I feel, a newness to the grievance studies interpretation, that is above its station in robustness, yet it doesn't want to lose its scientific credentials. They are hiding behind their cultural components to avoid this.

This is how language ought to be used = to describe reality, NOT to attempt to create counterfactual "realities" and to unhealthily amplify grievances.

Once the ad hominem kicks off, you know you've won the argument.

Around 23' Peter says something so deeply true and that I empathize so much when trying to debate my hate followers from no fap movement.

One has to see the rise of the identitarian Left against the backdrop of the last 3 decades or so of neoliberal globalization. Why? Because the absolute need for all governments to keep their national economies competitive and attractive to inward investors and corporations in today's globalized market has comprehensively rendered traditional left-wing policies unworkable. So in finding its traditional mode of politics rendered impractical, the Left resorted to other ways - i.e. identity politics - to try to exercise at least some power. It won't work, of course. Because it doesn't go to the source of the problem.

Only in the arts can you get away (at least superficially) with postmodernism.. You cannot ever run into an honest scientist, engineer, doctor, pilot, etc who operates on the postmodern philosophies..

It has to be added that the idea of language being the basis for human social bonds was founded upon structuralist linguistics (Saussure) and psychoanalysis (Lacan). In that incarnation the structuralist theory asserted that the incompleteness of language requires that signification be acquired through human social bonds and around the notion of discourse. The post structuralists took a radical departure sustaining that language can be developed to its completion so there'd be no need for 'discourse' or the classic social bonds.

Powerful

Nobody published in those areas are willing to have that conversation, because they don't want to admit their epistemology is a zombie.

i didnt even know Social Justice was an ideology

Helen Pluckrose is a rockstar

Anyone else feel they've come home after a really long and difficult journey?

If we are stuck in a postmodern dystopia with social progress based on identity, as a white, Christian, populist male the identarian narratives of other collectives mean nothing to me. If acquisition of power is all there is, so be it.

Former American liberal. Had to write to former party, sadly, and let them know they have utterly failed to denounce the CRT/Victim/Postmodern culture. Men have lost jobs for stating facts. Watch Evergreen, the whole story.

What Helen describes in the 18th minute brings to mind the revelation of the true nature of the beast - and beast it is. Those are the tactics of minions, not free-thinking individuals. Either the thing implodes in on itself and eventually falls apart, or it grows to a position of power where it will finally be met with a balancing power. Just what that is, I can hardly tell, but I can certainly imagine, and it is not pretty, nor desirable. It is as if this is the thing after all, that many, if not most of us, wish to avoid. But when such naked hatred is allowed to run amok with such impunity, sooner or later, something's got to give.

I've always thought *Quora* was the most intellectual arena to have debates. Even though, its more of an ask a question and get answers website. Now I see the site *Medium* for that kind of an arena and so far as to get some good responses from readers.

Just wonder how much time would have been saved if all the involved parties read 'The Positivist Dispute in German Sociology' of 1969.

Eduardo Bonilla-Silva's Racism Without Racists makes a good point of using old data and new data to correlate her assertion about asking two different black people about racism, and they do say different things. They say different things for different reasons but she doesn't point that out at all. For instance, a black person growing up in a black neighborhood versus a black person growing up in a mostly white neighborhood will answer differently, but in the study both confirm they have experienced racism, and that is key to the argument against her false narrative, SHE DOESN'T BELIEVE THEM or she doesn't feel it is important to discuss or ask about. There's more to it than what I mentioned but it won't matter to her fans like it doesn't matter to her because what people experience is what... the false narrative?? unconfirmed data? If they don't believe racism still exists and don't think affirmative action is necessary, why would these two different black people say they have experienced racism? Maybe it's because it's what is being taught in schools and in society. Not everyone needs to be an activist because the sad reality is that's not how change works. Change works when few people able to see the bigger picture and do all the work to bring people together to fight injustice like BLM or the effort to stop AAPI hate. Just because you aren't racist, doesn' mean racists don't exist. Just because you know a black person, doesn't mean you know the black experience.

I will say this, It’s important to do some research on postmodernism from the perspective of the original authors. I know for instance, the concepts they have about power are actually truly spot on. I’m not saying postmodernism is everything, but the rights basic response to them is to make it seem ridiculous, insist that people fall inline in the social order, Make you feel guilty for buying into it because your “making others come over to the right” (I would argue those people are already over that, I haven’t seen the right left divide in elections really ever move by that many points) We are Def in a more meta modern era now. Just know If you have seen more conservatives talking of its evils, then the odds are you haven’t actually heard from what it’s directly about or even saying. Postmodernism is Def a thing, and you can’t really “stamp it out”. It kinda just is.

These folk are the Dark Age theologians who condemned dissidents to death.

Postmodernism is supposed to dispute grand narratives and especially social ones. To the extent that the left perspective is based on a grand narrative about victimhood and imposing solutions for the way their frame this "problem", the left should reject postmodernism as being antithetical to their entire purpose. That so many of them have turned to a perceptive that undermines their own approach I see as an indication that they have run out of good arguments to support their authoritarian goals in an intellectually honest manner.

What's that symbol called?

Pluckrose and Boghossian do this to keep our culture sane. In 1996 I was impressed by the Sokal affair that prevented me from taking French philosophers seriously. If you allow parody to enter your system, you're out en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sokal_affair

Root driver is prejudice. A list in no particular order: 1) National identity 2) Race 3) Religion 4) Gender 5) Nutritrion as in vegan, keto etc 6) Sports team supported 7) Regional Accent 8) Local customs plus many more.

People are made of individuals. Individuals are not equal. The best a society can do is offer everyone an equal opportunity at life and let them go on to the best life they can live. Failing is also part of life. This is what makes life worth living (fail/learn/try again until you succeed).

See ya at thinkspot, coming soon.

Prof Stephen Hicks explained in his 2018 lecture how postmodernism evolved from marxist intellectuals who became disillusioned with marxism..

So Boghossian was able to keep his job at PSU?

Post Modernism: nothing is certain everything is relative, truth does not exist. Also Post Modernism: everything is language and language is used to wield power. Which is it Post Modernism: nothing can be stated as fact or you want to start stating facts yourself? Post Modernism is playing the game without adhering to the rules.

I'm willing to have a conversation!!! I've reached out to Peter Boghossian several times with no reply. I come from the fields he disputes. I think he's more interested in making propaganda against our fields than actually having conversations

Imagine living in the world where you wish as an atheist that there were more William Lane Craigs.

Avoid these people who refuse to debate but happily toss out nonsensical racist and sexist insults.

@ Peter Boghossian, do you know why those you invite to have a “dialogue” with your team do not agree to do so?

Honoured to be first!

having honest conversations with disingeuous people is a nigh impossible proposition. Getting them to the table is also difficult because they are easily torn apart and they fearbthat eposure. Its easier to use simpler language of calling opposing views as fascist or yahzees than have ridiculous positions exposed as rubbish.

"Anti-intellectual right" Me not agreeing with you does not make me a dunce.

Also why is the Hegelian Dialective so hard to understand??? It’s pretty simple!

A movement designed to reject dialogue? Sounds like a perfect cocept for failing as mother nature requires continuous adaptation.

I couldn't finish listening to this conversation. As an ex-atheist who decided to do some actual research regarding religion, I was amazed and delighted to see, that God actually proves His case completely, thoroughly and undeniably. He said, I say these things to you now, (2800 years ago), so that when they happen a long time in the future, you will KNOW that I am God. He has done that with pin point accuracy. This conclusively disproves all arguments against His existence, so whatever words and labels anyone cares to cook up in opposition to the actual facts, are not worth bothering about. The same, or similar, arguments can be made in regard to gender confusion disorders. Big pharma has flooded the female and the food supply in general, with such vast quantities of estrogen that it is little wonder that we have massive militant feminism and widespread gender confusion. The answer is not to make disgustingly inappropriate gender disease appear to be just fine and perfectly normal and acceptable, it is rather to see gender disorders as a result of chemical toxicity, which is what they actually are. We can cheer on everyone with fleas, or we can give them a delightful herbal bath which kills the fleas. You two seem to be encouraging fleas to multiply.

So postmodernists don’t believe in truth except for their truth. That makes sense in an insane way. Who are these Jokers? Why are they so religiously motivated?

Jordan says that it is some weird combination between Marxist and Post Modernism, but he understands that this, in theory, cannot be so. It is always funny to hear him try to explain it, as he struggles to get his mind around it... lol

And what´s the point, a return to positivist self-sufficiency? Do you disagree with the point that knowledge is always situated?