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James Lindsay (2020) - Unpicking Critical Social Justice and Wokeness · The Joe Rogan Recap

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Welcome to the Joe Rogan recap. Today we're diving deep into a
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fascinating conversation between Joe Rogan and James Lindsay from
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the Joe Rogan Experience episode hashtag 15 O One.
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Yeah, it was a really wide-ranging 1.
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Absolutely. Our mission to sort of extract
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the core insights from their discussion.
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They covered a lot of ground, everything from Rogan's elephant
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encounter in Thailand to the complexity surrounding woke
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culture, social justice movements, and even how concepts
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like white supremacy are being defined or redefined.
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We'll be trying to sift through their points, you know, pull out
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the most important takeaways for you.
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So where do they kick things off?
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Well, what? Immediately struck me was that
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starting point Rogan talking about riding elephants at a
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rescue in Thailand. He described pretty positively,
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you know, as a conservation effort, healthy animals, that
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kind of thing, right? Funding, rehabilitation and
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release. Exactly, and he talked about how
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gentle they were, how massive, but they didn't seem to notice a
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writers weight. Contrasted it with how he feels
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about zoos. But then he briefly mentioned
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getting some Flack in the past for telling a story about riding
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an elephant as a kid. OK, so that little comment, it
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sort of hints at how things change, right?
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How social norms shift. Precisely.
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It began this kind of springboard into that larger
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conversation about how quickly perceptions can evolve.
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What was fine yesterday is suddenly not OK today.
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Yeah, that feeling of shifting sands, you wonder what's driving
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it. And that leads right into
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Lindsay's framework for understanding contemporary woke
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phenomena, as he puts it. OK, he basically proposes two
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ways to look at it. There's the psychological side,
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this drive for moral purity, a really strong sense of right and
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wrong. OK, that makes sense.
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Like wanting to be on the right side of things.
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Yeah, and then there's the underlying theory, which he
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argues is heavily influenced by French philosophy, specifically
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this idea that words and ideas can retain traces of past
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negativity. Right, I remember this part, the
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idea that if a word was associated with something bad
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historically, that Vadnais sort of clings to it even now.
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Exactly. That's the theory, and Lindsay
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suggests this belief is what fuels a lot of the intense moral
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panic or outrage we sometimes see.
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So the past is never really past, linguistically speaking
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for some people. In this view, yes.
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But he raises a key question. Are most people, you know, the
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average person, actually aware of this complex philosophical
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underpinning? Probably not right?
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Most people aren't digging into French philosophy.
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That's his point. He uses this analogy of woke
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culture being like a church. OK, you have different levels of
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understanding and commitment. Some people are just sort of
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culturally involved, following the general vibe, while others
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are the theologians, the academics who are deeply
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invested. The woke academics, yeah, he
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talked about them refining and teaching these concepts like
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critical theory, critical race theory.
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They're the ones really shaping the doctrines, so to speak.
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And this links up with their discussion about Robin
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Diangelo's book White Fragility. They mentioned Matt Taibbi's
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critique too. Right, they focus on that
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specific anecdote from the book. The one about the white woman
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feeling uncomfortable about maybe socializing with an all
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black group at a park picnic. That's the one, and how D'Angelo
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apparently uses that incident to conclude that while all white
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people are racist. Which is a huge leap, obviously,
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taking one person's discomfort and making it a universal
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statement and that's. The critique, right Lindsay
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suggests. Maybe some activists or scholars
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are projecting their own struggles or biases onto
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everyone else. It raises questions about
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generalizations versus individual experiences.
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Definitely. And they draw this parallel
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between the rigidity in some of these ideologies and, well,
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religious cults. Like the Jehovah's Witnesses
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example they mentioned. Yeah, the difficulty in
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questioning core tenets, the potential for being cast out if
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you don't fully buy in it suggests a system that doesn't
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always welcome open inquiry. And that example of, say, black
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feminists initially being praised but then getting accused
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of tokenism or fetishization later, it feels like a kind of
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trap. A no win situation.
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Yeah, it illustrates how navigating these spaces can be
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really tricky. It's like that analogy they used
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about religious obsession with sin.
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If you're constantly scanning everyone for moral failings
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based on your specific rules, you're.
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Going to find them right or interpret actions that way.
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It can create this climate of constant scrutiny.
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So then the conversation pivoted quite a bit, didn't it, to
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transgender athletes in women's MMA.
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It did, and Rogan had a really strong stance on this.
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Yeah, he was pretty clear. He talked about biological
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differences, history of testosterone exposure, bone
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structure like hips and shoulders.
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Right, arguing that these give trans women an unfair advantage
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in women's categories potentially dominating the
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sport. He cited data on upper body
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strength, grip strength, differences between biological
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males and females. The felon Fox controversy came
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up to fighting as a woman without initially disclosing she
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was transgender. That seemed to be a key case for
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him highlighting the disclosure issue.
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But he did clarify, right? He said he has no issue if two
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consenting adults agree to fight, even if one is trans
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woman, as long as it's all out in the open.
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Exactly. His concern was framed around
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the fairness and integrity of women's competitive sports
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specifically. And they mentioned Ashley Evans
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Smith defeating Fallon Fox, which kind of shows that skill
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and technique still matter hugely.
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It's not just biology. True, it highlights that
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complexity, balancing inclusion, fairness, biological realities
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and athletic school. It's messy.
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OK, shifting gears again, let's talk about Lindsay's project,
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the translations for the woke on his website new Discord.
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Yeah, he explained. His goal is to sort of decode
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the terminology, trace its origins and intended meanings,
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which he feels are often obscured.
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The example he used was the word folks.
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Right, suggesting a potential, maybe controversial, connection
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to the German folk. That ideology centered on group
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culture and identity politics. That's quite a connection to
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draw. It is, and his argument is that
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using terms like folks within certain activist circles can
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sometimes signal an immediate assumption of negative traits
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for those perceived to be in dominant groups, like, say,
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straight white men. So language carrying inherent
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assumptions based on group identity.
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That's the idea he's putting forward, and he links this back
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to Marxist conflict theory. The idea of society being
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defined by a fundamental, unavoidable conflict between
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oppressor and oppressed groups. Exactly.
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Rejecting the possibility of, you know, mutual benefit or
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cooperation between these defined groups.
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It's inherently antagonistic in that worldview.
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And he traced this lineage of thinking back to to Hegel's
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master slave dialectic. Yeah, though he was careful
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noting the sensitivity around using those terms now.
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But the core idea is that power dynamics fundamentally shape
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identity and create inherent conflict.
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That underlying assumption of inevitable conflict seems key to
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understanding the framework he's describing.
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Absolutely. OK, so from theory to, well,
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real world events, they talk about social unrest, George
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Floyd? Michael Brown.
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And specifically how media, especially viral videos and what
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they called clip culture, can really distort the narrative.
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The contrast they drew was pretty stark, right?
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The George Floyd video being quite straightforward visually
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versus the Michael Brown shooting in Ferguson having a
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much more complex disputed context.
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Definitely, and it highlighted the danger of
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decontextualization. That anecdote Lindsay shared
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about the manipulated Riot video clip?
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The one that seemed to criticize Trump but was actually from
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years earlier under Obama. Yeah, that perfectly shows how
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easy it is to twist things online when you just see a short
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isolated clip. And Lindsay directly connected
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this to shorter attention spans, maybe fostered by platforms like
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Twitter. He called Twitter a
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deconstruction machine. Based on critical postmodern
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philosophy, he argued the idea that it's format just lends
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itself to ripping things out of context, creating these
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distorted versions of people or events, and ultimately just
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eroding trust. Both he and Rogan seem to have
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pretty negative feelings about Twitter.
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Yeah, they talked about the constant negativity, how easy it
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is to just cut people off, block them, which maybe translates
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into how we interact or don't interact in real life to.
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The pull of the hot take versus actual nuance discussion.
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Exactly. And Lindsay made that
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interesting connection, suggesting that hot takes are
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almost like a superficial quick hit form of critical theory.
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Just immediate critique without the depth.
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So this woke stuff, as they sometimes called it, they
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described it as feeling very rigid, like there's no room for
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error or growth or even healing. Yeah, that lack of nuance came
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up again. Lindsay used this analogy,
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pressing a button that launches rockets.
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People do destructive things online just because they can,
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maybe without fully grasping the consequences.
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The anonymity factor. Huge factor, though they did
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acknowledge some upsides to platforms like Twitter getting
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information out fast during breaking news like the JJ shop
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situation in Seattle or news about Jeff Bezos Security.
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Sure. It has its uses, yeah, but the
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overall tone felt critical of the environment it creates.
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Definitely. They also touched on some
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historical roots, mentioning Herbert Marcus.
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Right. And his concept of repressive
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tolerance, the idea that true tolerance might require being
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intolerant of intolerant views, a kind of paradoxical idea.
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But Marcuse himself apparently later worried his movement was
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becoming anti intellectual. Yeah, that was an interesting
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side note. But the bigger historical piece
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they discussed was the Socal Squared hoax.
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Yes, where Lindsay, Peter Boghossian and Helen Pluck Rose
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wrote those fake academic papers.
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And got them published in peer reviewed journals in fields like
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gender studies, critical race theory, queer theory.
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The dog park paper was the most famous right The one about
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observing canine behavior in dog parks through a feminist lens.
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That's the one. It got accepted, even praised,
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by a leading feminist geography journal.
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They used it as evidence of, well, potentially low standards
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or strong ideological bias within those specific academic
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fields. And they argue these ideas
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really took root in universities, especially
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colleges of education, back around the 1980s.
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Yeah, and that Supreme Court rulings related to diversity,
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equity and inclusion kind of pave the way for the growth of
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powerful DEI offices within institutions.
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Leading to a situation where they argue genuine scholarship
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or criticism might get shut down because people are afraid of
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being called racist or bigoted. That fear of label stifling
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debate, yeah, that was a major concern they raise.
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OK, let's get into some specific examples of the concepts and
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language they discussed. Microaggressions came up.
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They talked about definitions from university resources,
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noting how vague or overly sensitive they can sometimes
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seem, like small, often unintentional slights being
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interpreted as aggression. The push for using they them
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pronouns was another point. Yeah, particularly focusing on
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situations where it might feel grammatically awkward and the
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social pressure to adopt it universally.
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And the phrase Black Lives Matter?
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They acknowledged it as an obvious, agreeable statement on
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its face, but argued it becomes complicated because of the
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political organization associated with it, which
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Lindsay described as having neo Marxist elements and engaging in
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controversial actions. So separating the phrase from
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the movement. That was the distinction they
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were making. They also brought up examples of
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what they saw as performative wokeness, like those instances
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of white actors posting photos in blackface as some kind of
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anti racist statement, which backfired badly.
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It's. Completely missing the mark and
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the Hooters masculinity paper from the hoax.
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Right, Another one that got published arguing that working
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at Hooters could be seen as empowering for the men, and it
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got a negative feminist review mainly because it focused on
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men's experiences, not women's. Wow.
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OK, then the conversation got it to the concept of violence
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itself being redefined. Yeah, this was a key point from
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Lindsay, How in some woke theory, violence isn't just
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physical harm. It includes things like
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epistemic violence, invalidating someone's way of knowing OK,
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discursive violence, harm caused by language, even violence of
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categorization like using gendered pronouns being framed
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as a violent act against someone who doesn't identify with them.
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So expanding the definition of violence dramatically.
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Hugely. And the argument is that this
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banded definition can then be used to justify aggressive
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actions, maybe even real world violence, against those
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perceived violent words or ideas.
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They connected this to the anti fascist or antifa movement.
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Suggesting that some adherents might believe that any viewpoint
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opposing theirs is inherently fascist or could lead to
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fascism, thus justifying preemptive action against it.
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And they tie this into the looting during social unrest
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too. Yeah, suggesting that perhaps
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some individuals felt justified, maybe due to economic
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desperation from COVID lockdowns, maybe combined with a
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sense of historical grievance, feeling like they've been
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trashed and robbed by the system for generations.
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A complex mix of potential motivations.
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They also noted how quickly woke educational materials seem to
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pop up after major events. Right.
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Suggesting maybe long term planning by activists or funding
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from certain organizations helped facilitate that rapid
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rollout. OK, then there was just shifts
13:23
towards health and body image. Rogan mentioned his own health
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routine. Yeah, daily workouts, sauna,
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diet and then contrasted that with his critique of the health
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at every size movement. Right.
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He pushed back hard on the idea that someone can be
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significantly overweight but still perfectly healthy.
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He shared anecdotes about people in the fat acceptance movement
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seemingly denying the health risks of obesity.
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And they discussed how some ideas from fat studies or
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disability studies might frame attempts to, say, lose weight or
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regain hearing as a kind of genocide against those identity
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groups. Prioritizing the identity over
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potential health improvements or changes.
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Yeah, that was the argument Rogans own story about losing
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his sense of smell and taste after a head injury.
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And how profound that loss was and the process of relearning.
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It added a personal perspective on the value of physical senses
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and health. He also told a story about a
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fighter who lost his sense of smell and how much it impacted
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his life. Yeah.
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So moving from health back to academia, they talk about
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research justice. What was that about?
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The idea as they described it is advocating for citing scholars
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based partly on their identity, race, gender, etcetera, not just
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on the merit or relevance of their work.
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The stated goal is to even out citation scores across different
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groups. But the concern they raised was
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this could lead to hiring based on ideology rather than
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expertise. Right.
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And Lindsay shared that anecdote about a black master's student
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who apparently put deliberate errors in his work.
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But they weren't corrected by professors, perhaps afraid of
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appearing biased. Which ultimately hurt the
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student because he wasn't learning the skills properly and
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unintended consequence. Exactly.
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Well-intentioned policies perhaps having negative effects.
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Then they got into the rejection of foundational concepts like
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logic and reason being dismissed by some as white man's tools.
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Yeah, or objective truth being seen as a tool of oppression and
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the examples of language being changed, like the push against
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master bedroom or a master slave terminology in tech.
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Even if the historical connection to actual slavery is
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weak or non existent in some cases.
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Right, the argument is based on that trace theory again, the
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belief that the language carries oppression, which they compared
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to Orwell's new speak in 1984, where language is manipulated to
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control thought. They also brought up Kurt
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Vonnegut's Harrison Bergeron. As a fictional warning, yeah.
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About forcing equality of outcome leading to suppressing
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talent and individuality. Everyone being brought down to
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the lowest common denominator. And they put it out the
15:50
inconsistency, right? Like you don't hear calls for
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chemistry departments to have quotas for gay people, for
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instance. It seems selectively applied.
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That selective application was a recurring critique.
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Then the idea of safe spaces came up again, but in the
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context of segregation. Yeah, instances where students
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might claim discomfort because there are too many white people
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in a space even supposedly integrated.
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One and calling the desire for separate spaces desegregation.
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Which they flagged as Orwellian, using language to mean its
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opposite. They also mentioned things like
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mansplaining and manspreading as examples of hyper focusing on
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gendered behaviors, sometimes to an extreme.
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Rogan even mentioned the biological reasons why men often
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sit with legs wider apart. Just questioning the framing of
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natural behaviors as inherently problematic.
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And then another circle squared paper fat bodybuilding.
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Oh yeah, using the identity of a real person, Richard Baldwin,
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who's a body builder and history professor.
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And the paper argued what that muscle and fat are just tissues
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and valuing muscle over fat is fat phobic.
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Pretty much advocating for a politicized fat body and even a
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new category and professional bodybuilding for it.
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The level of absurdity they were testing.
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It really highlights their point about the journals.
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Yeah, just how far they felt some academic fields had strayed
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from rigorous standards. OK.
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So relatedly, the broader body positivity movement, they
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mentioned Linda Bacon, now Linda Bacon A.
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Key figure in health at every size and body Liberation, as
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they put it, noting the perhaps ironic surname.
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And the concern was that this movement can sometimes lead
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people to reject valid medical advice or scientific facts about
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health. That was the critique and
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extending beyond physical health.
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They talked about examples of people self diagnosing mental
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illnesses and rejecting professional evaluation,
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prioritizing the self declared identity.
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The example of Lydia XY Brown came up.
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Right, who identifies as autistic and apparently makes a
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point of visibly flapping in public to signal that identity.
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They questioned the authenticity and purpose behind such
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performative identity displays. The point being that Wellness
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involves more than just how you feel, and there are often real
18:00
world consequences to unhealthy behaviors or rejecting
18:04
professional help. And they quoted Lindo Bacon
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directly rejecting the authority of the medical industrial
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complex to define conditions like autism.
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So circling back to the hoax studies, the point wasn't just
18:14
to prank journals, right? No, Lindsay, it was clear.
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The aim was to highlight what they see as very real problems
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and absurdities within those specific academic fields,
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expressing concern that these ideas were spilling out and
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influencing society more broadly.
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And they wondered, has we reached peak woke?
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Is a return to normalcy possible?
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Lindsay seemed uncertain, calling the situation non
18:38
linear, dependent on future events, but he stressed the need
18:41
for individuals to actually talk about these things and decide
18:44
where their own boundaries. Lie.
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So where's this all going? That was a big question.
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And the answer was basically, nobody knows for sure.
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Lindsay pointed out the internal contradictions within the
18:54
movement itself, like potential conflicts between, say, Black
18:57
Lives Matter and Black Trans Lives Matter priorities.
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He suggested some people are starting to recognize the
19:03
unfairness and concepts like white fragility or assigning
19:07
collective guilt based on group identity.
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The comparison to the Chinese Cultural Revolution struggle
19:13
sessions came up again. As a kind of historical
19:16
precursor to modern cancel culture tactics, public shaming,
19:20
demanding professions of ideological impurity.
19:23
And they discuss the potential for a backlash, maybe through
19:26
legal challenges. Yeah, lawsuits challenging
19:28
university admissions policies like those affecting Asian
19:31
students at Harvard or in New York City schools, arguing that
19:35
the push for equity sometimes leads to outright
19:37
discrimination. That anecdote about the black
19:40
masters student came up again, too.
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Right, the one who's intentionally flawed work got
19:43
high grades, possibly hindering his career because the standards
19:47
were lowered for him. It illustrates the potential
19:50
pitfalls of folks focusing solely on equity outcomes
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without addressing underlying skill gaps or maintaining
19:57
consistent standards. Exactly.
19:58
And they talked about white complicity, how its definition
20:01
can become so broad that it's impossible to not be complicit,
20:05
making it hard to identify actual problems or assign
20:08
responsibility. The STRIDE program at Michigan
20:10
was another example. Where they apparently doubled
20:13
the weight given to female applicants and faculty hiring
20:15
without fully understanding why there were disparities in the
20:18
first place. Just applying A systemic
20:20
solution without diagnosing the specific problem.
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So this critique of systemic thinking that it can sometimes
20:28
prevent finding the real problems and solutions.
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That was a key argument that the system itself becomes this kind
20:33
of vague, almost religious entity to blame rather than
20:36
looking at specific factors. And this ties into the rise of
20:39
anti racism as a dominant ideology.
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Yeah, they compared the current climate to how in the early
20:44
stages of fascism, anything that could potentially lead to it
20:47
gets labeled as fascist itself. Similarly, anything not actively
20:52
anti racist might be labeled racist.
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Making it hard to critique the ideology itself within
20:57
universities where dissent can be risky.
21:00
Right, which is why Lindsay argues the conversation needs to
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happen out in the wider world. They noted the surge in
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popularity of anti racism, especially through authors like
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Ibram X Kendi and Robin Diangelo.
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And mentioned some of D'angelo's earlier, maybe more extreme work
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like using the term racial Cray Cray.
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Yeah, and sharing those examples of how everyday things, keeping
21:21
a meeting agenda, wearing a watch have apparently been
21:24
labeled as aspects of white supremacy culture and some
21:27
diversity trainings. Rogan actually said he felt
21:29
physical stress just observing these trends.
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He did, and Lindsay credited Helen Pluck Rose as being
21:34
crucial and helping him understand and push back against
21:36
these ideas. They touched on benevolent
21:39
sexism too, how even actions intended to be helpful can be
21:43
interpreted negatively through these critical lenses.
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Helens analogy of the shopkeeper came up how critical race theory
21:49
can basically find racism in any interaction between people of
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different races, regardless of intent or outcome.
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Because, as D'Angelo asserts, racism is just assumed to be
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ordinary, the default state of interactions.
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That's the premise. They speculated that master
22:05
bedroom controversy was probably a voluntary overreaction by real
22:08
estate groups, not necessarily mandated.
22:11
And Lindsay mentioned pulling back from Twitter because the
22:14
negativity was just overwhelming.
22:15
So the danger they see is this ideology becoming entrenched and
22:19
unchallenged. Pretty much.
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Lindsay framed his own work calling out these issues, often
22:24
using the movement's own literature against critics who
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maybe haven't read it deeply as dangerous but necessary.
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Saying his goal is ultimately for these ideologies to just
22:34
fade away. They also touched on the misuse
22:36
of the term grifter. Yeah, how it gets thrown around
22:39
to dismiss anyone making arguments you dislike,
22:41
especially if they make money related to it.
22:43
Shifting focus slightly, they emphasize the importance of
22:46
struggle, of being challenged for real learning and growth.
22:50
Rogan used martial arts, specifically Jiu jitsu, as his
22:53
example, a discipline that forces you to confront your
22:56
weaknesses and builds resilience through difficulty.
22:59
And they advocated for an ethic where education is valued for
23:04
what you can actually do with it, what you can build or create
23:06
in the real world, not just the credential itself.
23:09
Which connects to their point about the resistance to
23:12
standardized testing in some circles.
23:14
Because the tests often show unequal outcomes across identity
23:17
groups. Right.
23:19
And the response within these ideologies is often to blame the
23:22
test for being inherently biased, rather than
23:25
investigating or addressing the underlying reasons for the
23:28
differing outcomes. There's also opposition to
23:30
competition generally among students.
23:33
So despite all these heavy criticisms, did they express any
23:36
hope? They did actually.
23:37
Both seem to feel it's important to just keep pointing out
23:40
logical inconsistencies and advocating for reasonable
23:43
perspectives. Lindsay called himself a naive
23:46
optimist. Rejecting pessimists.
23:47
Yeah, he used another jiu jitsu analogy, trusting a structured
23:51
program because it demonstrably works.
23:54
He believes the foundational principles of the country can
23:57
still work if evidence and reason are prioritized.
24:00
But they acknowledge the crisis of expertise.
24:02
Definitely, and the danger of media favoring hot takes over
24:05
nuance, they stressed holding leaders accountable for making
24:09
clear statements supporting civil society.
24:11
They revisited that Martin Luther King Junior quote about
24:14
riots being the language of the unheard.
24:17
Agreeing that underlying injustices need to be addressed
24:19
to prevent unrest. Absolutely.
24:22
But they criticized the current woke social justice movement as
24:25
being ineffective, like just wallpapering over the real
24:28
problems instead of fixing them. And they did acknowledge the
24:31
real historical weight of things like slavery, redlining, wealth
24:35
gaps. Yes stressed the need for
24:37
genuine understanding and real solutions, not just ideological
24:40
frameworks. They discussed Derek Bell, a
24:43
foundational figure in critical race theory.
24:45
And his pessimistic interest. Convergence Thesis.
24:48
Right. The idea that white people only
24:50
support progress for black people when it also benefits
24:53
white people, meaning any help is inherently self-serving and
24:57
thus still racist. Which leads to the conclusion
25:00
that the only way to dismantle white supremacy is through
25:02
radical upheaval. That's the implication of that
25:05
line of thought within CRT, and Bell is a major, respected
25:10
figure in the field, Lindsay noted.
25:12
But Lindsay thinks the current movement is unsustainable.
25:15
Yeah, partly due to those internal contradictions and just
25:18
the sheer energy required to maintain that level of vigilance
25:21
and critique constantly. He also observed something
25:24
interesting that some people, maybe particularly on the right,
25:27
are getting so tired of the word racism being used so broadly
25:31
that they're just disengaging from the conversation all
25:34
together. While still trying to be non
25:35
racist in their they just stop using the language because it
25:38
feels meaningless or weaponized. The danger, he warned, is that
25:42
others might react by actually embracing a racist identity out
25:46
of defiance. A real polarization risk.
25:48
They mentioned people facing professional consequences for
25:51
dissenting too. Yeah, losing jobs or
25:53
opportunities for questioning DEI initiatives or related
25:56
ideas. So it really is framed as a kind
25:58
of culture war fought with information and ideas.
26:02
That's how they described it, with a large silent majority
26:05
perhaps disagreeing but afraid to speak up.
26:07
And corporate wokeness, often just seen as chasing profits or
26:11
managing PR, Yeah. Not necessarily deep belief.
26:15
Lindsay even warned corporations they might face legal challenges
26:19
down the line for some of their woke policies if they lead to
26:22
discrimination. So the final take away seemed to
26:24
be the importance of continuing to offer logical, reasonable
26:28
perspectives against an ideology they see as avoiding criticism
26:32
and acting almost like a dogma. And crucially, emphasizing the
26:35
need for forgiveness for allowing people, especially
26:38
young people, to make mistakes, learn and grow rather than face
26:42
permanent cancellation. So what does this all mean?
26:44
We've journeyed from elephants in Thailand all the way through
26:48
some incredibly complex social theories.
26:50
We touched on biology, language, history, ideology.
26:52
Yeah, the potential pitfalls of movements, even those starting
26:56
with good intentions, perhaps becoming misguided or rigid.
27:00
Think about the ideas we've discussed today.
27:01
Are you seeing these concepts play out in your own life, in
27:04
your workplace, online, or just the world around you?
27:07
What parts of this conversation resonated with you?
27:10
What parts may be challenged, your own assumptions or made you
27:13
think differently? This deep dive, as always, just
27:16
scratches the surface. There's so much more to explore.
27:19
Absolutely. We encourage you to look into
27:21
the sources mentioned if you're interested, read different
27:24
perspectives, and most importantly, try to have
27:26
thoughtful, open conversations about these often difficult
27:30
topics. What line were you draw?