Latest / Uncomfortable Conversations with Josh Szeps / David Pakman: How's America Doing?

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David Pakman: How's America Doing? · Uncomfortable Conversations with Josh Szeps

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  Can a humans welcome the safe space for dangerous ideas today one of the most popular progressive
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  political commentators and talk show hosts in the world. He is an online phenomenon David
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  Pacman. He has over 1.8 million subscribers on YouTube. He dominates in the area and which
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  I'm about to embark online media rather than conventional broadcast media. He started the
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  David Pacman show in 2005 and by 2011 it had been picked up by conventional media outlets by
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  cable news channels and local affiliates and so on and he's gone from strength to strength.
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  He's appeared on Fox News and CNN and Joe Robins show as a kind of a voice for a younger generation
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  of progressives who perhaps aren't so obsessed with culture war issues. Now I sat down with David
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  earlier this year. I would say three months ago. It was before the October 7th attack in Israel
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  by Hummus. I suppose in hindsight we would have spoken about that if we were speaking today and
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  specifically about what that has done to American politics. The divisions that had opened up
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  over those who are siding with Palestinians over those who are siding with Israelis but in some
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  ways I'm glad that we're not speaking now. I'm glad that we have something of a minor time capsule
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  to the way that we were feeling about the state of the American mood and of American political
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  division prior to October 7th. That tragedy and the ongoing tragedy in Gaza has a tendency to
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  suck up all the oxygen in the room and there is a certain opportunity cost in that. An opportunity
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  cost of the things that we could be talking about that we are not so forgive the fact that we
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  don't talk about this and we seem like we're completely oblivious to the events of the past two
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  months but nonetheless it's a really really useful snapshot and insight into the way that American
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  politics is currently cleaving itself in the absence of the Israel Gaza issue. David thinks that
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  the left is more reasonable than I do so we get into that and but heads a little bit. I hope you
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  enjoy the one and only the legend David Pakman. So you were just saying that you want to move to
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  Spain and I was saying when I was last on your show in October of 2017 first year of Donald Trump
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  everyone was saying you know before he was elected I we're all going to move to Canada if he's
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  elected and you know what Saskatchewan is still empty it's still only bears and so I'm calling
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  your bluff I'm moving to Spain. No and this has nothing to do with Trump like I'm not even pretending
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  that it has to it's for me it's more you know I'm from Argentina and so my options are okay I'm a
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  US citizen I can always go back to Argentina but the economy's not so good and there's a lot of
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  complicated things going on I could go to Israel but it would take a couple years to get citizenship
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  and I don't know that I'm necessarily looking to leave forever it's more just that the US
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  is sort of organized in a much more anti social way than a lot of Mediterranean Europe and South
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  America and I like a lot of aspects of that lifestyle you know people hanging out at cafes at
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  all hours of the day and you don't have to hide your children away starting at 7 pm you know I
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  have a little baby daughter now and people people they're out they're in society you know so
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  if I say that I was literally just doing talk back on my radio show David about what time people
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  eat dinner because Australia much like America I imagine has this weird disjoint where you've
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  got the old school Anglo-Saxon tradition of like having dinner at 536 you know I'm sure there
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  are swathes of the Midwest where people come home and they have dinner at 6 pm and then you've
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  got the people who live in more Mediterranean lifestyle who eat at 9 or 10 and the the hostility
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  and argumentation between those two sides both of whom think have perfected the right way to live
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  is hilarious but I'm with you who wouldn't like a Mediterranean lifestyle one of my one of my best
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  buddies is still living Berlin who is an English guy and he came to visit in Sydney and Sydney has
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  with the exception of the late night thing it has quite a Mediterranean feel it's a harbor city
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  people are quite hedonistic people are friendly and laid back they like their coffee they like their
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  food and he was like yeah but I like the grittiness of Berlin I like the harshness and the culture
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  I like the cold and I like the the seriousness I like the import of Berlin and then when the global
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  financial crisis happened he was sent to Athens to report on the Greek meltdown and the Greek
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  no vote he's never returned he's never returned to Berlin of course once you get a taste for the
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  Mediterranean lifestyle now he lives in Rome he's like who doesn't want this baby he's getting
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  around on his Vesca Vespo of a cobblestone streets and smoking and drinking until the wee hours of
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  the morning the best I do think the thing that would be tough if you are used to the United States
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  so a lot of things I think would be great but I think the one thing that could be tough is
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  the bureaucracy and difficulty of accomplishing what should be extraordinarily simple and mundane
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  yeah a paperwork or I need to get a plumber sort of thing that this is the ubiquitous complaint
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  from people I know who have moved to Portugal Spain France Italy yeah which is it took me three
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  years to remodel my bathroom it took me six months to renew a passport and you know I do think
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  that that would become a frustration don't try to start a small business don't think that you're
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  going to create a tech hub or something yeah although I must say you know where you need to move
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  in you need to move to northern Europe right well yeah I love Denmark man there is no paperwork
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  what paperwork just walk into a post office and they'll hand you a license for a new small business
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  the problem with Denmark of course is weather a little bit and it's a different vibe you know it's
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  much it's a little more uptight I think than what maybe I'm looking for yeah that's true and also
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  within the Anglo-Sphere it's funny that you say that you think of those Mediterranean countries
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  as being infuriatingly bureaucratic and difficult to get things done because in the Anglo-Sphere
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  that's America to me I mean America having left having lived in America for a dozen years
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  and now living in a country that properly funds its tax offers and its public services and
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  its organs of state it's amazing like I still have to do US taxes because I'm married to an American
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  guy and it's just night me like trying to you try to log into irs.gov and it kicks you back to
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  some other website so I create an account with this other e-tops website which is a subsidiary
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  of course I get through the final process after entering my inside leg measurements and you know
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  all of the data that they need and then they say your your new password and pin will be mailed
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  to you within four to six weeks I mean Australia I need access now you go to the you go to the
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  website you try it and you need your your last years return to in order to enter something but
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  that never works and it doesn't understand my address because I'm not in the like the system of
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  working you know the private health insurance in America the fucking hippo thing you need to
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  facts everything everywhere like this it's it is the most advanced developing country in the world
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  or the least developed developed country you know here in Australia nothing it's not perfect but
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  yeah I like the state government has an app that's pretty good and you just log on and they you
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  know things work you can renew your license without waiting in line for eight hours so you can do
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  even better it's all relative and I've had no shortage of frustrations with bureaucracy in the
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  United States and then I heard about what my friend who bought an apartment in France was going
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  through and I said okay some things don't work that poorly here I guess that's true yeah how's
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  the political conversation how's the climate tell me that I'm wrong in in viewing from a farm
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  I beloved former homeland gradually disintegrating into a a basket of quarreling tribes
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  no I agree I mean listen at this point it's extremely
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  envogue to make one of a few assessments of what's going on and so you've got the tribalism people
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  who love to rant for an hour about we've become so tribalistic and that's really fundamentally
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  the problem and then you have the next layer which is wait hold on a second sure tribalism fine
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  but one side is objectively crazy so it's not just tribalism you quite literally have one side
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  that has abandoned policy they're all about wokeness even though they can't define it they're all
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  about obsession with trans people and drag shows and so it's not so then that layer comes in
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  then you have the next layer which is we have fundamentally two countries in the United States
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  and I'm actually quite partial to this so this now is not just what some say I actually do think
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  it's a fair it's at least accurate to say in the United States you can divide the country up in
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  a number of ways geographically politically a bunch of different ways it is absolutely the case
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  that there is a basket of states in the US who's standard of living education infrastructure
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  access to health care average income is like that of Norway and Denmark you have that you have
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  that basket of states you then have a different basket of states that is very much like some of the
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  poorer countries of the world in terms of all of these metrics and that latter basket is subsidized
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  at the federal tax level by the first basket of states this is a reality when you look at you know
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  just something as simple as dental care how how common is it that you visited the dentist in the
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  last six months and you see these dramatic differences from Connecticut to Mississippi for example
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  and built into that is so much economics and sociology and anthropology and all these different things
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  and and there are really a couple of countries that are living it's not even side by side it's you
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  could say it's urban rural there's a number of ways to slice and dice it but that is absolutely
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  happening all at the same time don't they also have more than two that you know I've seen some
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  demographers breaking America up into these really interesting set of countries to come over there
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  like seven or something yeah but like you know and the the point I've often made the the point
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  to foreigners who asked me for a simplistic reductionistic explanations of what's happening in
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  America like after Trump was elected oh my goodness you know Americans are so this or Americans are
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  so that I'm like there is as much of a difference between Oregon and Mississippi and New Orleans
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  and Boston as there is really between parts of Portugal and parts of Belgium like the exception
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  of the language you know I have more in common with you and my buddy who I was just talking about who
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  lived in Berlin and now lives in the Mediterranean that there we there is a cosmopolitan
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  ruthless elite of people as the anti globalists like to call us who really do have more in common
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  with each other than the blood and soil assault of the earth people who have a deep sense of
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  place and tradition in hundred percent regional and rural parts of America yeah I've said before
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  and I've discussed you know talking about the whole moving thing the transition for me I've spent
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  quite a bit of time in London I've spent quite a bit of time in Madrid Paris is a little different
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  because I speak English in Spanish but my French is very mediocre but even still transitioning
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  there would be far simpler than moving to Acronohio for me or something along those lines culturally
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  and in so many different ways and sometimes I'll talk to people and say oh yeah you know I
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  I didn't really like the US it's just so hot and oh really where did you go well my um my partner
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  was um worked in Dallas Texas for a year right you really don't know the United States from that
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  any more than you know the French say Paris is really not reflective of all of France you've
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  got southern France and then Brittany and these are and that's a much smaller country imagine the
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  United States and saying I know what I know from being in Dallas for a year it's obviously
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  much more complex than that yeah totally you mentioned earlier by the way before we leave that
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  did you know the miss the the GDP of the United States I don't understand how economists
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  measure this stuff or what's going on the GDP per capita of the United States is so much higher
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  than other comparable countries where I regard the standard of living as being generally superior
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  that I read that like the GDP per capita in Mississippi is higher than the UK
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  yeah that made a GDP per capita median income is median income is probably better
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  to tell you something about quality of life than GDP per capita because GDP per capita
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  can be you're just basically dividing up what the what is produced economically by the number
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  of people that live there and it can be extraordinarily unequal so although you're dividing it by
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  the population the actual income or profit from that can be extremely concentrated so it's not a
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  great indicator of quality of life I'm going to look it up now I'm just going to bore the list
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  and the so nominal GDP at current 2022 prices I see nominal GDP per capita 47,190 dollars in
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  Mississippi GDP per capita of UK or let's say France since you were talking about France yeah
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  oh 43 43,000 oh yeah so less so Mississippi has a higher GDP per capita than France
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  yeah or to give another example if you look at the state of Virginia GDP per capita 71,000
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  but median income is 37,000 so they're we're really looking at two different things
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  well let's look at median income then median income Mississippi is 25,000 dollars in 2020
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  uh gee that's not a lot is it median income France 28,000 25 versus 28 man the average
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  median I'm seeing 40 for France I'm seeing 40 for France maybe good enough is leading me could be
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  in any in US dollars or in euros and we have 80 F of median income has France at 28
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  146 interesting indeed yeah you were saying earlier David now that's going to haunt me all day
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  I still don't understand I mean I still just don't understand it I don't understand how you can
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  drive through yeah you drive through Mississippi and I mean you made the comment about dentistry but
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  like you look at people's the way people live I mean I guess there's there may be something going
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  on here in terms of class rather than like in class comparison and culture versus just
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  economic well-being in the sense certainly I would see a town in Mississippi that's denuded of all
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  soul and culture and is just a large road with strip malls and a Walmart where fat people are
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  waddling in and buying their cheap consumer electronics goods as evidence of poverty but when I
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  once said that to an American friend of mine he was like well perversely that's actually evidence
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  of opulence right these are people who are able to buy more consumer goods than your average French
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  person might be that the old French guy who's like walking through a cobblestone town and going
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  and sitting down and smoking and playing bull and drinking coffee with his friends maybe actually
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  less of a financial you know he may be poorer on paper than the person who's driving a big cheap
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  SUV to Walmart to Waterland and and buy their Dunkin Donuts in some ways that's a that is a
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  superior economic actor the poor American than the median Frenchman yeah and this has been explored
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  quite a bit because of all of the discussion particularly since Donald Trump became president about
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  China and tariffs on China and bringing production back home in the context of the pandemic and
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  this sort of thing which is that in the United States a decision was made not by one person but
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  just by a successive series of policy decisions that we'd rather the cheap stuff from China so that
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  people can go into the Walmart and buy the stuff and the lower salaries and the offshoring of jobs
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  etc and whenever politicians left or right talk about bringing bringing production back home
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  sure that could be done over a period of decades but it also would bring with it significantly
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  higher costs at Walmart at places like Walmart and it's not really clear that people like it it seems
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  to some degree that the whole concept here is yes we may not have access to good health care
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  yes we may not make a lot of money but we get such cheap stuff from China that we can still get a
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  TV or whatever the case may be some on the right will use this as proof that there's no poverty
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  problem I remember a Bill O'Reilly segment must be 10 years ago but it's in my mind where he said
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  listen the poor in the US are fine they still have big screen TVs and cell phones and it sort of
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  misses the bigger picture about what actually leads to satisfaction what actually leads to freedom
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  to self-determine how you want to live your life or mobility or these sorts of things but it is true
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  that many of the poor in the United States factually speaking still have a big screen TV like
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  you're talking about yeah it's interesting and look I'm I don't object to the idea that it
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  doesn't matter if you don't have wage or salary growth as long as you have deinflation on all
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  of the goods that you want to buy that is functionally like getting a wage rise doesn't matter if you
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  keep earning $30,000 a year if the cost of everything that you care about is going down by 20%
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  because we're getting more efficient and we're offshoring and where you know and there's
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  free trade and there's AI or whatever the problem is that you also need to include in that basket of
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  things that you care about education and health right you can't yeah you can't have you big screen
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  TV and then also have diabetes that isn't treated yeah and the other thing I mean there's a
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  bigger economic conversation but deflation might sound good but it's actually not good for the
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  economy at least as far as we've structured it because under deflationary circumstances
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  you would expect things to cost less in the future which would cause you to delay purchases on
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  anything you don't absolutely need that delay of purchase starves businesses of customers which
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  causes them to lay people off and so the deflationary spiral is also bad at the macroeconomic level
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  but at least practically speaking you're making a good point which is people may not feel the wage
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  stagnation if they can continue to get cheap stuff from China yeah it's interesting yeah I
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  honestly think that if the United States were able to resolve those two things health and education
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  in other words if if there was health care at least a baseline of health care for everybody
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  and I'd like to get your thoughts about this as well about what that would look like because I think
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  many on the American left are are kidding themselves if they think that what universal health care is
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  extending the largest that Americans currently enjoy from many of their best private plans to
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  everybody that's not what we enjoy in countries where there is quite unquote universal
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  health care like Australia and Canada and most of Western Europe it's much more limited so Americans
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  would have a bit of a shock I think in realizing that oh okay well now there's all kinds of things
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  that aren't covered I mean Australia dental isn't covered by the you know by the government for
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  example there are all kinds of hodgepodge compromises that countries have to make to get laws passed
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  and to get things through they don't make a lot of sense but if you could do that and if you
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  could fix education so the public schools were funded equitably instead of from the local property
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  taxes in their neighborhood I mean can you think of a more bizarre way to entrench disadvantage
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  than to fund local schools by property taxes on the local communities so that poor areas get
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  poor get shitty schools and rich ones get rich ones you know and there's a little bit of redistribution
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  that happens at the state level where states will also supplement funding and so that's one
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  area where the taxes from a rich area may go to slightly improve schools in in less wealthy areas
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  but it's a fraction of the total funding as as you're pointing out yeah I mean and so if you fix
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  public school funding if you control a cost of tertiary education or at least make the assumption
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  that you're going to have a university degree less of an assumption and invest more in
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  technical skills or whatever else you need to do to make it less mandatory to come out of to enter
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  the adult workforce with a six-figure debt and provide health care then I think America looks pretty good
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  right and those are pretty significant changes on the on the on the college thing it is interesting
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  you know I have a 15-month-old daughter now and I'm going through the motions of she's
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  absolutely going to college but I don't really believe that she's absolutely going to college
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  you know I'm doing what we call a 529 plan it's sort of like a college savings account with
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  some tax advantages and I'm doing all of this stuff but when I sit back and think okay if she
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  went to the school I went to and there's six I think it's six percent a year cost growth we've
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  seen over the last 20 years if that continues it'll be about two hundred thousand dollars per year
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  by the time she's 18 okay so eight hundred thousand dollars for a four-year degree it just doesn't
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  make any sense it just makes no sense it makes no sense in any way you have one thing going for you
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  which is you're also far and national and I hear there are universities in Buenos Aires
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  yes and they're free yeah exactly you know the Australian government introduced I was no I was
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  paying attention to the whole debate about whether or you know the Biden college loan thing whether
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  or not college loans should be forgiven whether or not there should be free university education
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  and I guess I as something of a centrist myself I'm I'm moderately sympathetic to the the
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  sense of injustice that some people feel who have paid off their loans like why do these people get
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  a free handout my I did the right thing they didn't pay it off I managed to pay it off also the
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  sense that should universities be completely you know funded by state universities this is in the
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  United States of course half a degrees aren't going to be fully federally funded but should state
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  university state colleges be funded fully from the taxpayer with no co-pay from the people who go
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  there well university graduates tend to earn earn more than other people so what you're basically
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  doing is requiring people with lower incomes who are paying taxes to subsidize people who go
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  on to have higher incomes with with university degrees Australia came up with a pretty good
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  solution in the 1980s which has been gradually whittled away by successive conservative governments
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  and and undermined but it was good at the time which was called the higher education contribution
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  scheme where the government you wouldn't need to put any money down to go to university upfront
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  you still don't the government gives you a loan that loan is an interest free loan although it's
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  pegged to inflation so it rises according to the consumer price index every year but you're never
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  going to be saddled with that like you know paying interest the government issues the loan itself
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  and you only need to start paying back the loan after your income hits like above roughly
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  average income now that that threshold has come down and down over the years and it's sort of
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  that poverty level now but the idea was and and it's it's collected by the tax office without
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  you having to worry about it or see it right so when you get your tax statement at the end of the
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  year from the Australian equivalent of the IRS you know here are your taxes you've hit the threshold
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  to pay back your higher education contribution scheme here's a sliding scale you start at 2% 4%
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  you go up to 6% and ultimately then once you've paid it off then you don't have to worry about
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  do you have to don't have to think about it it solves the problem of inequality because although
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  there is a discount for people who pay in full upfront and although there are still some fees when
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  I went to university the government covered 80% of it at least and I had to pay about 20% of it
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  so that does exist in the United States for federal loans and Joe Biden recently expanded
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  the income-based repayment so that more people will qualify it's sort of just like growing the
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  pool of people that can take advantage of that so it exists to a degree it's not good for everybody
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  particularly folks who are earning enough to not qualify but still not so much that repaying
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  the loan right away is comfortable but that that does exist a little bit by the way I don't
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  forget the poor people I'm sorry do you mean it only exists for poor people in the States it's
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  it's expanded a little bit it the problem I guess what I'm saying is there are folks who are
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  making too much to qualify but still not really that much it's available for millions yeah yeah
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  anyway you said you didn't want to you didn't want to forget something it's it continues to
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  tickle me that in the UK and Australia calling something a scheme doesn't mean that it's bad
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  I always I always love that in the US they've come up with this scheme you're not going to
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  believe it and you're basically talking about like a scam right right I know that that's not a
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  cabal is come up with a scheme with the scheme exactly yeah no I think you're I think you're
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  absolutely right on all of those things I also think that if this collapses so when we think like
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  will my daughter really pay eight hundred thousand dollars for a bachelor's degree I don't know
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  it's not sounding really good to me it also will advantage folks who have other paths to make
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  connections in society and with in my mind with the people that I know I could help my daughter
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  not go to college and get the right internships and help her start a business where she may be less
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  affected by this outrageous increase to the cost of a four year degree that may not be an option
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  for other people so it again is just another way in which it will probably grow inequality
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  and yet even within the university sector the fact that there are legacy admissions which I
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  only learned about this I didn't I didn't I didn't know this was still a thing that you could yeah
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  you're child has a has a an obvious overt unabashed unashamed unhidden formal leg up in getting
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  into the institution that you went to that is the definition of inequality of inherited that's
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  generational inequality right there just get rid of that like for a start I mean when you're talking
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  about you know race based admissions or should we be able to take this into account should we
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  be able to take that into account how about daddy was privileged enough to go here is right we get
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  rid of now I don't know that every institution has that in the I just don't know enough about it yeah
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  right right yeah well yeah I just don't know that state schools have legacy admissions maybe they
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  do I'm just not sure no but maybe you don't need them in state schools I mean the right we're
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  talking about the one percent or the five percent I guess you said earlier just to pivot back to
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  culture war stuff that you know there's this whole narrative that some people go on about about
• 28:30
  oh we're so tribalized we you know we can't speak to each other anymore we're quarreling
• 28:36
  and the problem with that analysis is that there is one side that's gone bad shit crazy I would
• 28:43
  concur with all of that but I would also add isn't worth interrogating why one side has gone bad
• 28:48
  shit crazy not to absolve them of any responsibility for doing so but they haven't dropped from the
• 28:54
  sky yes sometimes I feel that the left the more progressives or social justice activists or whatever
• 29:03
  what I call them are providing a tremendous amount of ammunition that can be cynically misused
• 29:11
  by people who want to rile up the the right and they're nudging it further off the cliff is that
• 29:20
  blaming the victim well I think it would be interesting to hear some examples of the ammunition
• 29:26
  you're referring to uh so I suppose the sensoriousness of the way that people have conversations
• 29:34
  on social media the sensoriousness of the way that academic institutions handle flare-ups on
• 29:41
  social media the what the the hysteria and sensoriousness that university students including
• 29:49
  graduate students can exhibit towards different ideas that they regard as being hate speech so
• 29:56
  there are a million examples one could give but the most recent one that I've heard is
• 30:01
  is it yellow in bar who who does the I don't know if you know the the podcast two psychologists to
• 30:09
  anyway um brings a bell the basic story he's a he's a he's a center center left guy he's not a
• 30:16
  he's not a manipulative like oh I'm so hetero docs like uh bro dude bro and um his wife
• 30:25
  was offered a job at UCLA he's an academic and uh he went through the whole process was
• 30:32
  apparently going to get the job and then graduate students dug up podcasts that he'd done
• 30:37
  years ago in which he was skeptical about diversity equity and inclusion
• 30:42
  programs and processes not because he's anti-diversity he's very pro diversity he has bona
• 30:47
  feedays of being pro uh equality and pro diversity but the kind of bureaucratic formulaic form
• 30:56
  filling checkbox ticking way that uh white university educated people can formalize the structures of
• 31:04
  appropriate d i d i work yeah bothering him and in fact i mean one of the concerns that he had was
• 31:12
  if you're a new migrant from south asia you may just not be in the loop of all of these the ways
• 31:19
  that we're supposed to talk about race in america and the way that you support the things that
• 31:22
  you're supposed to say in the essay that you need to write to to demonstrate how your academic
• 31:28
  career is going to benefit minorities and people of color and people of different genders like
• 31:33
  it just may not be quite on your radar and it may be it it may be a this may be sort of a cabal
• 31:38
  coming back to that that word or a scheme within which white people with the correct education
• 31:45
  and the correct critical theory framework are able to promote each other and privilege each other
• 31:50
  over people who haven't got the memo on that stuff so graduate students heard these podcasts
• 31:56
  they presented him as being anti-diversity uh racist there was a petition it went viral
• 32:04
  UCLA pulled back didn't offer him the job we can't be 100% sure that they would have offered in
• 32:09
  the job but everything you certainly didn't help that there was this campaign against him
• 32:14
  this is one of a million little things i mean you can talk about the the new york times
• 32:20
  journalists who was fired for you know using the n-word in conversation amongst some students or
• 32:28
  the other professor who was fired for talking about a chinese word that sounds a little bit like
• 32:33
  the n-word but that triggered people so that those are the kinds of examples if you're asking
• 32:39
  the specifics that are very easily cherry picked presented to an audience in a certain way and
• 32:47
  don't aid uh the bringing together of america yeah i mean i think there's a couple different things
• 32:53
  there the so the joel in bar situation is an interesting one you know you were talking about
• 32:57
  legacy admissions uh joel's girlfriend had been offered a position in the psychology department at
• 33:03
  UCLA and there is a form of legacy slash nepotistic uh uh admissions of hiring at universities where
• 33:12
  they have these if your spouse gets hired and you're also a PhD we will kind of go out of our way
• 33:17
  to create a position for you we could debate whether that's a good policy that does not bother me
• 33:22
  though does it doesn't bother me that's horizontal right it's not it's not it's not a hero to
• 33:25
  and also it's a it's a sweetener for them to say like i know you're moving across the country
• 33:30
  yeah yeah yeah no but it's an interesting it's an interesting element to it i i i i'm sort of
• 33:34
  looking at the details here and you know he voiced skepticism about the DEI statements at the school
• 33:39
  he wants institutional neutrality in certain places um he apparently made some transgressions when
• 33:45
  it comes to so called inclusive etiquette in terms of uh he called a woman of color intense in a
• 33:52
  conversation with another professor i don't really like this stuff but in a different so there's
• 33:58
  a couple different layers to this one is are these types of statements statements worthy of not
• 34:06
  hiring someone that's question number one question number two is should student
• 34:14
  activism around such statements be considered by an educational institution in making such
• 34:22
  hiring decisions or should hiring decisions be made without considering the feedback of students
• 34:28
  and of course these students decide we're going to activate against or force something
• 34:34
  um not necessarily only on its merits but they're they're developed to this sort of like group
• 34:38
  think i would probably align with you on 99% of these things is your answer to both of those questions
• 34:45
  now my answer is um well let's take them one by one in terms of should these sorts of statements
• 34:54
  preclude someone from getting a certain job mean listen i would love to say that it should have
• 35:01
  no impact whatsoever but i think the problem is where do you draw the line i don't like this
• 35:07
  when i'm reading about this particular case concerns me i also am aware of the fact that
• 35:15
  if there is going to be a cultural mismatch even if i feel that the culture is wrong do i
• 35:23
  believe the institution should be in some way blocked from considering past statements
• 35:29
  probably not like they probably should be allowed it the institution should be blocked from doing so
• 35:35
  there are probably i think maybe the problem is to be as silly as they want to yeah we i think
• 35:40
  so i think we agree there i don't like that this is the way that so many hiring decisions are
• 35:46
  ultimately being made which is sort of rooting around in one's past combined with
• 35:53
  this sort of activism to say do not bring this person here it doesn't seem like the most
• 35:59
  sophisticated and precise way to hire yeah that would be my third point i mean i think you
• 36:05
  you're you're falling short with two yes there's there's you know should criticisms in the past on
• 36:12
  a podcast of diversity equity inclusion programs and calling a black colleague intense when
• 36:17
  she may have actually been intense preclude you from being employed the answer that may be no
• 36:23
  then there's then the question is should campaigns by graduate students you know activist campaigns
• 36:30
  be heated by the you know academic hieras employers i mean the answer to that i think is contingent
• 36:39
  our answer to the third question i would add which is what is the manner in which and what are
• 36:44
  the systems through which we are making decisions one and and two in other words yeah we responding
• 36:50
  in a knee jerk fashion to a social media mob because we're terrified that we're going to look bad
• 36:55
  and it's going to put us on the wrong side of some kind of ideological dictate or are we listening
• 37:01
  to what the students are saying evaluating them rationally and trying to assess whether or not it
• 37:06
  is in fact true that this person is either racist or bigoted or one i mean i i don't agree with
• 37:12
  you that that an ideological fit especially an academic institution is grounds for not bringing
• 37:19
  somebody in i think that you would have to demonstrate that he genuinely has the he does not have
• 37:24
  the interests of minority students at heart you know you would have to demonstrate that there's
• 37:29
  an actual there there not just that he's he's quibbling with processes and systems otherwise
• 37:35
  if that becomes a legitimate grounds for not hiring people or for firing people or for
• 37:40
  pillorering people in public or denigrating them or excluding them from polite society or no longer
• 37:45
  inviting them to your cocktail parties then you're you really are setting up a kind of a quasi
• 37:51
  Stalinist or at least let's say McCarthyist kind of system where there's right think and there's
• 37:55
  wrong think and if you question the systems that we have and you question the importance for our
• 38:01
  most vulnerable people in our society for you to fill out the forms in triplicate and write your
• 38:06
  essays about how you're going to assist them and pledge allegiance to the party elders and
• 38:12
  essentially say the right things if you dare to question to think independently to value
• 38:17
  traditional old liberal ideas of having a wide and ran bunches public debate where where all
• 38:22
  voices are accepted not done in their rights you can criticize them you can push back on them but
• 38:27
  that's the whole point you can push back on them you're not going to be regarded as a heretic
• 38:31
  will be burnt at the stake or who lose their job for pushing back on them like if your vision is
• 38:35
  not one of a liberal demos and an arena of free speech but your your worldview is look we only
• 38:43
  take people who agree with basically the framework that we've set up and that we all agree on I think
• 38:49
  that is a that that opens the door to a very pernicious place and clearly a lot of Americans do
• 38:54
  as well because that's getting used cynically by people who feel as as anxious as I do about that
• 39:02
  as a way to hoodwink them and cajole them and bully them and frighten them into voting for
• 39:08
  noxious individuals who want to undermine American democracy so I think the stakes are a lot higher
• 39:13
  than people give it credit for on the left give it credit for when we start playing this game
• 39:18
  yeah I I don't really have an acute problem with anything you said there although I do think
• 39:23
  there are certainly some examples of in academic departments where the departures from some of
• 39:31
  the norms would genuinely just the entire fit thing it's like I don't really want to debate it
• 39:39
  for on its merits in individual cases because the real concern I have with this entire discussion
• 39:46
  is that in the absence of policy the American right wing has chosen to cynically blow up the
• 39:55
  relative importance and frequency of what you and I are talking about to make it the issue they lie
• 40:01
  about it they exaggerate they tell stories about accommodations about you know cat litter boxes
• 40:08
  in bathrooms for students that identify as animal so I don't like I like I think this is a great
• 40:13
  conversation and the problem I have with it even we're doing it right now if someone doesn't
• 40:21
  know what's going on in the US and they come in and they hear the last 15 minutes they will almost
• 40:25
  certainly come away thinking that this sort of thing is far more central to the main problems
• 40:31
  that the country is facing right now I don't think that it is I think economic issues health care
• 40:37
  are lack of dealing with the climate the fact that education is so pathetic and so many parts of
• 40:42
  the country there are so many other issues that I think are more important I think voters generally
• 40:47
  agree which is why what you see on Reddit and Twitter does not always end up reflecting the way
• 40:52
  that elections go so I think it's a perfectly fine conversation on the specifics you and I will
• 40:58
  mostly agree but the problem that I see is the right has tricked people into thinking this is
• 41:04
  really what's at the foremost of the minds of the American voters when it is not yeah I completely
• 41:09
  agree I completely agree that it is a total side show to what really matters and I'd agree with
• 41:14
  your list of those things the climate chaos probably being maybe the most important thing because
• 41:19
  I think it's going to have knock-on effects to so many other things I think yeah the cost and
• 41:24
  stress and just sheer hassle of constantly dealing with deadly wildfires and and hurricanes is
• 41:31
  is just going to drive everybody up the wall and it's going to make it much harder to get anything
• 41:35
  else done yeah but the the only thing I would add to that or maybe push back on is that
• 41:43
  underpinning our ability to do to address any of those things is the the viability and sustainability
• 41:50
  of American democracy and to the extent that these stories are getting manipulated and misused
• 41:59
  and they're essentially being used as the laser pointer in front of the cat or the
• 42:04
  keys juggling in front of the face of your 15 month old to distract voters from what is what
• 42:10
  really ails them which are largely questions of economic justice and environmental justice
• 42:16
  and to the extent that the the new social justice orthodoxies on the left empower that and I'm
• 42:22
  not talking necessarily about one-off examples of your in bar and also talking about the reframing
• 42:28
  of what justice means from a conversation around economics and class to a conversations around
• 42:35
  identity race gender and and so on and I think that is a real pivot that's actually happened
• 42:40
  in the past 10 years that there is now a sense that the colorblindness of forget about Mandela
• 42:48
  or Martin Luther King or Gandhi even the colorblindness of someone like Obama is now seen as
• 42:54
  somewhat passe and naive and that the real justice mission is in turning the dial up not down on
• 43:00
  our self-consciousness about our own identities turning the dial up not down on our own sense of
• 43:05
  energized tribalism turning the dial up not down on our fear that we are all scrambling for a
• 43:12
  piece of a finite pie and that our identities are what should define how much of that pie we get
• 43:18
  there is a change in rhetoric on the left from one of universalism and economic justice and
• 43:23
  class to one of identity and and that shift is empowering and pouring petrol on the fears that
• 43:33
  you're talking about on the right and my concern is again I don't want to spend all our time
• 43:39
  banging on about how bad the left is but if the only people who are calling out the left for the
• 43:45
  problems in that shift are cynical right wingers then we're going to have a problem which is why
• 43:51
  it's actually worth people like me spending time trying to gently coax my colleagues on the left
• 43:57
  to be more sane because I fear that they're holding a dance party and pouring fire onto a bonfire
• 44:04
  that nobody wants to get out of control I agree and I'm on the same page as far as that goes you
• 44:09
  know for years I have said very clearly this is not the predominant view of the left but to the
• 44:17
  extent that identity politics has become toxic the left needs to be saying that needs to stop and
• 44:25
  as and I've said so many times identity does matter in the sense that our identity does inform
• 44:32
  our experience and our view on things so to the extent that I might say hey I'm Jewish let me
• 44:38
  tell you about the way that anti-semitism has manifested in my role as the host of my show
• 44:45
  my identity is relevant to that because that's exactly what we're talking about now if I start
• 44:51
  using my identity as a cudgel to silence others or to in some way structurally change what they
• 45:00
  can or should be allowed to say or the things that we're talking about that's where the line
• 45:05
  has to be drawn and I've said the toxic identity politics of the left do enable the right and also
• 45:13
  I am observing that it is an extremely small but loud portion of the left and so one of the things
• 45:20
  that I try to do as someone from the left is not give it more oxygen than it deserves don't ignore
• 45:26
  it as you're saying I don't ignore it but I say oh in addition to all these other things that I
• 45:30
  want to talk about there is also this contingent of the left here's why I disagree with it here's
• 45:34
  why it's counterproductive here's why it serves right wing interests let's be aware of it but we're
• 45:39
  not going to spend you know my entire show talking about that no you know whatever the case I'm
• 45:43
  not sure I would concur though that it's small and loud I mean it depends what we're defining right
• 45:47
  I mean so the the people who will actually come out and you know spit in the face of a professor
• 45:54
  for I don't know daring to talk about equality instead of equity or something like that is small
• 45:59
  and loud but I mean I don't know what world you're living in but there are all kinds of new orthodoxies
• 46:06
  that really cannot be questioned without you being a pillar reader excluded from
• 46:11
  polite society I just don't know that I agree I mean I I agree that there are attempts to impose
• 46:17
  these orthodoxies but if there's any greater example of the fact that it is not predominant
• 46:24
  in any space on the left it's the 2020 uh uh reput a democratic primary where you had one discussion
• 46:34
  that was attempted to be imposed primarily on social media and it was a discussion about
• 46:39
  the disaster the the racist disaster that is Joe Biden and on and on and on and you would have
• 46:45
  looked at it and said wow Bernie Sanders is going to win this primary on the backs of this uh
• 46:52
  woke agenda of that exactly what you're describing and then people in Michigan and Wisconsin and
• 46:57
  South Carolina who work for a living spend very little time on social media spend very little time
• 47:02
  paying attention to this stuff said oh I like the economic message of Joe Biden and that's one
• 47:07
  voting for me I'm not talking about a majority of like democratic voters I'm talking about a vast
• 47:12
  majority of the chattering classes I mean I'm talking about what what we think of as being the
• 47:17
  intellectual elite we're talking about the people who go to parties in Brooklyn and you know
• 47:23
  and on the side of Los Angeles with you know when we're not talking about you know people
• 47:28
  but I hate I hate to say it but the fraction of those on the left in Los Angeles and Brooklyn
• 47:34
  who go to the parties and impose those orthodoxies is a pretty damn small part of the entire left
• 47:42
  I don't think that the the ideas that are generated and the orthodoxies that are uh
• 47:47
  that are imposed by those people are without their harms they they filter out through the editorial
• 47:53
  pages of newspapers they filter out through the campaigns of politicians they filter out through
• 47:59
  what people are acceptably demonized for on social media I mean just let's just talk specifics
• 48:05
  like rather than talking around it like let me think of some things I've talked about my head um
• 48:10
  you know how easy is it for how easy is it for a white put I mean in Australia there's an obvious
• 48:16
  example which would be that it has become the norm in the past 10 years for every meeting
• 48:21
  including online to begin with a with an acknowledgement of country a land acknowledgement
• 48:26
  right uh it is not really tenable to say you know I'm not sure that we necessarily are actually
• 48:36
  assisting any indigenous people by us white people on this zoom call reciting this catechism
• 48:44
  that will you won't be invited back to the next zoom call yeah so that's a really good example
• 48:50
  that's really can I just weigh in on that example yeah so I agree with you complete I have I've
• 48:55
  said for years I think those declarations and the let's go around the room or the zoom with our
• 49:00
  pronouns I think both of those things do not make sense are there some people that disagree with me
• 49:07
  sure are there some institutions that have said this is what we're doing and if you question it
• 49:13
  you're going to be ostracized a hundred percent that exists I mean yet I think it's such a small
• 49:19
  percent it's really not I mean you know the biggest drug companies in America and the biggest
• 49:25
  software companies in America now have pronouns in their bios and yeah maybe you can opt out I'm
• 49:30
  not sure my friends who work for one of the biggest pharmaceutical companies in the world which
• 49:34
  is actually headquarters in accorded in Switzerland he works in Switzerland nonetheless the
• 49:38
  California like social justice orthodoxy has made its way to Switzerland he doesn't in practice
• 49:45
  have the right as a senior manager to remove his pronouns from his buyer would be seen as like
• 49:51
  why do you hate transgender people so much yeah I mean I feel like we're kind of getting
• 49:56
  at the point where we just disagree as to the relative frequency of this stuff I don't know
• 50:02
  anyone who has even a number of like you know the number of top 50 companies that have pronouns
• 50:08
  in their bios I suppose yeah I'd be curious to know what the numbers are I don't I don't know
• 50:12
  the numbers so I mean I think I agree with you that I think it's a bit much and you know I'm sure
• 50:19
  there are some on the left that will disagree with me but when I've expressed these views to my
• 50:23
  audience it's not considered controversial and my audience is overwhelmingly on the left I mean how
• 50:28
  yeah but I intentionally said that I was picking an example where Australia was much more along the
• 50:34
  path of of those particular examples but I mean to just trying to think of a more Americanized
• 50:39
  example it'd be interesting to know what kinds of you know polite left wing environments you
• 50:46
  could say you know what I really don't believe that white people are racist I just don't I don't
• 50:50
  think that that this idea of there being like structural racism is even a thing and I don't think
• 50:55
  that there's such a thing as inherited like generate intergenerational trauma I think every person
• 51:00
  is just born a new person and there's no you're not you're not owed anything just because there
• 51:05
  was slavery in the past there was slavery in all kinds of places the Arab-Tad slaves the the
• 51:09
  Brit-Tad slaves you know the United States is sitting on half of Mexico you know life is tough
• 51:14
  you know everyone sort of needs to figure out how to make it on their own I just don't I don't
• 51:18
  agree that there is any there is any existing and living disadvantage against black people in America
• 51:24
  I mean that I don't I don't know how far you would you would get with that yeah those are not
• 51:29
  things that I'm saying that I believe I'm just right point to things I think it depends on which
• 51:33
  one of those things you're saying you know I think that like to give two examples saying I'm not
• 51:39
  convinced there should be reparations for the descendants of slaves some on the left will say oh
• 51:44
  that's a very that's the the wrong position to take I'll just say yeah that is something that I
• 51:49
  think has become fair on the other hand it's pretty uncontroversial to say that for example in
• 51:55
  many major cities a form of structural racism that's left over from from decades past is the way
• 52:01
  that public transit is organized public transit remains organized in a way that makes it very
• 52:07
  difficult to get from the historically black neighborhoods to the neighborhoods where all the jobs
• 52:11
  are it's not because anybody today said let's make racist bus lines it's a vestige of what there
• 52:19
  was before and you get that it's a form of of structural racism it doesn't mean the guy from the
• 52:26
  you know transit authority is personally racist but I think we have to also accept that those
• 52:31
  things do exist so I think it's a much more complicated gray area with a lot of this stuff
• 52:38
  do you think that there is a do you think that the things that can be discussed openly without fear
• 52:45
  of being misrepresented are constrained more tightly today than they were in the past
• 52:51
  probably yeah probably I mean I think I don't think so no so here's here's my thing my view is
• 53:04
  it should be on the table to discuss anything none of these conversations should be blocked or
• 53:10
  preempted out of hand and the example I often give is when I think it was the Harvard
• 53:16
  president at the time Larry Summers he said something about maybe there's something
• 53:23
  neurologically about men and women and math like maybe there is something that explains
• 53:32
  why there are more male mathematicians than female and he was like roundly attacked for it and
• 53:39
  it was crazy you know my view on that is if it were true that there were something about the
• 53:46
  brain that made men and women different when it comes to math we should know that it would be
• 53:53
  extremely important to know that it should be explored it shouldn't be dismissed out of hand
• 53:58
  and also we need to be vigilant about people who are asking these questions in bad faith
• 54:05
  sometimes questions to which we already have answers so so I hope I'm making like the two
• 54:10
  sides clear when we say are you saying we shouldn't be allowed to know whether vaccines
• 54:15
  causatism of course we should be allowed to know but it's been studied and you just saying you're
• 54:22
  not being allowed to ask the question is wrong you're allowed to ask it it's been studied we have
• 54:27
  data we have so I think we have to both be attuned to bad faith blocking of certain questions
• 54:34
  but also people who want to ask questions we have the answers to and they're doing it for
• 54:38
  cynical reasons that's true I mean I would just make the point that the censorship is more
• 54:42
  insidious than just saying you can't have that conversation right I mean the very few people
• 54:47
  even the most cancel culturey person is unlikely to say you're not allowed to have that conversation
• 54:51
  now they might you know disinvite a speaker from coming to college or something which is a
• 54:55
  version of there will be repercussions but the more insidious yeah the repercussions and the more
• 54:59
  insidious thing the fact that you just you walk around the rest of your life with a whiff about
• 55:03
  you which you're carrying from having been the subject of a social media pile on that was
• 55:08
  accusing you of being racist or or bigger than it in some way right I mean it's just a it's a
• 55:13
  willful misinterpretation of what you're trying to say and on the on the larry summer's question
• 55:17
  I mean you know maybe a more a more pressing example on that same issue was when Google fired
• 55:25
  the engineer James DeMore who Google had literally said let's try to figure out how to get more
• 55:30
  women into into software engineering so we're open to all suggestions like everyone write everyone
• 55:36
  write in this is we're asking all of our employees for an understanding he writes this piece saying
• 55:42
  you know there may just be gender differences here this you know there may be there may be maybe
• 55:45
  things that women are interested in and I would add that I don't think the autism and vaccines
• 55:50
  analogy is a good one because they're they we really do have science on that I mean we know that
• 55:54
  there is no link the jury is still out I mean there are all kinds of studies that show that if you get
• 55:59
  a thousand women together in a room and give them the option of taking a part a bunch of widgets
• 56:04
  and putting them back together or if you ask them if they want to spend the day mediating a
• 56:08
  family dispute and then you do the same with a bunch of men there actually is a gender difference
• 56:13
  now is that biological is that a culture we don't know but I don't think that firing someone
• 56:19
  for saying you know maybe you know two sexes have been going back through biology for a very
• 56:24
  long time lots of different animals and lots of different cultures structure there the interests
• 56:29
  of the two sexes in different ways and the roles of the two sexes in different ways maybe there is
• 56:34
  some kind of biological difference this is another issue that is likely to get you pilloried
• 56:39
  and accused of bigotry towards transgender people if you insist that there's some difference
• 56:44
  between by the biological sex but I mean I don't think we can say that the the case is closed on
• 56:49
  that question no I think in some in in some areas the case is closed and in some it is not some
• 56:54
  have been studied and some some have not I think you know the the example you gave obviously
• 56:59
  that the the thousand men and the thousand women are being asked to choose what they'd rather do
• 57:03
  with decades of culture already in their brains and so I think you and I understand why it's
• 57:08
  a sort of complicated question the James de Moore thing I have I interviewed him I have to admit
• 57:13
  it's been a while since I I don't I remember he wrote a sort of manifesto of sorts explaining
• 57:19
  his potential views on the thing one of the things that I remember about that was when I interviewed
• 57:24
  him it seemed to me that he did not relate easily to other people and it was later revealed that
• 57:34
  he's actually autistic and and I wonder to what degree the interactions with him became frayed
• 57:42
  because he does as a result of that struggle in some of these conversations and I don't know how
• 57:48
  he was communicating these things behind the scenes there's so much to that that I don't remember
• 57:52
  that's revealing I mean it's also revealing because people on the spectrum tend to have a you know
• 57:59
  a difficulty in understanding the sort of social cues and social niceties and social norms that
• 58:04
  that neurotypical people take for granted so he may have just said like I'm just telling my
• 58:08
  version of the truth and I don't understand why it's a problem yeah it's been so long that I just
• 58:13
  don't remember but obviously I remember the story but some of the details that allude me now yeah
• 58:17
  I want to talk to you about Joe Biden and maybe the alternative media universe the Joe Rogan's
• 58:24
  and tympals of the world but for our regular listeners I want to thank you for listening and I
• 58:30
  want to thank you for for being here we'll wrap up that portion if you want to subscribe to
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• 58:37
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• 58:44
  and these these final little chapters with the likes of David Pacman David a lot of the rhetoric
• 58:50
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• 58:56
  least an anxiety about Biden's age is that an unfair distraction to hear the rest of this
• 59:07
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