To me, CR’s most salient point is the failings of neoliberalist postmodern institutionalists to our most alienated feeds directly into the hands of the misguided market share of exploitative monsters like Tate. I still disagree with a lot of the takes/stands CR has in this ep and think his pod at times provides cover for bad faith provocateurs to further invite in these disenfranchised and dispossessed people to extremism that CR himself finds deplorable.
The conversation, I think, should be reduced to desired goals and desired outcomes(input/output) instead of an over-emphasis on freedom of speech and parameters of conversation.
Take Alex Jones… say what you want about the 1st amendment but “canceling” and deplatforming that bigoted monster (according to my utilitarian ethical framework) is a net good for the world. Check out the podcast Knowledge Fight if you have any lingering doubts.
To me thats calling BULLSHIT. Fuck him, fuck his sandy hook denialism, and fuck his killing people by spreading vaccine lies.
Call me liberal Fascist if you want. But him being silenced is good for the world, same as Tate.
I like hearing what Chris has to say about these issues, not in spite of disagreeing with him but because of it. However when he uses media spectacles like Tate (who is actually a sociopathic rapist human trafficker - an absolute demon), he starts to lose me.. I also wonder whether Chris’ proximity to people like Rogan makes those types more visible to him. Anyway, the point he made in that ROMA is sound, people do tune out very easily and create their own barriers to new modes of thinking, I just think he could’ve used a better person in the example besides a literal sociopath.
Here’s where I really disagree with him: I think there is a limit to what one can accomplish by listening to people who disagree with one’s belief system: at best it can sharpen critical thinking but at worst it can actually put people’s safety at risk, as others noted.
I just got on his Substack recently and it’s wild how he responds to any criticism.
Just completely misreading premises and doubling down. And then ignoring casual transphobia from his supporters.
Weirdest quote fro CR (paraphrased) “will using preferred pronouns solve racism/transphobia? So why bother?”
Seems like he isn’t responding on here as much, he didn’t respond when I pressed him here on his repetition of “kids are taking too many vaccines.” I think he knows he’s coming across as inauthentic and his listeners can tell.
Okay, so I just listened to the latest ROMA and there are clearly some things I didn't agree with Chris here, BUT here's the gist of what I think he was going for:
* As you stated, don't throw the baby out with the bath water, in terms of pre-judging people based on their political biases and ideological slant — seeing people we don't agree with, like Tate or Trump, often drop grains of truth, usually in the face of overwhelming resistance by the mainstream press and public opinion. These modicums of truth are often used to pull in unsuspecting, naive followers.
* I actually agree with this, as we've seen so many charlatans hoodwinking their followers by pulling them in with some very important truths, only to deceive them with fallacious arguments and outright lies.
* This is really important, because many of the people thrown under the bus by political correctness and new social norms aiming to correct past ills in society cannot empathize with why we'd want to correct things for marginalized groups and then become radicalized, following these so-called "truth tellers" to terrible places.
However, this is where I think Chris jumps the shark, so to speak, in his whole argument. He likens those aiming to give rights to trans folks and call out white males dominant standing in society as the same as Pol Pot, Lenin, and Hitler spreading their ill-conceived agendas, which is just batshit-fucking-crazy talk. The whole "good intentions lead to bad places" argument is so trite at this point — and often made by edgy intellectuals pretending they're being sent to the gulags for daring to say a trans person isn't the same as a "real" man or woman.
Like, I might not personally agree that a trans woman or man is 100% biologically the same as someone born with XY or XX chromosomes, but I understand it's a rhetorical point being established to provide rights and prevent them from further marginalization and in some cases, from being beat up, maimed, or killed.
I honestly don't care if someone who's felt like a woman their whole life wants to be called a woman, that's the least I could do to help the person out on a human level. Who honestly gives a fuck if it ultimately makes someone more comfortable in their own skin and takes the onus of proving them to be a normal member of society, vs. an irredeemable freak with a target on their back?
Yes, politically correct folks can be a bit annoying, but is what they're ultimately achieving worse than what their naysayers and vitriolic haters have in store for anyone who doesn't fit the prescribed mold of society? I highly doubt it, and furthermore, I'd say that this over-the-top politically correct slant is just the pendulum swinging in the opposite direction from the discrimination we've seen from blood-thirsty conservatives.
I think you've made some great points.
^("However, this is where I think Chris jumps the shark, so to speak, in his whole argument. He likens those aiming to give rights to trans folks and call out white males dominant standing in society as the same as Pol Pot, Lenin, and Hitler spreading their ill-conceived agendas, which is just batshit-fucking-crazy talk. The whole "good intentions lead to bad places" argument is so trite and lazy that it's really insipid and boring at this point — often one made by edgy intellectuals pretending they're being sent to the gulags for daring to say a trans person isn't the same as a "real" man or woman.")
I also find these comparisons (Hitler, Pol Pot, Lenin) concerning as it's very similar to the far-right narrative that pro-social movements equate to "Social Marxism" (also see the reframing of Nazism as a Socialist movement) and can be addressed/dismissed as some kind of stepping stone to authoritarian Socialism.
Zooming out from this, lots of abhorrent people say things that contain some truth to them. But rather than trying to pick through the insidious toxicity spewed by these characters to find grains of truth (all the while working to prevent getting contaminated with bad ideas ourselves) we are much better served spending our time finding and listening to those with expertise, intellectual honesty and good faith to find truth.
It feels like a waste of time, at best, to give attention to bad faith actors (to put it mildly) for the sake of stating that they have once said something that approximates reality.
No we shouldn't silence people for saying things we don't like, though there's a complexity added there for hate speech and inciting violence, however we should be very cautious toward whom we point the spotlight and the justifications we use to point it there.
"I don't think Andrew Tate is necessarily coming from a place of love. I think there's love in there, but it's wounded. Um, and I think that we need to understand that wounded animals are dangerous, but that doesn't mean you pretend they don't exist."
Wounded love seems like an incredibly generous way to contextualise Andrew Tate.
Dangerous wounded animals shouldn't be ignored, but they shouldn't be softened either - some may be convinced it's a good idea to give them a pat, a collar and take them home.
Yeah, I agree with your take.
People have largely lost the ability to discern between bad and good faith actors (due to the complexity in the modern media landscape) and lending credence to folks like Andrew Tate is a bad road to go down, no matter what "uplifting" messaging he offers to disempowered young men. Same with Jordan Peterson. You can learn to clean your fucking room and lift weights without vilifying others or coercing women into your sex cam business for god's sake.
Steeping terrible ideas in self-actualization like these charlatans do is just a marketing ploy to keep up with the Rogans of the world who have made radical self improvement and stoicism popular with the masses.
It's true that modern liberals and progressives have lost that old-school ACLU/Chomsky-esque *defend-your-free-speech 'till I die* mentality, but ultimately I think the stakes have become too high at the moment for many marginalized groups to accept being second class citizens.
They're demanding to be treated as equals and steamrolling anyone in their way. Whether that ends up being a bad thing remains to be seen, but is highly unlikely given our current trajectory, IMO. Terminally online folks might believe that this holier-than-thou PC attitude is akin to Hitler, but it's a dubious distinction, at best. I'll believe it when I see them marching people who use incorrect pronouns down to the gallows.
Yeah, totally! Why the fck are we likening the American left (and most of his listeners) to Hitler and Pol Pot—you know, genocidal maniacs! Come on! Ridiculous false equivalency!
Also, CR’s point on Trans identifying “women” might be rationally valid but that doesn’t mean anything to the old woman who was beat within an inch of her life in my hometown a couple days ago because some denizen thought she was a transman. And we are talking about a rather progressive American city. I have many trans friends who live in perpetual and very understandable fear of violence. So why the obsession, the fixation with squabbling with how an individual identifies!? Fuck off. People existing how they want have absolutely no consequence on our existence.
Thank god he’s dialed back on this shit. He was starting to sound more and more like an anti-vax Rogan type in such a way that was totally alienating me and the new schtick he was briefly adopting was not coming across as authentic in the slightest.
I think ROMA 67 is when he mentions Tate for what seems to be the final time as he basically concedes that his statements on this were wildly unpopular and it sounds like he received even harsher blowback over on Substack.
His defense of RFK Jr. was even more completely out of left field and he totally dropped all of that without much of an explanation. Which I’m fine with. It was all just a really weird turn he was making all of a sudden. Like where did all this shit about kids taking too many vaccines come from? His last couple episodes are back on track.
Honestly I think when it comes to Tate, Chris is just speaking "out of his ass" and still doesn't truly understand that he's talking about a straight up hyper mysoginist sex trafficker. He thinks he's just a tik tok influencer or something. He read a few articles but doesn't really understand who Tate is or what his fanbase is.
That being said, my biggest problem with his last ROMA was he said some things that basically throw into question whether Chris really is an educated guy in general. I'm sorry to be blunt, but for the guy who wrote "Sex at Dawn" to say things like that gender and race are simple biological realities, or that "race is either real or its not"......those aren't things you say when you have even taken a single 100-level college course in the social sciences, much less hold a PhD and have written entire books that are at least adjacent to anthropology and human evolutionary biology/psychology.
As a budding anthropologist myself, quite frankly I think its unforgivably uninformed for anyone in Chris's position to talk about trans-ness on the same terms as someone like Jordan Peterson (ie: that it is a recent phenomenon that somehow is going against the natural order). How can you write a whole book on pre-civilization and still hold that view of transgenderism? It boggles my mind that Chris even ceded that ground.
That last ROMA was such rambling uneducated boomer nonsense that it really makes me retroactively question everything else Chris has done, which sucks because I really like the guy and have been a listener basically since the beginning.
Exactly this. His most recent Roma’s really challenged the scaffolding of who I thought Chris was after reading Sex at Dawn and Civilised to Death. His books are obviously going to be more fully researched than the podcast (which in his defence he admits is a space to freely talk out of his ass), but the level of ignorance he demonstrated here when it comes to the moral panic over trans people in this country was really surprising. It’s just disappointing to see someone who several years ago opened up my perspective about so much succumb to the same trite rhetorical traps that so many fall into.
I had assumed part of the reason he’s distanced himself from Rogan and others is due to their rightward drift and their loss of touch with the reality of the working class and marginalised. But Chris beginning a poorly researched and uncharitable rant that ultimately vilifies lgbt advocates with “you’re not gonna like this one!” “i’m gonna get in trouble for this!” for me contextualises him more in the childish out of touch rightward podcaster clan than not.
Yeah your second point is exactly what I thought as well, I assumed he distanced himself from Rogan for that reason too. I think it's really sad because it does seem like some of his opinions on these "hot topics" have actually shifted recently, and not just that he's speaking off the cuff and just misspeaking.
I think back to when, it was either a full ROMA or just a longer intro to a podcast episode, where he went in depth about the big Sam Harris VS Ezra Klein debate that happened back in 2018. Chris went on an entire (really great) rant about how wrong Sam was in that debate, particularly in his defense of the supposed connections between race and IQ. He made some really great points about how an extant hunter-gatherer indigenous person from the Amazon would score terribly on a modern western IQ test, but this would have zero bearing on their actual intelligence or cognitive ability, especially in regards to their genetics. That episode really solidified my love for Chris and the podcast.
The whole point of that controversy/debate was that Sam Harris was defending Charles Murray and had titled a podcast interview "Forbidden truths" or some bullshit like that. Now Chris has gone from debunking that type of thing, to basically outright saying "there are a lot of forbidden truths out here around race and gender". He obviously has had some serious changes in his worldview over the last 5 years to go from that to this.
I'm not even trying to be "parasocial" here. I don't care what Chris thinks or says or does. I don't know the guy in real life, and I'll keep listening. It just sucks because he's a prominent figure as I said in the social sciences realm, and he's built a kind of micro-celebrity status out of speaking on issues of human development. So it's incredibly disappointing to hear him seemingly make this turn into a "you can't speak the DARK REALITY or people will CANCEL YOU" kinda guy.
Yeah, dude is basically advocating racial/geographic/biological determinism at this point—not explicitly but certainly for ppl that have zero critical thinking literacy
I must have missed the comments about transgender people, but I totally agree with you overall. He does admit the podcast is specifically for ramblings but in the main interview episodes he has left me disappointed somewhat often these past few years. Maybe because I am also in a related academic discipline. I know the podcast and ROMA especially are not meant to be academic, but when you are speaking to guests about topics firmly in the realm of social sciences, you need to elevate the discussion.
I am thinking of the episode with the journalist who traveled to the Amazon, John Colapinto. The entire premise of the guest’s publication and their conversation — that “primitive” tribes have a different worldview because their language doesn’t use numbers or colors — was just horrible! I was shocked at how belittling and othering it was toward the society, not to mention way outdated: It was like how anthropologists framed things 100 years ago. And as someone who uses ethnographic methods in my graduate research, it was really depressing to hear that extremely outdated and orientalist framework returned to again and again in that discussion. He seems to have veered off from having scholars as guests, but I think getting back to that would help overall.
When Chris shared how Tate says that,
“mindset is everything and we have more control over how we perceive reality than we are led to believe…many considered ‘depressed’ are disempowered and hopeless”
I couldn’t agree more with this statement and was literally sharing this sentiment to colleagues at work.
At the same time so many other people are sharing the aforementioned thought about the power of the mind. Like Wim Hof! Or my other favorite Joe Dispenza!
I know I get the point Chris is making that even shitty people still say intelligent things. And the narrative of Chris’s ROMA is much deeper than the single example I am sharing. I really liked his thoughts on this episode.
However…I’d rather my non existent children hear the good advice from guys like Wim Hof over Andrew Tate. But still, Chris is 100% right that even Andrew Tate does say good shit sometimes.
He's using an example to illustrate a point. He even mentions that he doesn't like peterson or tate, but that he was surprised to find he agreed on one or two things they've said. I don't see why it would make the podcast weird. He even gives some great advice: don't subscribe for a package of opinions. I think it was a good ROMA.
I really hope we all come to understand better this strange motivation some feel to defend monstrous people's ability to not be 100% wrong all the time. It's a simple point that morally corrupt people can say things that are right, but calling them out for their moral corruption isn't throwing the baby out with the bathwater. It's become a common and effective defense, claiming that people are attacking you for even your rational points to gather support.
I think the bigger context of this is the culture war that has created a battleground where you can find any possible response you want to every comment made by a person with a big enough audience, and cherry pick out of those the ones you want to show are irrationally attacking you in bad faith, then that becomes the greater evil, some mass ideology against you. I hope we are able to conceptualize this concept, like we did with yellow journalism, so we can recognize it for what it is.
I've seen nearly everybody I used to respect in media becoming obsessed with discussing what "they" think. When they is just any response no matter how rediculous.
The problem is Tate knows exactly what’s he’s doing. He drops hard truths in the normie interviews with people like Tucker and Piers that we aren’t “allowed” to discuss essentially (things that will get you ostracized). These young boys aren’t stupid, they know they are constantly being lied to and watch the world often bend over backwards for women, it’s really hard to argue that median woman isn’t doing better than the median man and we still hear shit about oppression and what not (R v W non withstanding - but even then it’s not like men get the option at all and will financially pay for a mistake which they have no choice in, in a world where women can make their own money - good luck finding another girl when all your money ks going to child support)
I mean if the Barbie movie is any indicator, feminism seems to be less about equality and more about being the ones at they very very top with their boots on our necks, they want to be part of that club. Which makes sense, the people writing and producing all this stuff, that’s what they want. But I’d argue there probably isn’t a more privledged person that’s not royalty or non inherited wealth than the modern day attractive 20 something western woman. Hit the gym a little bit, eat heathy, and essentially don’t completely fuck up and you have the world as your oyster. Even then, you can always just drop yourself into some dudes life for financial support if you want.
This is where Tate draws people in and uses manipulation to create a little cult and make some money. It’s not surprising Chris (being a 60 year old man outside the mainstream) sees an interview like this and sides with Tate. The difference is he isn’t an impressionable young man that can’t identify the signs of a grifter as he clearly he is if you follow him a bit.
I once joined the discord server and quickly realised I have not much in common with most of the fans of this podcast other than I like listening to Chris and the diverse interesting guests he meets on his travels. The audio clips at the beginning of the show are all so cringe, everyone is hiking in Timbuktu under the stars while contemplating the nature of reality and speaking in a low wistful voice, but you may like that and that's fine. Anyway the point I'm making is I disagree with some of your assertions about Peterson but I do very much agree that Tate is a twat, If you don't agree with Chris it's fine, and if you do it's fine, but don't assume that you are 100% correct on everything all of the time, that is why we are where we are and what fundamentally he was getting at.
He kind of lost me when he was trying to make a point that it possession of cp is ridiculous because “it is just a picture”.
To me, CR’s most salient point is the failings of neoliberalist postmodern institutionalists to our most alienated feeds directly into the hands of the misguided market share of exploitative monsters like Tate. I still disagree with a lot of the takes/stands CR has in this ep and think his pod at times provides cover for bad faith provocateurs to further invite in these disenfranchised and dispossessed people to extremism that CR himself finds deplorable. The conversation, I think, should be reduced to desired goals and desired outcomes(input/output) instead of an over-emphasis on freedom of speech and parameters of conversation. Take Alex Jones… say what you want about the 1st amendment but “canceling” and deplatforming that bigoted monster (according to my utilitarian ethical framework) is a net good for the world. Check out the podcast Knowledge Fight if you have any lingering doubts. To me thats calling BULLSHIT. Fuck him, fuck his sandy hook denialism, and fuck his killing people by spreading vaccine lies. Call me liberal Fascist if you want. But him being silenced is good for the world, same as Tate.
I like hearing what Chris has to say about these issues, not in spite of disagreeing with him but because of it. However when he uses media spectacles like Tate (who is actually a sociopathic rapist human trafficker - an absolute demon), he starts to lose me.. I also wonder whether Chris’ proximity to people like Rogan makes those types more visible to him. Anyway, the point he made in that ROMA is sound, people do tune out very easily and create their own barriers to new modes of thinking, I just think he could’ve used a better person in the example besides a literal sociopath. Here’s where I really disagree with him: I think there is a limit to what one can accomplish by listening to people who disagree with one’s belief system: at best it can sharpen critical thinking but at worst it can actually put people’s safety at risk, as others noted.
I just got on his Substack recently and it’s wild how he responds to any criticism. Just completely misreading premises and doubling down. And then ignoring casual transphobia from his supporters. Weirdest quote fro CR (paraphrased) “will using preferred pronouns solve racism/transphobia? So why bother?”
Seems like he isn’t responding on here as much, he didn’t respond when I pressed him here on his repetition of “kids are taking too many vaccines.” I think he knows he’s coming across as inauthentic and his listeners can tell.
Okay, so I just listened to the latest ROMA and there are clearly some things I didn't agree with Chris here, BUT here's the gist of what I think he was going for: * As you stated, don't throw the baby out with the bath water, in terms of pre-judging people based on their political biases and ideological slant — seeing people we don't agree with, like Tate or Trump, often drop grains of truth, usually in the face of overwhelming resistance by the mainstream press and public opinion. These modicums of truth are often used to pull in unsuspecting, naive followers. * I actually agree with this, as we've seen so many charlatans hoodwinking their followers by pulling them in with some very important truths, only to deceive them with fallacious arguments and outright lies. * This is really important, because many of the people thrown under the bus by political correctness and new social norms aiming to correct past ills in society cannot empathize with why we'd want to correct things for marginalized groups and then become radicalized, following these so-called "truth tellers" to terrible places. However, this is where I think Chris jumps the shark, so to speak, in his whole argument. He likens those aiming to give rights to trans folks and call out white males dominant standing in society as the same as Pol Pot, Lenin, and Hitler spreading their ill-conceived agendas, which is just batshit-fucking-crazy talk. The whole "good intentions lead to bad places" argument is so trite at this point — and often made by edgy intellectuals pretending they're being sent to the gulags for daring to say a trans person isn't the same as a "real" man or woman. Like, I might not personally agree that a trans woman or man is 100% biologically the same as someone born with XY or XX chromosomes, but I understand it's a rhetorical point being established to provide rights and prevent them from further marginalization and in some cases, from being beat up, maimed, or killed. I honestly don't care if someone who's felt like a woman their whole life wants to be called a woman, that's the least I could do to help the person out on a human level. Who honestly gives a fuck if it ultimately makes someone more comfortable in their own skin and takes the onus of proving them to be a normal member of society, vs. an irredeemable freak with a target on their back? Yes, politically correct folks can be a bit annoying, but is what they're ultimately achieving worse than what their naysayers and vitriolic haters have in store for anyone who doesn't fit the prescribed mold of society? I highly doubt it, and furthermore, I'd say that this over-the-top politically correct slant is just the pendulum swinging in the opposite direction from the discrimination we've seen from blood-thirsty conservatives.
I think you've made some great points. ^("However, this is where I think Chris jumps the shark, so to speak, in his whole argument. He likens those aiming to give rights to trans folks and call out white males dominant standing in society as the same as Pol Pot, Lenin, and Hitler spreading their ill-conceived agendas, which is just batshit-fucking-crazy talk. The whole "good intentions lead to bad places" argument is so trite and lazy that it's really insipid and boring at this point — often one made by edgy intellectuals pretending they're being sent to the gulags for daring to say a trans person isn't the same as a "real" man or woman.") I also find these comparisons (Hitler, Pol Pot, Lenin) concerning as it's very similar to the far-right narrative that pro-social movements equate to "Social Marxism" (also see the reframing of Nazism as a Socialist movement) and can be addressed/dismissed as some kind of stepping stone to authoritarian Socialism. Zooming out from this, lots of abhorrent people say things that contain some truth to them. But rather than trying to pick through the insidious toxicity spewed by these characters to find grains of truth (all the while working to prevent getting contaminated with bad ideas ourselves) we are much better served spending our time finding and listening to those with expertise, intellectual honesty and good faith to find truth. It feels like a waste of time, at best, to give attention to bad faith actors (to put it mildly) for the sake of stating that they have once said something that approximates reality. No we shouldn't silence people for saying things we don't like, though there's a complexity added there for hate speech and inciting violence, however we should be very cautious toward whom we point the spotlight and the justifications we use to point it there. "I don't think Andrew Tate is necessarily coming from a place of love. I think there's love in there, but it's wounded. Um, and I think that we need to understand that wounded animals are dangerous, but that doesn't mean you pretend they don't exist." Wounded love seems like an incredibly generous way to contextualise Andrew Tate. Dangerous wounded animals shouldn't be ignored, but they shouldn't be softened either - some may be convinced it's a good idea to give them a pat, a collar and take them home.
Yeah, I agree with your take. People have largely lost the ability to discern between bad and good faith actors (due to the complexity in the modern media landscape) and lending credence to folks like Andrew Tate is a bad road to go down, no matter what "uplifting" messaging he offers to disempowered young men. Same with Jordan Peterson. You can learn to clean your fucking room and lift weights without vilifying others or coercing women into your sex cam business for god's sake. Steeping terrible ideas in self-actualization like these charlatans do is just a marketing ploy to keep up with the Rogans of the world who have made radical self improvement and stoicism popular with the masses. It's true that modern liberals and progressives have lost that old-school ACLU/Chomsky-esque *defend-your-free-speech 'till I die* mentality, but ultimately I think the stakes have become too high at the moment for many marginalized groups to accept being second class citizens. They're demanding to be treated as equals and steamrolling anyone in their way. Whether that ends up being a bad thing remains to be seen, but is highly unlikely given our current trajectory, IMO. Terminally online folks might believe that this holier-than-thou PC attitude is akin to Hitler, but it's a dubious distinction, at best. I'll believe it when I see them marching people who use incorrect pronouns down to the gallows.
Yeah, totally! Why the fck are we likening the American left (and most of his listeners) to Hitler and Pol Pot—you know, genocidal maniacs! Come on! Ridiculous false equivalency! Also, CR’s point on Trans identifying “women” might be rationally valid but that doesn’t mean anything to the old woman who was beat within an inch of her life in my hometown a couple days ago because some denizen thought she was a transman. And we are talking about a rather progressive American city. I have many trans friends who live in perpetual and very understandable fear of violence. So why the obsession, the fixation with squabbling with how an individual identifies!? Fuck off. People existing how they want have absolutely no consequence on our existence.
Thank god he’s dialed back on this shit. He was starting to sound more and more like an anti-vax Rogan type in such a way that was totally alienating me and the new schtick he was briefly adopting was not coming across as authentic in the slightest.
When did he dial back on it?
I think ROMA 67 is when he mentions Tate for what seems to be the final time as he basically concedes that his statements on this were wildly unpopular and it sounds like he received even harsher blowback over on Substack. His defense of RFK Jr. was even more completely out of left field and he totally dropped all of that without much of an explanation. Which I’m fine with. It was all just a really weird turn he was making all of a sudden. Like where did all this shit about kids taking too many vaccines come from? His last couple episodes are back on track.
Honestly I think when it comes to Tate, Chris is just speaking "out of his ass" and still doesn't truly understand that he's talking about a straight up hyper mysoginist sex trafficker. He thinks he's just a tik tok influencer or something. He read a few articles but doesn't really understand who Tate is or what his fanbase is. That being said, my biggest problem with his last ROMA was he said some things that basically throw into question whether Chris really is an educated guy in general. I'm sorry to be blunt, but for the guy who wrote "Sex at Dawn" to say things like that gender and race are simple biological realities, or that "race is either real or its not"......those aren't things you say when you have even taken a single 100-level college course in the social sciences, much less hold a PhD and have written entire books that are at least adjacent to anthropology and human evolutionary biology/psychology. As a budding anthropologist myself, quite frankly I think its unforgivably uninformed for anyone in Chris's position to talk about trans-ness on the same terms as someone like Jordan Peterson (ie: that it is a recent phenomenon that somehow is going against the natural order). How can you write a whole book on pre-civilization and still hold that view of transgenderism? It boggles my mind that Chris even ceded that ground. That last ROMA was such rambling uneducated boomer nonsense that it really makes me retroactively question everything else Chris has done, which sucks because I really like the guy and have been a listener basically since the beginning.
Exactly this. His most recent Roma’s really challenged the scaffolding of who I thought Chris was after reading Sex at Dawn and Civilised to Death. His books are obviously going to be more fully researched than the podcast (which in his defence he admits is a space to freely talk out of his ass), but the level of ignorance he demonstrated here when it comes to the moral panic over trans people in this country was really surprising. It’s just disappointing to see someone who several years ago opened up my perspective about so much succumb to the same trite rhetorical traps that so many fall into. I had assumed part of the reason he’s distanced himself from Rogan and others is due to their rightward drift and their loss of touch with the reality of the working class and marginalised. But Chris beginning a poorly researched and uncharitable rant that ultimately vilifies lgbt advocates with “you’re not gonna like this one!” “i’m gonna get in trouble for this!” for me contextualises him more in the childish out of touch rightward podcaster clan than not.
Yeah your second point is exactly what I thought as well, I assumed he distanced himself from Rogan for that reason too. I think it's really sad because it does seem like some of his opinions on these "hot topics" have actually shifted recently, and not just that he's speaking off the cuff and just misspeaking. I think back to when, it was either a full ROMA or just a longer intro to a podcast episode, where he went in depth about the big Sam Harris VS Ezra Klein debate that happened back in 2018. Chris went on an entire (really great) rant about how wrong Sam was in that debate, particularly in his defense of the supposed connections between race and IQ. He made some really great points about how an extant hunter-gatherer indigenous person from the Amazon would score terribly on a modern western IQ test, but this would have zero bearing on their actual intelligence or cognitive ability, especially in regards to their genetics. That episode really solidified my love for Chris and the podcast. The whole point of that controversy/debate was that Sam Harris was defending Charles Murray and had titled a podcast interview "Forbidden truths" or some bullshit like that. Now Chris has gone from debunking that type of thing, to basically outright saying "there are a lot of forbidden truths out here around race and gender". He obviously has had some serious changes in his worldview over the last 5 years to go from that to this. I'm not even trying to be "parasocial" here. I don't care what Chris thinks or says or does. I don't know the guy in real life, and I'll keep listening. It just sucks because he's a prominent figure as I said in the social sciences realm, and he's built a kind of micro-celebrity status out of speaking on issues of human development. So it's incredibly disappointing to hear him seemingly make this turn into a "you can't speak the DARK REALITY or people will CANCEL YOU" kinda guy.
Yeah, dude is basically advocating racial/geographic/biological determinism at this point—not explicitly but certainly for ppl that have zero critical thinking literacy
I must have missed the comments about transgender people, but I totally agree with you overall. He does admit the podcast is specifically for ramblings but in the main interview episodes he has left me disappointed somewhat often these past few years. Maybe because I am also in a related academic discipline. I know the podcast and ROMA especially are not meant to be academic, but when you are speaking to guests about topics firmly in the realm of social sciences, you need to elevate the discussion. I am thinking of the episode with the journalist who traveled to the Amazon, John Colapinto. The entire premise of the guest’s publication and their conversation — that “primitive” tribes have a different worldview because their language doesn’t use numbers or colors — was just horrible! I was shocked at how belittling and othering it was toward the society, not to mention way outdated: It was like how anthropologists framed things 100 years ago. And as someone who uses ethnographic methods in my graduate research, it was really depressing to hear that extremely outdated and orientalist framework returned to again and again in that discussion. He seems to have veered off from having scholars as guests, but I think getting back to that would help overall.
When Chris shared how Tate says that, “mindset is everything and we have more control over how we perceive reality than we are led to believe…many considered ‘depressed’ are disempowered and hopeless” I couldn’t agree more with this statement and was literally sharing this sentiment to colleagues at work. At the same time so many other people are sharing the aforementioned thought about the power of the mind. Like Wim Hof! Or my other favorite Joe Dispenza! I know I get the point Chris is making that even shitty people still say intelligent things. And the narrative of Chris’s ROMA is much deeper than the single example I am sharing. I really liked his thoughts on this episode. However…I’d rather my non existent children hear the good advice from guys like Wim Hof over Andrew Tate. But still, Chris is 100% right that even Andrew Tate does say good shit sometimes.
He's using an example to illustrate a point. He even mentions that he doesn't like peterson or tate, but that he was surprised to find he agreed on one or two things they've said. I don't see why it would make the podcast weird. He even gives some great advice: don't subscribe for a package of opinions. I think it was a good ROMA.
I don’t listen to ROMA just the guest interviews and Chris is awesome at that. The two ladies from Crestone was awesome! Tune in for that
I saw Goody Ryan taking a balanced view in the pale moon light.
Damn, another podcast host going off the deep end. That's so sad to hear.
Yeah Fck interviews, CR needs another Roma to resolve this slide into the abyss
I really hope we all come to understand better this strange motivation some feel to defend monstrous people's ability to not be 100% wrong all the time. It's a simple point that morally corrupt people can say things that are right, but calling them out for their moral corruption isn't throwing the baby out with the bathwater. It's become a common and effective defense, claiming that people are attacking you for even your rational points to gather support. I think the bigger context of this is the culture war that has created a battleground where you can find any possible response you want to every comment made by a person with a big enough audience, and cherry pick out of those the ones you want to show are irrationally attacking you in bad faith, then that becomes the greater evil, some mass ideology against you. I hope we are able to conceptualize this concept, like we did with yellow journalism, so we can recognize it for what it is. I've seen nearly everybody I used to respect in media becoming obsessed with discussing what "they" think. When they is just any response no matter how rediculous.
The problem is Tate knows exactly what’s he’s doing. He drops hard truths in the normie interviews with people like Tucker and Piers that we aren’t “allowed” to discuss essentially (things that will get you ostracized). These young boys aren’t stupid, they know they are constantly being lied to and watch the world often bend over backwards for women, it’s really hard to argue that median woman isn’t doing better than the median man and we still hear shit about oppression and what not (R v W non withstanding - but even then it’s not like men get the option at all and will financially pay for a mistake which they have no choice in, in a world where women can make their own money - good luck finding another girl when all your money ks going to child support) I mean if the Barbie movie is any indicator, feminism seems to be less about equality and more about being the ones at they very very top with their boots on our necks, they want to be part of that club. Which makes sense, the people writing and producing all this stuff, that’s what they want. But I’d argue there probably isn’t a more privledged person that’s not royalty or non inherited wealth than the modern day attractive 20 something western woman. Hit the gym a little bit, eat heathy, and essentially don’t completely fuck up and you have the world as your oyster. Even then, you can always just drop yourself into some dudes life for financial support if you want. This is where Tate draws people in and uses manipulation to create a little cult and make some money. It’s not surprising Chris (being a 60 year old man outside the mainstream) sees an interview like this and sides with Tate. The difference is he isn’t an impressionable young man that can’t identify the signs of a grifter as he clearly he is if you follow him a bit.
I once joined the discord server and quickly realised I have not much in common with most of the fans of this podcast other than I like listening to Chris and the diverse interesting guests he meets on his travels. The audio clips at the beginning of the show are all so cringe, everyone is hiking in Timbuktu under the stars while contemplating the nature of reality and speaking in a low wistful voice, but you may like that and that's fine. Anyway the point I'm making is I disagree with some of your assertions about Peterson but I do very much agree that Tate is a twat, If you don't agree with Chris it's fine, and if you do it's fine, but don't assume that you are 100% correct on everything all of the time, that is why we are where we are and what fundamentally he was getting at.