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Jordan Peterson saved my life. The shortest way I can explain the phenomenon is he appeals to those whose compass is spinning. After losing my business, most of my friends, and almost my marriage I was questioning everything. Peterson provided a framework for how to see the obvious chaos and injustice in the world as the reason to live with purpose, not as the reason to give up. It gave me something to hold onto and stop my free fall. But once I stabilized, his magic wore off, and I get why those not currently seeking don’t get the appeal.

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I won't defend Rufo or Lindsey (Although in interviews he has interesting things to say - specifically the one with Thad Russell). Twitter is noxious and audience capture is real and I don't think I had a word for it before, but when you see it, you know it e.g Dave Rubin.

I will defend JP however. I don't know what his motivations are, and I find some of his ramblings to be just that. However, I think he taps into a conservative sentiment that is anathema in public discourse. And as Kmele mentioned, the bravery with which he expresses it might be most of the reason why he is so popular. But he is speaking to the almost Hayekian notion that stories, like the bible, and even Disney stories that resonate, are deeply rooted in our collective psychology. He explains the deeper meaning that he reads in these stories and helps those that listen understand the crazy, inexplicable, difficult but amazing thing we all live through called the human experience. I think when he hits this note, he is singing. I find him and Chloe Valdery to be singing a similar tune and it is beautiful.

I'd also point out that he is outwardly pro-religious, but not in a "Only Jesus will save you and gays go to hell" way that turns people off, but in a "this is so old and so common across cultures that maybe we should pay attention." I think religion is a black box phenomenon that we (Hayek again) attempt to disassemble and throw out the parts we don't like at our own peril. Similarly, there is nothing earth shattering in his book, but there are no new ideas, and the force with which he tells people to actually take on responsibility in a way that was forced on us for millenia, that is now practically discouraged in some circles is a breath of fresh air for those of us that believe meaning and value as a human can come from little things like being a good parent and a good neighbor which are impossibly hard but equally important.

Lastly, I'd also point out that his depressions and drug use should encourage us to pay attention more. Michael, I listen to your advice on anxiety because you live it and battle it. I listen to those in AA that have gotten clean because they know it is an everyday struggle and backslides happen. I will listen to Peterson despite his faults and perhaps more so because of them. We should take him at his word and dispute them on the merits. His personal flaws do not discount their validity. Maybe it is all bullshit, but tell me why and not that he is flawed because we all are

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Also, David French is the best human being ever

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Not only has the pronunciation of kerfuffle been ravaged the spelling now too it seems

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Jul 16, 2022·edited Jul 18, 2022

There’s consistently an element of derision and grating elitism to how the hosts (though particularly Matt and Moynihan) speak about populists, particularly right-leaning ones. To me it always sparks the realization of how hard it is to not have one’s mind colonized by one’s contemporaries and neighbors; after all, both have been living in wealthy, deep-blue areas for a while it appears.

Don’t get me wrong - I have zero love for the Proud Boys, MAGA crowd, or anything like that, but they often seem to be waved away by two of the hosts with a condescending attitude or allusions to their being fat white cosplayers. Um, the head of the Proud Boys is an Afro-Cuban. Is that not kind of interesting, and does it not inspire some kind of deeper questions about who exactly composes these groups, and how or why they appeal to people? Again, I absolutely despise those groups on principle based on what they stand for and how they behave, but I hate them *because* I understand them; I don’t hate them because they’re fat hillbillies and it’s fashionable to do so or voguish to sneer at them. Deep discussions are insightful and interesting; garden variety insults aren’t.

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I understand the allure of the legal and constitutional parsing of the abortion issue, but to me there’s an equally interesting discussion to be had regarding the moral and philosophical aspects of the debate. We also have no shortage of examples of people who, months ago, were screeching about how the government needed to lock people in their homes and bar people from public life if they didn’t make certain medical choices, and are now yelling from the rooftops about the primacy of individual rights, free association, and bodily autonomy. What’s up with that? How’d that switch happen so quickly, let alone at all?

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So let's dig into this argument re: anti-CRT legislation a little bit further. One argument that David French is making is that these laws are a distraction and unnecessary because there's already legislation in place, e.g. civil rights legislation and the like, that covers the areas of concern that anti-CRT laws purport to address. French seems to characterize these laws as a distraction from other possible legislative avenues, such as school choice. I don't think I necessarily disagree with that contention. However, he seems to argument that the entire idea of addressing these problems legislatively is impossible and a fool's errand. However, I find that argument highly unpersuasive, especially since he points to existing civil rights legislation as one of the tools in the toolbox for combating the current crop of bad actors pushing, for lack of a more nuanced phrasing, woke propaganda on little children who are ill equipped to be able to argue against it (as an aside, this idea of elementary school children 'hashing out ideas' in the classroom is absurd; there is definitely such a thing as age appropriateness for certain content). I would counter, why was that civil rights legislation enacted in the first place? Was it not because of noxious ideas of the inferiority of certain members of our society? Clearly we all agree it was necessary to enact those laws because people with the ability to leverage power over others would do so without them, no? And the history of those laws that are being referenced are themselves fraught with bad phrasing, placed there by activists, that was very quickly leveraged for financial gain (I'm thinking in particular of lawyers making fortunes off of poorly constructed disability rights laws). Those laws were then challenged in the courts and refined into better laws, not completely stricken from the record, because they were good ideas with slightly flawed implementations. Maybe I'm wrong, but I feel like a lot of the antipathy towards these laws is more a product of the individuals involved with them, and not the core concept, because I do think the fundamentals of using legislation to combat the proliferation of discriminatory ideas are sound. I find it frustrating that often when the hosts veer into this topic, and talk disparagingly of folks like Chris Rufo, I look to my inbox and news feeds and have example after example of new exposés of public funds being used to push DEI bullshit on employees, teach children to hate themselves because of their abundance/lack of melanin, and pay consultants to draft land acknowledgement statements. Meanwhile, the best example French can give of how these laws are problematic is a group of crackpots of Tennessee, whose complaint was rejected out of hand anyway! It's like the oncologist telling you about the dangerous side effects of chemotherapy, and them him telling you about the effectiveness of Flintstone vitamins in fighting your (institutional) cancer.

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Jul 16, 2022Liked by Matt Welch

So apparently White Fence - Mexican-American, from Boyle Heights - may be LA’s oldest gang dating back to at least the 30s.

Went down a subsequent rabbit hole, some GREAT photos from one Merrick Morton, LA street photographer, of 80s LA gangs, including White Fence:

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/10058607/los-angeles-street-gangs-pictured/

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founding

I am going to generously assume Moynihan's smug snark about Bret Weinstein was due to his low blood sugar.

Bret and Heather are both PhD's in biology. They work in the area of Evolutionary Biology. It is probable they understood Covid & the response, better than captured expert virologists.

They are not anti-vaxxers. They are anti-mRNA vaccination and justified the opinion in actual science.

For the record, I am vaxxed, boosted and managed to get Covid 2x. I have no clue what effect the vaccines had because we have no RCT research. We just have modelling & observational research by various entities who are all incentivized to amplify the positive effects of the mRNA vaccines.

As for what they are doing, see their best selling book from last year, and this appearance:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZMGWLLDSA3c&t=2s

Perhaps invite Heather and Bret on the pod to discuss their recent work and describe their views on the mRNA vaccines. If one is looking for examples of logical & critical reasoning skill set's, one need look no further than Heather & Bret. One doesn't have to agree, just listen and debate.

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I came here to defend JBP but you all have beaten me to it and done a far better job. Him, Eric Weinstein and the IDW generally broadened me and kept me *on* the rails during the early Trump days.

With respect to David, I can't get past how bad of a category "abortion" is. I share his religious belief in life at conception but practically speaking lumping an 8 week abortion in with a 20 week is just wrong. Ending abortions after 1st trimester, even if they were merely shifted to before is an unambiguous good.

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founding

Probably one of the best conversations ever recorded on the subject of abortion. The complexities of the issue are so thoughtfully and generously explored, in the way in which David and the guys talked about how bad citizens and elected officials on both sides are in making arguments for and against. The two things I have always been so frustrated about, the pro-choice people who seem to think that all of the arguments against abortion are based upon religious beliefs, which are totally unnecessary to the discussion, when it is only necessary to resort to the basic human and civil rights concerns that belong to the woman and also necessarily must attach to the child at some point during gestation. And on the other side the pro-life people who seek to end the practice completely, and don’t ever engage with the reality that there is no way to do that, who never seem to learn that there is no difference with this issue than there is with the numerous other things that the government attempts to prohibit. Why is it so hard to understand this? We have had 50 years to codify the unconstitutional gobbledygook, yet sensible and practical upside to Roe, but we just can’t seem to do it. American politics is complete garbage. I feel the same mix of exhilaration and frustration listening to this as I do to the conversations that we have on so many other issues. it’s hard to hear the obvious stated so clearly, and yet have it be so far from our grasp. But I don’t care,  this is what I ask for from the TFC, the greatest podcast of all time. How do I send more money. Yes, it’s almost midnight and I have been drinking. Peace.

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Hi fellas - Long time listener, first time commenter here. Love the pod but small critique.

Jordan Peterson pretty frequently finds his way into your conversations and most of the Fifthdom Triumvirate remain willfully incurious (excepting Matt who has read and written about his work nicely.) The conversations usually go like this: "I don't read his book, I don't read his columns, I don't listen to his pod, I actually avoid his content, BUT..." All this throat clearing is inevitably followed by some conclusion you've most certainly drawn about him anyway. What gives? It's like three or four times now. Isn't this the type of commentary (if you can even call it that) that you'd take to task had it shown up on, say, CNN or FOXNews? How about, like, try to get him on the pod. Read some of his work. FISK it, if you may. But engage with the man's ideas and work rather than a caricature of him. I admit I've been a Peterson stan on and off during my young adult life. He's not without fault, but when he's in his wheelhouse, he's very, very good, particularly on the atrocities of European totalitarianism and how it relates to the psychology of the individual. Moynihan, in particular, would be a helluva interlocutor with JP, but alas here we are making flippant cracks at the man's addiction instead. As if that's original or useful. Oh, well. A listener can hope...

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Holy shit Moynihan, 47?!?!? My father is a T1D and this gives me great anxiety.

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The average man has the capacity for pregnancy like Kmele has the capacity for pronunciation. Facts are facts. No cowoboration necessary.

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I’m a little confused. I’m half way through the casting and Roe V Wade has been covered and I completely missed Mr. French’s defense of the Court’s ruling. I listen to him agreeing with disparaging comments of conservatives and chastising those idiots nominally on his side, but little voicing of solutions or even mildly moderating suggestions. How can the question not be asked,”What would you do, Mr. French, to improve these poorly conceived laws of which you fear?”

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It is truly bonkers how angry people get when faced with the statistical reality that vanishingly few trans people in North America are murdered for the sake of being trans people. Isn’t that a good thing?

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