American Thought Leaders - How to Identify a Bad Argument | Warren Smith

Episode Date: September 30, 2026

Modern culture often treats popular consensus and media narratives as settled truth. Warren Smith, author of the new book “A Mind of Your Own: Independent Thinking in the Age of Misinformation,” argues that our society is increasingly convinced by misleading narratives rather than objective reality.He is the creator of the Secret Scholars Society channel on YouTube, and he’s become known for using the Socratic method to introduce people to different viewpoints.He argues that allowing ideas to conflict is essential to intellectual growth.“We recoil often from conflict,” he said, “but that’s where growth occurs.”Smith walked me through a host of questions: How do narrative manipulation and herd psychology compel people to abandon logic? How can one learn to identify fallacious arguments? And why does our culture so easily mistake emotional consensus for moral authority?Views expressed in this video are opinions of the host and the guest, and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.

There are so many people that want to shake their fist at reality and that that objective truth that exists. It causes us to be judged. It's very uncomfortable and it causes us to have to do what we don't want to do. It's extremely inconvenient. Warren Smith is the author of A Mind of Your Own, Independent Thinking in the Age of Misinformation. The beauty of logic is you can see how the information is being wielded. If it becomes fallacious, you can identify exactly where. and point that out and that's extremely powerful.

In this episode, we unpack how to spot hidden manipulation, identify logical fallacies in real time, and reclaim independent thought in a culture driven by narrative control. This is American Thought Leaders, and I'm Yanya Kellick. Warren Smith, so good to have you back on American Thought Leaders. Thanks for having me. So your new book cuts into the middle of something that keeps me up at night. It's one of the biggest problems I have in a way in trying to figure out how this world is going to emerge out of, I think of it as a misinformation crisis.

I see a whole lot of what are to me obviously fallacious arguments, obviously, you know, kind of problematic sets of facts, which may or may not be true, constructed in different ways, catching fire and spreading through populations online, ending up with millions of people sometimes believing things which are frankly just pretty clearly untrue. How are we going to challenge this reality? Well, misinformation is difficult because it's information. And I think about it as two columns. Information and then how we wield the information. What to think versus how to think. What's difficult with misinformation is, I don't know if this fact, let's say, this claim about Israel, whatever the topic is, I don't know if that's true or not, but I can detect the reasoning

from that claim. So if someone makes a point and then they start building on that, that's the beauty of logic is you can see how the information is being wielded. You mentioned the fallacious nature of that. If it becomes fallacious, you can identify what exactly. where and point that out and that's extremely powerful. That's essentially what interests me and what I was trying to explore with the book because the information is never ending. And with the addition of AI, that landscape is always changing. But we do have control over our reasoning, regardless of what the first principle is that we're using or the information that we're building upon. Congratulations on your new book. You're doing something, I think, incredibly important. You know, talking about about how to foster independent thinking

in this crazy world of narratives and misinformation and logical fallacies that we're being bombarded with all the time. And I'd love to hear your thoughts on, okay, the Lindsay Clancy trial. We have a situation where, you know, the facts were presented, I thought, in quite intricate detail. We had, I don't think that,

I don't even think there's a ton of disagreement among the facts in the courtroom itself, from what I could tell. tell, right? And I didn't watch the whole trial, but that's, you know, from the, from the limited watching and reporting that we, we did, that that seemed to be the case to me. And we ended up with a situation where most of the jury reached a conclusion, which to me just didn't make any sense, right? Which was that, that, that, that, that she was innocent. And given the, given the facts that were presented and, frankly, not terribly disputed. So can you shed some,

some light here for me what's going on. Am I out to lunch? What's going on? No, it's a really interesting example. It's an important one. It that lone juror. You said the majority. Well, the vast majority, yeah. The vast everyone but one. So this is the perfect example of this dynamic of having a mind of your own when the stakes are at their highest. Imagine what this one man was feeling with all that pressure. It's it's it's the perfect example of why this is so important. So the question is was she truly not in control of her actions to the point where she should not be held responsible? There was one witness that was brought in that was claimed to be the foremost expert who has dealt with more of these cases than anyone brought by her lawyer.

something jumped out to me that seems like a logical contradiction. He claimed that the psychosis caused her to have an out-of-body experience where she had no agency, because agency is the question here. If she had agency, she would be responsible, but claiming, nope, she had no agency. A moment later, he goes on to explain literally her logical chain, which was that she felt, and it's all rather horrific, but that her reasoning, her rationale was that it would be better to take the kids with her into the afterlife. It would be more cruel to leave them behind.

And she articulated, I believe, after the fact, she said, go to God is how she expressed it. So we're clearly seeing a rationalization, which to me directly contradicts the first claim. That does not make sense to me. glaring problem as well she met Kevin Redington's friend I believe a forensic psychologist

goes to meet with her in the hospital and I believe this was it was at least a year afterwards some are saying it might have been two years meets with her she uses his phone

after speaking to this guy to dial her husband and then suddenly articulates a defense that I was hearing voices. What can we deduce from that? Well, that sure looks like a legal strategy being put together. He's instructing her, this is what you're going to need to do. Here, use my phone, make the call. We need to initiate this now. There was no mention of ever hearing voices before. There was no mention of this psychosis of there was only the mention of suicidal ideation, which to me, if I were to make a guess as to what was what happened.

here, she became suicidal to the point that she did what she did. And that was her rationalization, it was that she just, for whatever reasons, did not want to leave them behind, felt in a way it was better to take them with her. And that is what motivated this. So there's a clear logical and that was according to her own defense that that was, well, the, the forensic psychologist, that was how he articulated it. So to me, a comparable scenario, a foreign government doses someone with a psychedelic that causes them to murder, go crazy and kill everyone in the house, and then they come out of it. It's like they have been dosed by something external.

That would be a clear, something like that, I could see a case being made. I see no indications there of this. And then we could apply this to drunk driving. Well, someone drinks alcohol, we still hold them responsible, even though they could be blackout drunk and literally not remember it even more so of this case. But we still hold them responsible because there is this, well, you chose to drink. And what's the alternative legally? If we stop holding people responsible because they were blackout drunk, it sets a legal precedent. There's no perfect solution, but we can clearly see why that would be a bad

idea. I don't know why we're not applying the same reasoning in this case. To the question, why are we seeing such a phenomena around this we have never seen such a split between men and women it's remarkable how people i've seen so many people doing street interviews and consistently most of the men if not all are like no hold irresponsible and the women many of them if not most are split i was asked this the other day and i think at the core of it the average person looking at this case, the reasoning I'm hearing is she had to have been crazy because she clearly loved her kids. It's so horrific. She had to have been crazy because none of this makes sense. Well, there's a heck of a lot of things that don't make sense to me in our crazy world today.

And like really, I mean, in pretty foundational ways, they don't make sense to me. I can kind of, this is something I really like about you, Warren, is that you have a lot of empathy for people. you know, this is what allowed for that, you know, your viral video that Elon Musk promoted, that put you on the, you know, put you on the stage sort of thing. You were, you were just, you know, someone was sharing with you something or your students and you were, you responded empathetically and say, hey, let's think this through, okay, right? And so you're, you're trying to, you're trying to give as much benefit of the doubt as possible. I, I'm, I think I'm the same way, or I certainly endeavor to try to be the same way. But this is, but this is, but this is, but this is, but this

is the point like there it's not in doubt that that she did this right like everybody this is like everyone is agreed the question just is how much uh how are you accountable for your actions right and i think that that you need a really extreme scenario perhaps the fact that you were under the influence of uh you know a psychic like you said a psychedelic that causes you to go psychotic or something like that. Perhaps that might be an argument, but ultimately you did it. You killed, you killed these people, right? And this isn't in doubt. So to me, you know, it doesn't seem to be, I don't see anything close to have to, you know, some sort of, you know, escape from that accountability that that, that you affected death on three innocent human beings.

right? I'm trying to think about what someone who disagrees would say to me. They would probably respond and say, well, yes, you said the psychedelics. That would be an excuse. In this case, we have, she was on 12 different medications. All right. But again, someone drinks alcohol to the point of blacking out. We hold them accountable because they initiated that. The psychedelic being introduced, okay, if you were to take the LSD yourself and then kill your family, you would be held responsible, right? It's the, so that's the mechanism, were you involved in the

chain as well? And also the medications, I'm not a pharmacological expert, but when I'm looking at these medications, it doesn't add up sericil, the benzodiazepines. None of these and at the doses they were being taken and

listening to expert witnesses who are experts giving their assessment of it doesn't alleviate responsibility given the science of Seraquil take even at because she wasn't taking these at my understanding is they weren't at astronomical levels so none of that I don't think you can build a compelling case from the pharmacological point of view to compare with the LSD being introduced to me psychologically I think it's for people so many people are

shocked because she does look normal she was she had she was building a snowman with them that day. She was doing fine to acknowledge that, yes, she's responsible is to acknowledge we're all capable of doing this. People don't want to think that they too have the capacity, even though most people would never act on it, because it is crazy. It's just shocking. But I think that is why they want to say, no, she couldn't have been capable of making this decision herself. It had to have been an external force that she's not responsible for, because that would mean they have the same capacity, which I think horrifies people at a subconscious level. Right. Because it's unimaginable, because it's unimaginable to most people. But I see that

type of argument. Actually, I think you mentioned in your book a number of times these kinds of arguments, as if they're like they create a definitive, you know, like their definitive, like their definitive or somehow. And again, to me, this is bizarre. And by the way, I'll just mention this. On the site, I have actually, I've done a series of interviews around, you know, the influence of cocktails of psychiatric drugs on people. And I think it's profound and in some cases extremely negative and hasn't been dealt. This whole question hasn't been dealt with nearly enough, right? So if anything, that's the closest thing to, you know, an argument that would work in that direction. But none the, you know, you still have to be accountable for your actions, right? And you're volitionally taking this medication, even if your doctor hasn't told you all the possible ramifications because they can't possibly know themselves.

You know, it's hard enough to study the effects of one drug, never mind three or five or 12 or what in combination. So again, you know, these are good points. It would be worth studying this question, right? and so forth. I think so. But again, how can you use that to escape responsibility for doing something like this? Right. Well, the interesting question, again, so we established what we just talked about, but there seems to be this larger push, and listening to the jurors talk about this after the fact, they were describing it as though this was almost bigger than this singular case. It was pushing

a larger cause forward. And it was almost as though that is what was, at stake here when in reality this is simply to answer that question is she was she in her faculties like was she um responsible for that singular action um that one event and i think it's an example of in the book i describe i'm trying to really describe the laws of narrative and how powerful that is psychologically i don't think there's anything the more i think about that i don't think there's anything more powerful psychologically than narrative. Like, and my background for years, I had been studying the laws of narrative in one without even realizing it.

When you're in filmmaking and film producing and screenwriting, in that world in Hollywood, everyone, there's large amounts of money. Everyone is trying to crack this code and figure out how do we replicate this power, this elusive and tangible, because if we can, we can make vast amounts of money. And usually it fails. No one can quite understand it. So I started delving into these things, trying to understand, can I break this down in a way? Like, are these laws real?

I do think they're real. They just manifest psychologically. But I think they are as real. They're as powerful and real as the laws of physics. They just manifest differently. So in Lindsay Clancy case, we have, and there's almost this social contagion of the meme, which I described in the book as well, is how this idea spreads. And then it becomes on another level, it's this, which side are you on?

And there's this fear element of you're against women. You're against progress. The larger cause, don't you understand what's at stake here? It's easy to lose sight of, no, we're just trying to answer that singular question. Yeah, that's very powerful what you're talking about. And central to a lot of the questions we're talking about, I'll just, I'll add, I don't know if I should add this into the mix right now. But at epoch times, we distinguish ourselves in a large way by being truth-seeking media.

We believe there's an objective reality, and we believe our job is to try to offer as much information to represent that. Of course, you can't get the whole story because you don't have all the inputs, but you do your darnest, right, to give people the right-of-bound information so they can figure out what's going on in the world. so many other media today do something which is called literally activist journalism. That's what it's described by one of the deans of the most prominent journalism schools actually in America. And this is an idea where there is a particular narrative and you want to make sure that when you do your journalism

that at the very least you don't go against that more important narrative or you build the story in a way to sort of adjust to this correct narrative. And so what you're describing, right, sort of comports exactly with this way of thinking. But to me, that's not even journalism. That's propaganda creation, right? And so, yes, these narratives are unbelievably powerful.

And yes, we have these new tools, you know, ever more powerful, right? Now it's AI, juiced up social media and video, as I mentioned, and audio, and everything to kind of sell the narratives, however fallacious they may be, right? And we can get caught up in these contagions without even realizing it. We're believing something. Yeah, and I want to be clear

that when I'm talking about a narrative, just because something is a narrative that doesn't necessarily mean, it's bad. My point is like narrative is inevitable, so therefore seek to understand it so you can recognize it in your own life when I was in the lead up to writing this book, and we were meeting with publishers

and discussing the premise, I was talking about the importance of the laws of narrative. And their response was, wait, I thought you were trying to explain to people how to think critically. It's almost as they thought I was trying to teach people how to wield the power of narrative. And my point was, no, it's not, I'm not saying it's a good or a bad thing. I'm trying to point out the reality of its existence so that you can understand when it's being used against you or it's being weaponized or recognizing it in your own life. but I mean essentially we're all trying to write the narratives of our we're trying to live as the heroes in our own narrative we learn from narrative on a level that that's what archetypes are journalists yes everyone it's inescapable everyone is going to be using narrative to some degree but as you articulated it's there are there are any news outlet that is fighting for what they believe is a noble cause or a right message something large active the activist journalists right um and i experienced this at graduate school the problem is is that

becomes that causes to then pick and choose because there are it's not enough just simply to acknowledge something because it is true it's well no we can't acknowledge that why are you acknowledging that well because it's true yeah but why i can't tell you how many times i've seen that pattern and then you start picking and choosing because you're served you're trying to fight for something larger it's difficult though because I too believe there are things worth fighting for. That gets into the complexity of it. But anyways. Well, the question is, and we're getting really abstract here, but the question is, is the narrative.

And of course, the narrative is unbelievable. I mean, you have a whole chapter. It talks about the rules of the narrative, narrative grammar and so far, unbelievably important. By the way, I'll tell you this. When I was, long before I went into journalism, long before I went into human rights, work I have things that I think are very important as well. That's why that's what brought me there. I was in studying evolutionary biology and university and I enrolled in a storytelling course, right, which is of course not remotely in my department and so forth. Then I argued, you know,

I thought was, you know, very convincingly with the dean of the department that this is one of the most important courses I could take because, you know, I'm writing grants. I'm, you know, whatever. Like, there's a lot of things. They didn't give it to me. Okay. They just, I took it anyway because I thought it was incredibly important. But because I understood the importance of this, but that's not that, it's not to fool people. It's to be able to communicate effectively. Something that you've realized is true, right? Yeah, something that you believe. It's such a fascinating. I mean, it's such a deep one and I don't want to take too much of your time with it but no it's it's extremely I'm constantly I use it every day everyone does and the the very

the opening thought of the book is you're in a game right now whether you know it or not every day is a series of games and that's not to minimize what is at stake not to treat it's to dismiss it it's just a game right no that's but when you start thinking about it in that way. Some describe this as game theory. It does allow you to recognize the importance of rationality, objectivity to step back and anticipate, understand there are participants in a game. Everyone is trying to achieve what is in their interest and wielding narratives for that. You can anticipate often what will come next and therefore you need to keep your motions in check and try and strive to make the best move on the board in the effort to achieve

the ideal outcome and then you try and determine how do you determine the ideal outcome what is the ideal outcome that requires wisdom and wisdom comes from narrative and that's anyways well that's and you know this is why we have you know these stories that capture our imagination you know we have this much sort of celebrated and criticized Odyssey film recently. Why? Because the Odyssey is such an unbelievably powerful story. We wouldn't be having that discussion if it wasn't. It has actually I just received in the mail a fascinating

new translation of the Odyssey which is like for me really uniquely, uniquely powerful, deeply engaging in a way that I haven't experienced other versions. And it's just it's just a It's epic, literally, right? Literally, because it speaks to all those deep... You argue this... I mean, of course, this is your area of study too, right?

So you have a bit of a bias, right? I'm sort of being a little bit glib here, but no, I'm with you here. There's just these incredible powerful archetypes and kind of needs that need to be fulfilled. And if you can... So this is my concern, right? If you can capture that system of storytelling or, you know, using the archetypes and, you know, put it into this postmodernist, nothing is true construct.

And you can, you know, you can kind of fool a whole society into believing crazy things. And I'm really worried that this is kind of where we're heading, right? This is why when I saw, I mean, I didn't know exactly what your book was about. I saw the title was that this is, you know, this is something we have to do. And your book is more about, to me, how do you deal with whatever is being thrown at you constructively and keep that independent mind? Be that, you know, 12th juror that doesn't, because the other piece that's also complicating, right, is we all have this strong need to belong and to stand out, to stand aside for most people, even people who are pretty contrarian, I might add, right? It's very hard. Everyone seems to think that it just needs to be this one way or these things are true and these

assumptions are correct. It's very hard to be the person. It says, I don't feel comfortable about this. Yeah. You mentioned biology. I'm fascinated by biology reading Richard Dawkins. I think that it is a biological, an evolutionary result that we don't fully understand these things either. There's still much about biology we don't understand, which is why it's so interesting.

But this tribe back in, it seems theoretically plausible. Historically, yes, if you were cast from the tribe, that could mean life, the difference between life or death. And so we do have this deeply ingrained fear of crossing being that 12th juror, right? When I spoke to Jordan Peterson, he compared it to the defense mechanism of zebras, where their stripes are their camouflage, yet it's black and white stripes. is that going to help you blend in with anything? Well, it's not to blend in with the back.

It's to blend in with the herd. So the lions cannot coordinate to bring down a singular zebra because they can't communicate. We're going after that one and then coordinate. It's just chaos, right? And it's an interesting, it's an interesting thought. Just my last thought on the narrative concept, a good example of this in our day-to-day lives.

We'd be like Madman, for example. what's his name the the main Don Draper and again all of that is being constructed by a master narrator the man who created that was it Matt Weiner yeah I believe it's Matt Weiner and But Don Draper that character he's a master of narrative And they examine this idea on multiple levels Like Don Draper's created a false narrative stole a narrative

created the narrative of his life But every day in work we see this in the the first episode, he figures out how to wield narrative to sell whatever product he needs to sell. That is the most powerful, again, it's the most powerful psychological tool you have to sell something. You make the, you need to make, he's selling the kaleidoscope thing, the film projector, right? His goal, these clients come in there, okay, we're doing Campbell beans or Lucky Strike Cigarettes. How are you going to sell? He needs to find a way to make people feel something from Lucky Strait's, Lucky Strike Cigarettes or whatever the problem.

product is. And that's what he does. And he uses narrative to do so. You create it like this watch. I can think back consciously and critically think about what led me to love this watch and to want to buy this. And it was narrative. It was a narrative surrounding the watch, the heritage of the brand, listening to other people making YouTube videos about this model and how their love for it and their journey, what it meant to them. And it takes on a life of its own. And there are some postmodernist philosophers in graduate school that you're exposed to this idea of the object and verses. A lot of that's kind of not overly complicated, I think. But it's more useful to think about it at this level in your own life.

Just recognize what narrative is popping in. And don't be afraid of it, but you need to be in control of it. It don't get swept. It's so easy, though, because we all, the more I learn, the more I realize how little I understand. And that's really the essence of the Socratic method as well. That was the staple of Socrates, as he never claimed to have unique wisdom. His whole point was to try and show people that none of us are as wise as we think we are.

And Thomas Jefferson, it was the same thing in the last meeting, the last public speech he ever gave. That was his whole point. The older I get, the more I realize how little I know. You know, you offer a five-step method. when you know people are speaking with you to try to you know understand and and respond effectively and actually you know build some sort of you know common common ground exactly but actually have a conversation where someone already

has very very strict ideas I think I think this is very powerful before we go there before I talk about some of the kind of amazing things that that your book can teach us do you find it odd I've been thinking about this lately we live in a society where somewhere maybe this is after World War II I don't know exactly when it started but we we accepted that it's perfectly fine and moral to manipulate people into buying whatever right like not it would be one thing to say that it's done of course it's been done since time immemorial right but but we sort of we sort of it feels like we live in a world where people are

rewarded for being affected that's like that's like that's like you get a big win like the madman right when they successfully manipulate people as opposed to that's and i think that that's different than convincing someone on the merits of something you see like these are different things right yeah and that's it's an interesting question interesting point because there's something i deal with as well as a youtube who works with sponsors and i do there are sponsors that come along and And I guess here's the way I would describe it. You have to, is it immoral or not?

We would have to think through this, because my job is to provide for my family. But if I stray away from the ethical and let's call it betraying the audience to a high enough degree, I'll be self-sabotaging that entire endeavor. So that keeps me on track. And ideally, yes, I'm only taking on sponsors that I really love. The reality is that's not always going to be the case. there's going to be these web servers that do things that I'm not that interested in, but I need a sponsor for that week.

And there's people that are booking the sponsors. That's the reality of the situation. And I am selling something. The way I try and do it, though, is I, because I do feel, it feels off if I'm doing it in an authentic way. So I try and be honest with the audience where if I'm reading the script, I'm making it clear, I'm reading a script. I'm trying to make it clear.

so they understand this is a product that's sponsoring this video so that I can continue to make this content. Take it or leave it at that. Take it or leave it. I'm not claiming this is something beyond that. That's when I would get uncomfortable. So it's a it's that that's life as well. You're always trying to walk that line. Yeah. So what can we learn from a mind of your own? And actually, you know, I already know there's a great number of things in there, especially I'm particularly, personally, I'm particularly, I'm particularly interested in the grammar of narrative because I'm, of course, in media. And you've presented this in a way that I haven't seen before. But we don't need to go there.

Tell me where you think or what the response has been. Where do people see the value in a mind of your own? Yeah. I think where most people are coming to this book from is going to be YouTube, where I'm making content that's largely either my own chess games that I'm participating in directly with someone or it's examining other verbal chess games. That's where most, that's kind of where the majority of the audience is going to, almost all the audience is going to meet me through YouTube, that kind of content. And then they can go explore the book if they want to understand

these methodologies. Like the book was my attempt to really take my mind and put it on the page over the over two years of writing and trying to it's really how i see the world my philosophy in the most thorough way the most important lessons also my process everything i've learned from this what i think is most important you touched on so with the laws of narrative we'll just go over the first one law number one conflict drive story and so without conflict you don't have a movie whatever it is but that's so that's true with these youtube videos where i am examining conflicts. We recoil often from conflict thinking conflict is a bad thing. That's where growth occurs, conflicting ideas, watching the game that occurs between them. Where does my model break down when it

meets this model? Now I adjust accordingly and then rinse and repeat. And that's growth. That's where growth comes from. And so yes, I've I have tried to, well really, because I was asked, okay we saw everyone saw your initial the one the video of you teaching doing that with a student essentially well yeah there is a there is there's always going to be conflict if it's successful then there's conflict in there i'm not like braiding a student but there's a conflict we're examining all right articulate the process you use warren so that like how would you communicate that in steps and so i attempted to do that at the end of the day the signatures of my style or method when I really get honest with myself and look at it what I'm doing and is it unique

well what's unique about it I think that because I'm brief usually I'm more long-winded right with you today but usually like if I can get it done in five words in one of these exchanges don't go beyond five words there's no reason to in film school I was taught when you're going into pitch a movie soon as you get the outcome that ideal outcome stop and get out People, there are so many deals that have gone bad, pitches that have gone bad because once they've gotten the green light, and then they get comfortable, and then it's after that point they lose it.

They say something dumb. Every word after that, this is a game where you have someone, you are exposing yourself to openings when you do that. So it's brevity, but going right at what is most important, the flaw. So it's almost this flaw filter that I'm just often I'm listening to someone. I ask a question. It's constantly asking questions as well. It really is it is the Socratic method as well going layer under layer.

What are your thoughts on DEI? Response. There's a flaw in there. Go right at it. Ask a singular question that addresses that flaw. Rinse and repeat. They offer a response. Do it again.

Do it again. You're going layer until eventually. they get to that moment where there's nothing, they realize their entire premises, or they don't, and you learn something. But that's essentially the methodology in its most simplistic form. That's what I do.

Like every time I talk with someone, when it's a back and forth, when I'm talking to someone I disagree with, every time it's some formulation of that. What are your views on the power structure that? Do you believe in white privilege? Is that something that's talked about or taught? Yeah, I think white people have a lot more privilege.

Okay, what do you mean by that? Like, police are so much more likely to target people of color and even, like, kill them. Are you basing that on anything? Yeah. Like what? I don't know. At one point, she asked me, so you don't believe in white privilege? Do not believe in a white privilege?

I think there's socioeconomic. I think that's the correct lens is to view it through socioeconomic. because I used to work with students from like nothing, all different skin colors. That's my problem with things like DEI and certain affirmative action is that the argument is not socioeconomic. It's racial. Right. And there's literally trying to make the argument to me that, well, that kid, Tommy, he's white. So even though he comes from literally nothing, the kid that has two parents can qualify.

He can't. It doesn't make sense to me. So when I'm asked, well, don't you think there's white privilege? My question is, what is white privilege? Oh, you're asking me? Yeah, you're saying, like, it's crazy that I would think, that I would question it. Well, what does white privilege mean? I need to know what you're talking about specifically, and she couldn't respond. You seem to be strong and feeling like they're beyond what I just said, which I can see.

Yeah, no, I do think there isn't, but I, yeah, I don't study policy or anything like that, but my... And why are you so adamant about it? Because like I... As like a person who looks white, I don't feel ever, ever, ever. Like I've been targeted or like persecuted in really any way. That's because you're a sensible person and you live...

Why would someone target you? What does that do with your skin color? Well, I've heard that from all of my friends who have... who are people of color, like power structures of the U.S. government are designed to favor white people and people of color. Can you give me an example? Like redlining.

Do we have redlining in existence today? Yes. How so? I don't want to get too much into the details, but... Can you? Can you? So what you're describing, okay? I know you're a central piece of how you approach the world is you try to be truth-seeking, but what you're describing, right, could sound

to someone like, you know, people who believe in this, you know, some of these postmodern critical theories or so forth where really it's just kind of a power play. And it's just because it's just a game to see who has rhetorically the better argument. And there's inherently, neither one is better than the other. It's just that whoever kind of wields their, their rhetorical strength more effectively, that's the winner and that's the game. And I, when I listen to you talk about it, it almost feels to me like that. But at the same time, I know that for you, you put objective reality on a pedestal and trying to understand it. And I think, I don't think there's a way to to function in the world that's going to work for us to kind of live together that doesn't do that.

Yes, I wish someone would challenge me on that. Like right now, I wish someone could present that too because it's a really important point. The idea that, oh, this is, that's why when I mentioned thinking of life every day, we're in a series of games, you're in a game right now, regardless of how you feel about it. And I tried to emphasize that that's not to minimize this or treat it simply as a game for power. These aren't just power dynamics. All we have at the end of the day is it's not to win rhetorically. It's to examine, do you actually have a logical foundation or not. And if there's not that foundation, that's when it becomes, you're trying to expose a rhetorical

power game, if that's what it is. Now, if there's a logical foundation, they actually have a reason, right? What is the alternative? We follow the logic, which should be objective. It's either there or it's not. Like we're talking about trying to arrive at truth. Really, I think about it as we're trying to figure out, what is rational, what is logical, what actually works.

And I do this with examples like DEI logically. It's not, this is not an opinion. DEI logically does not work without crossing that first principle of the definition of racism. If racism is treating people differently based on the color of their skin, there is no logical way to enact that without crossing that line. And that's not an opinion. And now I can I can show that, demonstrate that verbally with someone who believes it's fine, right? And every time what will happen is they will redefine it to try and avoid that line.

Now, am I rhetorically beating, am I winning because I have superior rhetoric? Or is it because that's what the logic is. And that's how the cookie crumbles. And we should talk, we should go through it so we can reveal that because that's the logic is either there or it's or it is not, what's the alternative to take positions and just defy what is logical, which is largely what many of these positions do and what postmodernism does. So it's not about rhetorically winning, but rather uncovering what is logical and what has a foundation. Does that make sense? Did I explain that?

It does. And so you really are just putting logic on a pedestal. The thing is there's also can be different, you know, there can be different inferences, you know, created on a, on a particular, with respect to a certain series of parameters or a certain series of, of, I suppose, um, facts of I was going to say, but I don't know if that's the right way. I understand what your point. Yes. So we can, inductions with the Charlie Kirk assassination, here are the facts. What are the potential inductions? You can have disagreed. in there. But again, so another example with DEI where, okay, if you imposing equity, imposing a specific outcome logically, this is not an example, this would not be where we just have a

disagreement from the logically. There's no logical way you can achieve a specific outcome without either lowering the process, the standard of the process, or allowing, people through that would not otherwise make it through that process. But if we already have a hundred candidates and you say and and we want a certain number that are green and 50 of them are green, you say they go through the process. Nope, we only eight make it through. We say, nope, we need at least 60. Logically, there's no way to do that without lowering the standards or allowing green people through that wouldn't otherwise make it through. Unless you can think of something I'm missing. But in an example like that, it's not a difference.

of inference. You could say, okay, you could have a disagreement around, okay, but that's not that big of a deal, but there's, you can't, when you logically walk through it, if you're willing to acknowledge the logic, you can't, there's not going to be any disagreement unless you can, that's the beauty of this, is it, you're actually examining cause and effect. There's no other way. It's not an, as far as I can see, it's not an opinion. And then you offer, you say, can you.

What am I missing here? And on that example, no one has offered, no one's been able to point to something that I'm missing. They simply try and redefine what is important and say, yeah, no, but what we're just trying to do is get more green people by encouraging more green people to sign up. Okay, but that's not what we're talking about here. That's advertising. That's just expanding the pool. But we said there's 100 candidates for simplicity's sake. These are the hundred people that want to be firefighters, right?

They've gone through the process. If those are the 100 people, what do we do? We can expand that pool, but beyond expanding the pool, that's not equity, though. That's advertising. We're talking about equity. So you get specific about the terms with them. You know, one of the things I noticed I've been covering what's sometimes called gender, ideology and how different countries are dealing with it, what types of medical procedures

are used for some years now. There was recently a study that came out of Finland, which is over 20 years study, over 2,000 participants, and it basically shows very clearly with very strong results that people who had these, you know, another term that's used now, which I think is more apt, is sex-rejecting procedures being used, that people have bad psychiatric outcomes following those, right? Whereas the whole purpose of this, of doing these things in the first place was supposed to help people with their kind of psychiatric realities and so forth. I'm mentioning this because I think there's a lot of these fallacious arguments around

this issue because the evidence only ever points in a single direction, right, that these things aren't very good things to do. They don't actually help people. They're kind of based on ideology. And this is even admitted by one of the big proponents of that W-path that kind of established what a lot of people would end up calling standards of care, but they just said were just their own opinions. I think it's in a court, in a recent court case. But for example, like I put together a bunch of these because I wanted to have a you know something to work with like one of them is just that look every major medical association university you know government institution agrees that trans women are women so questioning this just shows

that you're a bigot yeah what does that mean I mean that's a common argument right right no it is you're you're absolutely right that would be my first question to get the dialogue going. What do you mean by trans women? Because the response you're going to get, no, we're not saying they're biologically women. We're just saying that the word we use to express the idea of women could be equally applied. And that's okay. Why do you have a problem with that? So, but only a few foolish, only a few people would be foolish enough to, that maybe there are people that will argue against the biological argument of it. So that would be my first question, what do you mean by that? Right. You're a few as possible words, right? So what do you mean by

that? Yep, that's exactly right. Yeah. Well, why, why, I mean, I could share my thoughts on this one to see if we can get it going. But for me, when I'm tackling this topic, I would ask them a question. This can be very powerful as well, asking, because in my mind, I know what I think is. is most important that flaw, the most important where the rubber meets the road. I would ask them this, okay, is there anything stopping me under the model that you're advocating for? Is there anything stopping me tomorrow from deciding I am a woman, from becoming a woman, as you say? And I'd say, well, no. You, your self-identification is paramount. Right. You would have to say, well, no, that would be fine. Okay, do I have, so I now,

gain equal treatment under the law as a woman under your model? Correct. Or do I get equal treatment as a woman? So am I treated under the law as a woman? Absolutely. Okay. All right. So that means, isn't it? Okay. So is there any, let's say, so that means I would now be able to gain access to women's spaces with with no recourse. If I'm in prison, is there anything stopping me from going to women's prison. Okay, is there anything, there's this guy and he wishes to pray on women in the changing room? Is there anything stopping him from deciding he's a woman and gaining access to that space? And at that point, they're probably going to claim, yes, but statistically, almost no one, blah, blah, okay, but to be clear, there's nothing stopping under the law.

Yeah, but are you saying they're going to go in and what, molest them or something? What if he just wants to go in there and just stand there? He doesn't have to do anything. And there's nothing you can do about it. Right? So that would probably be the strategy I would implement on that one. Yeah, see, my problem, I think, is here in doing this, too, that I think, I probably think too logically at the outset. So I don't know.

I don't know exactly what I would say, but one thing I would, but no, there is one thing that I would say, and I think you would appreciate this because we're both empathetic people, right? And that is, you know, it would make this person feel a lot better to be called a woman, right? And why do you want to hurt their feelings? Why do you want to be cruel to this person? Right. And as long as we're not addressing that question at a governmental level under law, which is what Bill C-16 was wanting to do.

do that's that's the canadian law you're talking about right right that would be an example of how that model could be implemented that was the whole jordan when jordan peterson exploded on the scene it was because he was identifying that it's like that's fine fair enough but that's between me and the person right and that's a decision i'll make right because that can also the sincerity that's it to me it all this comes down to the individual using their mind applying their reason and coming to that conclusion themselves the government should not be involved in making that decision requiring it by law. So I would ask the question, if I refuse to use your pronoun, should anything, should I be required to? Should there be any consequence? Right. So

inevitably, you're going to get to that point where it's just going to be between the individual. Anything beyond that is disastrous, I think. Well, most of these arguments would you say, like they're really sort of a weaponization of people's empathy. right like they're saying well why like and codifying something that um that plays on people's you know just kind of wanting to accommodate people and their and their needs yeah i mean it's god sod's idea suicidal empathy um yeah there is this destructive compassion but it's also extremely hypocritical it's because it's only for their allies and for those they deem to be victims. There's very little tolerance. I can't tell you, since you and I spoke last, I can't tell you how many strange interactions, close friends.

I had a neighbor a week ago text me and say he's not going to talk to me. Our kids ride on the same bus, so I see him at the bus stop. And I noticed he was acting strange and not making eye contact. And when I got home, it was the first day my kid, was going to kindergarten at the bus stop. I get home. I was like, oh, I was strange, whatever. And I had, I've known this guy for years. I get a text from him. He's like, yeah, you probably noticed.

I was acting strange. Maybe we'll have some disagreement on this. He was saying, because, because you spoke to Nick Fuentes, I'm not, I'm, and I must make sacrifices for the larger good. So your kid's welcome to play with my kid, but I'm not going to acknowledge your existence moving them forward. And I think that's all the only response I can offer is, well, if you'd like to have a conversation, just let me know. Because if we can get to the conversation, I guarantee his foundation will crumble because I suspect I shouldn't guarantee.

I suspect a dialogue. It would rapidly become clear to him that, hey, if you're going to forbid like my conversation with Nick Fuentes was to challenge him on my areas of disagreement. What is wrong with that? Do you have any disagreements with me on that? Do you think that it is morally wrong? Well, to challenge someone on their fallacious arguments, especially if what you believe are their fallacious arguments, especially if you see that person as a destructive force in society sounds like probably a positive thing to do. But a lot of people would say, well, and this is, you know, frankly, I think this has come out of, again, people subscribe to these critical theories or kind of, you know, we would put a more broadly

call woke ideology that just like you cannot, you cannot platform to even communicate publicly with any person that's not on your team is quote unquote platforming them and you shouldn't do that. That's because they're somehow morally, you know, and this is that it's, well, well, and the thing is the thing, see here, here's, this is the question that you're pointing at, right? people are morally quite dangerous and problem out, especially if they're convincing, right? But but this approach to the world just says that everybody that doesn't share my exact approach to the world is like that, right? Which is a very, to me, it's a very extreme position. Right. So I think that these are legitimate questions you should ask. Like there's, you know,

there's people I don't want to be hanging out without publicly because people will assume that I, that I, uh, that I, you know, agree with their view. or something like that, whether or not if I'm right, but of course it might not be true, but at some level it makes sense to be conscious of that too, right? Not just like, yeah, whatever. Yeah, I don't know. It's an interesting thing because I'll tell you, it is so one of the guiding principles where everything, every time I make a YouTube video, someone is going to be upset.

It might be the person I'm making the video about. And I had to, it gets challenging when you start. doing videos as when I started in this space, I didn't know anyone, so it didn't bother me. And you start to meet people and you start to almost have friendships in a way with some of these people. And then if they, if you want to examine at a debate where they didn't do as well as the other person and you're trying to point out something specific, my point is, is like there is something very important I have found in saying that's just how the, I'm going to follow the logic. wherever it is and not worry about how anyone feels about it. That's very difficult in practice to actually do.

But it's extremely important. So it's not so much like, whatever, I'm not going to worry about it. But this morning at the bus stop, there's another neighbor that doesn't know what I did and found out that I do YouTube. And then I was very conscious of the fact that, okay, he's going to go home and Google it. And now he's going to hate me. Right? And I'm asking myself, why does he hate? Why would he hate me? And okay, well, he hates Trump. And I've pointed out things that Trump has done. But at the end of the day, what is the alternative? I have to let that go to some degree. Now, you don't want to be reckless, though. I get your point. Yeah, no. And by the way, your thing is to go to people who you think have logical palisies and have those discussions so that people, you're, and by the way, your thing is to go to people who you think have logical palisies and have those discussions so that people, can see how those fallacies play out.

So it makes more sense for you to be talking with controversial figures who have a lot of logical fallacies in their incredibly convincing thinking sometimes, right? Yeah, I'll admit though I was surprised with Nick because that conversation came about from me making a response video when I didn't know too much about it. And my point wasn't very valid because the logic is either there or it's not. And that was on me because when you look closer, he had a, he had a very good explanation for it. Now, I was surprised because in my conversation with him, we spoke for about an hour, an hour and a half. It was, he could have been pretending to be more reasonable.

Suddenly, everything I was challenging him on, suddenly it was, I was like, I challenged him on the idea of having a king and the importance of the founding fathers, the model that they created and how we shouldn't compromise on that. And he agreed with me on that. So it does get challenging where in a dialogue like that, there was nothing you could point to that would be fallacious. He's very logically careful. He's if he doesn't have a foundation, he'll point it out. And there are some questions I could ask about that show a hypocrisy, but he'll. So anyways. And so just on this point, like leaving him aside for a sec, but just in general, right? This is the challenge. Some people are very skilled rhetoricians, very skilled,

and they can do one thing at one time, another thing at another time. They can, and this, I mean, like, this is, this is, I'll go back to what I mentioned, what keeps me up at night, right? What keeps me up at night is that, what used to be a one-on-one conversation before media and then has been increasingly more one-on a great many people, right? You can share bad ideas. When I say bad, I'm using them in the terms in the sense that you describe, right? Ideas that are logically fallacious,

but somehow specious, somehow attractive, right? But not not consistent or not true for that matter. And you can have a whole lot of people in a very quick time believe something that and then that belief can be shifted again by another narrative that sort of, you know, narrative that sort of, you know, virally moves through the population. You can create moral panics. You can create, I mean, and I'm not saying you can, this has happened repeatedly and seems to be, you know, happening more and more.

And I just don't know how we emerge out of this without somehow getting a handle on it. Yeah, the thing that's going to allow you to contend with that is, is logic. So let, for example, and it doesn't matter how good of a, how good the rhetoric is, how good, because what you're describing when we talk about someone affected with rhetoric is essentially painting a narrative to create the illusion of a logical argument. So I would, Candace Owens, for example, often is an example of this where she's pointing, pointing to things that are strange, but you'll notice it's very rare for her to get a one-on-one debate. Yes, we did have the Andrew Wilson example, but that cost in $300,000. And she was

kind of, there was a whole kerfuffle that led to that where it was, there was no way out of it. And it was kind of brought on because she was called out it was kind of a last resort is my point and now when that happens she was still able to because she had a viral moment that in such a large fan base that overrides any of Andrew's logical wins in the big picture like there was that sense that that she was winning winning that but there were effective wins on Andrew's part using the logic like there's no escape like if the logic is like if the logic is not there's i don't care how good you are at spinning the narrative you can't escape that and this goes to the second most important law of narrative show don't tell which is everything in

story in filmmaking on screen content creation that's what i'm doing every day is i can tell you about how ludicrous postmodernism is or whoever we want to examine it if i tell people about what postmodern modernism is advocating for like we tried it today where you're putting forth the argument on well a man can be a woman it's like the audience is just going to dismiss that because they're not hearing it from the person actually but when i'm making a video i show it i don't tell the audience that this person's saying it i literally show it and then contend with it and i think that at at the core is what makes this so effective because you're seeing the words come out of their mouth now if candace owens can paint that

picture, if I can show those certain points or whoever it is, and this isn't to beat up on Candace, like she has a lot of skills and valid points in other areas, but there's certain logical breakdowns that I grapple with and I think are fair to grapple with. And no one can, no one can counter those. All they do in response is point to Andrew Wilson not being able to recite the seven charges. Like they cannot contend. And I will, and all I can do is say, talk to me about it. I will invite you. you on, we can have the conversation. It's very difficult for me to get people to come on, Lindsay Clancy.

I struggled to get someone who would literally come on camera and put forth those arguments. They'll say, well, I don't want to get sued and fine. Come forward and make the case that she shouldn't be held responsible. Like this is a public challenge. If there's anyone out there, anyone who would be willing to come on my on camera, we'll do it live. It's very difficult to find anyone. I'm trying to assemble, I guess, an arsenal, if you will. I've realized this, I'm talking with my team recently,

that one of the things that this show is going to need to do is to help people figure out how to keep free minds in an environment where increasingly sophisticated tools are being used to convince you of things in some cases without you even realize. it. I've even encountered things myself and I'm quite hard to convince. I'm structurally skeptical. It's a it's a hazard in a way, right? And I can see myself having been convinced of things that I didn't realize just because of time and repetition and whatever, just some assumptions that I had that were

wrong or whatever. And so this is this is my project and And I think your book brings an important piece of that in, which is this sort of thinking through, one, how to think logically and communicate that. And two, it's very interesting explaining how narrative structures work. And as you start thinking about that a bit more, I think you can see people creating them too and being able to piece out those gaps that are in there.

And so just that process, understanding that we're in an information war. You know, it's interesting how you call it a game, right? Because somehow that word, it feels to be, I understand you're not trying to trivialize it. It feels to be like it trivial. When you say war, it definitely doesn't sound trivial. The same way John Nash talked about game theory, though.

It allows us to look at it in almost a mathematical way, yeah no i i get that i understand that's what you mean by it too yeah um just yeah i wonder i wonder but it's just we increasingly in this information war that we're in that that everyone is kind of you know stepping into and putting in adding to the to the mayhem yeah i think it's going to come down to the the individual and that has always been and always will be our greatest hope and to me the book yes narrative examining the laws of nerve that's a subset of the book this is not a book about narrative I want to make that clear that is something that we touch on because it's so important but at the core this book really is about the individual thinking for themselves

developing that mind of their own It's the message that nothing will improve your life more than living in accordance with the fabric of reality. And that is why postmodernism is so detrimental because it is the opposite of the idea that there is the fabric of reality. And I use the example of be the sailboat that is sailing in accordance with the tides and the winds, finding true north and navigating based off of true north versus the boat. that everything is social conditioning in some form, social construct, and no object. There is no objective true north. Which boat is going to be more successful in trying to reach a destination? So there are a true, and when we're describing objective truth, at the end of the day,

that's what we're talking about, is trying to identify the fabric of reality. How do we, what is true so we can live in accordance with it? And the idea that you must become it before you can be it becoming the person you want, you, you should be, you could be in that, in writing the narrative of your life, becoming, going on the hero's journey within the narrative of your life, becoming that, that individual. Yeah, the individual is the only hope we have. That's the whole point of all of these methodologies and having the debates and epistemology

and the five-step method. It's, at the end of the day, it all comes down to the individual, really. it goes much deeper than politics because your face my point with the game as well is that these these problems manifest themselves way outside of politics in in the office there's political games your day-to-day life you're facing decisions critical thinking is not just about figure out who to vote for or navigate YouTube videos every day you're making decisions and you're being faced with the pressures, the narratives, all of these techniques that you're going to have to navigate, and that's not a choice. You're in it whether you like it or not. So yes, play to win,

and that's not a bad thing. It doesn't trivialize. It doesn't minimize. It's not a bad thing to want to win. It's not a power game because you're in it either way. It's not a power game. It's not a power game. It's a trying to get to truth game. To live in accordance with what is real, because that will allow you to be to reach your full potential. But you hear this today very often. I mean, you even hear it among people who believe in objective reality. While you have your truth, I have mine.

So, well, as far as like your experiences, but there's object and there's no believing in objective truth, that's a result of postmodernism, the fact that we even have to say those that believe in objective truth. Objective truth exists, logically it exists, independent of whether we can grasp it or not. And I described this as like mathematicians, a mathematician comes along and creates a breakthrough, but they're not inventing anything. They're uncovering something that was already there, giving it a name, making it possible to articulate so that others can build upon it. That's essentially how all of knowledge has worked.

That's the fabric of reality. We've made a new small observation about how this works in science. Now, postmodernists argue because we're constantly uncovering new facets of reality, of understanding, our understanding of the solar system will evolve. Therefore, because it's evolving, we don't really know anything. We can't claim to no objective truth. Okay, my counter is, even if we can't. fully know it, it does exist and we can strive for it nonetheless.

Well, and just one more thing that just strikes me here. Well, first of all, living in accordance with objective reality, understanding it's real also sets you up to deal with the ramifications of your actions, right? Because you're asking yourself, like, what's, you know, what's likely going to happen here? Okay, that's part of your calculus. And I wonder, though because there seems to be such a pervasive disinterest in our society for people having deciding to be accountable for actions indeed going back to lindsay the beginning of our conversation it's like a centerpiece of this of this whole of this whole question and so many people seem to be like ready to just say look yeah i know why why why should she be accountable for for that right

even though it's very obvious that she did it. That isn't even in debate. I wonder if this, go ahead. Because there are so many people that want to shake their fist at reality and that objective truth that exists, it causes us to be judged. It's very uncomfortable

and it causes us to have to do what we don't want to do. It's extremely inconvenient. Certainly. And there's this emotional appeal of the victim narrative that we see manifest in so many ways. It's come from postmodernism as well. And think about all the ways we see the people latch on to. Actually, I'm a victim that alleviates the burden of, well, I actually have more control over my reality where that boat goes than I've been told or that most people want to acknowledge. Now that's a stressful acknowledgement to make

that you are actually at the helm of your boat. And I try and go in this to this in the book, and Jordan Peterson tried to describe this with asking his, by asking his students, had you been a German in 1938 in Germany, right, or in Germany, do you think you could have been a Nazi? Could you have been a guard at the camp? No, I never would have.

well why are you somehow just born more enlightened you're made of the exact same thing the exact same DNA that you're made we're all made of the same one equal temper of heroic hearts made weak by time and fate as the tennyson poem says and um we're we're all made of the same stuff and that's a very just with with lindsay as well women is it you have the same capacity to That's a very unsettling thing. So it's much easier. And most people will do what is, they're like water. Most people will do what is easier.

And it's easier to be foolish than wise. It's easier to be a victim. It's easier to go with those narratives. But recognize when that's just a narrative and rather than what is objectively true. Well, Warren Smith, it's such a pleasure to have had you on. Thank you for talking. It's always fun. Thank you all for joining Warren Smith and me on this episode of American Thought Leaders.

I'm your host, Janja Kellick.