Cognitive Dissonance - Bonus Episode: Corrections on Episode 262

Episode Date: December 4, 2015

Be advised that this show is not for children, the faint of heart, or the easily offended. The explicit tag is there for a reason. so we initially uh recorded what we thought was going to be about a half an hour's worth of stuff for this episode um that would be a readdressing of the topic we had with Eli, with Thomas from Atheistically Speaking. We instead recorded about an hour and a half, which I edited down any redundant things to about an hour and 15 minutes. There's no good way to cut this up. There's no good way to take this and turn it into two episodes, etc. I'm just not going to do that. I'm going to just release this, and I'm not even going to release it on the regular schedule. I'm going to release it right away. And it's just going to be a bonus episode. It's not episode 264. We say it's 264 at the beginning. It's not 264.

We are just releasing it as a bonus episode. And I don't want to say rebuttal because I think that we're still in agreement with what Eli has to say on some of the issues, but it is a correction episode on what Eli had to say on episode 262. So if you listen to episode 262 and you still had questions or you had concerns about what was going on there, this episode addresses a lot of those concerns. We went through our email and took what we thought was most of the people's concerns about what was going on. And we tried to address some of those. We also did the research on some of the things that Eli said, and we make corrections in this episode. So this is really a correction episode and also a discussion episode with Thomas to talk about how we feel and how we think Eli feels about these things, the trigger warning, safe

spaces, and the incident at Yale. That being said, we welcome any kind of conversation with Eli in the future. We're not trying to do this as a way to say things about what Eli had said in some way where he can't respond. We're more than willing to meet up with Eli on, say, atheistically speaking, or in any other form that he wants to talk to us about this. We are not going to run away from conversation at any point. We really do think that we're probably on the same side as Eli on this. And we actually think a lot of people who listen to our show are on a very similar side. So just listen to this and see what you think. This is a complex issue and, uh, and it's something that we spent a lot of time on. So we hope you enjoy the podcast. There will be a podcast on Monday, a brand new show. This is not coming out in, in replacement for that. This is just a supplemental show that has to do with two 62 without further ado. Here's the recording we had with Thomas from Atheistically Speaking.

All right. So, Thomas, you are recording, right? I am 100% recording. All right. I just want to be really sure about that. We've been burned in the past. I referenced that earlier and you guys didn't react. I said, like, I'm definitely recording and you didn't react.

He was recording. Yeah. It's just fucking borked. And that's Audacity's fault. Hey, as somebody who has experienced a pain or trauma, I feel like this is my safe space. And I'm looking for a trigger warning before this fucks up.

You're looking for it. I understand. Recording from Glory Hole Studios in Chicago, this is Cognitive Dissonance. Every episode we blast anyone who gets in our way. We bring critical thinking, skepticism, and irreverence to any topic that makes the news, makes it big, or makes us mad. It's skeptical, it's political, and there is no welcome mat. This is episode 264 of Cognitive Dissonance.

And do you know why I know that? Because Cecil is gesturing the foresight at me. Now I'm telling you to throw a curveball. Give me a curveball. As we do it, we are joined by Thomas from Atheistically Speaking, Comedy Shoeshine, and Thomas in the Bible. Anything else? No, that's good.

Did I did I miss anything? Okay, good. All right. All right. Serial. The esteemed host of Serial. Yeah, I played a side. I played Adnan in Serial.

Speaking of. Oh, gee, not this. Not this. Don't do it don't you know i was what i was just gonna say was well speaking of uh you know differences controversies good point i was gonna say nice segue we had eli on last time and you had eli on they're looking for a cereal season too right because i think we got it for him this is it yeah this is the most versions of the show it is it is taken up certainly like fours of hours of our time so yeah is that i feel like that's a numerical value we want to talk to you about you you just had eli

bosnick on you talked about virtually the same topic we talked about, which was safe spaces, trigger warnings, and what went on at Yale. And what we would like to do is talk to you about your impressions of what you had a conversation because we had essentially the same conversation. So we'd like to talk to you about your impressions of that. But first, before we get into that, we have a couple of things that we want to do. And the first thing we want to do, we want to start off the show with correcting some of the things that eli said last time now eli had to his credit before we posted our show sent us a private message and he said to us hey just so you know i conflated a few things on your show

that weren't actually uh correct so and he gave us a list of those things we tried to list those last time. Um, and there were some, some factual errors in what he had to say. So I want to get the factual errors out of the way. And then we can talk about the meat and the substance of his argument and decide whether or not we agree or disagree. Okay.

I also have a disclaimer. I want to give, let me know when, when I, when I have any time for that, uh, tomorrow. Okay.

Yeah. Yeah. So disclaimer on our show same same time no i have to i have to get it should i show up here tomorrow then you won't be here i'm barely here today it's very true shit so let me let me let me burn through these real questions a couple of things that that uh that were incorrectly reported. First, his claim that the email was sent by a student group called the IRHC, which I guess would be the Inner Residence Hall Council. That's what I came up with. That is not the case. The email that the person was responding to was sent not by a student group, but by a senior leadership group at Yale.

So it was not sent by it was not student to student communication. And it even wasn't professor to student communication. There's deans on this board. It's the Intercultural Affairs Committee that sent this email out. I think even the president of the university, if I'm not mistaken, might have been on there. Definitively a dean is on there. And I know the directors of institutes at Yale are on that committee. So it is not the power dynamic that he explained.

So the power dynamic that he explained was to us. was to us and i think he explained the same power dynamic to you thomas's that there was an email exchange from student to students the students uh the the professor then got in on it and said hey guys uh back in my day we didn't you know we did we had thicker skin etc right i think if you allow me to hyperbolize just just because eli would because I love him, I think what he said was something like there was a huddled group of students in a dorm saying like, guys, please don't wear black. And then a teacher kicked in the door. No, you will not control what we wear. That was my best Eli impression of what he was. I like that.

I like that. To be fair, totally teasing. You're right. He said it was a student. So in any case, it is not the power dynamic that he described. So the power dynamic that he described was teacher to student sort of chiding. are going to read later on. That email was actually, it was a professor talking to pretty much the senior leadership at Yale saying, why don't we let these kids figure it out on their own?

So it's a very different, I think a very different. Yeah, totally changes it. Very different. It's huge. It turns it all on its head, in my opinion. Secondly, the letter was written by his wife Erica, not by Nicholas. And that I know he had said on your show that there was – they were back and forth that they penned it together or something.

Maybe that's true. Maybe that's not true. He merely quoted him at the end of the letter and that's why it was kind of directed at both of them. Yeah. So in any case, Erica penned the letter. Also, the party that was reported was alleged on Facebook. So that was just alleged. The Katrina party.

The party that they said no white girls. That was alleged back and forth. It's not a Katrina party. No. And I want to point out another inconsistency, too. Katrina party. And I want to point out another another inconsistency, too. He had said he had used the Alabama-Missouri game or something like that or Alabama-Louisiana game where they said, let's finish what Katrina started.

Yeah, Louisiana probably needed to be involved for that to make sense. The banner that he was referring to happened a full week after halloween so it happened in november 6th that banner appeared on november 6th now if they were referring to something that happened at yale two years ago that may or may not be the case but it doesn't seem likely it doesn't seem likely that they're referring to some racist party that happened there. In fact, that let's finish what Katrina started was a full week after Halloween, which was two or three weeks after this occurred. And again, not at Yale, right? Or am I not at Yale? No, not at Yale. But it seemed like he conflated the two things. So I wanted to bring that up and just clarify to people that the timeline is wrong for all that. I also want to point out that I couldn't find anything that suggested that, uh, Nicholas, uh, Christ tacos, the guy who is, um, cornered. Those are the best

ones. The Christ tacos are really good. Yeah. Yeah. Blood of the lamb right in there. You know how you can tell they're Christ tacos, right? When you look on the tortilla, it's got the Virgin Mary on it. No, there's a giant hole and it leaks all over your hand. To learn he's actually Mexican makes it really different, too. If his last name is Christ tacos. It's so racist. Nicholas Christ tacos is just a Euro.

Nicholas Christ tacos is just a Euro. But I couldn't find anything that suggested that he turned away students. Closed office hours. Or closed office hours. Me neither. In fact, I found only the opposite. I found him being magnanimous in his tweet after the fact with the student that confronted him saying, let's not judge people by one bad incident. I'm paraphrasing.

I did find from an Atlantic article him saying, like, hey, I'd love to talk to anybody that wants to have a discussion with me. You can basically come to my house on campus for dinner with me and my wife. We'll have Christ tacos. Yeah. I mean, they were serving Christ tacos. So, I mean, who wouldn't go? And a guacamole. So I didn't find the same, I'm unwilling to have a conversation. I need to be cornered in the quad and screamed at sort of dynamic.

I did not find anything like that in my searching around in verifying the information. Well, yeah. Not only could I not find that, like you said, I could not find anything on him refusing office hours. I actually went and watched the videos. And if you watch, the dude is being as receptive as you can imagine. It is, he is really trying to listen to the students.

And I really, I will make this as quick as I can, but I gotta just make a bit of a disclaimer here. I found Eli to be nothing but the most courteous person and very, very careful about talking about and to people that don't get to respond. He's very careful about that. And so I informed him that I'm coming on the show to talk about our recordings and all that.

And I just want to point out that I will give Eli any chance he wants to respond to anything we say on my show, because I do not want this at all to be like, oh, I couldn't say things to him when he was on the show, but I'm going to say a bunch of things now. Let me interrupt really quick. I just want to say this really quickly. We got a lot of flack for that, too. A lot of people said, why didn't you push back on the facts with this? Why didn't you push back on the facts? this? Why didn't you push back on the facts?

That's not how you have a conversation with someone. I've never been in a conversation with someone and been like, hold on, let me Google that. I've never done that. I'll never do that. We were having a conversation with him. He had comments to make. We listened to his comments, and we presumed that he was accurate. We're not saying that he's lying. We're not saying that he's purposefully misleading people

we've gotten tons of people not tons of people but certain people have said that like he's lying he's outright lying or he's out like outright trying to like manipulate the position i list i talked to that guy for four hours straight the other day not That's not the feeling I get from him. And I did not get any kind of feeling like that. In fact, the absolute opposite, what he did was say, if I'm wrong, please tell me I'm wrong. Let's have a conversation. He is not, he's, I know for 100% fact,

he's happy to be having a conversation with someone about it. I totally agree. And I think a similar thing happened with me. I can say that I was very surprised about the claim about a Katrina party. That seemed absolutely outlandish to me that that would happen. But I acknowledge, okay, that's a possibility. It looks like it really did not happen.

It's certainly not at Yale. I couldn't find anything. No, because it's outrageous. I look hard. Yeah. I mean, I just don't think that in this day and age in America, I mean, it's possible, but really that that that university officials wouldn't respond to that and we wouldn't hear about it.

And yeah, here's why I don't think it happened, Thomas. And I'm not again, I'm not saying like Eli was wrong. Eli, I think, got a bad source. And here's why I think so. The reason why I think so is Alabama or whoever the fuck it was was playing against Louisiana, and they had a sign that said finish what Katrina started a week after all this happened. They had a sign that said that. In my opinion, that's not a racist sign. What that is is schools versus schools states versus states

it's it's it's tasteless it's a it's it's it's in i don't want to say tasteless it's in bad taste i kind of think i'm like okay whatever i've even made katrina jokes on the show so i don't find it i don't find it particularly offensive so i don't think it's that big a deal in my opinion but in any case the the fact is is that that was hyper reported and that was in my opinion not based on race right could you imagine having a katrina party somewhere and it not being i can't imagine it not being reported it wouldn't be just hidden in some like backwater forum it sounds like it would be oh okay this is where we need to delve deep into the psychology of frat guys

look they just want to get laid they're not going to jeopardize that they're not going to jeopardize that by closing off a segment of the population of the female of the female population i gotta tell you like when i read the thing like no black girls it's a lot it's like i know i can see it saying no sober girls. That's entirely. I would be like, no girls with date rape fingernail paint. The sign read no girls with discriminating taste. That's what it is.

And so they mistook that. These guys all want to experience the chocolate rain. You know what I mean? Like, who are we kidding? You know? Oh, my God. Frat guys I knew. I was not a frat guy because i would never be a part of a group that would have other people as a member um but that's it yeah think about that uh but i the my experience with frat guys in colleges oh my they would anything that looked remotely female that would

be let in there's no it's gonna it's yeah come on yeah you're crapping yeah yeah and it's the same thing like i'm kind of with you see so like as far as like when i know the context of like the bama versus louisiana sign like let's finish what katrina started they're saying we're gonna fuck you up that's it's the hyperbole it's it's like when somebody's like i'm gonna fuck your mother and come in her mouth and it's like no you're not man it'd come right on her belly like everybody else. I mean, fuck you. That's hyperbole.

That's hyperbole. I don't believe you for a minute. No man would really come in your mom's mouth. So I have to, sorry, real quick. You have more. You have more. Go ahead. Because you, I was going to say something similar to what you did.

So I was very blown away by those facts. I pushed back a little bit, but I want to say that I went into the conversation thinking that I was expecting something else. Like I was expecting we were going to talk philosophically about certain things. fact-based about certain things, that he had a totally different version of facts. And so I honestly, I didn't know to expect that. So naturally, I wasn't 100% ready to respond to facts that I've just never heard of. So similar to like you said, so I'm going to respond. I have a bunch of responses now. Now that I have time to research and digest the claims that he's making, I have a ton of responses, but I just want to overemphasize that I really want Eli to participate. I don't want to shut out his voice. I am a hundred percent happy to have him on my show again. I don't, it's very important to me that I make clear that I don't mean this as any sort of back, you know, going behind his back thing. I just think it's going to be useful for us. Yeah. And the thing is i got a message i got a private message from today that with that that he said he welcomed

this he's happy to hear good good this sort of thing so what eli does okay here's the thing about eli i also have to say i think he's the funniest fucking person alive like i i love i seriously he's like my comedic idol i i's all right. We're here. No, I wanted to make sure to emphasize that in front of you that he's funnier than you. He is a hundred times funnier than you or I or us together and our dads. You know, like he's just. My dad is so not funny. My dad's dead, motherfucker. Why don't you give me a trigger warning

okay yeah no he he's i really and i really feel that way i've said it a billion times on and off the record not that that makes a difference but i've he really is just my favorite and so what he does is he does take things and hyperbolize a bit like i do like we all do but i think he's so good at it that it's like really effective you know and when he talks about the letter that uh the the wife what's her name christ tacos christ tacos is it marie or something i can't remember her name is erica oh erica sorry i'm totally wrong uh ericarika. Erika. Erika Christ tacos. Erika Christ tacos. Yeah.

She reeks of Christ tacos. I get it. I reek of Christ tacos. Anyway, her letter could not be more courteous. I mean, he characterized it. I'm right there with you, man. He characterized it as like, you know, she's like, come on. This is terrible.

He calls it trollish. Yeah. He calls it trollish. Yeah. He calls it trollish a lot. And we're going to read the letter in its entirety, I think. If you're going to read the, I'll stop talking then if you're going to read it because it's That's kind of what we're driving at. It's incredible. I'll hang up.

I'm just, I'm not. Okay. I've made my points. I'm not invested in this, you fuckers. That's all I want. There's probably other things, but yeah, the fact that he really did, I really think he had the wrong idea of a lot of that stuff. I don't want to say why.

And I also don't think we need to assign motives to anything, which a lot of listeners are doing of my show, too. He's not some evil person trying out to like ruin your free speech. He just he I think, like you said, he got a bad source, maybe went down the wrong path on a lot of this factual stuff. And then it colored his perception of it. And I think I think that it absolutely did, because I think when I think about the letter in the sense that it's it's senior leadership sending that to students and then a professor instead, like you say, the letter isn't trollish.

Not at all. It says one thing in it that could be construed as trollish, which is look away, right? She says in the letter, if you don't like something, look away or confront it. She says something to that effect. And the fact is, is like we look away all confront it. She says something to that effect. And the fact is, is like, we look away all the time. We do this every day in our daily lives. You know, somebody pisses us off, you know, cuts in front of us in line. How many people confront that person? You know, how many people are confronting the people that make you mad or make you uncomfortable? You know, when, uh, when

somebody is like, you know, asking you for money on the street or somebody's clearly crazy i live in downtown chicago and i run into like 70 crazy people like there's like there's like like i run into headphones iphone headphones are the greatest thing to ever happen to me because i have them in my ears a hundred percent of the day yeah it's not even listening to anything like it just just so that people see like hey man oh i can't okay you can't talk to that guy i actually only i will only talk to people if i plug the headphones into them yeah well you shove it down their throat when you want it it totally works the thing is is like like uh the other thing too is we turn away i turn away

on the internet all the time right if i go to reddit and uh and i look at a link and it says like not safe for life i don't click the link i turn away from all right if i open it i turn away from it really quickly and shut it if it just says not safe for work because i want to see the boobies you know what i mean like i'm like oh not safe for work well fuck it i want to see titties oh that's a guy's penis cut in half oh god you know what i mean and then you're like you know so i turn away all the time you know what I mean? And then you're like, you know. So I turn away all the time. You know what I mean? And I don't castigate the person who put something like that up and say, you know, why did you put a guy with his fucking half a dick cut off and what the fuck?

You know what I mean? Like, well, because it's fucking our what the fuck. And that's what we put up here, you know? So the fact is, is like I feel like feel like you know we turn away all the time and so people are focusing on this particular turn of phrase which is if you don't like it don't look at it but the fact is is like they're just explaining reality and if you're if you're so sensitive that you can't expect that someone's gonna tell you what's real then i i mean i don't know if i do feel a little uncomfortable with this part of what you're saying because i don't want to be the white guy who's saying hey people of color just i understand

that and what i wanted to say about the letter is no matter what it whether you ultimately agree with it it was not trollish and you're going to read it you'll see i'll go ahead and just uh yeah go ahead and read it now this is the email that went out from from senior leadership at yale to the students it said dear yale students, the end of October is quickly approaching and along with the falling leaves and cooler nights come the Halloween celebrations on our campus and in our community. These celebrations provide opportunities for students to socialize as well as make positive contributions to our community and the New Haven community as a whole. Some upcoming events include shit we don't care about. However, Halloween

is also unfortunately a time when the normal thoughtfulness and sensitivity of most Yale students can sometimes be forgotten. And some poor decisions can be made, including wearing feathered headdresses, turbans, wearing war paint or modifying skin tone or wearing blackface or redface. These same issues and examples of cultural appropriation and or misrepresentation are increasingly surfacing with representations of Asians and Latinos. Yale is a community that values free expression as well as inclusivity. And while students, undergraduate and graduate definitely have a right to express themselves, we would hope that people would actively avoid those circumstances that threaten our sense of community or disrespects, alienates or ridicules segments of our population based on race, nationality, religious belief, or gender expression. The culturally unaware or insensitive choices made by some members of our community in the past

have not just been directed toward a cultural group, but have impacted religious beliefs, Native American, indigenous people, socioeconomic strata, Asians, Hispanic, Latino, women, Muslims, etc. In many cases, the student wearing the costume is not intended to offend, but their actions or lack of forethought have sent a far greater message than any apology could after the fact. There is growing national concern on campuses everywhere about these issues, and we encourage Yale students to take the time to consider their costumes and the impact it may have. So, if you're planning to dress up for Halloween or will be attending any social gatherings planned for the weekend, please ask yourself these questions before deciding upon

your costume choice. And then ask some very basic sort of questions I don't think we need to go over. I'll just read the questions real quick. Are you wearing a funny costume? What's the humor based on? Are you wearing a historical costume? Does it basically have misinformation in it? Are you wearing a cultural costume that actually has jokes about people or stereotypes? And are you wearing a religious costume that basically can mess up with someone's deeply held faith? And then it gives a resource of shitty costumes that are old and irrelevant. The funny thing is that that Pinterest page is three years old that they list. And the Pinterest page is like, don't go dressed as Bane or dead amy winehouse and i'm just like amy winehouse has been dead for a real long time right

literally no one is mourning amy winehouse anymore nobody even amy winehouse's parents don't care whatever why did you say bane what is that yeah i don't know that for if you click on that link and if you go to the costumes to avoid um it it says there's there's one that says um it says fad costumes to avoid and one of them is snooki one of them is no shit romney's wife okay that tells you how long ago that was denarius eating a heart from game of thrones and bane yeah that's like that but the thing is like like it was made by like some student organization it's like costumes to avoid now there's a few links in here that you're like okay i get you know you shouldn't i guess go dressed in a hajib although i don't think that that's i i mean i don't know i don't

find offense in it but i'm not that's not my culture so i don't i don't find offense in it, but that's not my culture. So I don't know what that feels like. I'm not going to judge what that feels like. But fucking if somebody goes as a dead Amy Winehouse, I think that's hilarious. I'm sorry. I don't care if it's insensitive or if somebody's going to boo-hoo all over their boo-hoos. If you're going as dead Amy Winehouse, that's glorious in my opinion. You showed up to my Halloween party as dead Cecil the Lion. I did. I dressed up as dead Cecy whitehouse that's glorious in my opinion you showed up to my halloween party as dead cecil the lion i did i tried to dress up as dead cecil the lion and it was fucking funny it's funny because it's a fucking it's a dead carcass who cares i just want to say after reading this

letter i'm fucking pumped about not going as anything for halloween like what do you i mean look seriously okay historical costume if it's meant to be historical, does it further misinformation or historical and cultural inaccurate? Like, when is this such a big fucking deal? You're just putting on a thing. It's really amazing to me. I went as Yosemite Sam and I had a huge cowboy hat that was totally inaccurate. That is offensive.

You actually have to show up. The only historical costume allowable is if you're like a fucking Civil War reenactment guy. Where you sewed your own buttons and shit. And like, oh, it's made of real herringbone. I killed the herring myself, I did. You have to go as an entire hardcore history episode. In order to get the context. I want to go as Ghost of the oscar so i could go as

six million dead people what are you going on i'm going as a road paved with corpses that's what i'm going as that's oh happy halloween and i was talking to cecil about this earlier like we know what's particularly funny is like all of these things are offensive right like all these oh my god he dresses him whatever and that's i'm so offended but you could show up like what do you well i'm a psychotic madman murdering people oh whatever yeah that's well that's a real thing if people really get murdered right like like it's not like oh it's like nobody gets murdered in america that's not people fucking get murdered all the time can Can you imagine if you're like, I mean, legitimately, like, I knew a guy. I worked with a guy, rather, whose son was murdered by just some fucking crazy dude.

Well, that's fucking hilarious. That's the whole point, right? Ever since then, that guy's like, every time I turn on TV or watch a movie, like, murder is a topic for entertainment. He's like, I just don't find it funny anymore. But somehow that doesn't make the list. You're like, oh, cover yourself in blood. It's fine. like murder is a topic for entertainment he's like i just don't find it funny anymore but somehow that doesn't make the list like oh cover yourself in blood it's fine yeah it's not like i don't know 14 people died in san bernardino yesterday yeah right like that's not culturally insensitive at all the larger theme for me with this stuff is and and i don't want to say i totally disagree

with i think this email is fine i honestly don't really have a big problem with it. One word – one little phrase that I thought was interesting is have not – here, I'll read it. Have not just been directed toward a cultural group but have impacted religious beliefs. What does that mean? You can't dress as the Amish, I guess. Like you can't show up. No, no. It said the cultural or insensitive choices have impacted religious beliefs.

What is that? Somebody probably dressed up as like Christ on a cross or something. Somebody pissed someone else off. Yeah, but how does that impact your religious – there's nothing I can wear that impacts your religious belief. If you believe – I could wear like some counter-apologetics. I could dress up as Christopher Hitchens and convince you that the God isn't real. Or you could just tell me that, like,

you don't have to dress up. I believed in God. And then it was Halloween. And that guy was dressed as Jesus. And I was super confused because I thought Jesus was dead. And then I was like, get back. But it wasn't him.

And I was so sad. I don't, I really don't know. I just don't know what to do. I really don't know how a costume choice could impact someone's religious belief. That is unreal to me. Like that's where it gets a little problematic.

You know what, you know what would have happened if I would have got this email, I would have, I would have, I would have put it right in the spam filter. I'd have been like, I don't even like, I don't know what you have to say to me.

I don't even care. Like it would have just washed right over me. So I, first off, I don't understand. I mean, I kind of don't understand. I mean, I, I, in, in some way I kind of do understand Christ tacos, uh, fucking his and his wife's pushback on this because it is senior leadership talking to the students saying, Hey kids, this is, this is what you guys want to do. Just so you know, this is how you celebrate this holiday correctly, kids.

You know, and it's treat, in my opinion, it's treating kids like kids. It's saying, hey, kids, be this way. These are, and as Eli said on our show, he called them babies. These are not kids. These are not kids. These are adults. These are adults. These are 18, 19 year old.

I say kids because I'm 40 years – I'm 45 years old almost. I can call them kids if I want. Don't you get up if I want. I had no idea you were that old. I probably need to leave this podcast now. Don't worry. He'll die before. Yeah, I'll be dead before the end of the podcast.

And sometimes they're older. I mean there are people who are going to be in their mid-20s who are going to – I mean these are not kids. I think we're coddling them a bit. But I don't, I mean, whatever this, like you said, this email sent, I don't have a huge problem with it. There was, you know, the funny thing is the blackface incident at Yale that I could find was actually, it was in 2007. That was the thing that, and I think that's what they're referring to when they say in past years, blah, blah, blah.

It's like, all right, it's been eight years. You know, like, is this? Yeah. Is this an epidemic? Do we need an email every year to tell us not to do blackface? Right. But again, not a huge deal. Like, I don't want to overreact to this email.

I think it's fine. I also think like you were saying, I think the email back is OK. I think it was exceedingly courteous. If you're going to read some of that, then go ahead. Yeah, we're going to read excerpts from it. We're not going to read the whole thing. We thought we were going to read the whole thing, but we're not. She talks in the beginning about some of the other things, like how she comes to these thoughts from a problem child perspective or something because let me just say

it's crucial i know we're gonna do what everybody else has done and only read part of it but go i encourage people to read this whole thing because the parts we're skipping are a lot of the parts where it's like okay really respectful like it's laying out a a uh nuanced case for what she's saying she's and she took time this is a long ass fucking email i would never write an email this long i've never written an email this long either like no but i encourage you to i want to get to that that point you guys are making before i would get this it's like one of those big corporate long emails it's like well everybody the holidays are approaching just like i'm not reading that yeah i don't give a fuck i'm not reading that at all it's like soon as you tell me the fucking leaves are turning colors, I'm like, you've fucking lost all credibility.

I have no interest. I'm done. Fuck you. I know what the leaves are doing. I'm not paying attention to this shit. The seasons are changing. Oh, fuck. The leaves are changing.

Why didn't somebody at Yale tell me the leaves were going to change? Yeah. Fuck it. Well, let me read the parts of this that I care about. Okay. Because I'm selfish. Go. I don't wish to trivialize genuine concerns about cultural and personal representation

and other challenges to our lived experience in a plural community. What a bitch. I know that many decent people have proposed guidelines on Halloween costumes from a spirit of avoiding hurt and offense. I laud those goals in theory, as most of us do. But in practice, I wonder if we should reflect more transparently as a community on the consequences of an institutional, which is to say, bureaucratic and administrative exercise of implied control over college students. To me, that is so important to this email. That is absolutely important.

And what she's I think what what is missed in this is that she's not talking to the students here. I think she's talking to the administrative to the administration. She's talking to the people who wrote the original email to be like, hey, can we let them figure it out on their own? Right. And I think, too, she's she's not saying do this, do that. the original email to be like hey can we let them figure it out on their own right and i think too she's she's not saying do this do that she says in practice i wonder if we should reflect that is hardly an admonishment if you're admonishing me by saying you know i wonder if maybe we should possibly think about perhaps doing this i can't believe you're exercising control why are you fucking kidding me yeah you just got a serious tongue lashing there oh my god i'll never recover

you know and then and i mean really what is she saying in there i mean she's she's very clear about what she's saying she's saying look you know maybe the way that we think about this shouldn't come from an institution up yeah it's or down. It should come from us at the grassroots level as students deciding, you know, what kind of community we want to grow and foster. And she's saying, look, let's have that conversation. Let's reflect on that. And the way she says it is so obsequious. Let me read another piece of this because I think this is really important.

She says, even if we could agree on how to avoid offense, and I'll note that no one around campus seems overly concerned with the offense taken by religious conservative folks to skin revealing cost of costumes. I wonder, and I am not trying to be provocative here. Is there room anymore for a child or a young person to be a little bit obnoxious, a little bit inappropriate or provocative and yes, offensive. American universities were once a safe space, not only for maturation, but also for a certain regressive or even transgressive experience. Increasingly, it seems that they have become places of censure and prohibition and the

censure and prohibition come from above, not from yourselves. Are we OK with this transfer of power? Have we lost faith in the young people's capacity, in your capacity to exercise self-censure and through social norming and also in your capacity to ignore and reject things that trouble you? We tend to view this shift in individual and institutional agency as a tradeoff between libertarian and liberal views. And I think, you know, in my opinion, I'm right there with her.

I'm like, you know what? When I was in college, I was an obnoxious little shit. And it turns out that I eventually learned how to be a less obnoxious little shit. Mildly. Somewhat. Because people had, you know, I understood the social implications of being an obnoxious little shit. And I think that that's what people, you need to learn that sort of thing. You don't learn how to be a social creature by being told how to do it.

You have to experience it. Yeah, totally. How long did that take you because i heard you're in your like 50s or something early 60s yeah yeah no i totally and and she you know she's totally right we don't give a shit what religious conservatives think right and and well to be fair i guess the the one distinction you could make is that religious conservatives or sometimes have um preferences that include limiting what other people are doing. Whereas if you're worried about a costume that's like, okay, you're dressing as a black person, that's a really direct attack on that culture.

So it's a little bit different than like, oh, you can't show the skin because I'm not allowed to do that in my religion. So a little bit different. But I mean, it's a fair point. And I think that, I don't know, I tend to agree. Here's what I think has happened here. There are costumes that are genuinely offensive. Definitely. There's stuff that are tasteless that we shouldn't do.

There's pain that as white people, we don't really ever experience because we're white. We don't experience the pain of seeing your culture mocked. Well, we don't experience as being a minority and seeing your culture mocked. I actually have seen white people being mocked plenty. I kind of enjoy it. But that's why I digress. But we don't have that experience. We don't have that. We're represented. And I understand that part. but i think where it goes a little haywire is they start trying to think of like every different possible thing that might be offensive and it just snowballs because no one ever wants to say we'll stop trying to think of things that are like stop yeah you know that just snowballs kind of out of control and then certain people will react to the more corner cases and say, like, well, that's ridiculous. You're going to tell me I can't wear a Bane costume for some reason.

Yeah. Whatever his race was. I don't know. Is that what it is? I don't know who Bane is, but like, I think it's a part of a like a Batman series. I'll never do that. I didn't see it. You guys are old.

Not for me. But like, you know, like, I think she makes a good point, too. Like, look, you can't look to an administration. You can't look from an institution to decide what things offend you. If there are things that offend you, then that needs to be an organic conversation that you as a student body have with each other. Because otherwise you're looking at me. Am I offended? Yes, you're offended.

Oh, OK, great. I'll go ahead and be offended. And that puts such an onus on the administration or the institution to decide which are the offensive things and which are the allowable things. Right. And she's saying, like, you know, do you really want that from your institutions? Is that is that where the seat of power should come from? And I think that that's a and she's not even saying yes or no. She's simply raising the question. Yeah, she's not. She's not. No point is she saying this is the answer. She's like, well, here are some questions.

And like, I think the response to this is so out of the response should maybe just be another letter. Like what I was. I know they did an open letter, but the open letter was calling for her death. Like it was basically like we need to hang this. You know, we need to fire this person. We need to fire. They need to resign. I want to read one more piece of this before we leave it because this is the part that people have problems with.

And I want to read the part that everybody has a problem with. Well, and I want to add while you're at it. I was going to say this earlier. Sorry. The thing that happened in the media is they just quoted like one sentence. They made it look like she wrote an email that said, meh, that's dumb. Whatever you want like that you know and this is a long ass fucking email it's a long email that's couched very carefully

and then it ends with nicholas says now she's quoting her husband here if you don't like a costume someone is wearing look away or tell them you are offended talk to each other free speech and the ability to tolerate offense are the hallmarks of a free and open society so that's the part that people have problems with and so i want to make sure that we read that because that's what everybody seems to have an issue with and i don't want to be disingenuous here and say that there's nothing in the email that people could find offense i think that the look away part like you you said earlier, Thomas, you know, if I'm a, you know, if I'm a minority, maybe, you know, that that's that's an offensive thing to say, maybe.

And it does shift the burden of adjust of like I'm walking around and, you know, like let's say I'm on the Yale campus and I'm a black person. I'm probably in a major numerical minority. I'm certainly in a power minority. If there's like, you know, I don't think this is the case, but if there's like seven people standing over there in KKK costumes, am I going to walk over to them

as the only black dude around and be like, I am offended by your incredibly racist costumes. I would like to engage a debate with you, sirs. Right, yeah, right. Oh, yes, sirs. Let us have a debate, a spirited debate,

while we are on the rowing team. Right, right. You know, it's not going to happen. Later, fisticuffs. The thing is, is that we're picking on all these little things, right? We've been spending. We spent. God, I haven't even looked at the time yet, but we're probably 25 or 30 minutes into this episode already.

And we're talking about the things that that we disagree with. Right. But I want to start talking about some of the things that we disagree with, right? But I want to start talking about some of the things that we agree with. And the things I agree with Eli with on this are, and I think that transcend any of the things that we talked about earlier. I don't think that the girl who was shrieking and freaking out inside of that circle of people yelling for the guy to resign, saying, who the fuck hired you, et cetera, et cetera. I don't think, one, she's the face of a movement. I think that's inappropriate for people to paint her as the face of some sort of movement. I don't even know what movement that is.

But if you're painting her as the face of that movement, I think that's inappropriate. I also – Eli said this. I don't know if this is true but i'm he said it was he said it was something that happened that they dox this young lady if they doxed her that's repugnant you should never i i personally disagree with doxing anyone yeah me too i think that that's an awful thing to do can you can you give clarify when you say doxing what is the different now when i heard i thought doxing meant you revealed like their home address and all that stuff like that like their personal like where they live and all if it's if it's just like oh i know that girl that's here's her name like is that

doxing or you know the thing is is like like what i see it as is they give out personal information about you now if you're trying to remain anonymous, that could just be your name. But if your name is out there or part of your name is out there, it could be who you work for. It could be who your friends are, who your family is.

The problem with doxing, and I want to get through this real quick. I don't want to spend a lot of time on doxing. One of the major things I disagreed with Eli on when when he said it was okay to dock someone who made a rape game about anna sarcazian i don't think it's ever okay to dox people and it's not that i don't think it's okay to tell their employer that somebody made a like a fucking rape game it's not that i don't think that that's a good thing It's that the public can't control what they do. When you turn it over to vigilantes, they always go overboard and ruin people's lives in a way that is absolutely.

I couldn't agree more. And it's awful. And they can't control themselves. So they contact people that they knew. They contact their work. They get them fired. They, you know, they harass them. They send them death threats.

They send them death threats. They send them rape threats. They do awful shit all the time when somebody finds out your personal information. It's repugnant. And so I never, yes, if the one exception, of course, is if something's doing so someone's doing something legitimately illegal or violent or threatening. Yeah. Somebody says they're going to kill like 25 people or something. You're going to say the authorities. You don't need to publicly try to reveal their whatever. You need to report them to the authorities. And it's what people need to look at is the rule. You can't just say, well, it's OK when I agree with it. It's not OK when I don't agree with it. You need to look at is the rule. You can't just say, well, it's okay when I agree with it. It's not okay when I don't agree with it. You need to look at what the rules are.

And I hate these fucking hackers who go in and hack these sites. Everyone, when Ashley Madison was hacked, everyone was, oh, it serves them right. No. We want to live in a society where you can do shit online. You can have commerce. You can do it, and things aren't hacked. That's the law. We want to live in a society where people aren't allowed to just steal your fucking billing info if they don't agree with what you're doing. I also think too,

that there was another one that came out. That's even a better instance. It was when the, the, the anonymous announced that they had a bunch of KKK people that they had. And I thought, announced that they had a bunch of KKK people that they had. And I thought, first off, how the fuck am I supposed to believe you? You went out of your way to break into something and do something illegal. How do I know you're not just inserting senators in there that fucking don't even deserve to be in there that never had any affiliation? How am I supposed to trust? I totally are you a trusted figure? I don't believe you. So when you're doxing these people, I don't give you any credence. I don't think anything you say is true. You've already committed a fucking crime.

So for me, doxing is just – it's off the table. It's off the table. There's no reason to ever do it. And also I think – I had made the point in the show about – with Eli because I'm kind of two minds on this. the show about with Eli because I'm kind of of two minds on this you know on the one hand as a semi-public figure I don't know how reasonable it is to expect to never be sort of found out sure sure right like you know how much how much personal privacy is it reasonable to expect uh and I don't know the answer to that but it's it's a question that plagues me on occasion because you know the the other side of that is like, you know, somebody could fucking ruin your family.

You know what I mean? Like, I hear what you're saying, and I guess it's changing my mind as I'm listening to this. I've never been pro-doxing, but I was always kind of like, well, I mean, you're fucking – what right do you have to privacy when you make yourself a public figure? There's a whole – we got to talk about what it is though if it's a question of just saying this is this person's name i don't really care about that if it's a question of here i dug up their fucking address that i strongly strongly disagree with that i also disagree with con you know in some ways they're contacting their employer they're sending them i death threats. I totally agree with that. That's horrible. They do awful shit.

It's not just one thing. The problem with doxing is that once you let out one piece of information, then everybody seizes onto it. You can't control the flow then. So you let out one piece, and then a bunch of people jump on, and they're like, oh, well, we know his name is fucking Dave Johnson. So now I fucking did a search, and now I found his fucking fucking address and I called the fucking SWAT team on him or whatever. You know what I mean? They're pranking you. They're fucking with you.

They call a bomb scare at your fucking kid's school and then they call your wife on the phone or whatever they do. They find out this information. Just letting out one piece of information can be damning. And I think that doxing is an awful – so I don't want to spend too much time on this. Just letting out one piece of information can be damning. washes right over me. Yeah, me too. You know, I think like, you know, look, she was having a hysterical moment. I don't really care. I watched the video without any context initially. I think the crowd in effect was saying that they wanted the senior administration to dictate how kids could dress. And here's the thing that I found I wanted to bring up. I encourage people to watch the videos because you'll see a guy trying to listen, trying to interact. And then you'll see another woman, I say woman because I'm not going to call them kids because I don't think they are kids. You'll see another young woman saying that she

just demands an apology. She says, look, if you're not going to apologize, I'll just leave because I'm not going to sit and, you know, I'm not interested in anything but an apology. And I was thinking about that. And it's amazing because she's asking, she's demanding he apologize for being quoted in this email that was really not a big deal. Like, and he says, well, why do I just automatically have to apologize if you demand an apology? Like, I want to think about it. Like, I want to at least hear the reason why you and the crowd goes nuts like they can't they're they're they're going insane that he even suggests that he shouldn't just immediately apologize and i just think they're completely in the wrong and i think

that they have a lot more support than eli let on and and the hysterical girl the hysterical girl has a lot more support than i think eli let on on. Well, let me talk about that a little bit too, because I tend to agree that there is a problem where if somebody demands an apology and they don't receive an apology, that they feel that an apology is an entitlement. I am offended. You need to apologize if you've not apologized then you've not um you know you've not met my demands you've not met the entitlement demand that that i am without even being able to talk about it without even being able to clarify

like well wait what do i what do you want no no you must apologize so but i think eli's there with us i think to the extent I think he would agree. Maybe I can't speak for him that that to the extent that people believe that to the extent that anybody would say that I demand an apology without the benefit of a thoughtful conversation. That's problematic. I don't think. But but is that is that really emblematic of of what social justice is or social justice? Oh, OK. Or is that really just a symptom of this specific event? Right. I think he was using this specific event to try to branch off into a larger conversation about about social justice. about about social justice uh generally i think that to be perfectly blunt this specific event was a shit example to use as the springboard to launch into that larger conversation um and and i wish that we had not done that well but but he did it specifically because he thought people were were you know overreacting to it yeah you're right. You're right that you, that, that it's not just about this Yale thing. It's about SJW in general. Uh, and, and that's a good point,

but I still would say, I think that this group and this, this, uh, movement, the, the open letter had a ton of signatures. Like, I think it has more support than just saying, oh, this is just a shitty example of social justice. I agree. I think think you're i'm right there with you i i think that not only were the were the people who were shouting him down wrong because one they were not as as as we were led to believe um sort of uh chasing him or down to try to figure this out it the way it was written at least in in a couple of articles specifically the atlantic article where they talk about how he was very open to talking to people and they never bothered to do it. Instead, they decided to circle him in the quad. I think that that's, you know, I don't agree with that. I don't think that that's the way you have a conversation.

And I think that, you know, the pushback that I'm getting on this on the last episode and the pushback that people get from this, Eli would agree with. And I want to talk about the pushback for a second, because I think that people misconstrue Eli's position on this. And I think that that's incorrect. And I want to talk a little bit about that. One of the things that people were really upset about was they were saying that people use trigger warnings and safe spaces to stifle discussion. And Eli said on your show very explicitly and on our show very explicitly that that's cowardly and that's childish and that's – and you don't get to sit at the big kids' table when you do that. And furthermore, the reason I really love Eli and I wanted to have him on among many reasons is he tried to engage a bunch of people. He tried to engage a bunch of people that he didn't want to call out because he's like – he's very careful.

He's like, I don't want to call him out. He tried to engage a bunch of people who just would not debate with him. I called out Gad Saad because I don't like the guy and I had an example of why I don't like him, which is probably not worth going into. People can hear it on my show if you don't want me to repeat it. Yeah, I called him out, but Eli was very, very cautious to be respectful but still say, I tried to have a discussion. And I totally support Eli on that, 100%. And I think he agrees with us when that's a shitty way to use these things as a shield.

And I don't think anybody is disagreeing. So we want to get that clear. The other thing, too, is there's a creep. People are complaining about the creep of trigger warnings to include things that insinuate PTSD stuff instead of actually doing graphic, like explicit and graphic PTSD stuff. We again and I know Eli would agree he would dismiss that. He would say that first off, he would say that it doesn't happen very often. Now we got a bunch of emails this week that said it does happen. I read a couple of email. I read a couple articles. I read that salon article that you talk about on your show where he talks about where they talk about some trigger warning things and et cetera. So there is probably something like that in academia. I know I haven't experienced that. I said people are worried about the trend line. People are worried about the fact that it seems to keep getting weirder and weirder with the things we need to be ready. And to Eli's credit, I mean, I think he's convinced me that it doesn't seem to be a big deal. And the minute when it is a big deal,

when he's ready to fight it 20. Yeah. And so I totally respect that point of view. And I think he made a good point on that. I still think some certain trigger warnings that I've heard sound ridiculous to me. But if there's something that people need and they really aren't encroaching on the education, then that's fine. But furthermore, if it ever gets to a point where professors are fired over the kinds of trigger warnings they give or they're not quite how it should be, like that's where I would have a problem with it too. And Eli I think would have a problem with it too. I don't think that that's an issue. Exactly. Look, you know, I come back to this idea that like this needs to be a conversation that allows for nuance.

Like if we don't do that, if this is a my side, your side, it's meaningless. That's exactly the problem. Because this is all gray line area. lying area the other thing that uh that somebody sent us this week they said just so you know sometimes when people know that you've had ptsd they will do things like automatically stay away from trigger things for you and they feel like they're like the person i think said they're wrapping you in cotton so it's like so so that in that person's opinion and it's not everybody's opinion because clearly people can be triggered. So, you know, you want to give people the benefit of the doubt.

But in their opinion, they think that it's actually harmful for them to to heal. I'm not going to say that that's a ubiquitous thing, but I'm saying that this person specifically said it. Another thing that someone had a comment about Eli, they said when that when Eli at the end gave his plea that be on the right side of history, what do you want to fight for? Do you want to fight against Donald Trump or do you want to fight against this young lady at Yale, et cetera? He was sort of running this. The person said, and I'm going to quote, I understood your guests closing remarks to mean that this trivial conversation compared to others we would be having, this is a trivial conversation compared to others we could be having. But to borrow triple conversation compared to others we could be having but to borrow his sentiment about heroes i didn't realize that there was only one important

conversation each year it's fair and that's very fair that's a fair bit of criticism we say that all the time yes you can have different interests in different things based on your you know your energy that same thing occurred to me but i will say that I think when it comes to people like Gad and when it comes to people like Christina Hoff Summers and others like that, I think it is an appropriate criticism because Gad Saad all day just posts the same

stupid jokes about, oh, if I identified as a woman, then I could say that this person hated women when he was married. It's like all day. That's a kind of crappy post. It's not interesting. You don't like this guy, do you? No, I do not.

There are people who use this controversy in order to just gain a measure of notoriety by being a guy who's on one side. But I see this whole set of issues not as one side or another side. I see this as an of issues, not as one side or another side. I see this as an ongoing conversation that needs to be, you know, navigated.

People stake their claims. People stake their claims. And to finish what I was saying, this term regressive left. Now that's become the oh, someone slightly disagrees with my version of what it is. Right. You're the regressive. Now's because the major problem which you guys identified which i was going to say is the major fucking problem with humans is the tribalism and this is just another way that we've decided to group ourselves and so what and here's the problem people like me are never i'm never going to be the gad sod where i pick a fucking easy side of it and i say okay this is my fucking side i'm just gonna tweet about this all day long oh he's gonna what's next he identifies as a rock like all it's not that's i'm never gonna do that i'm never gonna be a one note fucking guy who just says the same thing over and over i'm gonna try to look i would do my best to look at all the different issues of it and that

if there's any solution to this problem which there isn't by the way but if there's any solution to this problem, which there isn't, by the way, but if there's any solution, it would be that we have to just everybody encourage everybody. Look at things case by case. Look at different aspects of the things. Pick out parts where, hey, maybe I agree with this side. I don't agree with the other side and vice versa. Pick it. Don't just pick a fucking side. And then everything you get is from the same Breitbart news on this shit like

get different sources do everything you can to make sure you're getting the full picture on everything and that's not to say that it's 50 50 I don't think it is it doesn't have to be 50 50 but it's not a hundred to zero on a given side it's not a hundred to fucking zero that's all I have to say what I what I I want to say specifically is that the main points that Eli hit, the high notes that Eli hit, I think I agree with. I don't think that we should

label this girl and dox this girl. I don't think that those things are right. I think that somebody having a bad day and screaming and crying is not somebody who we should say, this is the example of how a movement acts. OK, whether or not and it may be it may be that people think that there is some sort of movement out there that does this sort of thing all the time. And there may be like like we see on occasion.

I'll see these stories where people shout down speakers. They shout down, you know, whether or not there's a speaker out there who wants to speak about something that they disagree with. And then they shout them down. They don't let the person speak and they don't go to the Q and a instead they just yell at them until they stop speaking. That's awful behavior. And I don't think anybody's condoning that behavior. And I know for sure Eli isn't condoning that behavior. And, and, and I think that that's where people are misunderstanding. We got, we got a email from people that was rude, right? We got email and we got, we got, uh, we got tweets from people that was just rude where they were just like, this guy's a liar. This is disgusting, et cetera. You didn't listen to what he said, right? What he said was, I don't agree with that

shit. And I don't think anybody should agree with that shit. We, and I think that Tom and I are right on the same page. I think that, you page. I think that when it comes to being offensive, I think that we are every week offensive. Every single week we are. want to talk very specifically about trigger warnings and safe spaces so I can be very clear on where I'm staying. I'm pro-trigger warnings generally in a nuanced way. to one, but I do think that a trigger warning is a courtesy that you extend if you have a moment to be aware that this might be something that's going to affect an audience that you participate with. I have, and I'll use an example in my own home, I have a friend of mine who's a combat veteran, a tour in Iraq, a tour in Afghanistan. If my boy is upstairs playing fucking modern you know

call of duty or something and he's gonna go upstairs in my house i might stop him and say hey real quick just want to let you know finn's upstairs playing call of duty i know that game sometimes can bother you or whatever i would do that because it seems like a courtesy on the other hand he's not entitled to it because he's in my house and if i forget to do it it doesn't make me a shithead right it's simply a courtesy that i would choose to extend the concern because i want to be a compassionate person but that's the concern a lot of people have they're worried about the trend and this is something i worry about too we've made it uh it we're becoming more and more externalizing versus internalizing.

It's more and more – no, you deserve for someone to warn you. You deserve for the school to protect you from these costumes and whatever. It's like I think – well, on the one hand, I totally agree with you. Let's be courteous. I would never wear blackface or any offensive costume. I'm not defending that. I mean I am sitting in a blackface costume right now other than that but no one can see me it's just for me it's something i do no i i seriously

oftentimes with these things i think well i never would do that like i'm never i'm never gonna be that asshole but i also i don't like where it's the responsibility of some parent like the university or the government i don't like where it's the responsibility of some parent like the university or the government. I don't like where it's their responsibility to say, OK, we need to put a stop to this. I think the sentiment of the letter is pretty good where it's like, no, as a society, we can just discourage these things. We don't need an arbiter to protect us, especially when you're college age. You know, you're old enough to deal with this kind of thing. When you're college age, you're old enough to deal with this kind of thing. And again, with the caveat that I'm not supporting, like you said, a bunch of people wearing KKK costumes.

That's obviously an asshole move, totally an asshole move. And I understand that. That goes beyond a trigger warning, though. And I don't think we even need to say that, right? That goes beyond a trigger warning. That's just racist. We shouldn't need to say it, but we do. Right.

We shouldn't need to say it, but we do. Right. Major problem I have with Eli and what he said on my show and your show is he dismissed the safe space debate by saying, oh, people don't understand. When you say safe space or bully, you totally don't understand the phrase. Here's the definition. I know I'm recapping. I'll be brief because it's people just heard the show. But he said safe space has a very specific definition.

It's LGBTQ places. They need a place where no one's challenging you. You can just talk about your – and we're obviously all for that. I can't imagine not being for – Nobody's against that. Exactly. I can't imagine knowing Joshua Ferenstein or something. I am all for that kind of safe space and that really disarmed me on that thing but here's the thing there's a major problem with that that's not the definition of safe spaces

if just today or might have been yesterday um miriam namazi and that that i might be pronouncing incorrectly let me know uh you know that is right she's you're asking us to let you know if you're mispronouncing something? She sounds good. We're on the wrong fucking show, bro. That sounds fine. That sounds good? Yeah, it sounds fine. It sounds like an Italian sports car.

Well, she's somewhat similar. It's really expensive. It's like a $200,000 car. I got one of your Mazdas. You have the 205. It's very good. It's an Autobahn. Exactly right.

All of that is a hype center. So she's – do you not – you don't know who – No, I never heard of her. You know who – I literally have no idea who you're talking about. Really? You're making someone up, aren't you? This is weird.

No, okay. She's like Ayaan Hirsi Ali kind of. Think of that kind – she's an ex-Muslim female, who's lived under that kind of regime. She talks about it and she gets labeled as an Islamophobe. Now, here's the thing. Don't, before Eli or anyone else wants to say, I know Eli said, oh, I don't support, you know, causing people to not be able to give speeches, blah, blah, blah. But here's the thing.

He accidentally represented two sides of the argument by defining safe spaces the wrong way, because he said, I'm pro safe spaces in this definition, and people are totally wrong about safe spaces. On the other hand, I'm against this no platforming thing with Mariam Namazi or Ayaan Hirsi Ali. was just protested under a safe space policy. She was using the college of Goldsmiths University. They have the student union. I read this article. I read this article. Yeah, it happened just now. I think she got heckled like crazy by the Muslim. They shouted her down. They shouted her down constantly.

Constantly. It was horrible. It's and she really is saying nothing. But lest anybody misinterpret who doesn't know her. She's not saying anything Islamophobic. She's saying there are problems with how I was treated under Islam. Like she's saying pretty basic stuff about Islam. The secular student group.

Here's the thing. There's a bunch of different student groups. I don't know if every university is arranged this way. It probably is, I think, most of them. There's a bunch of different student groups. They're all under the, I guess, I don't know, purview of the student union, which has an official safe space policy that they say applies to everything that they do and everything in the university and all the university Twitter, social media. So they make up these safe space policies that apply to all of that. They set the policy officially. The student union has control of it. It's students. And you can look it up, Goldsmith Student Union Policy. I looked up all this. I want you to explain it to me.

So I'm just going to lie and tell you whatever. No. So here's the thing. That applies to everybody. Now, this is the big problem with ignoring the safe space problem, which is what I think Eli did. He ignored it by saying we all have the wrong definition. Well, the problem is it's being abused because the secular group invites this speaker and the Muslim student group, both of these groups are under the student union's, you know, safe space policy, right? The Muslim group says, this is an Islamophobe. We can't, we can't even, and she's saying totally reasonable things. They shout her down.

That's why she was invited. She was invited by one group. Another group goes and attends the talk, disrupts it, fucking ruins it. And then the, you can look it up. The feminist group, the frigging feminist group of goldsmiths posted a statement saying, Goldsmiths Feminist Society stands in solidarity with Goldsmiths Islamic Society. We support them in condemning the actions of the atheist, secularist, and humanist society and agree that hosting known Islamophobes at our university creates a climate of hatred.

Our Facebook page is designed as a space for us to communicate with our members, and their safety is our first priority under the policies set out by our student union. So they're reserving, we reserve the right to remove comments and posts that violate these terms or contribute to the marginalization of students. So the feminist society is using that safe space policy in this statement to say, what you're doing is not OK. You can't invite this speaker because it violates our safe space. They didn't get to it ahead of time, so they weren't able to cancel it, but they were able to totally ruin it.

And then the Goldsmiths Feminist Society was totally able to support the Muslims, the Muslim group that wanted to ruin. OK, but I think the ruining and the invitation are two separate issues. I'm not trying to pick a nip, but I think they're important. The ruining the experience is a separate issue where people behaved badly. Right. And they should be criticized for behaving badly. They were rude. That's fucking rude. But it doesn't have anything to do with safe spaces if you can't get an invitation if you're shut down from speaking at all because somebody says that

you know controversial ideas violate a safe space i find that very problematic that's not in the spirit of good public intellectual discourse what in the world is the difference between not being able to invite her but then being able to invite her because one has something to do with safe spaces, and the other one just has to do with bad behavior, and they're two separate issues that have to be conquered separately. If it's okay if a group fully, with the support of the student union,

completely ruins her ability to give a presentation. How is that any better than just not inviting her? I'm not saying that one is better or worse, so forgive me if I gave that impression. I thought you were. What I'm saying is that one has relevance with regard to safe spaces and the other one is a separate issue that should be tackled separately uh except it's not because they're using the safe space policy as justification for supporting the the actions of the muslim uh islamic sorry the goldsmith islamic society but they would not have been able to use

the safe space policy. Their goal in using the safe space policy, if I understand correctly, is to disinvite the speaker, right? I think they just didn't get to it in time, is what it sounds

like. If they tried to invite her again, I do believe they would prevent her from being able to be invited. And I would agree that that is a improper use of safe space. Between that and allowing someone to totally ruin a presentation, it's the same thing. You could say, OK, we can invite you, but you just can't speak because we'll totally ruin it and not allow you to be able to get up and talk. Like what is the difference? Well, I think the difference is when and how and what's the intention of the engagement, right? I do think that those are different and relevant questions. I disagree with you. So

if I have a policy that says I'm not going to allow controversial speakers onto my campus because controversial speakers make me feel afraid and I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm a nervous Nelly about it I'm not going to allow controversial speakers onto my campus that's my policy that's a shit policy like I think that that's a shit policy and it's got to go and and that has nothing to do with the good intentions I think that were part of the safe space conversation we had with Eli the conversation we had with Eli. The conversation we had with Eli. Where safe spaces were defined. I think you're saying wrongly.

Safe spaces as defined by Eli. Made a lot of sense to me. The safe space that you're describing. Makes no sense to me at all. Exactly. But it's the same term. And people use it interchangeably. So I think it's. The main point I want to drive home.

Is that I don't think Eli can simply avoid the issue of safe space by saying, no, everyone's using the word wrong. We got to use it how people are using it. So if Eli is going to just dismiss like, oh, the safe space debate, that's idiotic and there's no such thing as a safe space bully, I actually do think there is such thing as a safe space or bully. It would be not allowing someone to come speak at your university because you're saying it violates your safe space when really all that's happening is an atheist, secular and humanist society wants to have a speaker that they want to have at the university. I think that's bullying. Sure. I agree with you.

Yes. Well, then. OK. All right. God damn it. All right. So at this point, I think that this is probably going to be its own episode yeah um you know it's it's not it's not we're gonna be a good one it's not gonna be a good one

no yeah but i i want to i want to i want to talk about a couple of things before we stop the first is i want to talk about how but we still agree i think with the bulk of what eli had to say regardless of what kind of disagreements we had with any of the other stuff that he said. I think what, what we need to recognize is we really need to recognize the good in what Eli's doing and what other people are doing. Eli is coming from a position of, hey, I don't want to be an asshole. I don't like it when other people are assholes. Here's some things we can do to not be assholes. And honestly,'s caused him to like he's gotten some facts wrong he's mixed some things up he's he's got some some statements and some positions i don't agree with

but ultimately this thing to to emphasize what you said where we demonize him and say like this fucking liar is coming on here trying to ruin our lives he's trying to steal our safe spaces and trigger warning us to death like i feel like he's a microaggressor. I'm just saying. Yeah, he really is. That part, I think everyone could do with a little more of that, a little more of recognizing, OK, and honestly, that's something I'll go ahead and say. This may be controversial.

That's something I think Eli's side of this argument is doing better than the people who are really vigorous on the other side. Sure. The people who are really vigorous on the other side are oftentimes wanting to be assholes. And maybe they're right some of the time. I'm not saying they're always wrong, but that worries me more. When someone's coming from a place of, I want to be an asshole. I want to be offensive.

I don't want someone telling me I can't be offensive. I want to be able to wear black. Like, that worries me a little bit more than Eli who's saying like, I don't want you to wear blackface and piss all these people out. Like if that's your core position, I have to say I side with Eli's sort of the sentiment behind his core position. I just think the details are a little rough and we can't just pick that as a side and pick teams and then, you know, dismiss everything the other side is saying. That another thing I want to mention too is that this is not really the tenor and spirit of this show. And I want to mention that because it's really not.

It's really not. And we got into a discussion that I don't think we need to be in. And I don't want to have. And I'm kind of done with because in my opinion, I'm going to continue doing the things we've done over and over and over again that make me feel good about what we do. This is a muddy, nuanced conversation that has to be had every single time there's a brand new transgression or whatever because you have to approach it differently every

time. And there's no bucket of whitewash that we can paint this fence with and say, this is the coat that's going to stay every single time. It's going to be a nuanced conversation every time some of these things come up. Just like you said with the person who was shouted down with the atheist group, that's a whole new bucket of different than another situation. And it's the same. It's going to be the same all the time.

And so I don't want to spend all my time on this show talking about these issues because I think that every time you've got to go into such great depth, there's way smarter people out there that can have this conversation in a much more quick and convenient way than than me i think yeah that's a good message the the message is laziness i think that's the what people need the ultimate message is i'm too lazy no look seriously this is the dick joke palace and all of a sudden yeah we've gotten serious yeah we've gotten serious for two episodes yeah that's that's inexcusable. I can't believe you had me on the show. I sincerely apologize.

I just, I... If you want to have those conversations, come on my show. Exactly. And next time I come on your show... That's what he means by smarter people. Yeah, there's smarter people out there. Thomas is one of them. Some of your guests are smarter people.

Thomas is one of them, and he does this way better than we do. He's a smart guy, and he has a great podcast. And I think that this is your forte. This is what you do well. Tom and I, you know, we can play in this field, but we're not – this isn't fun. This isn't where my heart is. It's not where my heart is. I just don't – I don't feel it, and I don't want to keep spending every episode on this.

I don't want to – because I could. And I don't want to I don't want to keep spending every episode on this. I don't want because I could. I could because every like we said, every situation is nuanced and every everything changes all the time. I invited Eli on because I thought he would have some amazing dick jokes. That's why it never ends. And it is the death of comedy. You're totally right. It's the death of a good time.

and it is the death of comedy. You're totally right. It's the death of a good time. But some people need to be having that discussion and it's tough, but I fully respect that. I appreciate you saying that. I think you guys are selling yourselves short a little bit. I really enjoy talking to you about these kinds of things. We'll just do it on my show.

And the next time I come on your show, I'll come with a funny prompt topic. Whatever a funny topic is. We'll do that next. That's also Cecil's way of saying we're fucking done with this. I want one more thing, though. I want to encourage the people who sent us the dumb messages that they fucking hate this guy or that, you know, that they were disgusted with it or whatever. Just think for a second about what's happening.

Don't just rush to judgment. And I know that there's going to be people who, who send us messages about this that are going to be from the other side, from the far other side, because Eli covered the sort of, you know, the, the very liberal end of this. Right. And then there's a very conservative sort of end of this that we're going to, we're now that we're a little more closer to the middle, I think on this episode, we're going to get another message from people that are like, you guys got it all wrong. People get hurt and how dare you, et cetera. We're going to get those messages.

Just stop for a second and think about the nuance of the situation and think about what was said and realize that for the most part, we're probably in agreement. So, Thomas, we know that you do this much better. What's the podcast that people can find you at that does this much better? I don't know about that, but I do it. I try to do it. Yeah. Atheistically speaking, I really appreciate those kind words from you guys. And I think that's a good division of labor.

Like, I think you guys do a hell of a fucking hilarious show. And it is the death of comedy to have to clarify every point and to have, you know, it's it's tough. And I think that's a good division of labor. You know, I appreciate that. And you can find me atheistically speaking. I'm probably going to talk more about this. I'll tell you what. Anytime you want to blow off some steam and just just crack some dick jokes, you let us know. You come on and we'll just fucking make fun of stuff and it'll be

awesome. Thanks. I appreciate it. And when you guys had me on for Thomas and the Bible the other month, I really appreciate that. It gave me such a good bump. I think people reacted to it really well. And it's all kinds of fun. And that's the kind of stuff that people can look forward to from us in the future. No more of this on your show. I got it. I got it. Enough serious. Enough serious.

Thanks for coming on, Thomas. We really appreciate it, man. This was great. Thank you. Pleasure was mine. So that is going to wrap it up for this episode. If you have any questions or concerns or comments, feel free to send them. We're not done talking about it in the sense that, you know, we're done.

We're done completely with the topic. If you have egregious errors that you found in what we had to say, feel free to send them. We encourage discussion. What we don't encourage is people being shitty. So if you're going to send a shitty messages, don't bother. But if you're going to want to engage in discussion, we're more than welcome to engage in that discussion with you. You know how to reach us and we will continue this discussion. We just we just won't be dedicating entire episodes to it in the future until next time until Monday at this point, which is going to be a couple days away.

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