Some More News - Some More News: LOL Jordan Peterson

Episode Date: July 2, 2025

Hi. What is the value of watching confounding word wizard Jordan Peterson debate 20 atheists? What can we learn from the intensely frustrating experience of watching one of these Jubilee "Sur...rounded" videos? We actually have an answer. Get the world's news at https://ground.news/SMN to compare coverage and see through biased coverage. Subscribe for 40% off unlimited access through our link.Hosted by Cody JohnstonExecutive Producer - Katy StollDirected by Will GordhWritten by David Christopher BellProduced by Jonathan HarrisEdited by John Conway and Gregg MellerPost-Production Supervisor / Motion Graphics & VFX - John ConwayResearcher - Marco Siler-GonzalesGraphics by Clint DeNiscoHead Writer - David Christopher BellPATREON: https://patreon.com/somemorenewsMERCH: https://shop.somemorenews.comYOUTUBE MEMBERSHIP: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCvlj0IzjSnNoduQF0l3VGng/joinGo to https://hensonshaving.com/SMN and enter SMN at checkout to get a free pack of 100 blades with your purchase. (Note: you must add both the blades and the razor for the discount to apply.)Sign up for your one-dollar-per-month trial and start selling today at https://shopify.com/morenewsOver 2 Million Butts Love TUSHY. Get 10% off TUSHY with the code SMN at https://hellotushy.com/SMNPluto TV. Stream Now. Pay Never.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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Starting point is 00:00:00 Agent Nate Russo returns in Oracle III, Murder at the Grandview, the latest installment of the gripping Audible original series. When a reunion at an abandoned island hotel turns deadly, Russo must untangle accident from murder. But beware, something sinister lurks in the Grandview shadows. Joshua Jackson delivers a bone-chilling performance in the supernatural thriller that will keep you on the edge of your seat. Don't let your fears take hold of you
Starting point is 00:00:28 as you dive into this addictive series. Love thrillers with a paranormal twist? The entire Oracle trilogy is available on Audible. Listen now on Audible. ["The Star-Spangled Banner"] Holy barking Christ, we're gonna have to talk about that Jordan Peterson surrounded video, aren't we? Great, that's just great.
Starting point is 00:00:47 And on my beard day, no less, that's my beard's birthday. I don't actually know the exact date, so I just picked one. I'm talking about my literal beard, by the way, not a woman I pretend is my spouse to cover my sexuality, although it is her birthday today as well. Also, hi, hi everyone. I'm not mad at you. This is something we're experiencing together.
Starting point is 00:01:07 No one wants to do this. Let's just get through it. So here's some news. Jordan Peterson went on Surrounded to debate 20 atheists about presumably religion. That's the thing you've probably seen clips of where they take one blank and have them debate 20 blanks and nothing actually gets Accomplished besides the creation of a fresh set of viral dunk-on clips for people to pass around the internet like evil pogs
Starting point is 00:01:34 Often no one can decide who owned who even when watching the same clip Because these kinds of videos aren't designed to change minds so much as profit off of of videos aren't designed to change minds so much as profit off of divisiveness, as well as churn out fodder for YouTube freaks to make annoying reaction videos in the endless cycle of hollow online content that ultimately just distracts us from the real injustices in the world until we die.
Starting point is 00:01:59 So. Cody reacts, Jordan Peterson on Surrounded. Mm, delicious Ouroboros tale. In fairness to Cody, this video isn't just going to be talking about the Surrounded video, so much as using it to talk about a bunch of stuff and things and crap. One such crap being the uselessness
Starting point is 00:02:19 of the Surrounded format itself. After all, probably the first thing you know about this video, assuming you knew about it at all, was that they changed the title from Christian versus 20 Atheists to Jordan Peterson versus 20 Atheists, right after this clip went viral. You're a Christian.
Starting point is 00:02:38 You say that, I haven't claimed that. Oh, what is this? Is this a Christian versus atheist? I don't know. You don't know where you are right now? Don't be a smartass. I was under the impression that I was invited to talk to a Christian. Am I not talking to a Christian?
Starting point is 00:02:52 No, you were invited to... I think everyone should look at the title of the YouTube channel. You're probably in the wrong YouTube video. To be fair and balanced, he is being a bit of a smartass, isn't he? But that clip really does set the tone for the entire uselessness of the video and of Jordan Peterson himself. They had to change the premise of their video because he wouldn't participate
Starting point is 00:03:15 in the way seemingly everyone else agreed to. Also for some reason, they kept the thumbnail image of Peterson smiling, which will become funnier and funnier as we show more and more clips of Peterson's face as he talks. But they definitely had to change the title, because while a video where a Christian who believes in the Bible debates atheists has a clear intent, this video doesn't anymore. It's just 20 atheists versus some guy with some vague thoughts about religion and stories and stuff. There's no
Starting point is 00:03:46 clear opposing positions, and it immediately makes the entire thing pointless. Don't watch it. I wish I didn't. This change of title also immediately moves to goalposts for Jordan Peterson. These people presumably sat down thinking they were going to debate a Christian about the specifics of Christian teachings. But Peterson has now presented himself as a sort of amorphous fog where he can choose which parts of Christianity he chooses to defend and which ones he can sort of brush off. Well, I can't explain the rapture to you
Starting point is 00:04:18 because that isn't something I concern myself with. And that's more of the sectarian belief than something that's central to Christianity. Now, there's all sorts of evangelical Protestants who might disagree with that, but that doesn't have anything to do with me. He does this several times throughout. Someone will say,
Starting point is 00:04:34 well, what about the Christian belief in blank? And he'll just say, well, that doesn't interest him. At the same time, he'll constantly cite specific parts of the Bible that do interest him to make a point, such as one story that depicts God as unknowable. God puts him between two cliffs so he can just see a crack of what's in front of him. And when God walks by, he allows him to see his back. So the implication, and implication of that story is that the divine is fundamentally
Starting point is 00:05:03 unknowable. It's a pinnacle experience. The God that's defined in that manner, right, is not a simple personification. It's not a simple old man in the sky. It's something that in its essence is unknowable and overwhelming. And that isn't, in my experience, the God that's defined by atheists who are attempting to undermine the story. Sure. But then, he'll later note that he doesn't really know which stories are metaphors or truth or what. But I don't know the answer to the questions that you're asking. You know, it's the case that forever when people have been interpreting religious stories,
Starting point is 00:05:42 they wrestled with exactly the question that you just described. When is it fact? When is it poetry? When is it music? When is it metaphor? When is it ritual? When is it time bound? But what I'm saying is that your interpretation of the Bible, if you cannot tell us again, if these historical events happened or not, that can be deciding factor if someone is like damned to hell for eternity or if they go to heaven, right? So that's why I'm, what my- I don't concern myself so much
Starting point is 00:06:09 with that particular question, you know? Like that would be something that would stem more from an evangelical viewpoint. And I'm not putting that down by the way. You see what I mean? It's all just metaphors and poetry that he's also going to cite in specific instances as being true.
Starting point is 00:06:22 And then in other instances we'll say, well, I don't know anything about that. You'll have to ask someone else, which makes it fundamentally impossible for his beliefs to be clearly defined. So the whole video feels like one big circular ramble, like listening to people on cocaine talk about music. He also, fittingly, says this at one point. So God says that you can own people as property.
Starting point is 00:06:44 He says that you can beat them with a rod too. He commands genocide and Deuteronomy in numbers and in Samuel. I mean, they have a goddamn baby barbecue in numbers. Like, is all of this in line with Christian ethics? No, the biblical library is a continuing story and everything written in it has to be contextualized by the entire text. There's 65,000 hyperlinks in the biblical text. You can take pieces of it out, out of context, and criticize them and that's what you're doing.
Starting point is 00:07:18 Very true. People can just cherry pick parts of the Bible, can't they, Jordan? We're not here to talk about the damn Bible, by the way. This is about the very unprecise way Jordan Peterson speaks and debates, despite precision in speech being one of his rules for life, which becomes very evident when he's talking about such a malleable subject as religion.
Starting point is 00:07:39 The Bible is already the subject of so many interpretations that a conversation about it can easily be unproductive, let alone one with Jordan Peterson, which once again is why this surrounded video kinda sucks. Ultimately, the only thing it does highlight, and what's quite amazing, is the sloppy way Jordan Peterson uses words themselves. Much like the Bible can be sometimes literal
Starting point is 00:08:03 or sometimes a metaphor, so too does Jordan Peterson constantly change the rules for the conversation he is having. And you can see this in each of the claims he makes in the video. Atheists reject God, but they don't understand what they're rejecting. If you know Jordan Peterson, you probably know how this goes. Because the obvious question you need to ask him there is, what do you mean by God? And Peterson opts for the very vague and very broad God is unknowable path as he described in that earlier clip we showed.
Starting point is 00:08:35 The God that's defined in that manner, right, is not a simple personification, it's not a simple old man in the sky, it's something that in its essence is unknowable and overwhelming. And that isn't, in my experience, the God that's defined by atheists who are attempting to undermine the story. This becomes immediately frustrating, because what he's now saying is that since God is described as the unknowable, anyone who believes that there are unknowable aspects of their world automatically believes in God, and people instantly start calling him out on this. It seems like, yes, if you define religion to mean anybody that has an aim, anybody that
Starting point is 00:09:14 looks at the unknown, anybody who wants to go from chaos to order is inherently religious, then yes. But also in the same way, I could define atheists as somebody who doesn't dogmatically believe in a religion or somebody who doesn't regularly attend religious services or belong to a denomination. And what follows is basically that, a group of frustrated people arguing about the definition of words instead of the subject itself, to the point that some very patient people start talking to Peterson like he's five years old. When I'm saying that I reject the concept of God, I'm aware of these other definitions
Starting point is 00:09:48 of God, but I think that when we use words, we tend to only imply one meaning at a time. So the same way that I would say the Mona Lisa is moving emotionally, but I would not say it's moving physically. I would say I reject the concept of God in this very literal way, but- What literal way? The way that God is this omniscient, omnipotent, agentic supernatural being.
Starting point is 00:10:14 God, look at him with that blank expression. He never changes that expression for the entire thing, except when he's really angry. So I guess it's like 50-50. This is now 12 minutes into the surrounded video and people are still having to explain to him how words work, how conversations go, and how what atheists are challenging
Starting point is 00:10:33 is the specific religious dogma around Christianity. Because they thought that was what they were there to fucking talk about in the first place. And every time they start to get into the actual conversation, Peterson just keeps grabbing them by the ankles and dragging them down into this weird bog of semantics.
Starting point is 00:10:52 Eventually, this very patient guy gets Peterson to define God. So Elijah, the prophet Elijah defined God in the Old Testament as the voice of conscience within. Okay. That's a definition. So you're saying by that definition of God... See, this kind of goes back to where I'm saying initially. I'm not defining it. Elijah defined it. Okay, so as Elijah defines God... It's defined that way in Jonah too. Okay, so as... Cardinal Newman also defined it that way. I'm sure you know many people who defined it that way.
Starting point is 00:11:23 I do think there are lots of interesting ways to define God. And that goes back to my kind of opening statement. Then how do we specify what we're arguing about? We use context, clues, or we, again, it goes back to my example with the Mona Lisa. I'm defining God as conscience. Oh, okay.
Starting point is 00:11:39 I guess we all believe in God and he wins because he swapped the word God with conscience. Masterfully played sir. Hilariously. Moments before, when Peterson first brings up conscience, he tells the guy this. What are you getting at? I'm getting at the fact that your conscience guides you. Is that reasonable? Conscience is defined by my empathy and my reason or my foundational-
Starting point is 00:12:01 Define it any way you want. Define in any way you want? Okay, define in any way you want? Who do you think you're talking to, Jordan Peterson? Jordan Peterson? Anyway, this guy, this saint, keeps trying to explain the basic concept of words to this deadpan dildo until Peterson finally drops what I think he thinks is the truth bomb.
Starting point is 00:12:22 Atheists reject God, but they don't understand what they're rejecting. You accept conscience as a guide and conscience as one of the defining characteristics of God in the Old Testament. I think you're being intellectually disingenuous. So, his argument is that atheists reject God but don't understand what they are objecting to. Because atheists recognize and follow their conscience, which is one of the characteristics of God in the Bible.
Starting point is 00:12:49 One of. Again, I'm not here to debate the existence of God because I'm just not drunk enough. But you could use this argument for anything. I could say that people who reject the existence of Freddy Krueger don't understand what they are objecting to because they also acknowledge that people have dreams or wear striped sweaters. You could of course use a lot of words to characterize God. Truth, one of the characteristics of God in the Bible
Starting point is 00:13:14 is also truth. So if you believe in truth, do you have to believe in God? People can easily believe in the concept of a conscience without attributing it to God. In fact, Peterson is surrounded by only people who don't think their conscience is also God. So ultimately, he's saying that atheists don't understand his, as in Jordan Peterson's broad
Starting point is 00:13:39 and vague definition of God. And it's not even his. Peterson seems frustrated to be even asked and kind of brushes off the need to even define God. Like he wasn't prepared for these simple requests. He says, well, Elijah defined it this way as if he's throwing this guy a bone. Jordan, you're the one slowing this conversation down.
Starting point is 00:13:59 They want you to define God. And wouldn't you know it, I don't wanna get bogged down with definitions or whatever, but what Peterson said, quote, "'Elijah defined God as the voice of conscience within,' isn't really true. None of these people, neither the characters from the stories
Starting point is 00:14:18 nor Cardinal Newman, define God as the voice of conscience within. They consider the conscience to be something divine, yes, an aboriginal vicar of Christ, as the cardinal phrases it. Or simply put, the conscience is the voice or a tool of God used to guide people toward truth and goodness. That's not defining God as the conscience. That's attributing something else to the actions or intentions of a spiritual being
Starting point is 00:14:48 who has yet to be defined. It's an extension of God. If your friend Brad sends you instructions and advice in the mail, you wouldn't say, the definition of Brad is the mail. Again, not to get definitionally bogged down, but Jordan, this definition sucks and is wrong and a misinterpretation of those fictional and real people's words. Bad job, you still need to define God, because you didn't. So obviously this isn't really a productive conversation, and ultimately this guy just
Starting point is 00:15:21 gets completely exhausted by it. My definition of God as conscience is a lot more precise and oriented than your definition of the God that you hypothetically disbelieve in. It's irrelevant to the fault lines of this debate. How is it irrelevant? Because in common parlance, when we're talking about atheist, God, belief, not belief,
Starting point is 00:15:38 we're not talking about it. I don't care about common parlance. I'm trying to get to something fundamental. I just, I think your point is irrelevant to the way that people tend to use these words. Your point that there are these polysemous ideas of God. I didn't make that point, you did.
Starting point is 00:15:51 I did, well I made a specific point that God was associated with conscience. I just feel like you kind of retreat into this semantic fog. I'm not retreating at all, I'm advancing, sir, you are retreating. No, you are, sir, argument one. Yeesh, we are only at the 18 minute mark
Starting point is 00:16:07 of the 90 minute surrounded video and I already feel like sleeping forever. His next claim is that morality and purpose cannot be found within science. Almost immediately, someone points out that early humans and chimps absolutely have morality and compassion. And it becomes immediately clear
Starting point is 00:16:25 that Peterson is playing yet another word game. Science has to exist within a moral framework that isn't in itself scientific. How is that not scientific? Well, because it's not derived from the scientific process as you just indicated. It doesn't need to be derived from the scientific process. It's the fact that we are social animals
Starting point is 00:16:40 and we need that to exist as a group. So, okay, okay, okay, okay, wait, okay. So when his claim was that morality cannot be found within science, I think everyone assumed he meant that morality can't be found in nature or that it isn't explained by science and therefore is the work of God. But does he mean that morality wasn't literally created
Starting point is 00:17:01 through the scientific method? Like because we didn't find morality with beakers or a hypothesis or something, it has to be from God? I don't know. He does seem to try and claim that science can't explain morality, gets corrected, and just dismisses it completely. You pointed to the morality of Neanderthals. To the morality of chimpanzees. They didn't derive that from science. They don't need to. That's not how that works. That's my point. Science explains it derive that from science. They don't need to.
Starting point is 00:17:25 That's not how that works. That's my point. Science explains it. You know what? Science doesn't explain morality. It doesn't explain how social animals would need to be altruistic. Well, that's a complicated question. But we see it though. Yeah, but explaining the evolution of morality and explaining morality itself aren't the same thing.
Starting point is 00:17:41 Okay, so you're asking why does this happen? I ask, yes, that's more accurate. Because we're social animals and we need to be. But there's more to it than that. Is there? Sure, sure. Now, I would actually argue that just because something developed before the scientific method was codified doesn't mean that all the elements of the scientific method didn't exist. There were still millions of years of questioning, hypothesizing, experimenting, analyzing, coming to conclusions, and communicating. We are, after all, social animals. But whatever! You might also be wondering what the point of this claim even is. Because everyone else
Starting point is 00:18:17 certainly was. Saying that morality cannot be found within science is, again, broad and confusing in relation to religion. It would be helpful if Peterson actually explained what he means at the top of this, but people have to kind of tease it out of him throughout each segment, or in Peterson's nightmares, pump it out of him. You have to assume that he's making a point about God here, because why else would he be bringing it up in this video? But every time someone asks a direct question or looks for clarity, this happens. It's not driven by a higher power, it's driven on our experiences as humans. So if there is a God and there is a moral code and it doesn't come at your benefit,
Starting point is 00:18:58 are you going to follow it? It depends on how you define your benefit. If it's going to come at your expense, would you still follow it? If God, I don't care, I still wake up every day and I have motivation to be a moral person. Define moral. Absolutely exhausting.
Starting point is 00:19:16 What a slog of a man. One of the things Peterson keeps stressing in the video is that he's not trying to win a debate and just wants to have a conversation. But people who have conversations don't need to constantly clarify definitions of common words. This feels more like he's stretching for time rather than engaging in an honest exchange, right? He's litigating every word, often to completely avoid the original question. Because at this point, no one seems to know what he's trying to say or what he even believes. And so eventually, someone gets extremely frustrated
Starting point is 00:19:51 and just asks him point blank if he believes in an all-knowing and all-powerful God. And boy, the answer might surprise you. So do you believe in the all-knowing, all-powerful, all-good notion of God? What do you mean by believe? Actually it won't surprise you. Holy fucking shit, Jordan.
Starting point is 00:20:08 This is worse than that Bill Clinton testimony. This whole thing kind of feels like a trial. It feels like Jordan Peterson is guilty or hiding something and is trying to talk around it, doesn't it? We will come back to that. But if you're wondering how this define believe conversation goes Let's find out. What do you mean by believe? Do you think it to be true?
Starting point is 00:20:32 That's the circular definition. What do you mean? How is it? So you believe how is that circular? Because you added no content to the answer by substituting the word true and Believe I said you think it to be true. All right, so if you believe something, you stake your life on it. What do you mean by that? You live for it and you die for it.
Starting point is 00:20:56 Okay, so the correct thing to do here is to repeat the original question. Remember, the original question was asking him if he believes in an all-knowing and all-powerful God. Just repeat that question. Do it, come on. Okay, so you're saying that you don't believe something if you wouldn't die for it?
Starting point is 00:21:12 Not really, no. Okay, so then- How would you define belief? Something you say? Okay, so I explain, like, I could believe it is the case that this pen exists, but if someone, like, threatened my life, right, I would lie in order to be able to save my life, right?
Starting point is 00:21:25 Like I think you would do that too. You wouldn't lie to save your life? Don't be so sure. You wouldn't lie to save your life? Guys, hey guys, can we get back to that original question? Again, it seems like he's distracting from the original question. So if someone could just remind him.
Starting point is 00:21:37 Would you lie to like save your children, your mom, your dad? I don't think lying would save them. No, can there ever be a circumstance logically that lying could save someone? Yeah, and if you're steeped in sin, you're likely to live in circumstances like that. I'll give you an example.
Starting point is 00:21:50 If you're in Nazi Germany, and it is the case that there's Jewish people in your attic and you're trying to protect them, would you lie to the Nazis? I would have done everything I bloody well could so I wouldn't be in that situation to begin with. It's a hypothetical and it's not answerable. Is my nose bleeding? I can't see out of one eye.
Starting point is 00:22:08 Please just go back to the question guys. Or could we maybe just take a break for a second so I can lie down? I'm feeling a bit. Look, don't play games. Yes you are. If you present me with an intractable moral choice that's stripped of context and you back me into a corner,
Starting point is 00:22:23 you're playing game. I just told you I would do everything that I could to make sure that I'm never in that situation. By the time you've got there you've made so many mistakes that there's nothing you can do that isn't a sin. Being born in Nazi Germany and trying to protect people that you care about like there could be a Jewish friend that you have and you want to protect them. I think you should just give up on that line of questioning. Give up on just like trying to protect people that you care about. Like there could be a Jewish friend that you have, and you want to protect them. I think you should just give up on that line of questioning. Give up on just like trying to clarify your position? Because you don't like, are you like uncomfortable with me asking this question?
Starting point is 00:22:53 It's just a basic hypothetical. Like I could ask you- It's just a basic hypothetical. Where you put Jews' lives at stake in Nazi Germany, that's just a basic hypothetical. Obviously you would lie in that scenario to save their life, but you're like not trying to answer this question for some reason.
Starting point is 00:23:06 I just told you why. Are you anti-fascist? Like, so you're anti-fascist? Why are you asking that? I was just asking, just clarifying. Wait, so is he gonna save the Jews from the Nazis or not? Answer the question, Jordan. He scoffs at the idea that it's a basic hypothetical,
Starting point is 00:23:23 except like a moment earlier. I know the example. Would you lie? Yeah, you know the example because it's a basic hypothetical. Also, I have to point out that Jordan refuses to answer this hypothetical and emphatically, multiple times claims he simply wouldn't find himself
Starting point is 00:23:39 in that situation. Disgusting of you to even suggest. Except. And I get my students, I said, look, I've told them this for 30 years. situation. Disgusting of you to even suggest. Except... You think you would have rescued Anne Frank. It's like, think again. Those people are very, very, very, very rare. They put their lives on the line to do that. They put their family's lives on the line to do that. You think you're one of those people? Really? It's like all that means is that you know nothing.
Starting point is 00:24:18 You know nothing about yourself. You know nothing about people. You know nothing about politics or economics or history. It's a harsh lesson. You know nothing, people. You know nothing about politics or economics or history. It's a harsh lesson. You know nothing, huh? Interesting. That's from one of the many, many times he's asserted that if you lived in Nazi Germany,
Starting point is 00:24:33 you would have been a Nazi. For 30 years, he told his students that. And yet here he is vomiting with rage that this young, calm guy is asking if he would hypothetically not be a Nazi. Very odd that you don't answer the question about whether or not you would lie to save a family from the Holocaust
Starting point is 00:24:51 or whether or not you're an anti-fascist. You seem to not understand hypothetical questions, which according to racists on 4chan is a sign of low intelligence. Who am I? Why am I in this suit? Where did this beard come from? What day specifically did this beard come from?
Starting point is 00:25:07 Everything smells like Zelda. Why does it smell like Zelda and fear and vinegar in here? Anyway, I hope that answered the question of whether or not Jordan Peterson believes in an all-knowing and all-powerful God. But in case you're still confused, here's another clip that will clear it up. So what I'm specifically pointing out here
Starting point is 00:25:26 is about religion in particular, since you yourself are a Christian, right? That's people debate about that, and I generally don't discuss it publicly. Sorry, wrong clip. I just had to point out that here, this man is berating these 20 people and telling them they believe in God.
Starting point is 00:25:41 And whenever he's asked if he believes in God, he's like, well, I'll never tell. Although to be fair to him, that was about being specifically a Christian, which we'll get to, not just believing in God. So do we have the clip of Jordan Peterson straight up calling God fictional? We characterize that using fiction
Starting point is 00:25:57 because fiction is the abstraction of hierarchies of attentional prioritization and action. And so we could say that in the highest sense in the biblical corpus, God is the ultimate fictional character. And then we're trying to characterize his nature as that which should be emulated that unites us psychologically and socially.
Starting point is 00:26:18 As YouTuber Alex O'Connor has pointed out, that's what atheists believe. You should be surrounding yourself, Jordan. God is fictional and aspirational. Weird that he admitted it only that one time and then has to play games about his beliefs while convincing everyone that they actually believe in God and are Christians or whatever.
Starting point is 00:26:39 I wonder why that is. Anyway, here's one more clip for you to suck on. Obviously, you don't want your your view on religion summarized by it's good for stupid people. Well, I do I do want to summarize to some degree that way, because one of the things we do, I'm giving you the opportunity again to put this foot in your mouth. But I don't I would say not not only. I mean, the thing is, is that we're all
Starting point is 00:27:02 stupid. And some of us are far stupider than others. I don't go to church, but there is one thing I admire about the church. And that is that it's managed to serve as a repository for these fundamental underlying fictions for two millennia. And that's really something bloody unbelievable. Okay, so no, he doesn't believe in God. That was way easier than talking about Nazi Germany. He specifically thinks that religion is fiction,
Starting point is 00:27:30 but that it's good for stupid people. It has utility. And in that sense, he thinks it's like literally true, but not literally true. Peterson does like encouraging religion, but isn't religious himself. And people have called him out on that.
Starting point is 00:27:46 The way you talk about God has convinced and will continue to convince some percentage of humanity that it's fine to hold on to this old sort of God, this God that can hear prayers and they can intervene or not in the lives of human beings. My concern is that you could do exactly what you do with religion with astrology, right? It would be no more legitimate to obfuscate the boundary between clear thinking and superstition there. This guy named Sam Harris, who we're not gonna talk about,
Starting point is 00:28:21 hones in on Peterson pushing the classic all-powerful version of God. Peterson doesn't deny that he does this, but rather justifies it. Now, when we look back on the astrologers and we view their contributions to the history of the world with contempt, we should also remember that the people
Starting point is 00:28:40 who built Stonehenge, for example, and the first people who decided, determined, that our fates were in part written in the stars, were people whose astrological beliefs were indistinguishable from their astronomical beliefs. And part of the problem that Sam is pointing to is the difficulty of distinguishing valid poetic impulse from invalid poetic impulse
Starting point is 00:29:06 and that really is a tremendous problem. You see that arise also in people who have religious delusions attendant upon manic depressive disorder or schizophrenia. But so much of what eventually manifests itself as hardcore pragmatic scientific belief has its origin in wild flights of poetic fantasy. So his point is that while he personally doesn't believe in religion, it seems, he does think that religious belief is good for the stupid masses of dumb idiots to embrace
Starting point is 00:29:36 because it's got simple rules to live by. And they'll like come to science eventually, I guess, because the people who built Stonehenge believed in fantasy, but also thought the stars were relevant, which in some ways they are. Or whatever. Sure. You know, I'm not gonna dig into that. I'm not gonna dig into religion. I'm so tired. I just wanted to establish that Jordan Peterson doesn't believe in God in the way that people other than him would define God or believe or in or all the other words. These clips from Surrounded show that Peterson is, objectively, being disingenuous about
Starting point is 00:30:11 his religious beliefs for the sake of a larger goal. He's this stuffy intellectual who wants to pretend to lead by example because he thinks it's good to promote religion, even though he himself doesn't need religion. And this is important because from here on, we know this now. We know that every clip we've watched is Peterson being a squirrely liar trying to squirm around that fact. That's why he won't directly answer any question, because he knows the people he's trying to reach won't like the answer. Man, we are not even halfway through this surrounded video but we have to take a break and I need to go outside
Starting point is 00:30:52 and call my parents. So, you know, watch these ads. So I was over there down Pelican Lake doing some ice fishing, you know? And I realized I hadn't read the news in like three days. So I got out my phone there and I put on the hat spot and went over to Ground News, which is a website and an app we wanted to sponsor us. You betcha. Ground News organizes headlines by political bias and shows you if the left or the right has a blind spot on certain
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Starting point is 00:33:18 Shopify.com slash more news. Oh I'm getting a note alert on my computer. Somebody needs some help. Pop singer blank Perry, four letters. Gosh, I hate the Monday ones. Benny, what do you think? What's the answer to that? We're gonna have to Google it.
Starting point is 00:33:41 Stay tuned. Hey, we're back. Parents didn't wanna talk and kept saying I was quote, a bummer. We're apparently doing a Jordan Peterson episode, although I don't know why we do that. And frankly, I can't remember anything for more than 30 seconds right now.
Starting point is 00:33:56 It's like my brain is trying to protect me from something. But from what I've been told, we've established that Jordan Peterson absolutely isn't a Christian, seems to think religion is good for stupid people, and then went on a surrounded video to debate atheists and clearly had to tap dance around in order to seem like he was religious to pander to his audience. And because we know all of that, we can use this video to see exactly what tactics Jordan uses to lie and squirm.
Starting point is 00:34:22 But it turns out that his bag of tricks isn't very deep because so far he's mainly just fallen back on litigating the exact definitions of words, inventing new definitions that nobody uses, debating those definitions and exhausting everyone until the clock runs out. Literally, there's a timer component to these surrounded videos because all the best
Starting point is 00:34:44 and most productive conversations work the same as supermarket sweep. But again, it's perfect for Jordan Peterson. He's the supermarket sweep of philosophers after all. And this is where we get to his next big claim, which might be my favorite of them all. My next claim is that everybody worships something, including atheists, even though they might not know it.
Starting point is 00:35:06 Oh, it's beautiful. Art even, the vagueness, the instant setup for wordplay. Wonderful, frustrating claim, sir. They are about to debate this claim for 20 minutes of the video, which is grotesque. I can voice a rebuttal to his claim in just one word. Are you ready for it? Let's play the clip again so I can voice a rebuttal to his claim in just one word. Are you ready for it? Let's play the clip again so I can reply.
Starting point is 00:35:27 My next claim is that everybody worships something, including atheists, even though they might not know it. Sure! That's the rebuttal. You could also go with, okay, either one works. Because, yeah, sure, fine even. People worship things. Star Wars, spouses, their perfect little dog
Starting point is 00:35:50 who recently heard her back sneezing because she's the cutest little lady in the world and she's so sweet and she'll be okay. I guess I'm not sure how saying that everybody worships something is a checkmate atheist's type of moment. The fact that people worship things doesn't prove or disprove the existence of God or
Starting point is 00:36:07 the validity of Christianity. It might redefine God and obscure what this debate was supposed to be about, but it doesn't do much else. But because this is a debate show, everyone is about to run to the chair and get into just the most annoying conversations about the definition of the word worship. No one can just say, who cares? Or so what? Even though that's the actual response here.
Starting point is 00:36:34 Also, did I mention that they have to literally run to the chair and be the first one there to get to debate? Surrounded makes you run to the chair. Again, like supermarket sweep. What does physical speed have to do with your ability to debate? I guess if you're disabled with limited mobility, you can't be on this show. The show is silly, is my point. But again, that's why it's perfect for Jordan Peterson, the guy who doesn't actually believe
Starting point is 00:37:02 in Christianity the way most people do and needs to hide that. He wants to run out the clock with a big confusing conversation on a big confusing show. His own little Lewis Carroll word maze to pass the time. And yet, what's extremely funny is that he somehow, incredibly, ends up losing that game. How do you define worship? Prioritize. Prioritize. So, almost like having a preference over something other than the other. incredibly, ends up losing that game. How do you define worship? Prioritize. Prioritize.
Starting point is 00:37:27 So almost like having a preference over something rather than the other. It's a hierarchy of preferences. Yeah. And you use it to direct your attention. Okay. Not what worship means, but okay. We have our definition. And again, sure, people do prioritize things over other things. This isn't a revelation.
Starting point is 00:37:46 Atheists, despite not believing in God, still prioritize things. So I prioritize water over candy. Does that mean I worship water? I prioritize pink starbursts over yellow ones. Do I worship pink starbursts? Is he saying that anything we prioritize, even lastly, is something we worship?
Starting point is 00:38:11 Let's ask. So at what point is it worship? Because it sounds like you're saying worship is almost a spectrum, right? Or it's not a binary, it's not a- It's kind of like, that's a good question. So when is it worship as opposed to just, I love my wife?
Starting point is 00:38:23 The closer you get to the top or the bottom, the more it's like, it's more like worship. How close to the top? You see how easy it is to get lost in all of this. This has nothing to do with Christianity or religion. They're just talking about what Jordan Peterson thinks the concept of worship is. And I guess he thinks that worship is when something
Starting point is 00:38:41 is at the very top or at the very bottom of our hierarchy of priorities. Fine. Sure. Fine. But as this guy is inquiring, it seems like there's a cutoff there. There's a line where something goes
Starting point is 00:38:54 from being a priority to a worship. So what does Peterson say about that? I don't think I worship anything. And if you're saying I have to hit a certain threshold for it to be worship, it is possible I don't worship anything then, right? It's not possible that you don't worship anything. What do I worship anything. And if you're saying I have to hit a certain threshold for it to be worship, it is possible I don't worship anything then, right? It's not possible that you don't worship anything. What do I worship?
Starting point is 00:39:09 Because you wouldn't attend a love. So you think I worship love? Do you attend in consequence of love? I see I'm trying to define something. What do you mean worship? I told you what I meant. What do you mean? Hey, you lost.
Starting point is 00:39:23 You lost your own word game, Pete. As this guy points out in this weird semantics debate that if worship is when you cross a threshold of priorities then not everybody necessarily worships something. He set up his own weird rules in his own weird game and lost. So he panics, sputters, asks the guy what he thinks it means and then goes back on the thing he just said a moment ago.
Starting point is 00:39:46 So you're making the assumption that only the thing at the top or the bottom has anything to do with worship. And I'm saying that's not true. It's a hierarchy of prioritization. Motherfucker, you just said that it was about the bottom or the top. We just heard you say it. Here's the clip. Worship is almost a spectrum, right?
Starting point is 00:40:07 It's not a binary. It's not a- It's kind of like, that's a good question. When is it worship as opposed to just, I love my wife? The closer you get to the top or the bottom, the more it's like, it's more like worship. How close to the top? At some point, the horror has to dawn on you.
Starting point is 00:40:22 That's the point Jordan Peterson is making, is that everyone likes stuff and has one or a few things they like the most. That's really it. He's using slightly bigger words and tangling it up in a philosophical tone, but he's saying that everyone likes things and people like some things more than other things.
Starting point is 00:40:43 And I guess because everyone likes stuff, that means that atheists are actually religious. Again, they debate this claim for 20 minutes. Just a group of people arguing over the definition of a word. Maybe we shouldn't have to debate something like this. It's not really worth debating. Or to quote a great mind,
Starting point is 00:41:01 well, just because people are stupid about things doesn't mean that their opinion is valid. Thank you. Great point. See, this is the power that Peterson absolutely has. He knows words. He's a word knower guy. This is why a lot of people find him to be smart until you really start to think about what he's actually saying or look even a little into the validity of his claims.
Starting point is 00:41:24 He's very good at this. It's his true talent. He is a bullshitter. He throws out a big ball of words and forces you to untangle them only to realize they are meaningless. There's just a turd in that ball. And by the time you realize it, he's gone.
Starting point is 00:41:38 I mean, here I am doing that. I'm doing this video instead of a video about a real problem in the world or like cleaning Probably not cleaning. I mean I could be playing Minecraft actually or making food in the game Valheim or making spicy food in Dune Awakening But I'm here instead and in a debate form. This is very effective We're too busy pointing out how his definitions of words are wrong to address the larger and also bad point he's making, or realize that he's just trying to squirm around a truth, or see that he's taking our wallet or whatever thing he wants to pull. We didn't even get to Peterson's final claim, which was that, quote,
Starting point is 00:42:17 atheists accept Christian morality but deny the religion's foundational stories. Again, sure. Like people accept the morality of Lord of the Rings, but that doesn't mean they have to accept it as truth. It doesn't matter. Oh, well, Lord of the Rings stems from Christian morality. It doesn't matter. Denying that stories happened in real life
Starting point is 00:42:39 doesn't mean one is denying the value or meaning of a story or a moral lesson. And of course, as you can probably guess, his definition of Christian morality is so broad that it's something everyone would naturally accept. What does it mean to accept Christian values precisely? Or Christian morality? It means to aim up as hard as you can, no matter what happens to you. Okay.
Starting point is 00:43:08 Cool. We're all Christians then. I don't care. You win. Whatever. Fucking whatever, Giorno. Fuck you. This is, Jordan, incredibly unhelpful.
Starting point is 00:43:17 Christian morality isn't aiming high and persevering. He does something similar earlier when he claims that the core of being a Christian is self-sacrifice. There's many things, but one of the most fundamental is that you believe that the cosmos itself is founded on the principle of voluntary self-sacrifice. But as a very patient woman points out to him, the core to being a Christian, the requirement to be a Christian, is to believe and accept that Jesus Christ is our Lord and Savior. Well, what do you mean by—
Starting point is 00:43:48 No! You know what it means! Stop it! Peterson brings up how Christian thought and ancient Greek thought have some overlap, and the very patient woman asks him, okay, let's say someone just happens to have morals that overlap with Christianity. Treating others as they wish to be treated, self-sacrifice, whatever. Is that person a Christian? Pre-Christian philosophers, for example. They noted the similarity, let's say, between pre-Christian Greek thought and later Christian
Starting point is 00:44:17 thought, and presumed that there were moral actors outside the Christian domain. Right. So is that person Christian, though. Right. So that person is Christian though. Does that make that person a Christian? If someone has values that happen to overlap with Christian values, does that make a person Christian? His response may not surprise you. Well, to some degree, again, that's a matter of definition. Exactly. Incredible restraint from her right there. Exactly, she says, stone-faced, fire in a matter of definition. Because they wouldn't. Incredible restraint from her right there.
Starting point is 00:44:45 Exactly, she says, stone-faced, fire in her eyes, correctly. She also points out that by Peterson's definition, if we also ignore that he elsewhere defines God as conscience, God is what you prioritize or worship at the top or the bottom. She points out that many different people have many different values. So by his own rules, there are many, many gods.
Starting point is 00:45:08 Could there be that someone has a priority at their foundation that is different from someone else's? Oh, definitely. Essentially, there is no, there's not one god, but there are multiple gods, and these gods exist in some realm of truth. Like, like, it's true that this person has one god and it exists. Yeah, probably better to think about it as multiple values, but that there's a hierarchy of values with something at the bottom.
Starting point is 00:45:29 Right, but the bottom is God and there are- That's a definition, yeah. That's a definition, yeah. Yours, Jordan. So there are multiple gods, well, no, multiple values, but at the bottom is God, well, that's a definition. It's just, he's a frustrating man. He has created this
Starting point is 00:45:46 rhetorical prison for himself to be stuck in. It's just, it's weird that this guy has like five definitions of God and seems to think that you can be categorized as a Christian without thinking that Jesus Christ is our Lord and Savior who died for our sins. But anyway, as I mentioned way before, whenever anyone brings up a negative aspect of Christian morality, Peterson simply says that the bad stuff doesn't count because he personally isn't interested in it. Well, I can't explain the rapture to you
Starting point is 00:46:17 because that isn't something I concern myself with and that's more of a sectarian belief than something that's central to Christianity. So in 1 Samuel 15, three, God says, go and slaughter the Amalekites, slaughter the men, the women, the children, the infants. What's the justification for that? Is that within, is that in line with Christian ethics? That's a good question.
Starting point is 00:46:36 That's a good question. I don't really know what to do with the terrible blood soaked saturated history of the human past. It's so slimy and obvious. Well, I don't concern myself with that really important part of the Bible. Well, I don't know what to do with the blood-soaked history of humanity.
Starting point is 00:46:51 Well, we're not talking about that. We're talking about God demanding that blood-soaked history. It's like playing a board game with a dirtbag child who changes the rules, right? He says that atheists accept Christian morality and then excludes anything that makes that statement wrong. He refuses to say he's a Christian or define himself clearly so he can just build a belief structure around whatever makes him seem correct. Or, failing that, he just completely halts the conversation by debating the meaning
Starting point is 00:47:20 of a word. And even when we know that's what he's doing, we can't help it when the deviations are so juicy and stupid. And then 400 years later, he commands the Israelites to genocide their great-great-great-great-great-great grandchildren. That's not a just war at all. And also a genocide is not a war. Well, a genocide can be a war, but-
Starting point is 00:47:43 Absolutely not. Yeah, what that other guy said. Holy shit, holy shit, Jordan Peterson. And he's not the only person on the right to do this, not justify genocide, although they also do that, but rather play this incredibly annoying word game. This is where we thankfully get to step away from this Jordan Peterson video,
Starting point is 00:48:02 because all of this, this weird semantics tangle is very common for a lot of conservative debate types. Words in that industry are their tools after all. And because they are liars, they have to use those tools very loosely. One of the easiest ways to do this is to constantly change how literal or broad they are being with the definition of words.
Starting point is 00:48:23 And while we've been talking about the broad side, it's worth talking about the literal side. Well, first of all, it's not a baby, it's a fetus. What does fetus mean? A fetus is in utero. What does fetus mean in Latin? What the fuck? I'm sorry, is this a language call?
Starting point is 00:48:37 It means little human being. The smile is very creepy. Oh, thank God, it's a clip of Charlie Kirk. Thanks for the palette cleanser, man. So this was another viral clip, mainly because of that Babadook ass smile he gives her. But putting that aside, as this lady clearly realizes, what does the Latin definition of fetus have to do
Starting point is 00:49:01 with the science of what a fetus is? Even a child could figure out how stupid that is, right? The etymology of a word, while neat or interesting, isn't the end-all definition of what that word truly means, especially in modern language. It's just a name. It's just what we called something when we first realized it existed.
Starting point is 00:49:21 Allosaurus means different or strange lizard. That doesn't mean it watched a bunch of obscure mumblecore films or did the Naruto run everywhere, right? It just means that some people found his bones and decided to like bully him, I guess. Or her, you get it. Everyone understands what I'm saying,
Starting point is 00:49:39 including Charlie Kirk. But because he didn't want to actually debate abortion, he had to make us debate words. Really old words. This definition game has to be the most pathetic and obvious tactic. And yes, of course, Jordan Peterson also does it. Is sin like a part of Christian morality? What do you mean exactly? Sin as a part? Like the concept of sin? It's missing the, Kate, it's derived from an archery term
Starting point is 00:50:05 and it means to miss the target. Oh great, we're back with this video. We had a brief moment of air with Charlie Kirk, but here we are again. Everyone knows that sin doesn't mean to miss or whatever. It's a larger concept tied to a religious ideology and therefore has multiple definitions. He should understand this since up until this point point he's been nothing but loose with words. Genocide
Starting point is 00:50:28 can mean war but sin means this one thing only. But when he wants to be, Jordan Peterson will suddenly become extremely obtuse about how complex or polysemous words are interpreted. Here's a fun gem. You know, we have Pride Month. Well, what are we celebrating? First of all, how about we don't celebrate pride? Pride is a cardinal sin. And you might say, well, they don't mean pride. They mean, you know, it's a group of oppressed people and now they're just finding their identity and they're getting some security in that identity.
Starting point is 00:51:02 And so what they mean by pride is security in that identity. It's like, the word's pride. Yeah, but do you mean sin as in missing the mark? Because then how is that so bad, Jordan? I thought sin literally just meant to miss something. Hey Jordan, do you think maybe the whole point is that this group of people was made to hide and feel shame for who they are.
Starting point is 00:51:25 And they might be now using the opposite word to point out how they're not going to be ashamed for who they are anymore. Like you explained it to yourself out loud. Hey Jordan, you were proudly a member of a group of people called the intellectual dark web. Are you okay with that? The dark web is where people do sinful crimes.
Starting point is 00:51:44 How dare you Jordan? Anyway, this is where people do sinful crimes! How dare you, Jordan! Anyway, this is child shit. He's talking child shit. Like a child trying to debate their bedtime and then shitting. He thinks he can, like, wordplay something to be right. He is taking a complex topic and just dragging it down to the semantics of it, changing words to this extremely literal and singular interpretation, or changing them to completely vague and different meanings, depending on what point he wants to make. And the ultimate victory is when he distracts you
Starting point is 00:52:13 or completely tires you out. Like, I didn't mention this, but sin doesn't mean miss the mark, or at least a lot of people don't think that. But who cares? It doesn't matter. This? It doesn't matter. This surrounded video doesn't matter. The world would be exactly the same if it didn't exist. And by the end of it, everyone is just tired and frustrated and saying exactly what I've been saying
Starting point is 00:52:37 this whole time. But I do feel like he does a lot of, I guess, wordplay that can make it a little bit difficult and kind of just muddies the waters in regard to what we define as Christianity and atheism. Right. So what was the point? It's empty content. It doesn't really instruct or intrigue when it comes to philosophical debates about religion or God, because it's not really about that. It's mostly a 90-minute video of people debating the interpretation of words, which I guess might interest someone curious about linguistics or what it feels like to have a stroke or the worst ways that liars lie. And while most people see how useless Jordan
Starting point is 00:53:15 Peterson is, I really need everyone to realize that this also reflects on these surrounded videos. They released this video! And sure, they probably have some use in that they've changed a few people's minds along the way. They're definitely entertaining sometimes. They create hot con reaction videos starring Cody, but they are ultimately a net loss in terms of progress or political discourse.
Starting point is 00:53:39 And this video really shows that because it shows how Surrounded is built for people like Jordan Peterson or Charlie Kirk. Liars, hucksters, not exclusively, but mainly for these types. So after the break, we're gonna stop talking about this video, phew, and talk about why we're talking about this video.
Starting point is 00:54:00 All right, well, goodbye for like a few minutes. Every once in a while, the team here at the Showdy requires me to shave my beard to play some character. Like Cody from 15 years ago, Cumberbatch Cody, or Cody the Healthy-Faced Dolphin, characters you know and love. And for such occasions, I am thrilled to use the Henson Razor, a product that emphasizes
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Starting point is 00:55:41 Now to get back to the episode with my classic bearded character, Shrubbery Boy. We should really see that guy more often. We should do more Shrubbery Boy stuff. And we will. Now. The summer of cinema is here! I mean, it's been here for a while, even though summer technically didn't start until June 20th. But it's even here-er now-er, and Pluto TV is exploding with thousands of free movies. It'll feel like summer all year round, but especially now in the summertime of the year,
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Starting point is 00:56:56 Pay never. Ruff! Ruff! That's the sound he makes when it's summer and movie time, Pluto TV. Okay, cut. Friends, I have a personal and perhaps embarrassing question to ask of you. Does your manhood feel like the Florida panhandle this time of year? Are you emotionally scarred from riding the subway and seeing a literal butt sweat print left on the seat.
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Starting point is 00:58:44 Now they're just not picking up. Okay, ads are done. Jordan Peterson surrounded. I'm not gonna recap because you can just watch it yourself. It's time to take this one video of Jordan Peterson, the weird liar lying about his beliefs by playing word games
Starting point is 00:59:01 and zoom out to the entire right-wing movement. The phrase I'm gonna use to broadly describe this tactic is tangential logic. They're using tangential points to meander off the subject, often trying to embed themselves in these digressions in order to change the argument, or at times, reality itself. It doesn't just have to be wordplay, mind you. For example, here's a very good and funny example of one of these ghouls trying to bog down a conversation with logic and then failing.
Starting point is 00:59:30 But I'll tell you something you're not gonna wanna hear and I admit, I'll call it dickish. Utilitarianism is typically the villain in most movies. I don't care. Ah, never gets old. And yeah, that really should have been what most people said to Jordan Peterson in that video because the points he was making were tangential
Starting point is 00:59:50 to the larger debate. So it's not just about wordplay, but it's mostly about wordplay because I would argue that the right-wing attack on words is one of their more powerful and devastating tactics. Just look at the word woke or DEI or groomer. Those words used to mean specific things until conservatives stole them and gave them new tangential and broad definitions
Starting point is 01:00:11 that evoke emotional responses in their base. And at first, people might try to point this out. The first argument is usually people trying to reclaim these words back to their original meaning. But eventually everyone just gives up. People start saying woke ironically, mocking the right until they are just saying it. For example, the word cuck. That was originally a word exclusively being used by, well, cucks and right wingers, often as a broad insult to the confusion of others.
Starting point is 01:00:39 Because who cares if you're a cuck? You wanna watch me bang your spouse? Sure, it's not free, but sure. But over time, everyone started using it ironically. Then just using it until the Democratic Party's Twitter account is essentially calling Stephen Miller a cuck. All because he really likes being cucked by Elon Musk. Leave the poor cuck Stephen Miller the cuck alone, guys.
Starting point is 01:01:01 While it can be harmless, it's often not. More often, it's quite bad. For example, they are now scrubbing all mention of DEI from the government. And just like Jordan Peterson, they are doing this very obtusely. The words equity and inclusion, for example, mean multiple things. But since they are just broadly going after the words, various financial forms that have nothing to do with DEI are being deleted. Even when it is technically DEI,
Starting point is 01:01:29 that phrase meant something different when it was first enacted, right? That's why stuff like veteran support groups are also getting purged in Trump's anti-woke crusade. Don't get me wrong, I don't think any of this should be purged, but I doubt the people who think they're against DEI intended to do that.
Starting point is 01:01:47 But the fact remains that DEI existed and helped a whole lot of people, including Trump's current vice president, before Trump showed up and decided it meant something bad and broad and different. Again, they're waging a war on the words themselves and not really the complex meaning behind them. And of course, Trump is the king of all of this.
Starting point is 01:02:08 The word salads, the vagueness, everything Peterson does, Trump does better. The mob-like, indirect way he speaks has made it so anyone can interpret him in any way they need. Here's just one of a million examples. But what kind of realistic change is that? Do you think you can provide single parents, married parents, any kind of parent, to just simply afford children in today's world
Starting point is 01:02:32 with the way things are? And it's not fair, right? It is not fair. No. And what we're going to do, and I'm gonna make, because I understand exactly what you're saying, we're going to readjust things so that it's fair to everybody,
Starting point is 01:02:43 because it's really not fair to everybody. But we have a lot, and we're going up higher, but we're also to readjust things so that it's fair to everybody, because it's really not fair to everybody. But we have a lot and we're going up higher, but we're also gonna readjust because you have to make some readjustments. It's unfair to some people, and we're not gonna have that. So he's referring to child tax credits. And the exact quote is,
Starting point is 01:02:59 we're going to readjust things so that it's fair to everybody, because it's really not fair to everybody. But we have a lot. We're going up higher. But we're also gonna readjust. Because you have to make some readjustments. It's unfair to some people. And we're not gonna have that. That's from a Fox News clip with the headline, Trump Vows to Ease Child Care Cost Burden for Struggling Parents. But um… did he? headline, Trump vows to ease child care cost burden for struggling parents.
Starting point is 01:03:25 But um, did he? Did he say anything close to that? What did he even say? Notice how he keeps saying it's not fair to some people. Which people? How are you going to readjust? How is that a clear policy laid out? I don't have to convince you that Trump doesn't make much sense when he speaks.
Starting point is 01:03:46 But I wanted to stress that you could interpret him in so many ways, depending on which people you think he's talking about. And ultimately, we now know what he meant. The child tax credits he proposes will go up by $500, but will also exclude millions of children who would otherwise legally be eligible. His party is also trying to cut food stamps and Medicaid. So that extra $500 doesn't really mean much. He couldn't say that to that lady asking a question.
Starting point is 01:04:15 So he just speaks in that vague indirect way people like him and Jordan Peterson love to do. Due process? Well, I don't know anything about that. You'll have to ask my lawyer. I'm the president. You know, a lot of people are saying that I should get a third term.
Starting point is 01:04:30 You mad, bro? I was just being sarcastic, even though I clearly wasn't. This is often talked about in relation to the sane washing of Trump, where he'll spit out a bramble of words, and then the media will find a way to interpret it to sound sensical and competent. Or say he's trolling when he makes direct threats.
Starting point is 01:04:49 There's another type of group that speaks this way that I want to shout out, which might be obvious to you. It's cults. Cults speak this way. There's a book about it, probably multiple books, but the author of that book, a linguist who happens to have a family history with cults, talks about the difference between something like scientific jargon and cult-speak. To quote her directly,
Starting point is 01:05:12 My parents, they're scientists, and they will use jargon that I don't understand. But that jargon is there to make communication clearer. Cultish language has these ulterior motives, and it's there to make communication hazier. It's there to divide people, to shut down independent thinking. And that's how you know that language is cultish, when it causes strong emotional response, but you yourself have trouble translating what it is that you're saying. So going back to Peterson and Trump, that's exactly how they're speaking, isn't it? They're making the conversation hazier, not clearer.
Starting point is 01:05:48 Well, what do you mean by God? What do you mean by believe? What do you mean by mean? What do you mean by what? And the right-wing's broad use of words like woke and DEI and groomer also make things much hazier while dividing groups and causing that strong emotional response. Less clarity, more emotion. A war of words in a war on words.
Starting point is 01:06:12 Stretching them, twisting them, bopping them, pulling them, swapping from ultra literal to vague to metaphors, finding weird logic loopholes to change the reality of the words themselves. You know, lying. And of course, there's another group of people that speak this way that I also need to shout out, which may once again be obvious to you.
Starting point is 01:06:34 Fascists, the language of dystopias. We are now seeing that in play as we speak and as they new speak. JD Vance literally said he makes up stories. Recently, he said, we're not going to war with Iran, we're at war with their nuclear facilities. Well, I'm not at war with God, I'm at war with the voice of God.
Starting point is 01:06:55 It's just a bunch of word games with the faux air of intellectualism to justify their project of brutality and might makes right. The Trump administration has been utilizing something called legalistic noncompliance to get around the many court cases against it. Basically playing legal word games so that they can break the law while pretending they aren't.
Starting point is 01:07:17 Acting as obtuse as possible about the orders when everyone knows the meaning. And unless someone stops them, they certainly won't stop there. When the Constitution says that no person shall be elected to the office of the president more than twice, we all know what that means. It's obvious, except if the right asshole
Starting point is 01:07:37 were to try and pick all the words apart, they might be able to find a way for Trump to serve a third term, even though everyone knows that's not how it works. We all know. But to quote a constitutional law professor, a president who's interested in remaining in power, despite limits against it, will come up with clever legal arguments to do
Starting point is 01:07:58 so. So, will Trump be able to violate the law and remain in office indefinitely? Only if the American people let him. Will Trump be able to violate the law and remain in office indefinitely? Only if the American people let him. That really resonates all the way to the Jordan Peterson stuff. You can either let him bog you down with a debate about semantics, or you can just say, I don't care. Right.
Starting point is 01:08:18 From a debate about religion all the way to the fucking constitution, there need to be moments when you simply just say, fuck off, you know what these words mean. Because if you don't, if you get drawn into these faux philosophical or linguistic or quote unquote high-minded debates and let them do these mad hatter word games, then eventually the words lose meaning. And as we're being reminded more and more, that matters. Because laws are also just words, policy, just words. Our world is words. It's how we agree on reality. And it's not our job to accommodate everyone's incorrect
Starting point is 01:08:54 or purposefully manipulative interpretation of that. Unless we're the Supreme Court. In that case, well, that's our only job now. Gotta get that private jet ride after all. What are we gonna do? Not go on a jet? You know how cool jets are? They go whoosh, guys.
Starting point is 01:09:10 They fucking go whoosh. Anyway, Jordan Peterson, words. Did I pass out earlier? Is that why I peed myself? Happy Beard Day, America, and Pride. Happy Pride Month. And I do mean July and the sin. July is the sin month, happy pride month. And I do mean July and the sin.
Starting point is 01:09:25 July is the sin month I've decided, not like last month, which wasn't the sin version of pride, but you know that because we can infer how words work. Unlike Jordan Peterson and the Supreme Court. ["The Star-Spangled Banner"] Well, what do you mean by hears? What do you mean by some? What do you mean by more? What do you mean by news?
Starting point is 01:09:55 What do you mean by what? What do you mean by do? What do you mean by you? What do you mean by mean? What do you mean? What do you mean? What do you mean? What do you mean? What do you mean? What do you mean? What do you mean? And there it is. The last time we'll ever talk about Jordan Peterson.
Starting point is 01:10:10 Thanks for watching. Like and subscribe. Leave a comment if you want. And we've got a patreon.com slash some more news. Check us out there. We've got a podcast called Even More News. You can watch it here twice a week on the channel or listen to it on, I don't know,
Starting point is 01:10:24 your phone or whatever, podcasts. You can listen to this show, some more news as a podcast if you prefer. And you know what else? We've got merch and we've got stuff on stuff to get from the merch. I just described what merch is. But in a way, merch is kind of like this,
Starting point is 01:10:41 like, so there's like a hierarchy of merch, right? And there's like the things that you want out of merch. And then there are the things that you really, you're striving for, right? You want some merch, but you're striving for the ultimate piece of merch. And the pursuit of that is like you're a Christian. Yeah.

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