The Ben Mulroney Show - How much damage has the Hyper Progressive Era done to society?

Episode Date: February 25, 2025

Guests and Topics: -How much damage has the Hyper Progressive Era done to human psychology? with Guest: Dr. Oren Amitay, Psychologist If you enjoyed the podcast, tell a friend! For more of the Ben Mulroney Show, subscribe to the podcast! https://globalnews.ca/national/program/the-ben-mulroney-show Follow Ben on Twitter/X at https://x.com/BenMulroney Enjoy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Want to own part of the company that makes your favorite burger? Now you can. With partial shares from TD Direct Investing, you can own less than one full share, so expensive stocks are within reach. Learn more at td.com slash partial shares. TD, ready for you. Welcome back to the Ben Mulrooney show. And one of the most, one of the most popular segments we've ever done on that we put up as a podcast was sort of an analysis I did of what happened in my life a few years ago

as it related to cancel culture and the progressive insistence that they own the moral high ground on every issue. And a simple disagreement is enough to end somebody. And if you disagree with a certain type of person who views the world in a certain type of way, you are going to make their heads explode. And so we want to put the question, how do we unwind ourselves from the hyper progressive era that has done so much damage to us psychologically and honestly to us as a society there there are there are certain debates that I have been afraid

to wade into with good faith questions for fear of being tarred and feathered in the public square feels like we're coming out of it a little bit but to discuss it we're joined now by coming out of it a little bit. But to discuss it, we're joined now by Orin Amate, Dr. Orin Amate, psychologist. Dr. welcome to the show. Thanks, Ben. Glad to be here. So here is some audio we're gonna listen to a little audio and then we'll talk about it on the other side. A woman who got unhinged on the topic of Elon Musk. I think that Elon Musk has no skills and no ability. Well he's the richest man in the world so he's got some skills. He cheats, he lies, he steals and he bought a presidency.

He has done nothing original other than to create things off of other people's ideas. You think that Elon Musk is Tesla and SpaceX? You are clear ass mud. We don't have to...hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, my heart. Why? Why do you get so emotional though? Stop like let's just have a conversation. I want to hear what you think. Okay, so to the interviewer interviewers credit, he does try to calm her down. Let's let's listen to the de escalation. Ma'am, if you're that upset, though, ma'am. Okay, don't call me ma'am. Call me sweetheart. Sweetheart

Okay, whatever you want to be called whatever you want to be called. Why are you so upset? Why are you letting politics gets you so upset? Like don't you see that? We're just human beings Seriously, I you think completely different for me. I don't think you love you You've treated me so disrespectfully right here, and I still don't think less of you. Don't point your finger. I'm sorry I didn't mean this. I did certainly mean that no, I didn't mean to say that. You did certainly mean that. No, I didn't mean that in a disrespectful way. You want Elon Musk Trump to be the president. So just because I have certain political beliefs, you think you're going to treat me like that, is what you're saying? Yes, yes.

Okay, that's insane to me. And so, Doctor, this is the state of play today. We cannot have good faith conversations anymore. And so how do we come back from this? Okay, so the first thing is to recognize what is going on. And I saw the whole clip that George sent me, and what we're looking at is the limbic system versus the prefrontal cortex, the fear system, the lizard brain

part of our brains or minds versus the higher functioning. And that limbic system gets triggered when there's an excessive fear. Okay, that the people that we're talking about, and there's several factors going on, but one of them truly is this fear and they don't want to admit it. They think they're framing it as, no, no, I am virtuous, I am righteous, I am dealing with some evil people across the aisle, but in reality, they're just having the fear systems of their brain triggered beyond their emotional control,

so they lose control. That's why you see people acting so irrationally. That's one factor. The other factor is, and again, this is all biological, it's the in-group, out-group bias. We are wired to prefer people like us, whether it's the color of our skin, whether, I mean, like we're talking about,

the earliest days, but that's just for survival. So if you can identify the other, the out-group, the enemy, it makes it easier to just dehumanize them because the person's brain is telling them, I'm in danger, I have to protect myself. And it might sound like I'm speaking hyperbolically, but I'm not. I'm talking on the neurological level. And then on the more psychological level, it's the cognitive dissonance reduction that's in play. And people talk about this a lot, but people really have to understand that especially in the West people want to see themselves as good and smart

And so when they are thinking saying or doing something that might not be that good or might not be that smart They have a really hard time recognizing that what they've just thought said or done doesn't define them Maybe they made a mistake. Maybe they had you know, they they had a bad moment or something, but a lot of people have a hard time maybe they had, you know, they had a bad moment or something. But a lot of people have a hard time recognizing that. So instead, they believe that if they acknowledge what they've done, thought or said that that makes them a terrible or a stupid person. So they're they just they start distorting reality. Yeah, they don't have to face the reality of what they've

actually done. There's there's also I know what's going to happen next, because my next clip is going to be from a debate that conservative podcaster Michael Knowles had with a trans activist. And here's the predictable path to anybody who would criticize me. They would say, oh, because you are putting

these conservatives on as the level-headed people, that means you agree with everything they say. And we have so many conversations start that way in society today where somebody says something and the other side will extrapolate it to the most illogical end in order to make their point. And it's very frustrating. It really is.

And I know the clip that you're gonna play. And I'm just gonna say one more point that people can understand, to help them understand why people become so irrational is there's also, to combine with the other factors I mentioned, there's an over-identification with ideologies, politics, or people, so that if, again, someone disagrees with your,

let's say, belief or your politics, people see that as you are attacking me. If you over identify with something, you take it so personally, you internalize it so it feels like again another threat against you and attack against you. Once again, that fear system kicks in and you can't muster rational thought, which is what we're about to see in a second. Yeah. Exactly. So Michael Knowles is the conservative podcaster and he's having a debate with a pro trans activist who is a terrible debater and is shifting the goalposts in the argument. What is transgenderism in public look like to you? It's allowing men

to be treated for the purposes of the law as women. It's men taking 900 sports trophies from women in recent years. And they took 900. This report just came in from the United Nations, actually 890 trophies and medals across 600 women who were competing competitors across 29 different sports and 400 competitions that came out like yesterday. And they deserve them. It didn't happen and they deserve them. Okay, that is the logic I hear from the pro trans crowd. Yeah.

Thank you. They do deserve them. So look, I'm a best practices guy doctor. Like I've come on this show with a lot of bluster and bravado, but if somebody, if I have a debate with somebody and they come equipped with facts that could change my mind, they will change my mind. And this is an example of somebody

who had their mind made up. They will not change their mind. No amount of logic will allow them to have a reasonable discussion. And by the way, let's be very clear for anyone who's out there looking to attack me. This is not a conversation about trans rights right now. We're talking about the substance. We are talking about the structure of the conversation. How do we have good faith conversations today?

Well, it was people like that, it's literally impossible to have a good faith discussion, you can try like the first gentleman that clip where you try to maintain your common composure, and you don't allow yourself to be reduced to the same, you know, let's say, I can't even describe it in comprehensible thought processes that you're seeing in front of you, you you breathe deeply, stay calm, and, you know, I can't even describe it, incomprehensible thought processes that you're seeing in front of you. You breathe deeply, stay calm, and try your best to compose yourself in the best manner.

The problem is pretty soon if you realize that this isn't going to go anywhere and once again the person across from me, they cannot handle anything that goes against their belief systems because once again if you prove them wrong it's not that you're proving their facts wrong you are attacking them in their mind that's how they're seeing it. If you recognize that you realize you cannot have a good faith discussion with them so eventually you have to sort of depart and do it you know in the most I guess calm and the best practices manner.

Just like you want to conduct yourself well you don't want to lower yourself to them. And you have to realize, unfortunately, there's a large proportion of people who truly cannot hear what you're trying to say. Because once again, when cognitive dissonance reduction kicks in, all reality gets distorted. They have to protect their sense of self. And just again, I'm going to keep emphasizing that. They truly see it as an attack on their very being. They feel that they are in some form of self. And just again, I'm gonna keep emphasizing that they truly see it as an attack on their very being, they feel that they are in some form of danger, maybe

logically, they know they're not. But down deep down, neurologically, physiologically, they feel danger, danger, and their fight or flight system is just ramped up. And they can't, you know, formulate a rational thought. Yeah, it does seem that more and more I see examples on the right of people having rational conversation, whether you agree with their points or not, they are coming at it from a rational perspective and when they're speaking with someone on the left it immediately becomes emotional. Thank you very much, doctor. It's always a pleasure, thank you Ben.

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