Keri Smith says she was in a cult for twenty years. It wasn’t NXIVM, Peoples Temple, or Heaven’s Gate, but something more widespread and insidious. Keri was a self-described Social Justice Warrior. Peter Boghossian talks to Keri about how Women’s Studies classes at Duke University provided the gateway to her conversion through new words, new definitions, and exposure to oft-repeated axioms. Keri describes her former self as a “woke evangelist,” spreading newfound truths about the patriarchy and righteous censorship. She became a Wikipedia editor to “correct history” and limited her media consumption to news, books, and speakers approved by the ideology.
I think comedy is really powerful for changing people's minds. I was pretty woke and felt guilty about laughing at Ricky Gervais, and realized what a strange reaction that was. I felt tremendous relief when I allowed myself to question my woke self-judgments.
And you don't have to go to the other side and become an anti-vaxxer conservative. You get to keep what works and discard the rest.
Ricky Gervais makes me laugh like nobody else, because there's absolutely nothing he won't say. If it offends somebody, he's going to say it. I love how he giggles like a kid who said something naughty which, in fact, he did. Between him and Dave Chappelle, the spirits of George Carlin and Richard Pryor are alive and well.
Be careful...the more you open you mind to question things, relax/ let down your guard and laugh at what’s funny the more “conservative” you may become. :) Then you’ll realize it’s not just a conservative value to question authority and to be thoughtful of what is presented to you as “fact”. And, by the way, to be hesitant about what’s being injected or ingested into one’s body? That’s a good thing too. Doesn’t make you ignorant or an “an antivaxxer”. Just makes you protective of your body- the only vessel that can carry you through what you hope will be a long and vital life. I’m pretty old now. Wish I had paid more attention and had the information available now, then.
Fantastic interview. Always fascinating to hear from those who have left the cult. As Keri mentioned, amnesty international has lost its original principles and values. They sided with Trudeau against the truckers and said nothing about covid lockdowns and mandates: https://yuribezmenov.substack.com/p/how-to-control-your-souls-desire
Keri Smith is articulate, intelligent and engaging. Her escape from Wokeville is fascinating. It makes me wonder what the difference is between her, a woke escapee, and others who fall down the woke sinkhole never to be seen again. Character differences, personal life paths and interests, unpredictable events, etc. are very subtle and deep, and highly individualized.
This is why I feel that the part of your conversation where you discuss possible ways to "detrance" the woke was not very satisfying. Maybe it's because it's such a personal trip and everybody has a different comfort level and breaking point. Keri referred to traumatic events eroding her capacity to cope with stress, which opened a space for change to creep in. How and when this might happen in a person's life is very random and unpredictable.
If you're approaching people with that goal in mind, don't you think there has to be an incentive for them to open their minds to ideas that were off limits yesterday? Wokeism is metaphysical, hence religious. It supersedes logic and evidence, and that's a tough nut to crack. Just telling the truth without jargon or hectoring may have to do, and people will come to you when they're ready.
Speaking of metaphysics, the conversation with Ms. Smith went off the rails for me when she started to describe her enthusiasm for her successor ideology, i.e., a return to something familiar from her childhood. You did ask her if she felt there was a similarity between these two impulses, but she denied that her competing worldviews (woke vs. Jesus) had anything in common. However, as far as my biased, atheist's eye could tell, she does seem to have replaced one set of metaphysical concepts with another.
I do see the distinction she points out: Jesus is hopeful and loving, and woke decidedly isn't. Also, apparently, there's actual magic involved with Jesus, because you can pray really hard, and other people can pray for you, and the next day your problem has been resolved. What can I say?
This interview was poignant and informative, especially regarding Ms. Smith's analysis of what woke looks like from the inside.
Re detrancing, I agree with Beeswax that emotional vulnerability is very random and unpredictable. However, assuming that the person is willing to dialogue, I offer this: Ask, assuming that everything does turn out to be equitable, some years down the road with current woke policies, who is going to be running things? (Pause for them to think about who is running things now.) Everyone is looking at everyone else as being valuable only for their intersectional identity. Will your past support of equity be enough to give you the status that you have now?
That’s a brilliant next-level attempt to shift the paradigm…I wonder if such an inquiry would ignite critical thinking in a woke person or just make them defensive. Asking them to conceptualize the ultimate outcome of their activism implies that their expectations might be unrealistic, and that would be unbearable. Part of the woke mindset is absolute certainty and self-righteousness.
However, it’s a very interesting hypothesis to test out.
Beeswax, I see what you mean, and I used to think as you do here.
But you’re probably very wrong. Neither wokeism nor religion can be called metaphysical. Of course the doctrines, propositions, theories, etc. within wokeism and religion can be explored in detail in order to determine what metaphysical assumptions may be implied or what metaphysical conclusions might be drawn from them. But the reason for this is that metaphysics is bigger, and as a result much more important, than wokeism and religion.
Metaphysics, to quote Richard Taylor, happens when you “think, without arbitrariness and dogmatism, on the most basic problems of existence”, problems like, to quote Eric Perl, “what is being” and “why are there beings rather than nothing”.
Now, you might not like these ways of thinking; you might think these questions are useless, but that in no way makes them bad ways of thinking or bad questions.
In fact, since I see you are no fan of rigid ways, you should like and embrace metaphysics, even if you will never find truly satisfying answers by embracing it.
I disagree. I’ve been there and done that, and have landed quite happily right where I am.
And when somebody tells me what I “should” like and embrace, that’s the end of the conversation. Have a good day. I have no need to debate the topic and won’t be responding to anything further from you.
Peter I am Patric Lockhart CEO of a few new pay it forward Projects, Intellectual Properties built around Education & Politics . I am class of 71 Economics at PSU . I owned the “Cheerful Tortoise”
For 20 yrs out of that I developed 29 other not my main business. Go to Linkdedin look me up
I would like to tal to you for 10 m,Knute then send you, some videos, and Web Pages. I supposed to be talking this week to Bari Weis this week, One is virtually oriented that cold be done now for Austin ? Please private # 503-869-7418 Go to. “ unpoliticallycorrect.org”one of my blogs
Please call asap you could be a compensated influencer here, if your see what we do ? Thanks Pat
She was raised in a Christian cult and switched her allegiance to a woke cult. Now she’s in the based cult. The common thread is her extreme narcissism.
Thank you, I'll be checking out Keri's YouTube.
I think comedy is really powerful for changing people's minds. I was pretty woke and felt guilty about laughing at Ricky Gervais, and realized what a strange reaction that was. I felt tremendous relief when I allowed myself to question my woke self-judgments.
And you don't have to go to the other side and become an anti-vaxxer conservative. You get to keep what works and discard the rest.
Ricky Gervais makes me laugh like nobody else, because there's absolutely nothing he won't say. If it offends somebody, he's going to say it. I love how he giggles like a kid who said something naughty which, in fact, he did. Between him and Dave Chappelle, the spirits of George Carlin and Richard Pryor are alive and well.
Be careful...the more you open you mind to question things, relax/ let down your guard and laugh at what’s funny the more “conservative” you may become. :) Then you’ll realize it’s not just a conservative value to question authority and to be thoughtful of what is presented to you as “fact”. And, by the way, to be hesitant about what’s being injected or ingested into one’s body? That’s a good thing too. Doesn’t make you ignorant or an “an antivaxxer”. Just makes you protective of your body- the only vessel that can carry you through what you hope will be a long and vital life. I’m pretty old now. Wish I had paid more attention and had the information available now, then.
RFKjr. The conservative antivaxxer.
Fantastic interview. Always fascinating to hear from those who have left the cult. As Keri mentioned, amnesty international has lost its original principles and values. They sided with Trudeau against the truckers and said nothing about covid lockdowns and mandates: https://yuribezmenov.substack.com/p/how-to-control-your-souls-desire
Thank you. I really appreciate that.
Keri Smith is articulate, intelligent and engaging. Her escape from Wokeville is fascinating. It makes me wonder what the difference is between her, a woke escapee, and others who fall down the woke sinkhole never to be seen again. Character differences, personal life paths and interests, unpredictable events, etc. are very subtle and deep, and highly individualized.
This is why I feel that the part of your conversation where you discuss possible ways to "detrance" the woke was not very satisfying. Maybe it's because it's such a personal trip and everybody has a different comfort level and breaking point. Keri referred to traumatic events eroding her capacity to cope with stress, which opened a space for change to creep in. How and when this might happen in a person's life is very random and unpredictable.
If you're approaching people with that goal in mind, don't you think there has to be an incentive for them to open their minds to ideas that were off limits yesterday? Wokeism is metaphysical, hence religious. It supersedes logic and evidence, and that's a tough nut to crack. Just telling the truth without jargon or hectoring may have to do, and people will come to you when they're ready.
Speaking of metaphysics, the conversation with Ms. Smith went off the rails for me when she started to describe her enthusiasm for her successor ideology, i.e., a return to something familiar from her childhood. You did ask her if she felt there was a similarity between these two impulses, but she denied that her competing worldviews (woke vs. Jesus) had anything in common. However, as far as my biased, atheist's eye could tell, she does seem to have replaced one set of metaphysical concepts with another.
I do see the distinction she points out: Jesus is hopeful and loving, and woke decidedly isn't. Also, apparently, there's actual magic involved with Jesus, because you can pray really hard, and other people can pray for you, and the next day your problem has been resolved. What can I say?
This interview was poignant and informative, especially regarding Ms. Smith's analysis of what woke looks like from the inside.
Re detrancing, I agree with Beeswax that emotional vulnerability is very random and unpredictable. However, assuming that the person is willing to dialogue, I offer this: Ask, assuming that everything does turn out to be equitable, some years down the road with current woke policies, who is going to be running things? (Pause for them to think about who is running things now.) Everyone is looking at everyone else as being valuable only for their intersectional identity. Will your past support of equity be enough to give you the status that you have now?
That’s a brilliant next-level attempt to shift the paradigm…I wonder if such an inquiry would ignite critical thinking in a woke person or just make them defensive. Asking them to conceptualize the ultimate outcome of their activism implies that their expectations might be unrealistic, and that would be unbearable. Part of the woke mindset is absolute certainty and self-righteousness.
However, it’s a very interesting hypothesis to test out.
Beeswax, I see what you mean, and I used to think as you do here.
But you’re probably very wrong. Neither wokeism nor religion can be called metaphysical. Of course the doctrines, propositions, theories, etc. within wokeism and religion can be explored in detail in order to determine what metaphysical assumptions may be implied or what metaphysical conclusions might be drawn from them. But the reason for this is that metaphysics is bigger, and as a result much more important, than wokeism and religion.
Metaphysics, to quote Richard Taylor, happens when you “think, without arbitrariness and dogmatism, on the most basic problems of existence”, problems like, to quote Eric Perl, “what is being” and “why are there beings rather than nothing”.
Now, you might not like these ways of thinking; you might think these questions are useless, but that in no way makes them bad ways of thinking or bad questions.
In fact, since I see you are no fan of rigid ways, you should like and embrace metaphysics, even if you will never find truly satisfying answers by embracing it.
I disagree. I’ve been there and done that, and have landed quite happily right where I am.
And when somebody tells me what I “should” like and embrace, that’s the end of the conversation. Have a good day. I have no need to debate the topic and won’t be responding to anything further from you.
Nice! Keri is awesome. Glad you had the chance to chat.
Thank you!
Peter I am Patric Lockhart CEO of a few new pay it forward Projects, Intellectual Properties built around Education & Politics . I am class of 71 Economics at PSU . I owned the “Cheerful Tortoise”
For 20 yrs out of that I developed 29 other not my main business. Go to Linkdedin look me up
I would like to tal to you for 10 m,Knute then send you, some videos, and Web Pages. I supposed to be talking this week to Bari Weis this week, One is virtually oriented that cold be done now for Austin ? Please private # 503-869-7418 Go to. “ unpoliticallycorrect.org”one of my blogs
Please call asap you could be a compensated influencer here, if your see what we do ? Thanks Pat
Very valuable.
She was raised in a Christian cult and switched her allegiance to a woke cult. Now she’s in the based cult. The common thread is her extreme narcissism.