One of the odd things about the Social Justice faith is that there are essentially no fixed leaders or institutions or a single holy book. What rules them all is DOCTRINE, which is somehow both fluid, malleable and subject to various tweaks depending upon political urgencies yet at the same time an angry god that demands total obedience and has no mercy for heretics or apostates.
I think this helps explain why its disciples are all so angry and anxious all the time, as they are essentially Sinners in the Hands of a Crowdsourced God who is never not watching them and reading their thoughts inside the digital panopticon that's our modern home.
True believers in the Social Justice faith know deep in their bones that one misstatement of dogma, one kind yet disloyal word about a tribal enemy, any phrase that makes the marginalized feel "unsafe", or in this case, even entertaining heretical thoughts—and that's that, they will experience a swift yet total social death and lose their careers and friends and be cast into the outer darkness.
There's just too much risk in them debating, any single conversation is not worth the possible penalty. Of course the biggest irony here is that this is most pronounced the more "educated" someone is, which really means the more processed and conditioned they've become by our Social Justice seminaries. We are living through a top-down ideological mass mania, and there's no end in sight.
"Sinners in the Hands of a Crowdsourced God" 🤣 I often think of them as the New Puritans, their dogma the state religion now in Massachusetts. Perfectly said! Bravo! 👏🏼
How are many are really true believers? Having worked in academia for a while, I don't think anyone actually believes this stuff. On the one hand, the guy Peter tried to talk to probably doesn't even know why he's at the protest (i.e., what does "end war now" even mean?), nor does he want to--as you allude to--want to risk being marginalized within his group.
It's all social ranking and a desire for status. If everyone (like in academia) agrees on 99% of topics, the fight over that last one percent is going to be insane.
Actually, they have already tested their ideas against “reality”, which they define as “their truth”. The left truly lives in a different “reality” from the center and the right, with its own “facts”. Information silos are now so well developed that people across the political spectrum literally live in different worlds. That’s why conversations are so impossible — when someone is simultaneously ignorant and arrogant (yet also emotionally immature and insecure), there will be nothing to really talk about.
Their violent responses must be met with overwhelming crushing force ultimately otherwise all that is good and decent, indeed civilization itself will be destroyed by their evil misguided delusions. NYC just elected a candidate for the US Congress calling for “the total eradication of western civilization” that is what she believes and the useful idiots there voted for her and that as their goal. Wake up people. Not everyone can be saved nor every ideology be reasoned with, and sometimes the only answer is pure concentrated righteous overwhelming force. We didn’t reason with Nazi Germany and we don’t try to reason with cancer we cut these things out and kill them dead. Godspeed in your quest Peter. We lost Charlie Kirk in his noble attempt to reason with evil ideologies infecting the minds and campuses across the globe. Perhaps the time for reasoning with evil is coming to an end once again as is the cycle of human history.
An axiom is a self-evident, inescapable principle that form the base of all knowledge and are validated by ostensive perception of reality rather than logical proof. Any attempt to deny them is performative self-contradictory, as the act of denial implicitly relies on the axioms themselves.
Existence, Consciousness, and Identity are axioms.
Theists begin not with axioms but with unexamined premises upon which they construct internally logical floating abstractions, e.g. Aquinas's five "proofs" of the existence of his god. That is not reason; that is rationalism.
I admire people like Peter who try to create and foster honest discussion and debate, especially with those they may strongly disagree with. It is truly courageous and necessary for a society to be free and thrive. Thank you Peter
Sorry, hit save before finishing. I joined Twitter 8 yrs ago to have these "conversations." I encountered smart people of a different opinion who, when they encountered even the slightest push-back, would block. They seemed equipped to defend their position but wouldn't. I still don't understand it. I think some of them get their talking points from elsewhere and haven't thought of any possible objections so they can't engage. I'm not even talking about "High-Q-rating" people, just other ordinary Joe's like me engaging with others with no notoriety on the platform. I think, from what I've read, many conservatives encounter the same refusal to engage. The blockers seem to prefer a platform where they get up on top of buildings and shoot whomever they disagree with.
You have a point here. Perhaps the "block" mode of Twitter, and also the mass reporting of logical tweets about the fact that sex is determined at conception and immutable, such that one got removed, created this attitude of intolerance.
In my view, it is impossible to have a conversation, engage in a rational exchange of facts and ideas, with anyone who truly embraces leftist ideology because they are now fully nihilist. That is, they virulently reject all facts which clash with their ideology and all human values, honesty, competence, integrity, excellence, beauty, etc. as such. As a result, they cannot tolerate even the slightest deviation from blind unthinking obedience to their leftist views.
The Left is in a period of profound psychosocial devolution, truly reverting to tribal behavior. What does that mean? You're either in the tribe or you're not -- and the core of your beliefs are fundamentally mythical and not amenable to Socratic decomposition. That's why the guy was yelling at cars -- he was looking for fellow tribe members. He wasn't looking for any thinking greater than that. Total affiliation.
Though it's basically ignored in the academy (the academy is a very sophisticated, but poorly evolved social environment) people develop in a psychosocial fashion their entire life. Many people, for lots of reasons, are frozen in a teenage developmental stage. There are reasons for that. When you add pressure from psychopathic leadership -- the biggest problem with the Left right now, you end up at your bus stop. They act like they're in a different world, because cognitively they ARE.
I should add that any anthropologist will also tell you that tribal behavior is far more violent than civilized societies. Murder rates are 10X-100X. It's wild.
Maybe I'm reading you wrong but you seem to think that we should be engaging in an endless debate with adversaries and opponents. This is your brand. The rest of us must go on with our lives.
"...you seem to think that we should be engaging in an endless debate with adversaries and opponents."
Remember always that thinking is volitional. It's only an endless debate with the ones who choose to be intellectually dishonest and mentally evasive. Once you discover that that is their chosen internalized cognitive style, you take your leave of them. Life is too short to spend one's time reaching out to those who choose to be unreachable.
Shouldn't the protestor at the bus stop be ready to engage in debate? If not, why are they even protesting? Performance art? It's not as if Peter shook someone awake on the bus and demanded to debate politics.
It’s just tribal signaling, and they know deep down their views are not supported by evidence so naturally they are allergic to engagement. Though I do find it fascinating that the same is not true for, say, creationists, who love a good debate, despite an equal lack of evidence to support their claims. But they figured out long ago, as a group, the mechanics of debate, which don’t involve getting at truth, but just discrediting the opponent, and ran with it. Perhaps it’s a right wing, larger amygdala on average thing. Bad ideology paired with a capacity for individual courage and aggression.
Leftists may not be comfortable, except within the framework/safety of a mob. Just shooting from the hip here.
Charles, Thanks for sharing. You seem to have some good perspective on the dangers of idealogical capture, having dipped your own toe in those waters at times, and, of course, institutional corruption. I like that you rose to the chest bumping occasions and especially like that you were able to read into it / respect it in its own right (no pun intended.) Your “cultural revolution” concerns seem spot-on to me. In my book, The Why Behind Things, I cite Jung Chang’s book Wild Swans, which contains her personal accounts of the cultural revolution. She ended up buying a copy of my book after I emailed her last month. That was pretty cool. By the way, I live in Washington State, as well.
I recently wrote a piece on the topic in my substack. The Biological Animal and the Survival of the West: Reclaiming Reality in an Age of Outrage and Asymmetric Warfare
Escaping the outrage economy, rejecting the extremes, and saving Western civilization from internal collapse and external threats.
Re: the chest bumping vs the Left’s version (cancelling/making you radioactive/ruining your life/hacking your children’s social media accounts, etc., the Right seems to maybe have outgrown the witch trials mentality and maybe the Left wants to have their go at one. Seems they’re doing an admirable job of it.
I think the reason for not engaging is the belief that what we call "constructive engagement" is impossible due to what is presented as moral inferiority of the other side. It is also avoided because the Left presents all debate as a strategy that is winning for their opponents and losing for them. Other factors include lack of positive examples, risk of coming across as "shaking hands with the Devil," potential ostracism etc.
When I was very young, my even younger brother asked our two grandfathers, "What is the difference between a Democrat and a Republican?" Now, one grandfather was a Democrat and one was a Republican. And here we all sat together for this little conversation. My Republican grandfather answered first. "Well I would say that we all want the same things, but we disagree on how to achieve them." Obviously he was being diplomatic, but this left a lasting impression, and I more or less believed it for many years.
But I can no longer believe this. I am 59 years old, and I have been following politics and culture since I was in high school. If the above sentiment was ever true, it is certainly not true today. Well dear reader, I will ask you: Do left-of-center types and right-of-center types want the same thing? Perhaps it is just me, but I do not think they do.
So while I appreciate what you do Peter, and I appreciated what Charlie Kirk tried to do, my question is this: What is the point of these conversations when the goals are so diametrically opposed? It is kind of like slavery: At some point, there is nothing left to talk about.
I’ve always struggled to keep my cool during a debate of something that I cared deeply about. I was introduced to your work at FLCCC now IMA conference a few years ago and then started following. The fact that you take such a curious and open minded approach is amazing and inspirational to me. It encourages not only deeper understanding of one’s own beliefs but also a compassionate and respectful view of how other people think and believe. I appreciate what you do and am hoping to improve on my own ability to change my approach.
At least 15 years ago, it began to hit me. 🎯 More people taking themselves far too seriously to the point of me wanting to laugh. And holding back because that wouldn't be polite. People pretending not to understand basic things in front of their eyes, so they could remain confidently wrong rather than be humbled or proven wrong.
I started using a word I never used before to describe it. Solipsism. Though that may be unfair and off the mark. But I set aside judgement and tried to engage the ideas of others and listen. I wanted to understand what on earth was happening.
At some point the absurdities I heard became a broken record, across the spectrum of ideas. Good imagination and inspirational ideas were fewer and fewer. Belief in lies and destructive ideas became common. So I stopped trying to listen or engage a few years ago. And that was wrong. My mistake. Thank you for the reminder, Peter. Appreciate it!
Jordan Peterson has quoted a study he was a part of wherein the factors that contributed to "wokeness" were examined. As I recall, they included 1) low verbal intelligence, 2) female or possessing female character traits, and 3) having ever taken even one college course in DEI. Pretty damning, I'd say. My experience in engaging local wokesters mirrors yours; ie: they aren't too bright, they are prone to mouthing slogans, and they either women or weak, ineffective men. They have been quick to claim a grievance against me and prone to calling me names, even when I have been at pains to be polite and courteous. They have been largely emotive and not rational.
One of the odd things about the Social Justice faith is that there are essentially no fixed leaders or institutions or a single holy book. What rules them all is DOCTRINE, which is somehow both fluid, malleable and subject to various tweaks depending upon political urgencies yet at the same time an angry god that demands total obedience and has no mercy for heretics or apostates.
I think this helps explain why its disciples are all so angry and anxious all the time, as they are essentially Sinners in the Hands of a Crowdsourced God who is never not watching them and reading their thoughts inside the digital panopticon that's our modern home.
True believers in the Social Justice faith know deep in their bones that one misstatement of dogma, one kind yet disloyal word about a tribal enemy, any phrase that makes the marginalized feel "unsafe", or in this case, even entertaining heretical thoughts—and that's that, they will experience a swift yet total social death and lose their careers and friends and be cast into the outer darkness.
There's just too much risk in them debating, any single conversation is not worth the possible penalty. Of course the biggest irony here is that this is most pronounced the more "educated" someone is, which really means the more processed and conditioned they've become by our Social Justice seminaries. We are living through a top-down ideological mass mania, and there's no end in sight.
"Sinners in the Hands of a Crowdsourced God" 🤣 I often think of them as the New Puritans, their dogma the state religion now in Massachusetts. Perfectly said! Bravo! 👏🏼
Thanks! Much appreciated
How are many are really true believers? Having worked in academia for a while, I don't think anyone actually believes this stuff. On the one hand, the guy Peter tried to talk to probably doesn't even know why he's at the protest (i.e., what does "end war now" even mean?), nor does he want to--as you allude to--want to risk being marginalized within his group.
It's all social ranking and a desire for status. If everyone (like in academia) agrees on 99% of topics, the fight over that last one percent is going to be insane.
Unfortunately some of these people actively don’t want to test their ideas against reality.
Actually, they have already tested their ideas against “reality”, which they define as “their truth”. The left truly lives in a different “reality” from the center and the right, with its own “facts”. Information silos are now so well developed that people across the political spectrum literally live in different worlds. That’s why conversations are so impossible — when someone is simultaneously ignorant and arrogant (yet also emotionally immature and insecure), there will be nothing to really talk about.
Their violent responses must be met with overwhelming crushing force ultimately otherwise all that is good and decent, indeed civilization itself will be destroyed by their evil misguided delusions. NYC just elected a candidate for the US Congress calling for “the total eradication of western civilization” that is what she believes and the useful idiots there voted for her and that as their goal. Wake up people. Not everyone can be saved nor every ideology be reasoned with, and sometimes the only answer is pure concentrated righteous overwhelming force. We didn’t reason with Nazi Germany and we don’t try to reason with cancer we cut these things out and kill them dead. Godspeed in your quest Peter. We lost Charlie Kirk in his noble attempt to reason with evil ideologies infecting the minds and campuses across the globe. Perhaps the time for reasoning with evil is coming to an end once again as is the cycle of human history.
No, I think they think their positions are in the majority. They are protesting .FOR the status quo in their minds.
Ofc they dont. They dont even consider something like that, as its not relevant.
You cannot reason with a demoralized person.
It’s barely possible to reason with anyone at all.
Or a religious one who argue from axioms
An axiom is a self-evident, inescapable principle that form the base of all knowledge and are validated by ostensive perception of reality rather than logical proof. Any attempt to deny them is performative self-contradictory, as the act of denial implicitly relies on the axioms themselves.
Existence, Consciousness, and Identity are axioms.
Theists begin not with axioms but with unexamined premises upon which they construct internally logical floating abstractions, e.g. Aquinas's five "proofs" of the existence of his god. That is not reason; that is rationalism.
So true from my experience. Those on the left refuse to hear anything that may challenge their strongly held beliefs.
I guess the beliefs are not THAT strongly held, they are terrified of losing them.
I admire people like Peter who try to create and foster honest discussion and debate, especially with those they may strongly disagree with. It is truly courageous and necessary for a society to be free and thrive. Thank you Peter
The majority of people are civil, open to reason, and desirous of interacting with other people in a peaceful and mutually productive manner.
If that were not so, if barbarism were the rule, not the exception, human beings would have made themselves extinct a long, long time ago.
To argue with a person who has renounced the use of reason is like administering medicine to the dead. -- Thomas Paine
Sorry, hit save before finishing. I joined Twitter 8 yrs ago to have these "conversations." I encountered smart people of a different opinion who, when they encountered even the slightest push-back, would block. They seemed equipped to defend their position but wouldn't. I still don't understand it. I think some of them get their talking points from elsewhere and haven't thought of any possible objections so they can't engage. I'm not even talking about "High-Q-rating" people, just other ordinary Joe's like me engaging with others with no notoriety on the platform. I think, from what I've read, many conservatives encounter the same refusal to engage. The blockers seem to prefer a platform where they get up on top of buildings and shoot whomever they disagree with.
You have a point here. Perhaps the "block" mode of Twitter, and also the mass reporting of logical tweets about the fact that sex is determined at conception and immutable, such that one got removed, created this attitude of intolerance.
In my view, it is impossible to have a conversation, engage in a rational exchange of facts and ideas, with anyone who truly embraces leftist ideology because they are now fully nihilist. That is, they virulently reject all facts which clash with their ideology and all human values, honesty, competence, integrity, excellence, beauty, etc. as such. As a result, they cannot tolerate even the slightest deviation from blind unthinking obedience to their leftist views.
The Left is in a period of profound psychosocial devolution, truly reverting to tribal behavior. What does that mean? You're either in the tribe or you're not -- and the core of your beliefs are fundamentally mythical and not amenable to Socratic decomposition. That's why the guy was yelling at cars -- he was looking for fellow tribe members. He wasn't looking for any thinking greater than that. Total affiliation.
Though it's basically ignored in the academy (the academy is a very sophisticated, but poorly evolved social environment) people develop in a psychosocial fashion their entire life. Many people, for lots of reasons, are frozen in a teenage developmental stage. There are reasons for that. When you add pressure from psychopathic leadership -- the biggest problem with the Left right now, you end up at your bus stop. They act like they're in a different world, because cognitively they ARE.
If you're interested in this line of thinking, you can read this piece on it. https://empathy.guru/2025/08/31/psychopathic-inversion-and-the-relational-devolution-of-the-left/
I should add that any anthropologist will also tell you that tribal behavior is far more violent than civilized societies. Murder rates are 10X-100X. It's wild.
Maybe I'm reading you wrong but you seem to think that we should be engaging in an endless debate with adversaries and opponents. This is your brand. The rest of us must go on with our lives.
"...you seem to think that we should be engaging in an endless debate with adversaries and opponents."
Remember always that thinking is volitional. It's only an endless debate with the ones who choose to be intellectually dishonest and mentally evasive. Once you discover that that is their chosen internalized cognitive style, you take your leave of them. Life is too short to spend one's time reaching out to those who choose to be unreachable.
You proved my point.
Shouldn't the protestor at the bus stop be ready to engage in debate? If not, why are they even protesting? Performance art? It's not as if Peter shook someone awake on the bus and demanded to debate politics.
It’s just tribal signaling, and they know deep down their views are not supported by evidence so naturally they are allergic to engagement. Though I do find it fascinating that the same is not true for, say, creationists, who love a good debate, despite an equal lack of evidence to support their claims. But they figured out long ago, as a group, the mechanics of debate, which don’t involve getting at truth, but just discrediting the opponent, and ran with it. Perhaps it’s a right wing, larger amygdala on average thing. Bad ideology paired with a capacity for individual courage and aggression.
Leftists may not be comfortable, except within the framework/safety of a mob. Just shooting from the hip here.
Wrote this a while ago. https://empathy.guru/2025/08/31/psychopathic-inversion-and-the-relational-devolution-of-the-left/
Charles, Thanks for sharing. You seem to have some good perspective on the dangers of idealogical capture, having dipped your own toe in those waters at times, and, of course, institutional corruption. I like that you rose to the chest bumping occasions and especially like that you were able to read into it / respect it in its own right (no pun intended.) Your “cultural revolution” concerns seem spot-on to me. In my book, The Why Behind Things, I cite Jung Chang’s book Wild Swans, which contains her personal accounts of the cultural revolution. She ended up buying a copy of my book after I emailed her last month. That was pretty cool. By the way, I live in Washington State, as well.
I recently wrote a piece on the topic in my substack. The Biological Animal and the Survival of the West: Reclaiming Reality in an Age of Outrage and Asymmetric Warfare
Escaping the outrage economy, rejecting the extremes, and saving Western civilization from internal collapse and external threats.
Re: the chest bumping vs the Left’s version (cancelling/making you radioactive/ruining your life/hacking your children’s social media accounts, etc., the Right seems to maybe have outgrown the witch trials mentality and maybe the Left wants to have their go at one. Seems they’re doing an admirable job of it.
I think the reason for not engaging is the belief that what we call "constructive engagement" is impossible due to what is presented as moral inferiority of the other side. It is also avoided because the Left presents all debate as a strategy that is winning for their opponents and losing for them. Other factors include lack of positive examples, risk of coming across as "shaking hands with the Devil," potential ostracism etc.
When I was very young, my even younger brother asked our two grandfathers, "What is the difference between a Democrat and a Republican?" Now, one grandfather was a Democrat and one was a Republican. And here we all sat together for this little conversation. My Republican grandfather answered first. "Well I would say that we all want the same things, but we disagree on how to achieve them." Obviously he was being diplomatic, but this left a lasting impression, and I more or less believed it for many years.
But I can no longer believe this. I am 59 years old, and I have been following politics and culture since I was in high school. If the above sentiment was ever true, it is certainly not true today. Well dear reader, I will ask you: Do left-of-center types and right-of-center types want the same thing? Perhaps it is just me, but I do not think they do.
So while I appreciate what you do Peter, and I appreciated what Charlie Kirk tried to do, my question is this: What is the point of these conversations when the goals are so diametrically opposed? It is kind of like slavery: At some point, there is nothing left to talk about.
Yes, you either agree to disagree, or resort to force of arms if you can't live with the disagreement.
I’ve always struggled to keep my cool during a debate of something that I cared deeply about. I was introduced to your work at FLCCC now IMA conference a few years ago and then started following. The fact that you take such a curious and open minded approach is amazing and inspirational to me. It encourages not only deeper understanding of one’s own beliefs but also a compassionate and respectful view of how other people think and believe. I appreciate what you do and am hoping to improve on my own ability to change my approach.
At least 15 years ago, it began to hit me. 🎯 More people taking themselves far too seriously to the point of me wanting to laugh. And holding back because that wouldn't be polite. People pretending not to understand basic things in front of their eyes, so they could remain confidently wrong rather than be humbled or proven wrong.
I started using a word I never used before to describe it. Solipsism. Though that may be unfair and off the mark. But I set aside judgement and tried to engage the ideas of others and listen. I wanted to understand what on earth was happening.
At some point the absurdities I heard became a broken record, across the spectrum of ideas. Good imagination and inspirational ideas were fewer and fewer. Belief in lies and destructive ideas became common. So I stopped trying to listen or engage a few years ago. And that was wrong. My mistake. Thank you for the reminder, Peter. Appreciate it!
Jordan Peterson has quoted a study he was a part of wherein the factors that contributed to "wokeness" were examined. As I recall, they included 1) low verbal intelligence, 2) female or possessing female character traits, and 3) having ever taken even one college course in DEI. Pretty damning, I'd say. My experience in engaging local wokesters mirrors yours; ie: they aren't too bright, they are prone to mouthing slogans, and they either women or weak, ineffective men. They have been quick to claim a grievance against me and prone to calling me names, even when I have been at pains to be polite and courteous. They have been largely emotive and not rational.