The Jordan Peterson Podcat

I took notes on podcast S4 E6: Gad Saad: Infectious Ideas, from February 16th, 2021, a roughly two-hour interview between Peterson and Gad Saad, a Canadian evolutionary psychologist and Professor. Gad Saad has written a book: The Parasitic Mind: How Infectious Ideas Are Killing Common Sense. Gad has written this book about how contagious, infectious ideas are infecting people's thinking, and this irrational, deluded thinking makes people hooked on poor thinking to think irrationally and lose common sense. My response: I wonder if parasitic ideas are another way of interpreting mass hysteria and impenetrable groupthink under which true believers in a mass movement believe the lies and half-truths comprising their ideology. Among collective joiners these infectious poor ideas spread rapidly and take over the minds of mass movement true believers, more so than the still critically thinking atomistic individuals. These conceptual pathogens are delusional, extirpating common sense and rational exchange. We reject ideologues commanding how we think, write or talk in accordance with woke dictates. Gad basis his stands on underlying foundational principles, and that enables him to differentiate between sensible ideas and idea pathogens or uncritical thinking that take over the minds of their hosts. The host then believes and espouses like a zombified fanatic the nonsense beliefs that have parasitized his mind. These pathogens take over the minds of the true believers that espouse them like enthusiastic zombies. Peterson asks Gad to provide some examples of idea pathogens or infectious ideas taking over the minds of thousands or millions of believers. Some that he cited as examples of idea pathogens are: cultural relativism, postmodernism, identity politics, biophobia (fearing to use biology to explain human affairs, radical feminism and critical race theory. My response: I agree with Gad's characterization of idea pathogens and his examples of them listed above. People run in packs and that makes them more gullible and credulous, more emotional about what they believe that they would otherwise be and demonstrate as skeptical independent thinkers. Jordan asks Gad why he only seems to attack left-wing pathogens in his new book. Gad replied that there are plenty of dangerous right-wing idea pathogens, but as an academic, he is concerned with wats to expose and thwart the Leftists idea pathogens and their advocates that have overrun Academia and now las unleased up to 3 million activists on society (Jordan's estimate from anther video). Today in America Leftists true believers and their idea pathogens are more threatening that alt-right filth that Nazis believe and back. I agree again. Gad defines sensible (what I would call moderate feminism) as equity feminism, under which men and women are equal under the law. Under radical feminism men and women are considered to be the same, which they are not. We must accept that it is biologically proven that men and women are different, not better or worse, and not to be subjected to equality of outcome metrics. My response: I like this feminist compare/contrast exercise. Gad then trots out the idea pathogen of cultural relativism. He describes this idea pathogen as possessing, like all such pathogens, a kernel of truth. From Boa he learned that this kernel of truth is then transmogrified into a noble cause, and then morphs fully into full-blown lunacy in service of the original cause. My response: Gad's idea pathogen sounds a lot like an abstraction or absolute idea that enslaves its ideological servants, and they are mesmerized and enthralled by it, worshiping spooks Mas Stirner notes. Stirner warns of duped egoists worshiping and enthralled by ideology and idealism that they fiercely and fanatically proselytize to the world with. These mass movements are very dangerous and spread like wildfire, so it is easy to see that other joiners are infected by these contagious idea pathogens as the mind and being of the enthralled myrmidon is a parasite to its host, the idea pathogen, then spread to millions of other dupes. Gad and Jordan then discuss now scientists build a respected and deserved reputation for having explanatory theories, storehouse of value, and that students go to university to glean that and become more productive. What has happened to Academia is that the solid science of respected departments has been taken over and parasitized the entire campus and specific departments within it. Solid science is connected to reality and objective truth while theories like feminist glaciology gain traction. My response: these socially constructed, politically correct theories are pure felt ideology and nonsense devoid of critical reasoning, not evidence-based from reality out there. Jordan asks Gad to define postmodernism, another idea pathogen. Gad defines postmodernism as the belief that there is no objective truth, that all opinions are just beliefs, and one's biases, that there exists no absolute truth. We are shackled by subjective truth. Jordan adds that postmodernism is the view that language defines reality totally that there is nothing aside from--or outside of language, I add--language. Postmodernism, like deconstructionism is the outlook that language defines reality. My response. Gad and Jordan define postmodernism quit well in its relativistic, subjective, irrational, feeling-based rationales for how to view the world. Somewhere in this two-hour dialogue, both evolutionary psychologists agree that how we use, learn and adapt language to press our thoughts do influence or can become our reality, although our reality is beyond all such ontological and epistemological speculation. Jordan adds that Derrida is a postmodernist and yet talks of language existing outside of external reality--or that it is all reality socially constructed or that external reality itself does not exist; his positing power as objectively existing as part of reality external to language, a quasi-Marxist position. Postmodernism is a weak theory, not abide by its own principles. Postmodernists attempt but fail at building realities with language. Gad dismisses postmodernism as intellectual terrorism. It is the complete breakdown of reality known to a three-year-old. It is a departure from objective truth, a claim about objective reality. My response: Jordan and Stephen Hicks conversed a couple of years ago about Derrida's hypocrisy and inconsistency in postulating that reality is totally circumscribed by the domain of language, and yet power motivation somehow enters the domain of language and discourse from outside of this social, subjective bubble. Even Derrida has to attribute power motivation to an external source, while continuing to deny external forces working on the human realm of consciousness, interaction, speaking, thinking or living in a community. Postmodernism is a weak theory. Gad dismisses it summarily as intellectual terrorism. He is a bit moralistic and uses bombastic descriptive metaphors, but essentially, he is correct. Stirner, Derrida and all postmodernists are revolutionaries and destroyers for without reason, God, abstractions and objective truth, there is no meaning, no ethics, no beauty, no love no Godly presence in our lives. Without these humanizing influences, all we default to is tribe versus tribe, a law of the jungle, brutal natural state of negative anarchism, chaos and disorder. Jordan seems to accept Gad's optimism about the existence of objective truth and objective reality. Gad seems to be an atheist, so his total epistemological stance of absolute certainty is not apparent to me, but he likely believes at least in high probable certainty to be so confident in science, materialistic investigation and the power of reason. I believe Jordan believes in high probable certainty. Gad goes on to report that postmodernism is intellectual terrorism because it is a narrative of lies. He accepts some of what is pressed by the social constructionists (All reality is socially determined for each individual, even his language exercising and cognitive development, I add.): our evolved, genetic predispositions are socially role-shaped, and we conceptualize our thoughts and communications through growing up with the local language present in our linguistic community. Gad admits that we are prone to socialization as social constructionists insist. And language does shape our conceptions of reality. Jordan responds that it is the matter of degree that the postmodernists and social constructionists have wrong. They are part right but present their solutions as universally appropriate and they are not and are inadequate. The postmodernists have oversimplified multifactorial or multivaried scenarios reducing them to simplistic unifactorial or univaried past solutions. Jordan likes scientific theories that are simple as possible, but not simpler, with as much complexity introduced as is necessary. The postmodernists love an over simplistic answer--it is appealing and attractive to offer one, over-simplified hypothesis to explain everything, something like sex or power, promoted as the last word in ideology. Gad introduces the idea of fast and frugal heuristics, as defined by Gerd Gigerenzer, to help people make quick, final decisions, just to function. This simplifying strategy is practical and efficient to maximize our utility. The downside occurs when the user does not know and accept that this simplifying, efficient heuristic is not be applied to complex phenomena that it cannot capture. The fast and frugal heuristic is sub-optimal single cause explanation when applied to complex situations. My response: with all this rich and complex discussion, using technical terms like fast and frugal heuristics, Gad and Jordan are really noting that the postmodernists and their ilk are neo-Marxists ideologues with totalistic, simplistic answers to multifactorial reality. They note that postmodernists shred the world, constructing a language that seems profound, meaningful and scientific but it is bogus. (I add: They seem profound, impressive and rigorous like real scientists, but they are frauds and terrorists all the way down). Gad points out that the woke trinity of Diversity-Inclusion-Equity are another parasitical idea pathogen. Gad recounts how recently a solid Canadian physical chemist was denied a grant because he could not meet the DIE threshold statement that Canadian universities now require when asks for a federal grant to fund research. Now on Campus ideological games are elevated over science, but no game is used to solve real problems. Science, truth, research, objective values are all deplatformed. Indigenous people, Gad lament, are considered smarter than objective scientists. He will cede to them domain-specific knowledge and expertise, but other than that, still bring the scientific method to bear to gain knowledge when working with indigenous people and everyone else. Gad offers nomological network development to tell truths, not yield to postmodernist cynicism that seeking for knowledge is but a way of amassing and using power. Gad wants a singular, objective epistemology to seek the truth, not 7 billion versions of subjective epistemology and private feelings and relative truth, person human being. Gad denies that scientists just out to gain power, and he believes that productive knowledge can still be discovered and gleaned from research and experiments. I believe I have him correct when he suggests that these nomological networks where many different scientists are grinding away to discover truth and add to our knowledge; their efforts are peer reviewed. Their investigations are based on common sense realism and their five senses, so each person contributes to human knowledge from his individual attempts. This willingness to explore and gain new knowledge some who is desirable in evolution of our species as learning from experience and experimentation make the perceiver smarter and selected for survival and propagation of the species. My response: I like Gad's theory here. Jordan defines an epistemology of truth as a way of adjudicating competing statements for truth. Gad rejects the postmodernists attacks on truths, on very a priori axioms themselves. Gad advises that individual scientists, working by themselves and collaborating-- this is knowledge growing out of knowable reality accessed by multiple people. This nomological method offers humans multiple lines of evidence to overcome personal bias. We can know objective reality with some certainty. My response: This paragraph above reveals that both Gad and Jordan advocate that probably certain knowledge of objective reality is achievable by scientific reasoning, theorizing, and theory experimentation. They are wise and correct. Gad repeats that postmodernists are intellectual terrorists, attacking all to gain power and status. Even their attack on truth itself is an attack on the whole civilization. These are angry, bitter, hating nihilists and revolutionaries. He also contrasts the objective ethics of modernists (deontological) with the consequentialist logic of the postmodernists. My response: I like what Gad contrasts here the ethical distinction between modernists and postmodernists. Gad lambastes consequentialist ethics as a postmodernist parasitic pathogen espoused by the politically correct. They think: "If I murder truth in the service of this social justice goal, so be it. By contrast the modernists champion deontological ethics, reject moral relativity. The postmodernists engage in the language game, the subjective, which does not point to the objective world, beyond the language game. They espouse that living with their consequentialist ethics, with their lived experience, they will stay in their subjective cocoon, and there is no objective reality. The subjective is the ultimate authority, omniscient. Gad refutes all this nonsense; the goal of scientists is to maximize intellectual growth and grow knowledge. Pain for example is real and outside of language. My response: I approve of and agree with Gad here. Elsewhere I would note that there is a connection between consequentialist morality and moderate ethics, but, still objective ethics (deontological ethics) is righter and truer while consequentialist ethics are less right and true, but the two combined give people moral truths to live by.