“I have thought it my duty to exhibit things as they are, not as they ought to be.”
– Alexander Hamilton
Another week, another attempt at navigating our current cultural environment. I have to admit, this process has become a bit more challenging as now I find myself labored with the duty of being as brutally honest as I know how, yet not scare away those shy of controversy. This blog has become a bit of a whetstone for the mind, as the more difficult the conversation, the more I want to try and explore how to discuss it, which also means more balancing on what is acceptable and what is not.
That being said, this week’s topic is a bit more on the nose than I originally anticipated. It’s a bit of a long one, so please bear with me, as this subject takes a bit of unpacking in order to get to the meat of what I am trying to say.
Last week I touched very briefly on the Joe Rogan debacle and the fact that our window of viewing reality is becoming quite distorted. It’s hard to gauge exactly what is presented as fact, versus what is presented as fiction when we don’t have a clear lens as to what information is derived from truth, versus what is derived from cultural hegemony. It’s easy to be confused when you are hearing talking points about “Dangerous Right-Wing purveyor of misinformation, Joe Rogan.” Even as I type these words, I can’t help but grin because of how telling that statement is towards a rather specific, yet obvious cause. The only question I have….
How the hell is Joe Rogan Right-Wing?
It’s no secret that Joe has had a massive array of people with different personalities and worldviews on his show. Everything from doctors to scholars, fighters and archeologists, musicians, comedians, journalists, actors, and just about every occupation you can imagine. If you can think of a career, chances are Joe has interviewed someone from the field. These aren’t quick soundbite interviews either, these are two-to-four-hour discussions on a wide variety of topics. The free-flowing conversation is dynamic and personal, rather than propaganda-level talking points that you find on most talk shows.
Listen to him for more than a few full episodes and you will quickly see how misleading this entire narrative is.
I remember discovering him back in 2016 as a great way to fill the air while doing an incredibly monotonous data entry job with headphones on my ear. Learning about evolutionary biology, depression, healthy living, and ancient Egyptian secrets that bordered on the lines of conspiratorial.
I even listened to damn-near every UFO conversation I could find and listened to Joe become more skeptical throughout the years about the existence of aliens. We just want to believe Joe!
I remember learning about this new culture war we are witnessing daily, being talked about on Joe’s podcast. I remember discovering Dr. Jordan Peterson, a clinical phycologist and former professor of the University of Toronto. I watched intensely as he explained to Joe how he was embrittled in controversy after saying no to legislature dictating speech against misgendering individuals in Canada. Explaining how the faculty of the universities were bending the knee to the mob out of fear of being labeled with a new “ist.” I guess that can be viewed as the “Right” since Peterson’s entire ethos is about adopting responsibility to push through the tragedy of life.
A regular Adolf that one…
Or listening about how Bret Weinstein was caught in a massive controversy after showing up to teach his college class on “No whites allowed day.” And the absolute insanity that followed. Which ultimately led to him and his wife leaving his job and starting podcasts of their own about evolutionary biology.
A fantastic podcast by the way
I have witnessed Joe platforming people who are slowly losing their ability to speak to our society at large, based on ad-hominem attacks, rather than the data presented. That all being said, I have also seen countless hours of Joe talking about all kinds of recreational drug use and other very liberal ideas that would make my family uneasy about me having ever listened to him.
He is a comedian first, and an interviewer second. While there are some great ideas being presented, Joe’s jokes typically land in a murderous fashion. It’s all about the laugh. No need to apologize in the heat of the moment, I get that.
“Men who think deeply appear to be comedians in their dealings with others because they always have to feign superficiality in order to be understood.”
-Friedrich Nietzsche
Even though I didn’t fully agree with everything Joe believes, I do remember thinking, this is the future of communication. No bias, just dialogue. Getting to know someone you are opposed to rather than shutting them out entirely. And now, after all of this nonsense about Neil Young, misinformation, and whatever the hell else “ist” the corporate press wants to tag Joe with. I am watching more and more people become aware of this new
“Right-Winger”
I can’t help but laugh.
Enough about Rogan, I want to dive deeper into the Right and Left nonsense we are being taught to accept.
The words “Left” and “Right” have become buzzwords we hear on a daily basis from individuals who are caught in a political storm. These are terms coined during the French Revolution of 1789 but both carry rather different meanings in our current environment.
As we do have fewer beheadings of course.
Typically, the “Left” is characterized by an emphasis on ideas such as freedom, equality, rights, reform, and internationalism. Whereas the “Right” is characterized by notions such as authority, order, tradition, duty, and nationalism. Don’t go worrying about which side you fall on, as that is more of a trap than anything. I find it rather silly that we ascribe entire belief systems to someone’s core values. Most people really naturally sort of lie somewhere in the middle, without outside influence of course. The more about the world you learn, the more apt you may be to teeter in either direction. However the more you balance your sources of information along this line, the more grounded you can often keep yourself as you explore new ideas.
To understand this better, I like to use the metaphor of the average role of parents in their most traditional form. Typically compassion and understanding of everyone’s basic emotions come from the caring mother. The “Left.” This is an important aspect of life to have, as it helps us become aware of our effect on those around us. This means the “Right” is your stoic father, whose role is to teach you the importance of duty and responsibility in maintaining tradition. Naturally left leaning ideologies tend to gravitate towards dense populations cities mainly. And Right leaning individuals tend to stay in rural less populated areas. Much like the very county we live in.
This is obviously not the case for everyone, as we live in a new modern society that incentivizes those that dare to be different even more than those who maintain these older traditional roles. Not saying this is a good or a bad thing, as there are a lot of merits and pitfalls, but I do feel it’s important to understand when we are looking at what these labels imply as we attach them willy-nilly to people who are in the “Outgroup” of society. More often than not the Right-Wing Label is cleverly attached to anyone who does not agree with the current swing of our political climate, instead of an indicator of someones values.
Somehow the idea of opposing establishment directives, such as mandatory vaccinations is now a Right-Wing notion? …
It’s also become an incredibly convenient identifier for cultural enemies of the Left, as being on the Right, is now just viewed as the less aggressive version of “Alt-Right” an actual group to be concerned about. Being on the Right these days is culturally viewed as akin to being a Nazi. This is incredibly serious when you consider the “Punch all Nazis” way of thinking that is prevalent in our society today…
“Trying to define yourself is like trying to bite your own teeth.”
-Alan Watts
The problem is that speaking about certain topics or ideas changes our optics of the individual. The second you attach the right-wing label to a free-spirit like Joe Rogan, the public view of him changes. Now not only is he getting intoxicated with world-renown scholars in a three-hour debate…
“But he is also spreading dangerous Right-Wing Misinformation. That information is incredibly dangerous to our democracy.”
– Your Television
While there is an obvious issue with spreading information that is not credibly sourced to a population at large. There is a far bigger problem with using false labels as a basis for attacking an individual ad-hominem rather than disputing information presented in a public space. If you want to get more individuals to rally for your cause, it’s best to approach from systems of logic and understanding rather than botched character assassinations. It doesn’t matter what politically incorrect video reel you make of someone, the second you show your hand of tribalist motives, you rally champions to your opponent. This loses your overall support in the end and leads to a complete loss of faith in your values. Which leads to more confusion for the population at large.
Do you see the problem here?
Growing up, I always had the notion that I belonged far more to the Left than I did to the Right. Politics were never important to me growing up, as I mostly assumed the adults had everything figured out and they only argued for the money. I wanted to do without politics, as I valued a world where we all work harmoniously with the compassion of those around us as a core navigating principle. I always found myself on the opposite side of authority. Especially any authority that punishes those who are trying to lend a hand in a crooked world. A rebel without a clue. All signs pointing Left.
However, based on many of the foolish ideas I portray in this blog, as well as my own personal life, I am more often ascribed to be “Conservative” Which is almost hilarious. Yet an easy Motte & Bailey argument to hide behind. Being in the middle is just as dangerous when you are arguing against tyranny I suppose.
“Fate is not in man, but around him”
-Albert Camus
For those in the middle, like myself, quite likely Mr. Rogan and most of you, speaking outside the norm is easier attributed to the “Right” than it is the Left. The right tends to favor open dialogue and constructive conversation.
These days the Left tends to prefer mob rule and cultural hegemony. As the Left quite literally doesn’t like anyone speaking out against their beliefs. Even going so far as to shut down public debates on university campuses, with loud noises and threats of violence. Or marching in on families as they eat dinner in a public restaurant. In their view “Might makes right.” Makes it rather difficult to find common ground in the moment of course.
Almost like an over-zealous church that shows up to ruin everything they don’t agree with as a slight against their god…
This doesn’t mean the left is inherently bad either though. It’s important to have a group of humans compassionate enough to see the imbalance in our society. A force that is willing to push back on authority when it oversteps our basic rights. A vanguard to the depravity and greed that comes with systems of enormous incentive.
I absolutely despise the way we are taught to treat those with different ideologies than our own.
Both Left and Right are necessary and unavoidable in our world. They balance each other out. They help shape our behavior in the same way that two parents help raise a stable child. Ying and Yang, that sort of thing.
Many of you reading this have actual god-fearing Right-Wing parents or family members, who you know are not Nazis. They voted for Trump and would happily do so again. They are confused by the way society is trying to modify gender roles. They post memes that say Let’s Go Brandon with an American Flag Punisher Logo one minute, and bible scripture the next. They watch Tucker Carlson at night and Stephen Crowder on their commute in the morning. They laugh at jokes that would make many liberal college students cringe. They don’t have time to dig into these thoughts, as they are too busy working themselves to death to support the massive weight of those unwilling to share the same burden.
Yet they are still your family and you should love them all the same. I know I do.
And many of you are also facing the opposite reality of a left-leaning child or family member recently leaving college. One who looks at life from a different window. The world they know is corrupt and needs adjusting. They wear all the burdens of the world on their shoulder and shrug them away with new self-sacrifices. They may modify their diet to be plant-based with the goal of saving the cows. Or they drive electric vehicles in order to lower their overall carbon footprint. They are trying to see life with the goal of compassion and understanding. All while maintaining three minimum wage jobs. They are not evil people either, and they also deserve love.
Neither of them is evil but misunderstood.
I think the issue lies in our framing of Left and Right as Good Guys and Bad Guys. No matter what the circumstance. Every day that goes by our political window shifts a little more towards the Left being the good guys, the Right being the bad guys. Unfortunately, we are taught daily that the right is dangerous and misinformed, and the left is our salvation. They do say history is written by the victors…
In the interest of actually retaining some sort of viewership, I’ll leave you with this fantastic headline…
Wait who owns the Washington Post again?
I realize I have barely even scratched the surface of this topic. I barely even have the time to self-flagellate and declare Joe Rogan as an evil man who spreads dangerous misinformation about vaccines and stuff.
That being said do not listen to Rogan and definitely do not subscribe to Spotify to listen to long-form dialogue that will open your mind.
Thinking is a crime.
Please forgive me for my transgressions, I will do better next time.
Thank you for reading
-The Young Fool
