Greg Lukianoff: belief

Transcript context

…Yeah, and then if you’re popular enough, it can be kind of sticky, and it’s weird because- Because it’s effective. That’s why it keeps on getting used. Essentially, it should have hit someone’s… Because I have a great liberal pedigree. Everything from working at the ACLU to doing refugee law in Eastern Europe. I was part of an environmental mentoring program for inter-city high school kids in DC. I can defend myself as being on the left, but I hate doing that because there’s also part of me that’s like, “Okay, so what? Are you really saying that if you can magically make me argue or convince yourself that I’m on the right, that you don’t have to listen to me anymore?” Again, that’s arguing like children. The reason why this has become so popular is because even among, or maybe especially among elites, that it works so effectively as a perfect weapon that you can use uncritically. If I can just prove you’re on the right, I don’t have to think about you. It’s no wonder that suddenly you start seeing people calling the ACLU right wing and calling the New York Times right wing because it’s been such an effective way to delegitimize people as thinkers. Steven Pinker, who’s on our board of advisors, he refers to academia as being the left pole that essentially it’s a position that from that point of view, everything looks as if it’s on the right, but once it becomes a tactic that we accept, and that’s one of the reasons why. I’m more on the left. I think I’m left or center liberal. Ricky is more conservative, libertarian, and initially, I was like, “Should I be really be writing something with someone who’s more on the right?” And I’m like, “Absolutely, I should be. ” I have to actually live up to what I believe on this stuff because it’s ridiculous that we have this primitive idea that you can dismiss someone as soon as you claim rightly or wrongly that they’re on the right. Well, correct me if I’m wrong, but I feel like you were recently called right wing, FIRE, maybe you by association, because of that debate you support-…

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