Savage Minds

Jason D. Hill, professor of philosophy and Honors Distinguished Faculty at DePaul University in Chicago, is the author of five books, including We Have Overcome: An Immigrant’s Letter to the American People (2018) and his forthcoming book to be released later this year, What Do White Americans Owe Black People: Racial Justice in the Age of Post Oppression. In this episode, Hill discusses with Julian Vigo the problems of victim culture and the managerial class of liberal elites which denies people the ability to navigate their way through the world assuming that certain groups of people are necessarily handicapped, unable to speak for themselves. Focussing on the problems of cultural relativism, the decolonisation of university courses, cancel culture, and identity politics, Hill locates the ways in which the liberal left puts reason and logic under attack by positing the primacy of the individual’s feelings. In this phase of late stage capitalism, he notes how subjectivities need to be maintained and persistently curated, echoed and validated in the name of one’s victimhood, a posture claimed most often by those who are the most privileged individuals latching onto signifiers of oppression so as not to have to address actual oppression.

James Caspian, a British registered psychotherapist who was refused permission by Bath Spa University to conduct research on gender detransition, has now taken his case against the university to the European Court of Human Rights. In this episode, Caspian discusses with Julian Vigo his interest in the field of gender identity, the need for research on both gender transition and detransition and how a Jungian analysis which advocates for the “rule of reason” might be useful in understanding the current collective chaos at the core of the gender debate.

Robert Jensen is an Emeritus Professor in the School of Journalism and Media at the University of Texas in Austin and collaborates with the Ecosphere Studies program at The Land Institute. He is the author of The Restless and Relentless Mind of Wes Jackson: Searching for Sustainability (University Press of Kansas, 2021). In this episode, Jensen discusses his introduction to radical feminism and the paradox of how this particular feminist perspective, despite offering the most compelling and accurate critique of pornography, has been entirely sidelined from academic and popular discourse. Analysing the social hierarchy of patriarchy and how it serves as a cultural backdrop to the debate on gender and our approach to ecological issues, Jensen suggests that men who still view radical feminism as a “threat” ought to view it as a gift.

Heather Heying is an evolutionary biologist, educator, and author who co-hosts a popular weekly livestream with husband Bret Weinstein on the DarkHorse podcast. In this episode, Heying discusses with Julian Vigo the political political malaise of identity politics, sequential hermaphroditism, current denial science denialism, and our physical disconnection with other humans as she offers solutions to the current era of political intolerance.

Libby Emmons is senior editor at The Post Millennial and a senior contributor for The Federalist. In this episode, Emmons discusses the the ideological drive behind journalism today and how identity politics is sidelining critical thinking. Lucidly analysing the current media and political panorama, Emmons homes in on how identity has not only replaced discussions of class politics on the left, but paradoxically she notes how identity politics is being driven primarily by those within the upper class who benefit economically by paying it lip service all the while reaping the economic benefits of book deals, editorships, or professorships that belie any the reality of oppression.

Selina Soule is a freshman and track athlete at the College of Charleston in South Carolina who, during her high school years, was forced to compete against males in track and field, missing out on opportunities to advance in competition. In this episode, Soule and Christiana Holcomb, legal counsel at Alliance Defending Freedom which represents Soule and three other female athletes in their lawsuit to restore fairness in women’s sports, discuss the principle issues facing girls today in the United States who are often forced to compete against males in their own sporting categories.

Jennifer Wagner-Assali is an orthopaedic surgeon who has been a semi-professional cyclist since 2014. In this episode, Wagner-Assali tells Julian Vigo of her experiences in the sport from the moment she competed in the UCI Masters Track Cycling World Championship in Los Angeles when Rachel McKinnon (now called Veronica Ivy), a man who identifies as transgender, competed in the women’s 35-44 age bracket and won the top prize beating out all the female cyclists in the competition. Discussing her political activism around this subject both within the USA and internationally, Wagner-Assali relates the impact this has had on her life and the need to save women’s and girls’ sports while also lending a critical eye towards the sportswomen who have thrown women under the bus in their desire to appease the current wokery.

Alice Sullivan, sociologist and Head of Research at the UCL Social Research Institute, argues for the need to collect data on sex in social surveys and the census while advocating for academic freedom in discussing questions regarding sex, gender and gender identity. Focussing on the institutional capture of gender identity within universities, academic publishing and the Office for National Statistics, Sullivan details the ways in which academics have been targeted by a very powerful and well-funded lobby which seeks to no-platform and silence female academics who argue for accurate data collection on sex specifically because, as she states, “Proof denies faith.”

In this episode, psychologist and researcher Ray Blanchard discusses the historical changes in gender dysphoria (formerly “gender identity disorder”) diagnoses and the politicisation of a pathology that used to affect so few but which today has grown into a social contagion. Discussing his research in autogynephilia, the paraphilic tendency in some males to be sexually aroused by the thought or image of themselves as female, Blanchard elaborates why many transgender-identified subjects today largely reject the psychological disorder framed by the DSM-5 (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders) while necessarily needing such a diagnosis in order for the subject to access medical treatment.

In this episode, journalist Taylor Hudak addresses the media coverage of the Julian Assange extradition hearing and the threat posed to whistleblowers and journalists today. Speaking with Julian Vigo, Hudak also addresses the media elision of the Capitol protest of 6 January which is being used to criminalise dissent, the corruption of Big Tech working alongside political parties to silence opposition voices, and the way that media polarises the public.