Two for Tea Podcast

4:18 The Evergreen system of education & why it appealed to Benjamin

10:45 Benjamin’s introduction to intersectionality and the supposed ubiquity of white male privilege

14:35 The confrontation between Nicholas Christakis and the Yale students

17:26 Social justice v. mob justice

19:56 Student fragility and the empowering of the administration.

22:09 The Evergreen protests

35:12 The sloganising of thought

39:07 Naima Lowe and her line of argument

45:37 The library meeting

46:55 What is the nature of power?

48:46 Student resistance to Social Justice ideology

1:12:20 Bret’s actions following the showdown

1:13:68 Is there anything the activists said that Benjamin agreed with?

1:18:40 Economic issues

1:24:48 Why didn’t the professors resist?

1:30:00 Benjamin’s religious upbringing; is Social Justice a cult?

1:43:00 ‘White’ knowledges

1:49:50 Equality versus equity

1:52:42 More on student opposition to the Social Justice agenda

1:57:00 What can we do to stem this tide?

Benjamin’s YouTube channel, The Boyce of Reason can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCm13xHVNFVwzHzK3QHSaZ3Q

You can watch his complete playlist of videos on Evergreen (#ExposéEvergreen) here:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLRdayXEOwuMG1jaAtJE0KbpyY_Kh-JTUl

Follow Benjamin on Twitter: @BenjaminABoyce

Other references:

Jerry Coyne discusses Benjamin and Evergreen:

https://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2017/06/20/more-on-the-evergreen-state-situation/

Mike Nayna’s video documentation of the Evergreen protests & the issues raised:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLLHyNSlsz44_GceBMuwAyflt3lDWMEjTG

Sam Harris interviews Nicholas Christakis about the events at Yale:

https://samharris.org/podcasts/facing-the-crowd/

Bret Weinstein appears on Tucker Carlson’s show:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kv8EZOQVjgk

Benjamin’s interview with Mike Nayna:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GfSAEfZgZ2s

2:24 How Matt became interested in the history of conservative thought

4:00 What characterises a classic conservative tradition

4:27 Facts do care about your feelings: the conservative tradition and the role of emotion

8:46 How living in postmodernity affects conservative thought

17:35 Changes in conservative thought resulting from greater globalisation and economic insecurity

17:40 Conservative identity politics

24:40 Conservative thought and the question of meaning

27:04 The right’s posturing versus the left’s sincerity

32:32 The right’s pessimism, the left’s optimism

36:24 Trump

38:18 Conservative family values and the decline in the welfare state

40:51 The far right & left-wing economic politics

46:56 Neoliberalism

49:31 Defeating the right

Matt McManus is the author of Immorality and the Immortal Conservative (2016) and of the forthcoming books Making Human Dignity Central to International Human Rights Law; Essays on our Hugely Tremendous Times and The Rise and Emergence of the Post-Modern Conservatism: Neoliberalism, Post-Modern Culture, and Right-Wing Populism.

His many essays for Areo can be found here:

https://areomagazine.com/author/mattmcmanus303/

You can also follow Matt on Twitter: @MattPolProf

Other references:

Edmund Burke, A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful (1757) and Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790)

Stephen Harper, Right Here, Right Now: Politics and Leadership in the Age of Disruption (2018)

Ben Shapiro, How to Debate Leftists and Destroy Them: 11 Rules for Winning the Argument (2014)

Ben Burgis, Give them an Argument: Logic for the Left (forthcoming, 31 May, 2019)

4:54 Universals that we express between ourselves

6:06 The social suite

10:06 Fiction, empathy & social learning

14:20 Qualities we share with other animals

16:24: Groups, in-group bias, co-operation (at 23:28 Helen interjects to talk about intersectionality)

31:37 Would aliens visiting us be friendly?

37:15 AI

40:01 Why isn’t Earth a dystopia?

43:09 The decline in poverty worldwide

44:55 Steven Pinker’s approach v. Nicholas’ approach

45:58 Are people really happier? What about meaning?

50:30 Social media, the digital world, bureaucracy

53:05 The main lessons of the book Blueprint

You can find Nicholas’ book Blueprint: The Evolutionary Origins of a Good Society here:

https://www.amazon.com/Blueprint-Evolutionary-Origins-Good-Society/dp/0316230030

His book Connected: The Surprising Power of our Social Networks and how they Shape our Lives can be found here:

http://www.connectedthebook.com/

Find out more about Nicholas’ work with the Yale University Human Nature Lab here:

https://yins.yale.edu/our-labs/human-nature-lab.

You can follow Nicholas on Twitter @NAChristakis.

Other sources mentioned in the podcast:

Jonathan Haidt’s The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion:

https://www.amazon.com/Righteous-Mind-Divided-Politics-Religion/dp/0307455777;

Pietraszewski et al (2015) “Constituents of Political Cognition: Race, Party, Politics, and the Alliance Detection System,” Cognition 140, pp. 24–39:

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0010027715000578

Jonathan Gottschall (his work in general):

http://jonathangottschall.com/

The article by John Staddon Helen critiqued:

https://quillette.com/2019/04/11/is-secular-humanism-a-religion/

3:45 misconceptions about Argentine tango

5:30 differences between ballroom, stage and social tango

12:51 how Joe discovered tango

17:35 the addictive quality of tango

18:14 Extract from my book. “My favourite Californian.”

22:11 the tango embrace

24:00 the experience of the traditional milonga (tango dance night)

31:40 how do you reject a request for a dance?

35:20 “Emotional investment and tango.” A piece I wrote about the emotional highs and lows of dancing tango.

41:29 what characterizes tango music?

51:32 leading and following: the different roles in the dance

1:00:53 “Dancing with my girlfriend’s boyfriend.” I read an extract from my writing on sexuality and tango.

If you’re living outside the US, you can order my book directly from the publisher:

https://www.milongapress.com/catalogue/our-tango-world-1/

US readers can find it here:

https://www.amazon.com/Our-Tango-World-vol-1-Community/dp/1999755189/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1544287015&sr=8-1&keywords=our+tango+world

Ballroom tango:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KTNjZGLdDb0

Stage tango, from 3:16:

https://youtu.be/Lhn3AMs5jbk?t=198

A performance of improvised social tango by Manish Dharmani and Iona:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CbVRHs7q8eY

The triplets passage I refer to at 55:05 of the podcast can be seen at 1:17–1:22 of the video.

Some other contrasting examples of improvised social tango:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UqOQBWWWASI&t=13s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GBItUyr_eBs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8k-VGZbWzV4

My favourite Pugliese song (Pugliese’s emotional intensity is alluded to several times):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bBjMighiGSg

Bandoneon playing:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VTPec8z5vdY

For people who want to listen to more tango music, I recommend this site:

https://ddpsfavoritetandas.wordpress.com/

If you are interested in the poetry, explore here:

https://poesiadegotan.com/

2:00 Addiction to alcohol, sugar etc. Is there an addictive personality?

22:38 The nature of comedy.

29:00 Twitter and freedom of speech

34:00 (roughly) Dealing with critics

45:00 Victimhood culture and the cultivation of vulnerability; trauma and PTSD

53:00 Intersectionality

55:37 Sex!

1:00:00 Men & masculinity

1:09 Consent

1:16 Hostility towards freelancers

1:20 On being hated

You can find Bridget’s podcast, Walk-Ins Welcome here and on most reputable (& some disreputable) podcast apps:

https://player.fm/series/walk-ins-welcome-w-bridget-phetasy

Some of Bridget’s other writings can be found here: https://muckrack.com/bridget-phetasy/articles.

Follow Bridget on Twitter: @BridgetPhetasy.

You can follow Heather on Twitter @HeatherEHeying. You can find a copy of Heather’s book "Antipode: Seasons with the Extraordinary Wildlife and Culture of Madagascar" here:

https://www.amazon.com/Antipode-Seasons-Extraordinary-Wildlife-Madagascar/dp/0312281528.

2:15 How and why Heather developed a passion for evolutionary biology

9:20 Why Heather chose a teaching-centred career over research

12:07 Iona reads a passage from Heather’s book Antipode

14:14 More about Madagascar

17:30 Higher education and teaching

20:00 The experience of teaching at Evergreen

22:45 The importance of exposing young people to adventure—how to cultivate resilience

30:00 Postmodernity, the hegemony of the virtual

33:59 The importance of doing something that gives you clear physical feedback

38:49 Motivation

40:00 The problem with having a geographically narrow point of view

47:09 How an evolutionary perspective can help us lead happier, more productive lives today

50:50 Diet, starch, keto and paleo

57:40 The importance of remembering we are animals

For more on the Evergreen drama, see Mike Nayna’s video series on YouTube. The first part is here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FH2WeWgcSMk.

For more on Lenore Skenazy and Let Grow, see https://letgrow.org/.

Daniel Pink’s book Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us can be found here:

https://www.amazon.com/Drive-Surprising-Truth-About-Motivates/dp/1594484805

For more on anti-Muslim feeling in India, see episode 15 with Rohini Mohan & Rohit Chopra & the shownotes there.

The Reuters poll on the 10 most dangerous places in the world for women:

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-women-dangerous-poll-factbox/factbox-which-are-the-worlds-10-most-dangerous-countries-for-women-idUSKBN1JM01Z

2:54 Differences between women and men: socialised or determined? Some hypocrises and contradictions.

12:05 Female intrasexual competition: is it exaggerated?

18:14 Debunked evolutionary theories

19:21 Systematising v. empathising

31:39 How do people feel about female politicians?

36:50 Hillary Clinton & Donald Trump

47:00 Anti-Semitism versus criticism of Israel

You can find Cathy Young’s work for Arc Digital here: https://arcdigital.media/@CathyYoung63

For Reason: https://reason.com/people/cathy-young/all

For Newsday: https://www.newsday.com/opinion/columnists/cathy-young

Cathy’s article on perceptions of female politicians: http://bit.ly/CathyYoungFemalePoliticians

Jeremy Corbyn and the anti-Semitic mural: https://www.thejc.com/comment/comment/there-is-only-one-word-for-jeremy-corbyn-1.461313

Bari Weiss on the women of the wall: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/11/opinion/religion/israel-women-western-wall.html

You can follow Cathy Young on Twitter: @CathyYoung63

1:50 What is Vrij Links?

4:00 How does the left differ in the Netherlands from elsewhere in the West?

8:00 The difficulties of criticising religion and, in particular, Islam.

9:31 Shirin Musa (@ShirinMusa) and her organisation Femmes for Freedom and the dilemmas faced by liberal and secular Muslims and ex-Muslims.

13:21 Faith schools

17:16 Housing issues

18:35 What factors influence whether Muslim immigrants are more liberal or more conservative?

32:41 Climate change

37:32 Anti-Semitism

41:56 Dutch academia

44:12 The Dutch right wing

47:18 What the Dutch —especially the left—should focus on

You can find the Vrij Links manifesto in English here:

http://bit.ly/VrijLinksManifesto

For more about Femmes for Freedom:

https://www.femmesforfreedom.com/english/

Ali Amjad Rizvi’s book, The Atheist Muslim is available here:

http://bit.ly/TheAtheistMuslim

Boris van der Ham and Rachid Benhammou’s book Nieuwe Vrijdenkers is available here (in Dutch):

http://bit.ly/NewFreethinkersInDutch

For more on Humanists UK:

https://humanism.org.uk/

For more on Jordan Peterson’s talk in Amsterdam:

https://www.dutchnews.nl/news/2018/10/academics-protest-about-jordan-peterson-invite-he-calls-them-cowards/

Follow Tamara Brouwer on Twitter, her handle is @TamaraBrouwer1.

1:31 John’s multiracial, bipartisan family background

14:06 John’s work with Better Angels

18:57 The experience of taking one of John’s Red–Blue Workshops

27:20 A tale of cross-cultural friendship

30:22 Political divisions among African-Americans

38:40 Reasons for African-American societal disadvantages

41:35 People as individuals versus people in groups

53:51 Is it useful to talk about race? Plus, some funny confusions that arise from being mixed race.

1:18:00 “Microaggressions”—what are you?

1:02:00 The cultural significance of hair for the African-American experience

1:04? Black pride and white pride

1:10:28 Moral foundations theory

1:12:52 John’s theory of virtue ethics.

You can follow John R. Wood Jr on Twitter: @JohnRWoodJr

Find out more about the work of Better Angels here:

https://www.better-angels.org/

You can read more about virtue ethics here: https://areomagazine.com/2018/08/14/virtue-ethics-for-the-modern-age/

And if you’d like to hear more of John talking about his life and work:

https://player.fm/series/none-taken-with-chris-paul/episode-67-john-wood-jr

5:20 The changes Josh has witnessed since he began working in media

6:15 The loss of consensus

7:19 Twitter

11:28 The modern equivalent of the coffee house or public square

14:55 New media and Huffpost Live

18:51 Contrarianism versus trollery

24:29 The pace of media

31:04 Self-censorship and cancel culture

32:28 The kind of engagement social media rewards

35:51 The Intellectual Dark Web

52:19 Free speech—its uses and abuses

You can subscribe to Josh Szeps' podcast here or at most good podcast sites:

https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/wethepeople-live/id1002920114?mt=2

Find tickets to Josh's show at the Melbourne Comedy Festival here:

https://www.comedyfestival.com.au/2019

You can hear listen to Josh interviewing me on his podcast here:

https://player.fm/series/wethepeople-live-1425329/ep-132-sarah-jeong-reverse-racism

And follow Josh on Twitter: @joshzepps