All right, welcome to episode six of the Drunken Philosophers. Today is May 13,
2026. This is Scott Jenkins and I'm here with my good friend Ben Cohn. Hello. And we're
incredibly pleased to have you as a listener. The topics are diverse and we really
not got a timely topic for today, but we thought we'd start out talking about some of the
methods that people use to have a conversation. And in fact, primarily among those methods,
you know, we would like to explore what creates a good faith and a bad faith conversation.
How do you recognize people who are not negotiating or talking in a good faith? And then what do
you do in order to coax that conversation into a more productive and profound frame? So, you know,
with that, Ben, do you have an opening salvo to... Not real, not exactly no. Actually, I don't have any
smooth thing to start with here, but I think I just, I think that we were circling around
it a little bit on our conversation last time. When we were, I was, I think,
is pontificating the right word. I think I would have been pontificating a little bit less time on,
like, trying to make inroads on someone's opinion that they've already committed to and built
built a whole world view around, a whole nice neat little little box that they're not willing to
to change. And I would consider that to be, I think, and I was kind of wondering about how do you do
about that, right? How do you change somebody's attitude? And, you know, I think it comes back to,
you know, are they, you know, speaking or thinking or talking in good faith or not?
Which was, I honestly started to think about that, putting it in terms of good and bad faith,
like, basically, as soon as we stopped the recording. Yeah. But, anyways, so... Yeah, right, so,
it seems that another way of thinking of good faith and bad faith is the concept of creation or
destruction. The people who are talking in good faith are hoping to contribute to a more complete
understanding, whereas people who are talking in bad faith or are just looking to destroy. They're
looking to throw branches in the works and throw rocks at the philosopher, so to speak, who is
trying his best to say something meaningful. The rocks look different, but oftentimes the rocks
look like whatabouts, the edge conditions that your idea doesn't address.
Right, yeah. We've come across that a lot too in our discussion groups, I think.
We're rather than trying to come upon or like come to a point of agreement, they try and seek out
where they can disagree or where they can tear your argument apart. I'm all for stress testing,
you know, an idea, but are you doing it for the sake of strengthening that idea or, you know,
improving it or are you doing it just to tear it down? Right, and I think if you're going to stress
test an idea, you then, if you're actually going to be considered doing it in good faith,
would then offer a way to improve it. You would be a contributor to the idea that, all right,
since it didn't address this point, let's change the point to address it. And that person would
then become that co-creator, but without that element of contribution, it is really just a gleeful
imp, tossing rocks and hoping to hit something fragile. Right. So yeah, right. So why are we,
like, why are we engaging in conversation in the first place, right? Yeah. Are we doing it to make
progress to get somewhere or are we like doing it? What would be the other, I mean, I would hope that
would be the reason. Right. I mean, I think that one of the other reasons is because it's fun
to watch someone's quorum. It's fun to be the aggressor and the destructor destroyer.
Right. That's why you didn't make it a little very smart to be able to tear
an idea down, right? That's, you know, that's a, it's a low-hanging fruit right there. Right.
And, you know, it's done in ways that are oftentimes relying heavily on logical fallacies.
They're not, you know, your idea is not bad by its nature, but they throw
fallacious arguments in the path and just make you then, you know, sort away those really unsound
objections. Yeah. You know, it's interesting to me. Hopefully this is on point, or if this is,
this is relevant enough, but I think a lot about there's not, you know, trying not to call anybody
out in particular, but there is a, sometimes when we've been talking about the truth of a statement,
or I guess debating the truth of a statement, drunken philosophy. I can think of somebody who likes
to point. I've noticed that they point at the philosophy sign on drunken, or the philosophy
word on, on the drunken philosophy sign. And as if like to point out, like he stops me and points
at the sign and says, what is this word, rattle philosophy group? This is philosophy. As if to say
that if you're engaging in philosophy, there's no real answer. Right. That's what I, I guess,
inferred from his, from from him doing that, what else would he be? Which is just really interesting
to me that if people think of it that way. Right. Yeah. But I sure don't think that we all live in separate
worlds. I think that we have separate experiences and, you know, separate sets of conformational
experiences, biases, I guess. But those shouldn't be exclusionary. We'd live in a culture that is
marginally unified. And that by its very nature indicates a shared experience.
Yeah. Right. So we should be having holy separate experiences. One, I would not expect to talk
with an inuit from Northern Saskatchewan and have them agree with my inner city experiences. No.
However, I would expect someone who's lived in a city, pretty much any city in the United States,
to have a good faith recognition of some of the observations that I might throw out. Yeah.
I don't know. If we've, do you feel like we've defined or like fleshed out what we mean by a good faith
versus bad faith? Well, we've been hammering away on bad faith. Well, I know. Yeah. I know. Yeah.
I mean, maybe the inference is there. So, I mean, I would say, you know, in a succinct way,
that a good faith argument is one that is saying yes and whereas a bad faith argument is saying
yeah, but yeah, but I don't, yeah, you use the word and I honestly, I don't think you've brought it
up yet in this recording, but I like the way you put it previously where you were talking about
co-creation, right? Yes. And I think that's a good way of putting it. And that's what the yes and
gets you. Right. Or the no end. Or when you actually are contributing with next part of your phrase,
then allows the idea to grow and to become. Whereas the yeah, but is simply a,
and yeah, and yeah, so holy different words in this context, even though they have the same root,
our is not intended to do anything more than divert down a path that is, in fact,
leads to nowhere. Usually it's leading to the point that, well, I guess I have to redirect that one
and that one's for shit, I'll throw it in the garbage. No, that's a good idea. And let's continue to
work on it, you know? Yeah. Yeah, this, I don't know, this attitude of like, I guess, like,
they're not being any real truth out there. Oh, right. I feel like that has a lot to do with this
kind of mentality of just, well, we can really do, you know, discussion group is show what's wrong
with anybody's particular point of view, right? Right. Because there is no real truth, right? And
I think, you know, I guess I just disagree. Like it just doesn't make any sense to me that there's
not a truth. I cannot, if you're trying to say we can't get at the ultimate truth, yes, I think we
talked about that before, but we can do better. All right. And I guess that's why I'm interested in
philosophy and why I'm interested in discussing things with people because I think there is
an actual progress to make. And it's worth trying. Right. Right. I mean, especially if your idea is
transcendent, right? If your idea bridges cultures and bridges philosophies and helps people from
groups that are divergent or diverse start to recognize their own commonalities and their own
similarity in thought and in practice, that is really, I feel, the recipe for lower conflict and in
higher contribution, higher productivity, you know, as a group, which to me is one of my hopes for
the world is that we want that. We want to be more productive. We want to use our energy to help
ourselves, our families and our community in that order. But if we choose to simply fight
what we're doing is we're creating camps, we're creating little little tribes all across the
globe. And you know, we're united through the memes, not through the block anymore. It's
no, we're gangs of New York. We're gangs of the world, right? And we're not going to accomplish
anything by pointing out each other's flaw. But if we are able to build this common language,
common understanding, we aren't going to do that without people engaging in good faith argument.
Well, you know, and I'm just not so sure that everybody's
that interested in overcoming these problems. I think it's just more or less a rebel in the problem.
They like the problem, right? Because it gives them something, it gives them a excuse, I think,
it gives them something to feel bad about and to feel righteous about. Right. And I feel like the
solving the problem would actually eliminate their purpose. You know, their purpose is to solve
the problem. And if they solved the problem, they no longer have a purpose, right? And so many,
they can go down many specific holes on that topic. Right. But you know, we don't necessarily need to
explore those individual ideas right yet. Yeah. It's an interesting point, those people's whole
whole careers are maybe not always careers, but like you say, their whole function on some level
and sometimes careers are built on having a problem, having a particular problem there, right?
Yeah. So I think that you're making a good point. Yeah.
So again, but that's again, that's that's the point that it's not a good faith motive.
And that's the whole issue. Nobody's really trying to do it. Not well, they aren't really trying to
make an inroads into this issue. And I don't know what to do about that necessarily.
I don't either. The oftentimes the people with the bad faith arguments aren't trying to change
minds because what they're trying to do is change the system. They're changing the manner in which
people can operate. And that means that instead of making people work together,
they simply need to change the system so that their people get more of the pie. And that's maybe
labor unions. That's maybe advocacy groups of all stripes. They're not looking to change minds.
They're simply looking to change the wheels of the society or the system in order to
advantage their group that they've chosen to represent. Yeah. Right. And that makes, you know,
philosophical discussions, holy moat. Then it becomes a power discussion. Who can wield the tools
of power more effectively? And, you know, through intimidation, through, I guess, logical
misdirection and, you know, making people believe things because you will. You change the
definition of it. Therefore, I believe it to be one thing. And you said it's another thing. And
well, I'm in favor of the one thing. So I must be in favor of what you're saying.
Yeah. I mean, my favorite, of course, is all of everyone who knows me knows is anti-racism.
Oh yeah. That is a term. How can you not be anti-racist? Well, of course. It wouldn't be.
But the term anti-racist is really a code word for pro-racist in a whole different sense.
And they're using the term. They co-opted the term. They redefined it. And now they're weaponizing it.
Yeah. You know, this co-opting of definitions is something that,
yeah, well, it merits some conversation at some point because it seems like a very insidious
issue that, you know, I only just recently found out that racism is now being defined as
only the, I guess, race or culture or whatever it is that's in power in racist.
Right. Well, yeah. That's a convenient definition. I don't know how old that, I mean. Yes, decades old.
That's decades old. Okay. I mean, when did it, has it caught on in like, in, you know, a lot of society
for that law? It is, it has caught on in the, on the progressive left, like wildfires.
What? Does that seem so like upside down to me? Oh, sure. Racism.
It just seems like one of a few examples I can think of where, yeah, where a word that we all know
what it means has been redefined and co-opted, I guess, in order to serve some bizarre agenda.
Well, it's power. They're, they're really trying to gain power and through people who aren't exploring
the term. Right. They're really just using that who wouldn't be anti, who wouldn't be anti-racist?
My God. Right. But the idea that all people can't be racist, that's beyond absurd.
And I would suggest that, you know, in my experience, which is several decades,
that Northern Africans, you know, of Somali or, well, I forget the other country in that area,
Nigeria, maybe, with people to whom I've spoken. They are in, beyond, they are absolutely the most
racist people I've met. And in fact, I've said it. And the response is a smile and a spark.
Because it's fucking true. All right. They, they, they recognize certain skin tone differences. They
recognize certain accent differences, recognize certain hair, curly-ness differences. And they treat
each other differently as a consequence. Now, by pure nature of the word race, it couldn't really be
racist, because they're all the same race. But they're absolutely prejudice on skin color, hair,
texture, all of those other elements of race. So, yeah, I wouldn't suggest that anyone who says
that what Black people can't be racist are living under a rock. And that would be offensive, I'm sure,
to whom ever I said that. But it is, anyway, but the redefining of terms is a tried and true
method. And certainly, it plays a pivotal role in 1984. Right. And this is the sort of thing that
it reminds me of. Yeah. Yeah. And that was 1948 when that book was written. That was right out
right after the World War II ended. Yeah. And, you know, or well, you know, nailed it. But I guess
the point really is that it's probably been that way for hundreds of years. And it wasn't that he
predicted it for 1984. It was that he had seen it happening in his world around him. You know, he's
seen, he'd seen Stalin, he'd seen Churchill and Wilson. Yeah, not Wilson, sorry. That was what
over one. Roosevelt redefined things. Yeah. Well, yeah, if you want to, I mean, deep, you know,
what it brings to my mind is another example, which I run into a lot lately. And I don't know if you
want to get into this right now or not, but is the redefining of the word gender, which I feel
like is, is it got to be like the example, at least right? Right. And what a man is what a woman is,
we're going to probably, you know, I'm sorry, offend a lot of a lot of people maybe. Well, I don't
know, but I mean, I would hope that people are open enough to recognize that it's not that we're
opposed to people. Yeah, we're opposed to making shit up that is actually untrue. I'm in order
to explain things that are natural. Yeah, absolutely. Gender is a spectrum. But it's not a, you can't
be a different gender, right? You can be within your own as far as I'm concerned. You can be
hyper male and you can be a feminine male, but you're still male. Right. So yeah, we're talking about
like gender, like expression or gender traits or right, which is just to the degree that you express
a particular gender, right? Which means that a gender is, I feel like implied in that as that
gender is a binary. It is. Yeah. Yeah, you just have, you have a flavor or a
yeah, I'm not incredibly masculine male and I don't wish to be. But I'm certainly not in any fashion,
form or fashion, born in the wrong body. Yeah, that's a whole thing. I mean, it just comes fresh to my
mind because I did not that long ago had a whole, I don't know, I don't know. Somebody got very upset
with me sticking to my guns, I guess, on that. Yeah, and I got a big, long lecture about gender being
just a, like a self-expression kind of thing. Gender just means how you express yourself,
which is just the more I thought about that, the more I realized that it has,
that does not, it just doesn't work with the way we've ever used language ever. Like when did they
decide that that's what it means? And I'm not bringing this up in order to like rant about
that exactly so much as, as the, just the tactic behind it, I guess. Right. Well, I think what happens
is they, they expand the definition and then retreat the definition when confronted by certain
inconvenient facts. Yeah, exactly. So, you know, yeah, I've read a lot about this topic, but at the,
you know, I couldn't have a tattoo, tattoo conversation with, you know, somebody that's
adamant about this in opposition. You know, yeah, I'm going to say it comes down to the gametes
in your particular wiring, right? The, the chemical and the, really, the chemical elements within your
physiology determine your gender or your sex or whatever it is, but your willingness,
your insistence, rather, that you can cross the boundary because you want to, because you feel it,
is patently ridiculous. Yeah. And it is causing us to really enter this truly post-truth society,
where nothing can be defined with any confidence. No words have a meaning.
If we just want them to change. Right. Yeah. Um, the, uh, have you come across the,
the term, the mountain Bailey, um, the mountain Bailey, uh, tactic, I guess, or, or maybe it's,
maybe it's, could even be called the mountain Bailey fallacy. No. I'm not sure. Yeah. Well,
so, do you, it's, um, I came across it in, uh, YouTube video, ironically, by somebody who's very pro,
trans rights or whatever, but that's besides the point. The mountain Bailey, I guess, tactic is,
I'm not going to do a great job of describing it, but I didn't get harkens back to, um,
like, sieges in castles, right? And the mott was the, well, I guess we, we, also known as
the moat, which is the, the, like, more expansive part of the castle, right? And then the Bailey is,
like, the part that you, the area that you retreat to when you're being attacked. Right. Right. So,
it's the mott when, when you feel confident enough and strong enough to go take an aggressive stance
and put your opinion out there, which is why you want to use these words that we've always
that we've always had certain associations to. Right. We're like gender and, uh, whatever else, but,
and then when your perspective gets attacked, you can just retreat and say, well, that's not what I mean.
Well, I mean something else. Right. But we all kind of have already a meaning behind gender and behind
racism that when, and it brings an association to us, right? So, you kind of make it a truth claim,
but you can retreat back and say, well, it really means this when it's attacked, when it gets attacked.
And again, it's a bad faith argument. It's, uh, it's, uh, it's a sleight of hand. So speak, I think. So, anyways,
yeah. Well, I, um, I, I think that the willingness of a lot of people to participate in this
also speaks to this ameliorability of, of, of truth. And really, they're disinterest in finding it.
Yeah. They're not that interested in, um, some raising of the specter of, um, thought.
It's really just a matter of, I think, winning and, and finding your, your people and having a community and,
um, being happy, which I, I think, you know, growing up in an ultra-religious community, um, I was of the
opinion that when I left there for other pastures, for, um, you know, more of an atheist perspective,
I was going to encounter people who were less inclined, just simply, um, insular, um,
groups that to be amongst their people. And I have found that I'm well between places, right? There's
no place that I actually believe I fit because I don't want to be, um, in another church. Yeah.
I, I, and I think that there's so many people who call themselves atheists and subscribe to these
other faith-based. Yeah. Other dogmas. Yeah. Yeah. I have had, I had a similar, uh, experience when I
was going through my, I guess, whole, uh, transition from being a religious person to being an atheist.
And I was very fired up to find all these open-minded people of these atheists who are going to be my
people who I'm going to be able to explore the world with and really ask the real questions. And
found a lot of groups where people were very much kind of not one like, on a, their own dogmatic path.
And if you were politically not, you know, basically extremely left, then you were not particularly
welcome. Welcome. And they would have their own, just yeah, their own dogmas that they would sign up for.
And it was a very, very, it's felt, you know, uncomfortably similar to being in a religion. Yeah. Yeah.
So I think I've noticed that there are these non-religious, religious groups
that unite themselves through this concept of a liturgy that they have ways of speaking and that they
recite the liturgy in order to attract people who will respond in a similar way to their,
their call. So they put out a call and then the response is, you know, echoes it in a very
culty way that I would love to be able to have it might back in call an example of that call
in response, but I don't. It is, it is frightening and when you encounter because you don't really have
a way to win that argument. The, you know, the counterpoint to the response of an echo is a response
of a call to arms. So you will then inspire the person to immediately recognize that you are
not of their people and that you are now going to turn into an adversary who we're going to
treat in the most passive-aggressive dismissive way possible to, you know, ostracize and you know,
eliminate. I had one of the more telling experiences at a gathering of democratic
people at a house party last summer, leading up to the elections we were all delegates to the
democratic convention and I stepped into a circle of people that I wanted to talk with and, you
know, they were nice until they realized, hmm, I didn't just respond the way that they expected me to
and then they turned on me. It was like five on one and it ended up that one person told me
that she hopes that she never ever sees me again and it was really not because I was being a
mean and offensive. It was because I didn't echo the appropriate call or response to her call.
Yeah, well, and just for the record, I live in Ilan Omar's district and it is incredibly aligned
to Ilan Omar. Her mindset resonates with 80 percent of the, 80 percent of the people in this district
and I'm playing a little battle. So you're not quite on that train, huh? I'm not on that train.
I'm not even on that station. Yeah. Yeah, no, I haven't seen much of Ilan Omar, but
everything I have seen over a severely disliked so far. Yeah. But that's just me. I don't know.
I don't believe that I could ever align with the Republicans again because there's way too many
differences in my thinking. But I find that I'm between parties too. Maybe that's only because I live
in her district and especially in the Northeast Minneapolis area. This is the epicenter of that stuff.
If I were to live elsewhere, I'd probably feel a lot more welcome.
So can I ask you about the famous apple cider attack? Not especially. Apple cider vinegar attack?
Oh, apple cider vinegar attack. Yeah, I mean, if it was the real attack, you should have used
some caustic material. So yeah, I wasn't going to ask you what you felt about that because
yeah. So you, I think in our first recording, you mentioned your favorite conspiracy.
Conspiracy. You know, right? Which is that Trump staged the stream, I guess?
Yeah, not just the last shooting. I should think all three, all three, all three, so far.
Okay. My mind is I'm so convinced that that was staged with Ilan Omar.
Well, right. I mean, if you're just going to do vinegar, that's kind of, I don't think a person
could be that crazy to do that for fun or, you know, for a purpose rather than a fun.
That's incredibly misaligned, brain. And you're just doing it so that you don't really go to jail.
You know, you had nothing worse to do than go to jail and get fed for however three months.
But, you know, I think if it were real, yeah, I'm on your, I'm on board with you. I think it easily could have been
staged. Well, I'm not a thing. It is, but it's so weird. A syringe. And
yeah, the apple cider vinegar. I mean, who would have done both either of those things?
Granted, you couldn't get a sport gun in there because it's a gun.
But, if you're going to do it, you know, why don't you use, why don't you use, um, you know,
arsenic or, or a battery acid or something, you know. No. So for me, like,
even I know that, you know, before I heard anything about it, I just saw the, the video, the report.
There was, and I didn't hear anything about Trump's saying it was staged or anything like that.
Did Trump say it was staged? Yeah. I don't believe his ass. No matter what he says, it's a lie.
Well, I feel like some people are just pushing back on the idea that it was staged just because Trump
said it. But I don't know. But, but I'm only pushing back on Trump. Okay, well, but my point is,
I was not influenced by anybody else's opinion. I saw the footage of this and I immediately
told myself that is fake. That is so fake. None of that, that, that seems so contrived for the whole thing.
I think my main thing is the, the reaction by her, like, her staff and her bodyguard,
like this whole kind of, to me, very contrived look, like, argument back and forth of what we have
to get you out of here. And she's like, no, I'm too strong and too much of a strong independent
woman to do that. We're going to keep it going. And then letting that happen, like, I just don't think,
I think in other as, like, situations like that, they, they brush the person out of there and they
clear the room. Well, right. But she's not paying for real secret service. I don't think so.
I mean, but nobody, the policy, it just doesn't make any sense to me that the policy would be that we
let anybody in there because you don't know what just got into the air, right? It could be some,
incredibly infectious, whatever it could be, anything. And it just, just continue on with the
speech. Well, I think the argument against that would be that not everyone makes the right decision.
Not, not, not all rapid response groups do exactly. The textbook response should be.
And, you know, we've had this, this, this, this, this virus, this rat virus boat. Is it a prime example
of that? We've got, if you, there's this boat that was doing a trans-world flight, a flight, listen to me.
Yeah, well, the boat was floating. No, they were, they were, wait, trans navigating the world.
And spent some time down in Australia. And they just, so some couple got off the boat or that they had
maybe gotten on the boat, having been exposed to this rat virus. And so three people died in the boat.
But they've had several people now be declared ready to travel, you know, from the boat.
Only to find that in the air, they were having, you know, seizures or vomiting and they were infected.
But they were allowed the CDC or whatever group allowed them to disembark. So, okay. Yeah, it happens a lot
where people don't make the right choice. And they, you know, even though they're supposed to be
professionals, they, they fuck it up. All right. Fine. Well, and then there's the, so I've heard, and this
might just, I don't know if this is Republican, like propaganda or what, I haven't vetted this, but I've
seen on social media that apparently the guy who squirted her with the syringe actually do her,
and like had ties to her and his super, super very liberal kids and stuff. So again, I still got to
check that out and see if that's actually real. Yeah, but regardless, okay, fine. Anyway, I got that
out of there. Just, um, just a bit of that up to me. Sure. But again, well, okay, yeah. So, no, I brought
that up once before trying to philosophy. And somebody said, somebody objected to my conspiracy theory
by saying, well, they're gonna, like, it's, but she knows they would, she would know that that would
get out there that people would find out that it's vinegar, right? And so why would she do that?
She's just setting herself up for, right, to be exposed later. And I guess my response to that would be,
I worked on you. I mean, like, people don't follow up with this stuff that much. So all you gotta do,
you gotta get that initial impression and then people make up their minds about it and they move on.
And so if somebody's looking for clout, I just don't think that most of the constituents are out there
like following up on this or really caring, right? You know, so I mean, it would work, I think, I think it
did. It does. It does work. You're right. And I think you've also run, you brought up another
bad faith argument, though, of me having to imagine someone else's motives. And since maybe I'm
not good enough at imagining a motive that, in fact, the motive must have been pure. I don't know
that that should be the default. I think that it only is the default. Well, the default is whatever
you give as your benefit of the doubt. So if your benefit of the doubt is positive, then you're going to
default to saying, it's plausible. And I can't believe it. I might believe it. If you benefit of the
doubt is negative, then you're going to err on the side of that error. You're going to side on
the negative and try to poke holes. But it really comes down to your preponderance or your predisposition
rather than my preponderance toward the topic at hand. And are you an advocate or are you a nace error?
Yeah. Right. I'm reminded a little bit of this audiobook. And I was trying to find this audiobook
the other day because I can't remember the name of it, but I listened to this. It was really,
I got it. I listened to it on Audible, the app, but it wasn't really an audiobook. It was more of a
lecture series by Peter Pagogian, who's a fantastic philosopher and professor of something smart.
I can't remember exactly. But he was getting this lecture on how just I guess, like I guess,
and I got to find it because it's worth listening to. Basically, it was on how people, I guess, reason,
like our reasoning patterns as human beings and our flaws that we're susceptible to, basically,
right? And so how to look out for that. It was the whole idea behind listening to this lecture
series is how to look out for your own reasoning traps and overcome them. And one of the things I
got out of that, which I've cared with me ever since, it was just, a lot of it depends on where you
invest your ego, because we all do have, as human beings, we all have an ego. We're going to invest
our ego in something like we're not going to not, like we're not going to do rid of our ego and we
shouldn't. It's a useful thing, but you got to learn how to, it was like a little hack or trick about
where you, where you assign that ego, right? What you pride yourself in because a lot of us pride
ourselves in our particular opinion or our religious beliefs or political beliefs or what,
essentially, we'll, like, what intellectual tribe we decide to be a part of, right? We've got to be
right. We invest our ego in being right about a particular thing. So anytime it's challenged,
it's an attack on us, on our identity, on our ego. Whereas what he was saying was to, rather,
you should invest your ego in the kind of reason that you are, and in being an open-minded person who
wants to learn more and change and develop over time, right? So then when I, particular opinions or ideas
get challenged, it's an opportunity, not an attack, to grow, right? And it's a way to prove, it's an
opportunity to prove, to validate your ego as a growing, developing person. Right. And I think since the
orthodoxy of each political extreme is unwilling to really entertain ideas that are in any way
expansive, right? They are not trying to do what you're suggesting, and learn, and grow,
and have a better idea, because they already think that they have the truth, not a version of the
truth, or a modicum of the truth. But I would suggest that that really underscores the point that
progressiveism is not liberal. Progressivism is another form of conservatism. And they are using their
the dogmatic rigidity to enforce the compliance amongst their faithful. And there's no longer
following the principles that you are underscoring of trying to become a better
reasoner, a better listener, a better understander. It is not that. It is trying to criticize anything that
is blocking at the door, and turn it away. And because we've already got the truth, we don't need
to challenge our thinking. And obviously if I ended up challenging my thinking, where would I be?
I would have no community. I would have no standing. And of course, I have invested everything in that
community so far. Right, right, right, exactly. So do you have off the top of your head, do you have
like a definition of a conservatism versus liberalism? Oh, well, I do actually have a whole list.
That is in the other hand. A whole list. Yeah, it doesn't sound like a definition. It's not a
definition. No, it's a list of different traits and differences. Yeah. But I guess if push comes
to shove, a conservative is a person who is unwilling to bend or adjust thinking based on the
information that being presented, the influx ability, the attractability of that mindset, I think,
is very emblematic of both the extremes of MAGA and of progressivism. Yeah. And the funny thing
is, it's funny and not funny at the same time, is that anything that is considered not progressive
immediately becomes MAGA to the progressive. Yeah, right. And so I don't have a lot of exposure
to the opposite. Most of my family is MAGA, but they don't feel the same. They don't feel like a
person who is expressing opinions that I have is progressive, right? They don't think I'm progressive.
They just know that I'm not MAGA, right? It's the opposite. It's not the same extreme. And so
it feels like the progressive left needs to, they've lost all of their nuance. They have lost all of
their ability to discern between gradations of opinion. It's funny. So it kind of makes me think
of how I think often about how ironic it is that Soviet Russia for all their, or there's other
examples too, like North Korea and communist China and whatever, all their criticism of religion,
how exactly some of them are in religion, right? Incorporating the same patterns of thinking.
And iconography, iconography, you know, patterns and all of that. The whole thing, all of the relevant
parts, so the recognizable parts at the same time in system that they're the complete opposite,
which is, that's funny. It's just funny. It kind of does make me think a little bit of like the
woke left versus like the MAGA extreme, right? Just swap out different, different claims,
different specifics. You've got the same general pattern, right? It's weird. Right? Yeah.
But, right. So, you know, I left the right. And I thought, wow, I'm going to find open-minded people.
Yeah, I have. However, I have found an astounding number of people who have
an intractable, immovable perspective. And it's hard to talk.
Hard to make a reasonable argument with them, a philosophical argument. And so I think the real
life skill would be to simply not talk about philosophy amongst the people who are intractable.
And just get along with them. Work with them, talk about the weather, talk about the twins,
Minnesota twins, that is. Talk about, as opposed to twins. I mean, if our listeners may not
recognize that spaceball team. And so, you know, just have life experiences that are
unencumbered by philosophy. It is unfulfilling for a lot of people, but it is manageable.
Yeah. I need to learn how to manage who I like to discern, who I like talk to about
deeper stuff, deeper stuff, and who not to. And it sounds maybe like aloof and arrogant to say
things like that, like I want to be, you know, equal opportunity, like anybody can talk to anybody
about the stuff. Yeah. Well, you can tell though, the telltale signs are looking away.
It's that looking away, then you know you lost them. Well, there's that. That indicates to me
just somebody who's disinterested and doesn't want to talk about it. But there are those who really,
like, really want to talk about it. And I want to give them a chance. But it's just not going to work.
It's a little mean. Well, I mean, I think that most of the people you speak to who are like that are
unwilling, not unable. They were, you know, they were, they are able, they're able to comprehend
the ideas. That's true. They're just not willing to confront those ideas. Right. I agree with you. I
wouldn't, I wouldn't um, uh, describe it in most cases to like intelligence, so much as like their
attitude. Yeah. Right. So I agree with that. But I got to learn to discern what, yeah, I guess
who's got the right attitude forward or not. I know. Well, it would be great to know if, you know,
everybody could wear their own badge, right? You know, we have our own arm bands for our philosophy.
Well, like, I'm a reasonable person versus a, you know, you'd have to wear the star of David. Oh, yeah.
Okay. Sure. Oh, yeah. Just try that sometime. Yeah. You should try that sometime. Yeah. I don't know
what I would wear. I don't know. I have to come up with one for you. Yeah. But yeah. Um, so
we're probably coming on time here pretty soon. But yeah. I, um, used to talk on the phone a lot with
this guy. We were friends from one of my, uh, carpentry trade programs that I went to. And he
used, we would talk on the phone a lot. And he became like gradually through our friendship more and
more conservative Christian over time until I got to a point where it was just a little bit hard
to even talk to him. But he gets on trying to insist. He really tried to persuade me at a certain point
to, you know, just accept that I'm a conservative, like just call yourself a conservative. A lot of my
opinions were the same as is in terms of, um, you know, uh, I don't know, economy or, um, the
trans things or whatever that we were talking about before. There's other ones too. And is we,
we had a lot of common ground. Yeah. Um, so he's just like, dude, you, we agree enough, at least in
his mind. I don't think we agree as much as he thought. Yeah. Then in his mind, we agree enough,
why don't you just call yourself a conservative? Like come over to the table like there's a seat right
next to you. He didn't use, uh, for ideology like that. And I would ask him, what do you mean? Like,
what is a conservative to you? Like I kept trying to pin in down a definition. And I guess to him,
it was just a conservative is just like, um, part of a club. Like we're one of the guys. Basically,
what it's not, it really felt like, uh, it really did seem to me like it was just, he wanted to be
part of a group. Okay. And he chose Christian conservativeism. And he wanted me to be part of his
group. Okay. And I did really didn't know what a conservative was versus a liberal. So I wasn't
going to put a label on myself. Anyway, eventually I came across a definition of conservative and liberal
that made sense to me, which was similar to what you were saying. A conservative somebody who sticks to
past like ideas, you know, established ideas like, this is how we do things. And kind of a rigid.
Yeah. It's so hard for me for some reason when we actually start to recording. It's so hard for me
to come up with the words I want. But I think they'd be idea. Whereas, whereas a liberal is an
innovator and somebody who tries to find new, like, tries to improve upon old ideas and find new and
improved ways of doing things. Which is why I definitely, by that definition, definitely fall
in the camp of a liberal because I believe in innovation always. That doesn't mean casting off old
ideas because they're old. No. It means improving upon things. And when old ideas work, you should keep
them, but innovate when you can. And I would say I am as liberal as anything. Probably not as
liberal as you can get. But see, that's a weird thing, right? Because liberal itself is, you know,
being able to accept a whole parcel of ideas and incorporate them into a philosophy or a life
direction and that is immense. But it also requires you to assume the groups of people who don't
subscribe to those inclusive or expansive ideas. And you have to identify the people who are
in your way. The people who are trying, they're damnedest, to insist that there is one way or the
highway. And it's those people who have, you know, set up their little collates stand on the side
of the highway and are just inviting all, you know, all pastors by to drink it. Yeah, drink my
fucking fulite. No, my fulite's better. And I'm sorry, it's just a very exclusive group. And the
concept, you know, we see on mon signs all over the place would suggest that, you know, when they say
all people are welcome, they really only mean all of my people are welcome. Yeah, they don't mean,
oh, y'all, because y'all ain't welcome. Interesting. Yeah, it's so funny. The the the the the
the disparity between how they how they present themselves versus like they actually like act.
Yeah, it's just a polar opposite. Yeah, so I think the lesson here, if there can be one, yes,
be open-minded. And when you're open-minded, you're going to be able to find a path
that is way more inclusive and accepting and useful to more people than if you simply want to enforce
compliance to your own to A mindset. Yeah. Right, sure. I also think though that
wants to drag it on the conversation on longer, but I don't know. So there's a little in my head,
a little bit of a caveat to this, just being inclusive of ideas. The ideas have to
have to earn your respect to it. I didn't mean inclusive ideas. Okay. I mean, inclusive of people.
Okay. You know, and help them come into the tent, right? Yeah. Help them
use your better reasoning to incorporate into their own reasoning to help build a better
perspective. Yeah. Not dilute the perspective, but create a better, more expansive and in fact,
true, yeah, perspective. Absolutely. Yeah. I agree with that. And that's that agreement. I think
that's a wrap. I, and Ben, are incredibly grateful for your rapt attention and would welcome to hear any
of your pointed criticisms. But you have to come to Drunken Philosophy to do that. So go to the
meetup and look up Drunken Philosophy in Minneapolis. We'll hope to see you at one of our
several gatherings in the Twin Cities. Thank you so much. Thanks.