Mehdi Hasan's recent Jubilee appearance has blown up—and so has criticism of the entire media operation. Derek and Julian discuss the value and pitfalls of this format, contrasting the far-right participants sitting across from Hasan from another recent episode, when atheists went to battle with Jordan Peterson.
Show Notes
1 Progressive vs 20 Far-Right Conservatives (ft. Mehdi Hasan)
Jordan Peterson vs 20 Atheists
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Well, Jillian, we're back on the Jubilee tip, and I didn't expect to return so soon, but the recent episode, which is called One Progressive versus 20 Far-Right Conservatives, that featured journalist Mehdi Hassan, has absolutely blown up.
It's been all over my social media feeds.
Along with it, there have been loads of criticism about the platform, including a resurfaced video of the founder of Jubilee, Jason Lee, saying that he told Silicon Valley investors that the platform was going to get a ton of clicks and make a lot of money when he was trying to raise money.
This fits into the broader issue we discussed a few weeks ago when we looked at Jubilee on the main feed, which is, is it pure clickbait or is there important context to be mined from the conversations?
What do you think?
Well, it's interesting, right?
Because Medi, of course, is getting a lot of, he's doing a lot of appearances off the back of this.
And the whole thing is, we don't debate fascists.
And it's interesting because he's now getting all of this additional exposure and discussion.
And it's largely because during the recording, he refused to debate fascists.
When people revealed themselves as fascists, he said, fuck you, this conversation is over.
So it's this interesting sort of gray area.
The last time we talked about Jubilee on our air, I did say I have very mixed feelings about what they do.
But there is also the fact that they're getting a lot of traction.
Part of that is tackling highly charged issues by using this combination of little-known Gen Z participants and then quite famous boomers and Gen Xers.
And that, of course, draws a lot of views and clicks.
It's a winning strategy.
And I think we don't have to enjoy or co-sign everything a company puts out to acknowledge that some of it has value and is working well in this space, right?
As I've continued learning about Jubilee, I'm realizing that often the Gen Z kids may be unknown to me, but they have large social media accounts, which are all then linked in the YouTube video description, all of their Instagrams and TikToks.
So again, that's also a point of kind of marketing and audience sharing genius on their part, which is part of why they're so huge.
Regarding my mixed feelings, the Medi Hassan episode that we just talked about, we're going to cover here.
I actually appreciated a lot of the editorial choices in terms of how the final video was presented.
So more about that later.
Well, I'm Derek Barris.
You're Julian Walker.
This is a conspiratuality brief, Medi Hassan versus Jordan Peterson, which are the two episodes we're going to be looking at today.
Of course, you can always support the work that we do as independent media via Patreon at patreon.com slash conspirituality, as well as Apple subscriptions if you want to receive our Monday bonus episodes.
To get back to what you were saying a moment ago, Julian, one thing I find very interesting is during the Medi Hassan conversation, he explicitly says, if you believe in the First Amendment, then you're a free speech absolutist.
In fact, I'm going to play one of the clips that kind of gets to that point later where he says that.
But I agree with that.
Now, there are calls for Jubilee to be shut down right now.
And I just don't agree with that.
We've both watched Taylor Lorenz's review with Jason Lee, the founder, where he lays out the case of why he's created the company that he has.
And the reality is for the criticism of this unearthed video, I've worked for a lot of tech startups over my years.
If you are trying to raise money for anything, you have to convince people that it's going to make money.
That is just the fields that we're playing on.
So it's, if people are cheating like, oh, I got it.
I knew he really wanted to make money.
He told the VC people that it was a really good proposition.
Oh, really?
That's what he did when he was trying to raise money?
Yeah.
So there's that level, which is just pretty annoying to me.
Of course, that's what's going to happen.
I've also seen claims like Jubilee is a PSYOP or participants are Jubilee employees, which may or may not be the case.
I don't know.
But one thing that Lee does tell Tyler Lorenz is that hundreds of thousands of people have applied to be on these things.
So regardless of your feelings on it, he is striking a nerve.
And I just want to briefly tackle one of the other criticisms I've seen, which is people relating it to like the 80s shows like Jerry Springer.
You know, we are in a different media environment right now.
There are not only a couple of stations to watch.
You can make an argument that he was platformed, the company was platforming fascists and should be demonetized.
That's something for YouTube to, you know, weigh.
My feeling on it is it's different in a debate format when someone's openly admitting they're fascist to say someone willfully spreading vaccine misinformation in order to sell products.
That is just a different terms of service to me.
Now, if YouTube decides, hey, this guy said he's a fascist, we're going to demonetize, that's their choice as a business.
But all of this downward pressure coming from people, if you don't like what they're doing, you don't have to tune in.
You do have that choice.
And I agree with Medi.
And Medi has spoken to the Bulwark and many other places now about his experiences there.
And he has no problem with that format and what happens.
And it obviously is drawing eyeballs.
So overall, again, I have problems from a media perspective with what they're doing, but should or should they not exist?
I'm like, that's not even a question to me.
It's like they do exist and you can learn some things from their content, as I think we're going to find today.
Great.
Now, as I said, we're going to talk about the two episodes of Mehdi Hassan, which we brought up already.
And then we have Jordan Peterson versus 20 Atheists from a few months ago.
Now, you floated the idea of talking about the differences in the audiences, not just Medi and Jordan, but how they were engaging, the people they were engaging with.
What piqued your interest about that?
Yeah, I watched both of these because I will watch anything that has either of those characters in them.
And the way Peterson handled himself versus how Hassan handled himself, that contrast was very apparent to me and very interesting.
Mehdi Hassan is a better debater.
He comes across as less conflicted.
I'm talking about body language, facial expression, tone of voice, how he argues, what he does when he's put in a corner.
He just handles himself well under pressure.
Whereas Peterson is reactive, is easily provoked.
He debates terribly.
He can't handle being challenged at all.
And then there's the other contrast, which is between the group of 20 that they each faced sitting in a circle around them, surrounded.
The atheists that Peterson debated were all smart and eloquent.
They had well-practiced debate skills.
Some of them seemed to have academic philosophy education.
But the 20 far-right conservatives who were squaring off against Mehdi Hassan, sadly, I have to say, lived up to the stereotype as being cruel and bigoted and mostly not really that smart.
They really didn't come prepared.
Mehdi, you know, along with this conversation about media analysis, remember, Mehdi spends a lot of time on Piers Morgan, which is sort of Jubilee-like.
It's meant to provoke that conflict between people.
But the thing about that show is you have to be really good at cutting in and having strong arguments.
And the same holds here.
I will say this about Peterson.
He listened more than Mehdi did.
He gave people more time to unpack arguments.
Although I agree with your overall sentiment that he was definitely getting way more frustrated.
Yeah.
And let's not forget Mehdi Hassan is the author of a recent book about how to win any debate.
So this is something he's really into.
Yes.
So the first couple of clips are from Mehdi's claim, which is that Donald Trump is defying the Constitution.
And if you didn't listen to our episode a couple of weeks ago, the way this is surrounded that particular show on Jubilee is formatted is that the guest makes a claim and then people come up to debate him.
Now, as happened in both of these episodes, but more in the Medi episode, they really didn't stay on topic.
They just kind of took it off to wherever they wanted.
But that is the claim.
Now, debaters go off the rails here.
The first clip is of Connor, who is one of the men going viral for openly claiming that he's a fascist.
Apparently, he got fired from his job.
Some people are debating whether or not he actually had a job.
But he has raised over $30,000 on give, send, go because of this.
So regardless of how you feel about this dickhead, he is making money off of this.
Now, this clip ends when he claims he's a fascist, but how he gets there is worthy of discussion.
And he claims that he wants to see autocracy implemented in America.
How would Connor's America look?
What would it look like?
Well, quite frankly, I think we would deport people who shouldn't be here.
What does the government look like?
What does the government look like?
I would say, quite frankly, it's under a sort of benevolent leader, such as it could be a kind of aristocratic class.
It could be someone.
Who picks the autocrat?
Frankly, the people.
I mean, we could hold a vote on it, Kingston.
But isn't that democracy?
Well, sure.
You can have a vote to get to that state.
And then no more votes afterwards.
Absolutely.
100%.
Wow.
And if that autocrat kills you and your family, you're fine with that.
Well, I'm not going to be a part of the group that he kills because that's the whole thing.
How do you know?
Carl Schmidt.
Autocrats tend to kill everyone.
Carlos.
He's going to be a little bit makes this point very well in his work.
It's the friend-enemy distinction, right?
You know, the Nazi theoretician.
Absolutely.
I don't care.
Are you a friend of the Nazis?
I don't care.
I frankly don't care being called the Nazi anymore.
I didn't say that.
I didn't actually say that.
I said, are you a fan of the Nazis?
Well, they persecuted the church a little bit.
I'm not a fan of that.
What about the persecution of the Jews?
Well, I mean, I certainly don't support anyone's human dignity being assaulted.
I'm a Catholic.
But you don't condemn Nazi persecution of the Jews.
I think that there was a little bit of persecution.
We still have to do it.
I think you have to rename this show because you're a little bit more than a far-right Republican.
Hey, what can I say?
I think you can say I'm a fascist.
Yeah, I am.
It's like he's practiced the Tucker Carlson laugh, right?
Right.
You know, a benevolent leader like Burning Man.
He just wants Burning Man all the time.
Yeah.
So once you get into power, no more elections.
I'm not one of the people.
This is the whole thing.
He says, I'm not one of the people who would be killed.
Right, which is what MAGA is finding out right now with Jeff Epstein, as we, you know, talked about on Thursday.
It's like, oh, wait, I am one of the people?
What happened?
Now, since we're talking about the Constitution in this claim, the First Amendment inevitably comes up.
And this speaker says, this next speaker says he doesn't really care about the Constitution.
He asks Mehdi, as a UK-born Indian whose parents emigrated to Britain, why he would care.
Mehdi lays out a few reasons, including free speech, but then returns to wondering how a society is governed without a framework.
How do you run a country without any kind of laws or due process?
And by the way, you do care about it, because without the First Amendment, you wouldn't be sitting here.
Well, I agree with the First Amendment, and I think it's a good idea.
So do you agree with Donald Trump's crackdown on the First Amendment?
He's imprisoning people for their speech.
He's threatening free speech media organizations.
He's threatening peaceable assembly.
These are all rights under the First Amendment.
Why aren't you bothered by that as a conservative who claims to love the First Amendment?
So I actually, I don't like the First Amendment.
I like free speech.
Okay, so the First Amendment is what guarantees free speech.
I'm from the UK, by the way.
I'm from the UK.
Yeah, you guys have to do it.
Which is a democracy.
We don't have the First Amendment.
No, that's one of the things I do like about the Constitution.
I wish the UK did have a First Amendment.
So people are arrested for praying outside abortion clinics and stuff like that.
So you're opposed to people being arrested for speech crimes?
It depends what it is, if it's like the people's As long as it's someone who agrees with you, you don't mind the Constitution.
No, no, I support.
Why do we consistently support principles?
We support free speech 100%.
Do you think Donald Trump is defying the Constitution by cracking down on the First Amendment?
So I think he's cracking down on free speech, like the deportation of Mahmoud Khalil, who's a...
And I agree with the judge, and I disagree with Trump deporting them, but I think that's more a matter of free speech and not the Constitution.
I think that's pedantry at this moment.
I think you've conceded that he is cracking down on free speech, which is the First Amendment.
So he is defying the Constitution.
So it's a pleasure to be in agreement with you, sir.
So yeah, that's fascinating that that kid actually brings up Mahmoud Khalil.
And this is the place where I feel like one of the things I appreciated about the editing choices is that in the way that they've cut the different cameras together, you do get to see the kids raising the red flags.
You do get to see some of the reactions in the crowd.
And I feel like they are fairly open about showing, wow, look at how reactionary this crowd is.
Look at how, you know, The things that they won't tolerate, the expressions on their faces.
And Jubilee put fact checks up quite frequently during this debate, I felt.
I'd have to go back and look and see if this is accurate, but it seemed like it was more often than I've seen in other debates where they fact-checked.
And I feel like just about everyone I read was affirming what Mehdi Hassan was saying, which in terms of the arguments of like, are they platforming fascists?
Are they spreading misinformation?
Well, they're having a debate and they're also saying, look, here's the fact.
You're right.
They did do a lot more fact-checking and I didn't see one that refuted any of Mehdi's claims.
As for that Khalil comment, which they both agreed on, the way that surrounded the format works is you get voted off the island by the other participants holding up a red flag.
And as soon as he said that, you'll notice the part ended.
It was only like 10, 15 seconds because everyone was like, oh, you agree with Khalil being disappeared by ICE?
Okay, red flag.
And they voted him off.
So that tells you a bit about the crowd there.
And again, I just want to point out that Medi is very consistent and he was continually pointing out the inconsistencies in their arguments throughout.
And one of them is about free speech absolutism.
And he's like, if you're going to be for free speech, you got to be for it, even when you don't agree with what people say.
And that is, again, where I fall overall with Jubilee as a platform.
Now, his next claim is immigrants overall are good for America.
Now, this one doesn't land so well either.
And interestingly, a few people in the crowd are either immigrants or children of immigrants.
So there's actually more common ground in this claim.
Still, this clip is indicative of the broader issue that we're discussing today.
The woman is claiming that immigrants are stealing jobs, making it harder for people like her to find work.
She opens the claim, as you're going to hear, by differentiating between immigrants and citizens, which Mehdi ties in and addresses with extreme clarity.
Unemployment under both Biden and Trump has been at record low levels.
Okay, is this in regards for American citizens?
Yes.
Okay.
Okay.
Well, I'm unaware of that statistic, but from what I see, from where I came to.
I'm an immigrant and an American, and I employ many American citizens.
Both naturalized and the ones born here.
I employed Americans as defined by you.
My parents came as immigrants and became naturalized, so I'm not necessarily opposed to immigrants.
So you're the child of immigrants.
Correct.
I'm a child of immigrants.
I was posted.
But you don't accept immigrants are Americans.
Not at this moment.
Your parents are not Americans.
Not at this moment.
Hold on.
Your parents are not.
They're citizens.
They became naturalized.
You just said you can't be citizens by being naturalized.
No, I was born here, and I'm not a post-Inglis.
You're born to naturalization.
I never accept that I'm against naturalization.
Are you against naturalization?
No, I never said I was against naturalization.
You began, everyone was here, they can play it back on YouTube.
You said Americans or immigrants.
Are your parents Americans or immigrants?
No, my parents are United States citizens.
But they're immigrants, you said.
No, they came here as immigrants.
However, by the way, I came here as an immigrant.
I'm an immigrant.
At this point, when they came, the United States is not happy with the way this is going for you.
She was voted off very shortly after.
But, you know, I think for people who aren't used to this format, when you hear this, it is very disconcerting.
It's just like they're just cutting into each other.
But again, Medi is very effective at catching them in their claims and being like, but you just said this.
And I think that really just goes to show in terms of audience participation between these two episodes, how unprepared to back up their arguments this particular group of far-right conservatives was.
There was one named Kai who actually did a really good job.
At the end, they invite someone back to debate for 10 minutes without anyone interrupting, and he was the one that Mehdi chose.
And that was that actually, you know, I still don't agree with what Kai was saying, but that actually was more like a traditional debate because he knew what he was talking about, but the other ones were so unprepared.
Yeah.
So that's actually a nice place for us to begin transitioning because that kid, Kai, was the one who seemed educated, smart, relaxed, warm, like actually wanting to have a conversation.
And I think he was well-versed in politics.
He was well-versed in economic theory.
He was really trying to have the conversation.
I didn't agree with what he was saying, but he was a good faith debater and he wasn't just some guy repeating MAGA talking points about, you know, America first or something.
And that's an important point to point out.
It also happens into Peterson where we're going next, where some people come up, come on and sit hot, meaning they just want to get and rip people down.
Like, in fact, the first person that went up against Peterson was kind of like that.
I really didn't like that approach because he thought he had Peterson in a gotcha.
And regardless of what you think of Jordan Peterson, the dude is pretty smart and he can talk circularly, but he can talk as effectively as Medi in that capacity.
And JP was able to just rip those arguments down.
And the same thing happened here.
But some people come up and they're just like, I want to know where you're coming from so we can have a debate.
And they usually tend to sit in the chair longer because people are actually interested in listening to the unpacking of those arguments.
Yeah, beside themselves, right?
Despite the fact that they're there and they really are raring to go, when a real conversation emerges, most people go, oh, what's going on here?
And kind of listen a little more closely.
So that's actually a really good observation.
So let's transition to Jordan Peterson versus 20 Atheists, which I'll say more about this later, but it's what the episode ended up being called.
It's not what it started off being called.
Now, same show surrounded, same format.
Jordan Peterson is in his usual natty suit and tie combination.
Of course, he always is.
And he's sitting at a little table, which I was just realizing as I was writing this is very reminiscent of a classical chess match.
Same thing for the Mahdi Hassan thing.
It's this very basic table and chairs.
There's a timer on the table.
And in this case, it's counting down 15 minutes of debate on each of the propositional claims, right?
He's surrounded by participants who seem to mostly be college student age.
And his first claim is, atheists reject God, but they don't know what they're rejecting.
And so this guy comes up.
His name is Greg.
He's reflecting philosophically on how words can mean different things.
His example is how you can say you're moved by the Mona Lisa, but also that you're moved through space when driving to the museum to go and see it.
And one would be misunderstanding the context if they retorted, what do you mean you were moved by the Mona Lisa?
It's nailed to the wall.
And this is his attempt to start to get at how Peterson plays with words.
And it's important to Know which definition you're referring to.
So he imports this analogy into talking about God and saying we should just talk about one definition at a time.
Peterson's next tack in that conversation is to try to get Greg to acknowledge that underneath all of his evidence and logic, he uses his conscience to determine right from wrong and truth from falsehood.
And as it turns out, Elijah, well, I'll just let Jordan tell you.
So Elijah, the prophet Elijah, defined God in the Old Testament as the voice of conscience within.
Okay.
That's a definition.
So you're saying by that definition of God.
See, this kind of goes back to where I'm saying initially.
I'm not defining it.
Elijah does definitely.
Okay, so as Elijah defines God.
We find that way in Jonah, too.
Okay.
I'm sure you know many people who've defined it that way.
And it's impressive.
You're a very knowledgeable person.
I'm not trying to be impressive.
I'm just pointing out to you how God is defined in the Old Testament.
All right.
So to respond to that, I do think there are lots of interesting ways to define God.
And that goes back to my example.
And how do we specify what we're arguing about?
We use context clues.
Again, it goes back to my example of the Monolith.
I'm defining God as conscience.
Okay.
Elijah is one of the major Old Testament prophets.
He's equal in stature to Moses.
So it's not arbitrary.
All right.
So that is interesting, but it's not relevant to the context with which I am using the term God.
It's directly relevant.
Atheists reject God, but they don't understand what they're rejecting.
You accept conscience as a guide, and conscience is one of the defining characteristics of God in the Old Testament.
I think you're being intellectually disingenuous.
In what way?
I just feel like you kind of retreat into this semantic fog.
I'm not retreating at all.
I'm advancing, sir.
You are retreating.
Well, it was very nice to meet you.
I appreciate the conversation.
Yeah, yeah.
It's very brave of you to do this.
So I love that patronizing parting shot from Peterson.
And he tries to do this quite a bit in this discussion, in this episode.
It's very brave of you to do this.
Meanwhile, I feel like that kid is someone who's maybe had some good therapeutic guidance on how to deal with like a personality disordered parent where you're like, okay, okay, yes.
Yeah, okay.
So now what I want to talk about.
One of the things I was upset about in this whole thing, I didn't see anyone talk about the emergent theory of consciousness, the idea that because Peterson really stakes his claim early that God is conscience, being, you know, having a conscience and it has to come from somewhere.
And no one, and maybe it's just the group, because they were very smart people, but no one talked about biology and no one brought about anything from neuroscience about the fact that consciousness can emerge from our biological states, which to me is one of the most important arguments if you're going to talk about someone who is proposing a Christian metaphysics here, any sort of metaphysics, really.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I mean, there is one kid who gets into moral values can come the via evolutionary biology.
This is an evolved function of social empathy, right?
Yeah, he gets into the social theory, the evolutionary theory a bit, but even that, like Peterson was able to wiggle himself out of that one because I don't think he had a strong grounding, a strong enough grounding to actually make the connection between that and conscience, which is what Peterson is staking his claim on.
And so it was just, it was just, that was just a broader over, you know, I think unfortunate aspect.
But what I appreciate about him and some of the other, you know, commenters was they were really able to point out Peterson's circular logic and how it very much does come back to semantics.
Like he's able to try to run circles, but if you're actually paying attention, people are able to hold his feet to the fire a little bit more.
Yeah, and that's the thing.
There's so much footage of Peterson doing that thing that these debaters were very well prepared.
They're like, oh, he's going to do that thing.
So I already know it's a semantic fog.
You're messing with the definitions of words, et cetera.
So here's Peterson's next claim.
Morality and purpose cannot be derived from science.
And I think that his big problem on what I can only imagine was a pretty unpleasant day for Jordan is that he's in this room with young, sharp-witted atheists who in many cases seem to have philosophical and or psychological education, and they have good experience with competitive debating.
So probably the best example of this is a streamer named Parker.
This is actually his second appearance on Surrounded.
He was one of the 25 Kamala voters who squared off against Ben Shapiro right before the election last year, so like eight months ago.
This one gets interesting when Peterson asserts that if you really believe something, you'd be willing to die for it.
And Parker says, well, you know, I might believe this pen I'm holding right here exists, but I would lie about it if it would save my life.
And he says, I imagine it's the same for you, right?
And Peterson gets very surly.
He says, do you know anything about me?
And so then Parker, again, he does it and he like manages him.
Okay, okay, okay.
And then he says, what about your family?
Would you lie to save them?
No, I would not.
And he says, well, here's, and this is the classic thought experiment that he offers.
Can there ever be a circumstance logically that lying could save someone?
Yeah, and if you're steeped in sin, you're likely to live in circumstances like that.
I'll give you an example.
If you're like in like Nazi Germany and it is the case that there's like Jewish people in your attic and you're trying to protect them, would you lie to like the Nazis?
I would have done everything I bloody well could so I wouldn't be in that situation to begin with.
It's a hypothetical and it's not answered.
Can you answer hypotheticals?
No, I can't answer a hypothetical like that because it's far What, did you eat today?
I'm not playing games.
If you present me with an intractable moral choice that's stripped of context and you back me into a corner, you're playing game.
I just told you I would do everything that I could to make sure that I'm never in that situation.
By the time you've got there, you've made so many mistakes that there's nothing you can do that isn't a sin.
Being born in Nazi Germany and trying to protect people that you care about, like there could be a Jewish friend that you have, and you want to protect them.
I think you should just give up on that line of questioning.
Give up on just like trying to clarify your position?
Because you don't like me.
Are you uncomfortable with me asking this question?
It's just a basic hypothetical.
It's just a basic hypothetical where you're put Jews' lives at stake in Nazi Germany.
That's just a basic hypothetical.
Obviously, you would lie in that scenario to save their life, but you're not trying to answer this Question for some reason.
I just told you why.
Are you anti-fascist?
Like, so you're anti-fascist?
I'm just asking that.
I was just asking, just clarifying.
But, like, okay, again, you're not answering this hypothetical because you know it shows that you clearly would lie to Sex.
I'm answering it in the world.
Obviously, because I care about truth.
I wouldn't be in that scenario.
Nice to meet you.
Yeah.
Nice to meet you.
Remember, Connor, earlier, I wouldn't be one of the ones that the benevolent dictator would come after, so it doesn't matter.
It's the same sort of logic.
When you're backed into a corner where you actually have to let your philosophy play out, and even in a hypothetical situation, you're willing to engage in it.
It just becomes deflection.
I also find it very interesting that Peterson is holding on to this idea of I won't engage in hypothetical situations when the hypothesis of God is a hypothetical situation.
Like he has no way of actually playing that out in reality or actually proving it.
So it's all hypothetical, but he's engaging in that just fine, but put him in a situation where his philosophy is tested and he can no longer engage with it.
Yeah.
I mean, it's always confusing to me when people object to thought experiments or hypotheticals because they're ways of defining the outer limits of what you think.
Okay, you say this.
What if we go to this extreme example?
Is that a case in which it wouldn't apply?
Okay.
It doesn't mean it doesn't apply in all cases.
It means we're testing the outer limits.
Now let's reason backwards from that and find out where that line is for you and how you come to that line.
And the only reason you're uncomfortable with that is if you haven't thought that kind of stuff through and you don't know how to do it.
I love that Parker turns around that parting shot move by saying, great conversation.
And Peterson goes, yeah, great conversation.
Okay.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
You know, there was a moment before I ended up majoring in religion during college.
I was seriously considering philosophy.
And then I looked at the curriculum and I took the first maths class for philosophy.
And I was like, wait, you have to do years of math to be able to get a philosophy degree?
And I was like, nope, I can't do it because I'd never liked math.
Yeah.
So on to Peterson's third claim, which is everybody worships something, including atheists, even though they may not know it.
And this next clip is really the coup de grace.
This is one probably most listeners will have seen and heard before, but you know, it never gets old.
Before going here, this is the thing I referenced earlier as a teaser.
It's important to know that this video was originally titled when it was published, Christian versus 20 Atheists.
But then something like 18 hours after the fact, the title was changed to Jordan Peterson versus 20 Atheists.
And I think you'll see why, because this did go viral and there was a lot of making fun of Peterson for what happens in this next clip.
An absolutely fearless cutthroat debater named Danny comes up.
And this is kind of jaw-dropping.
Peterson, his face was in a scowl right from the start, and it stayed that way until he said, I'm done with him.
But your original doctrine.
I added the hierarchy part at the beginning.
Are you familiar?
I didn't even understand it.
Are you familiar with the Immaculate Conception?
Why is that relevant?
Because you go to a Catholic church, don't you?
Or you've attended recently.
You're interested in Catholicism, aren't you?
Sure.
All right.
Are you familiar with their doctrines?
Somewhat.
Okay, you're familiar with their doctrines or whatever.
How do they regard Mary?
Why are you asking me that?
Because you're a Christian.
You say that.
I haven't claimed that.
Well, what is this?
Is this Christians versus atheists?
I don't know.
You don't know where you are right now.
Don't be a smart ass.
Well, I'm not talking to you if you're a smart ass.
Either you're a Christian or you're not.
Which one is it?
I could be either of them, but I don't have to tell you.
You could you.
You don't have to tell me.
I was under the impression I was invited to talk to a Christian.
Am I not talking to a Christian?
No, you were invited to.
I think everyone should look at the title of the YouTube channel.
You're probably in the wrong YouTube video.
You're really quite something you are.
Aren't I?
But you're really quite nothing, right?
You're not expressing.
I'm done with him.
Why I love this one so much is up until this point, this is about halfway through the episode, Peterson has been building this argument that there are ways of being a Christian.
There is a black woman, I think her name is Ziva.
She ends up being the debater at the end.
Yeah, Zina, Z-I-N-A.
She's a streamer, yeah.
Xena, Diana.
She was amazing.
He really gets into this box where he's basically making an argument that in order to enter the kingdom of heaven, you have to have a belief in God that is structured around Christianity.
Everyone else lives in sin.
It's a very classical Christian argument.
Now, if you're up there debating people, I don't know what Jubilee told him the title was going to be.
I don't know if they informed him beforehand.
So it isn't fair to assume that he knew the title going in.
If the participants did, I think he would know.
So he could be a little disingenuous here.
But he's been making this argument about there is one way to enter the kingdom of heaven.
And he's also there defending the concept of God.
Just logically, you would think that he would be trying to live that path, because if your whole belief system hinges on the fact that if you do not believe these things and take these actions, you're going to live in some damnation, which is an argument he's making, then I would imagine he's a Christian.
So when he's actually being challenged on the role of Mary in the church and the sort of hierarchy he lays out, and he's being pushed back on it, all of a sudden to say, doesn't matter if you know whether or not I'm a Christian, it's a little disingenuous.
I mean, after that moment, the whole room was silent.
Usually after once someone gets voted off, people give them some applause.
It was silent.
But a lot of the kids that are in the circle have their hands over their mouths.
I mean, there's a sense of glee.
There's a sense of like, oh my God, I can't believe he just did that.
What just happened here?
And the reason is that everyone who's critical of Jordan Peterson, this is one of their top reasons.
You preach a lot of stuff about the importance of religion and especially the primacy of Christianity.
And then when someone says, you do believe in God, you said, well, it depends on what the word do you believe in and God actually means.
So let's break that down for the next two hours.
It's like, dude, really?
And are you a Christian?
Well, I never said I was a Christian.
He doesn't say he's not a Christian.
He just says, I never claimed to be a Christian.
But the thing that's most interesting here for me is earlier we found that Mehdi Hassan had a red line.
And that red line is openly acknowledging that you're a fascist.
Like, I don't want to talk to you anymore.
Jordan Peterson has a red line too.
It's a kid who's being a smart ass.
If you're a smartass, I won't talk to you.
I want to close on that because it does dovetail into the free speech argument.
Because I've seen some people comment, you know, or even in that jubilee, people were saying, well, you wouldn't debate with him.
You're not into free speech.
And then he's like, then he's like, no, he can say those things.
That doesn't mean I have to engage with him because I understand that if you're that far gone politically, that you are openly fascist, there is no discussion we can have that's going to move the needle in any direction that would actually help anyone.
And I think that is a really important distinction because for the last decade plus, we've dealt with a right wing who cries about their free speech rights being taken away, which usually, at least in the beat that we cover, has been by spreading misinformation about vaccinations or about health in a variety of ways.
That is not free speech.
If you are saying things that are not true, it's not about whether or not you can, you can say it, but then if you're demonetized or if you're kicked off a platform because you're spreading that misinformation, that is not an abnegation of your free speech rights.
That just means you're talking bullshit.
And that is fundamentally different than what Mehdi is saying in those.
And I think that distinction is really important.
Yeah, this is the whole thing, right?
The kid who said that he was fascist and now supposedly he's posted about the fact that he's lost his job.
We don't know if that's true or not, but we do know that he's got to give send go and he's raised over $30,000.
So, and this is what we've seen again and again and again.
We started calling it the free speech gambit over the last five years.
You cry that your free speech has been taken away very loudly to a lot of people who can hear you freely speaking.
And then you get even more wealthy and get even more exposure as a result of saying that.
I think that, you know, when Mehdi Hassan says, I'm not going to debate you because you're a fascist and people complain about that being, you know, him being a hypocrite on free speech, it's like, no, he's saying, you are able to have this debate with me because we don't live under pure fascism.
You want to live under pure fascism, which would literally stop me from being able to criticize the power structure.
And there's a really, really strong distinction there between actual legal oppressive infringement on free speech versus being told, no, those are really untrue, pseudoscientific, baseless conspiracy theory claims, or the things you are saying are actually deeply anti-human.
They are discriminating against people in ways that I profoundly object to, and you should shut the fuck up.
That's not an infringement on your free speech.
Well, we are recording this on Thursday.
It is 10.46 a.m.
And as of now, he has raised $37,801.
So I will admit that is an unfortunate consequence of Jubilee.
I can understand the outrage about it and why people would be pissed.
Most of the donors are anonymous, surprise, surprise.
But I still say taking it off would be more counterproductive.
And as Jason told Taylor Lorenz, he's already talking to a number of streaming networks about taking some of these shows to different platforms.
So that's sort of a moot point.
Anyway, my advice would be to either ignore them if this isn't your thing or learn how to engage in a media environment that's the younger generation really is grappling with in this capacity.
And don't just write it off because you don't like some of the things that some people say.
In fact, as Jason said to Taylor, he says he has instances of people who have watched the social media eclipse, but then watched the full episode and actually gotten something from it.
And I will say that I'm also one of those people.
Yeah, I mean, these are such difficult issues.
If you could spend an entire episode trying to unpack all of these distinctions around platforming, around filter bubbles, around how people are locked into their own kind of echo chambers, around what it means to try to reach people who you might not otherwise be able to reach, about how to have debates in which people actually get engaged into a thought process where they're measuring ideas against each other.
And even though they may come in with their biases, maybe it stimulates some kind of process in them whereby they can start to see through some of their own blind spots.
This is, it's very, very complicated.
And I don't think absolutist stances on either side really serve us as we try to figure out the reality of this new media landscape and how content functions and how algorithms function.
