All Episodes
Previous Next
Oct. 11, 2021 - Dennis Prager Show
09:03
Dennis Speaks With Gad Saad!
| Copy link to current segment

Time Text
I thought that we had developed such a bromance that you were going to have me on every third day.
I'm a bit insulted, but thank you at least for coming back at me a year later.
That is funny.
We did have a bromance.
That is exactly accurate.
So things have gotten worse.
If infectious ideas are killing common sense, it's worse today than a year ago.
Is that fair to say?
Well, yes.
So let me tell you something.
When Joe Biden came to power, I did a similar dance to Steven Pinker.
Maybe you saw when Steven Pinker was dancing of joy when Biden won, because I knew that by Biden winning, it would only continue to make my book that much more relevant.
So thank you, Joe Biden, for ensuring that my book remains relevant for the next 400 years.
That's very interesting.
So Steven Pinker did a dance, is that right?
I didn't know that.
Oh yeah, like a really awkward dance.
I think I've ruined my chances of us having a nice relationship moving forward.
I mean, I was just joking around.
I was mocking his dance.
I thought it was so silly.
But he was so overjoyed that, you know, finally...
We're having a problem with the connection here.
Sean, you know what's going on?
We lost him?
Yeah, you hear me and you hear him and I don't hear him.
That's a rare thing.
So maybe we should just call him again because I've never had this where you hear the person and I don't.
So we're going to figure out something, folks.
So God Saad is a professor at Concordia.
And he's a fighter for liberty.
He's a fighter for common sense.
It's an interesting question, by the way.
It just occurred to me.
Is the fight for common sense and reason the same as the fight for liberty?
I don't know the answer offhand, but I think the answer is yes.
The same people who fight for liberty are fighting for rationality.
One of my best examples, obviously, is, not obviously, but one of my best examples, obvious or not, is that people who have had COVID are told that they must have a vaccine, must take the vaccine.
That is pure anti-science, anti-reason positioning.
Pure.
You can't get more pure than that.
And it's the living proof that the issue is power over people, not science.
That's all it is, power over people.
We're approaching a civil war state in the country.
All right, God, I don't know what happened, but it's a pleasure to have you back.
Let me see if I can hear you.
Thank you so much.
Can you hear me?
Okay, good.
Yep, I do.
You said, thank you so much, can you hear me?
Excellent.
Right.
All right, so I was asking if things have gotten worse.
You mentioned Steven Pinker.
Steven Pinker is a professor of psychology at Harvard, and he's not a leftist.
I want to say that on his behalf, because he actually said that the universities are becoming a laughingstock because of the left, which is a very courageous thing for any professor to say.
Especially one at an elite college in the United States.
Having said that, it is clear that reason does not inform his positions.
His ecstasy over Joe Biden's win is a perfect example, in my opinion.
Your reaction to that, is that a fair assessment?
It's totally fair, right?
Because how could you hold these two perfectly?
I mean, if you think that all the leftist idea pathogens that I discussed in the parasitic mind are really destroying reason, then you should certainly not be celebrating the victory of Joe Biden, because Joe Biden is only going to exacerbate every single one of those idea pathogens.
So it simply doesn't make sense, but it shows you, Dennis, what happens when a mind, even as brilliant and as accomplished as that of Steven Pinker, Politically, you know, under a, I mean, tribalized, right?
In my case, you know, I'm not a guy on the left.
I'm not a guy on the right.
There is a set of fundamental principles that I believe in, and therefore I defend them no matter what.
Whereas a lot of my...
Highfalutin colleagues in academia are very much consequentialist in their ethics, right?
They're perfectly willing to abandon a fundamental principle that they should be adhering to if it is politically expedient to do so, right?
So when it came to Brett Kavanaugh, well we don't really need to worry about presumption of innocence because Brett Kavanaugh is such a dangerous guy that screw him, right?
Feather and tar him.
Because he's just too bad, so we can do away with presumption of innocence.
When it comes to Donald Trump no longer having a platform on Twitter, well, sure, I believe in freedom of speech, but surely not for Donald Trump.
Well, I argue, Dennis, that these types of positions are deontological positions.
You never waver on them, irrespective of who you are defending or not.
So I'm sure I asked you this a year ago, but I'll repeat it in light of the fact that a year has passed.
How do your fellow university professors react to you?
So you get one of two types.
One is I get thousands of emails from professors from all around the world, from the most prestigious universities to universities that you've never heard of.
Saying, oh, you know, you're my hero, you keep me sane.
Oh, but please, if you read my email on your show, don't mention my name.
So imagine how, you know, soul-crushing that is, that you can't even get someone to publicly stand with you.
I'm not telling you for you to put your neck out.
I'll take that bullet.
But you can't even publicly support me, so you get those, or you get the other ones who simply ignore me.
me.
I don't get any direct antipathy, but I certainly get tons of people who try to veer from me because, you know, I'm dangerous and corrosive, which, of course, I'm hardly those things.
I simply speak what, you know, 99% of people support.
So you're in Canada, correct?
I am in the beautiful city of Montreal, Canada, yes.
Right.
So how do you react to your prime minister and the ban on any travel for the Oh, I mean, listen, Justin Trudeau is a, I mean, literally, I'm not being hyperbolic, he is a walking manifestation of every single one of the idea pathogens in the parasitic minds.
I mean, if you guys are lamenting that you have Joe Biden, you really need to live in our shoes for a day.
I mean, right?
I mean, he's a caricature, right?
He's an orgiastic.
Woke generator of platitudes, right?
I mean, he's just unbelievable.
So whether it be the vaccine...
By the way, two days ago, I was with my wife at a cafe outside, so an outdoors cafe.
There was almost nobody around, so we were certainly physically distanced.
A clerk came up to us and wanted for us to show our vaccine passport.
If not, we couldn't stand outdoors.
So, believe me, I'm all for the vaccine.
I am vaccinated.
My wife is vaccinated.
But it is truly out of control.
Even outdoors, you were banned from eating.
I wasn't eating.
We were just stopping for coffee.
We were just going to get a couple of lattes.
And it was outdoors.
We were certainly socially distanced.
And yet this ultra-eager barista came up and said, Please show us your vaccination, which, you know, I don't know how you guys have it in the U.S., but they're on our smartphone.
So I had to pull out my smartphone and show proof that both my wife and I were fully vaccinated, in which case we were allowed to stay in the outdoor terrace.
Wait, why weren't you allowed indoors?
Oh, no, we could have been indoors.
We just wanted, you know, it was a beautiful autumn day.
Oh, okay, fine.
I just wanted to make that clear.
▲
Export Selection