Dennis Prager argues that offense is a choice, citing a Washington Post survey where 90% of Native Americans accepted the "Redskins" name while white liberals did not. He refutes claims of Jewish Hollywood control and embraces a hypothetical team named "Jews" as a symbol of pride. Addressing viewer questions, Prager asserts that evil results like Stalin's communism cannot be excused by good intentions, describes current conservative migration as de facto secession, and condemns changing biblical pronouns for God as immoral, noting men listen better to male authority figures despite God lacking physical gender. Ultimately, the chat warns that constant sensitivity damages society and undermines traditional wisdom. [Automatically generated summary]
Transcriber: CohereLabs/cohere-transcribe-03-2026, WAV2VEC2_ASR_BASE_960H, sat-12l-sm, script v26.04.01, and large-v3-turbo
|
Time
Text
Why We Are Taught to Be Offended00:13:28
Hey there, this is Marissa Streit.
I am the CEO of PragerU, and you are about to listen to a special edition of Fireside Chat with Dennis Prager.
Those of us here at PragerU are continuing to do the very important work that we've been doing with him for over 10 years.
We are educating millions of young people online.
We have state partnerships to bring our content into schools and so much more.
You can head over to prageru.com to see the progress that we've been making.
Also, I'd love to invite you to support our mission by donating to our 501c3.
It is a nonprofit.
Your tax deductible donation will go to an institution of higher learning that actually shares your values.
So enjoy your podcast and thank you so much for all your support.
Hi, everybody.
Dennis Prager here.
Welcome to the Fireside Chat.
Otto, the great American dog, is hyperventilating today because he was taken to the vet.
He had actually a scheduled surgery, nothing terribly serious, happily, but needed one.
But for whatever reason, they couldn't find a vein.
And so he got a little worked up.
He's very rarely worked up.
As you well know, folks, some of you actually have thought he's a stuffed animal in the past.
So, Otto and worked up don't usually go in the same sentence.
But that's the reason for a little hyperventilating.
But nevertheless, good chap that he is, he went into position in any event for the fireside chat.
So I'm Dennis Prager.
I welcome you to number 189.
We are 11 away from the 200th.
We should do something special on the 200th.
Yeah.
Don't know what.
Well, this is an opportunity for me to simply talk to you about what's on my mind.
Very unrehearsed, spontaneous, not reading off any prompter or anything else.
And you have a chance to ask me things that are on your mind.
So I will begin with a couple of comments.
Today, I want to specialize in taking your questions because it's been a few weeks since I've gotten to take a lot of questions.
But there is something I do want to share with you, and that is the increased number of Americans who feel hurt.
Feel better offended.
We have gone from a very strong people.
Oh, look at that.
This is rare, but now you understand why.
We're going to let him out.
He wants to go out, and who knows why.
I don't think he's ever gotten out of his bed.
Pretty rarely.
Yeah.
All right.
I know that there's sort of a hole in all of our lives right now, but we will endure.
People have gone from being a strong people, Americans, pretty hardy people, land of the free and home of the brave.
That's in the national anthem of the United States.
It isn't so much is it true as it is that's the self-perception that Americans have had of themselves.
Free was certainly true, and brave was often true.
If you're easily offended, you're probably not going to be terribly brave.
This notion of easily offended can bring down a society, and it obviously brings down the individual.
And I will be very candid with you.
I am attacked, as many of you may know, and if you don't know, you can easily find it on the internet.
Put in any expletive with my name, tens of thousands of hits will come up.
The worst expletive you can imagine.
Or any, you know, moron, fool, idiot, fascist, you know, none of them offend me.
They have no impact on me.
But I have a better example of how early in my life I struggled with so many of the issues that I've worked through.
I worked through a lot of issues when I was young.
That's a big advantage that I have, and I don't take credit for it.
That's my nature.
And so at a very, very early age, I had to work through or force myself to work through big issues.
Here's an example.
This I remember very well.
I was in my early 20s.
I've always had an interest in photography.
To this day, I love cameras, I love taking good pictures.
And I went with a friend, a fairly new friend in my life, to a camera store in New York City.
I lived in New York City till I was 25 years old.
And we went to a camera store.
And when we left the camera store, he said to me, Wow, I really Jewed him down.
That's a saying used, not obviously often.
Many of you probably never heard it, but it's used.
And it's obviously an offensive term with regard to some stereotype about Jews being cheap or whatever it might be.
I had never heard the phrase before.
And I knew it wasn't a complimentary phrase.
And my mind did a real fast debate.
How should I react to his saying that?
And in effect, how offended should I be as a Jew?
And the second one was much simpler.
I wasn't offended in the least.
In the least.
Because he.
He wasn't directing it to hurt me.
When taking offense has to have something to do with somebody's intention if they want to offend you, correct?
Whether you're offended should depend on a whole host of things.
What did the person intend to do?
And was it really offensive, et cetera?
I'll get to that.
But anyway, I immediately assumed this guy, if I'm his friend, He's not an anti Semite, okay?
I mean, that was the very first thing that was in my mind.
The guy's not an, he came from rural Canada.
Probably never met a Jew before me in his life, or if he did, it was pretty rare.
And certainly in rural Canada, you're not going to find many Jews, if any at all, in some places in Canada.
So I wasn't offended in the least.
I was struck by the phrase, which I had never heard, and then later learned it was not an uncommon phrase.
As to how I reacted, in retrospect, I could have said, you know, it's really, its origins are anti-Jewish.
It's probably best not to use the phrase, but I didn't say anything.
I just let it pass because I didn't want to be his moral instructor at the time.
And I'm not saying I was right.
You know, as 21 years old, you don't always make the best choices, but I did make a good choice in not being offended.
I'll give you another example.
A guy called my show once.
It was also about my being a Jew.
And he said, you know, Dennis or Mr. Prager, I don't know what he said, or maybe neither, said, You know, Jews control Hollywood.
So I knew he wanted to get a rise out of me.
I mean, why else would he say it?
And I remember I said something to the effect, You know, to tell you the truth, Jews are disproportionately represented in Hollywood.
What's your point?
And he had no point.
His point was to rile me up, was in fact to probably get me offended.
And then I said, can you name one example of all these Jews in Hollywood doing anything to benefit Jews?
What was the last pro Jewish film you saw?
What was the last pro Israel film you saw?
It was probably Exodus, which was released in the 1960s.
So the guy was dumbfounded, but he had no point.
It meant nothing.
So you have to.
Ask yourself, and this is the thing people don't understand.
You choose, this is my point, you choose whether or not to be offended.
It is a choice, it is not a given.
A guy makes a comment on how you look.
You're a woman, and he makes a comment on how you look.
Why would you be offended?
I mean, if he says you look ugly, then I understand that, but very few guys. say to women, boy, you really look ugly today.
It's usually some compliment, but you have been taught, if you're female, to be offended at any comment made about your looks, even if it's positive.
That's bizarre.
That is totally bizarre.
Did he say it to offend you?
And what's offensive?
Maybe you would say, you know, the office is not the place to make such a comment, which is probably true, but it's not offensive.
Why are you offended?
Because you were taught to be offended.
That's the reason.
So, this is very important that, and you know, are Indians, American Indians, Native Americans, are they offended by the name until now of the Washington Redskins?
The Washington Post, which had been for a year constantly editorializing against the name Washington Redskins, did a massive survey of American Indians, found 90% didn't give a hoot about the name Redskins.
The white lefties at the Washington Post were offended.
American Indians were not.
Why is it offensive?
They didn't think it's racist.
It wasn't meant to be racist.
It wasn't racist.
Somebody once called my show and he said, When I defended the Washington Redskins' name and the Cleveland Indians' name, by the way, the Cleveland Indians dropping their name or just their logo?
I don't remember which.
In any event, the guy calls up and he said, Oh, really?
You don't think it's a problem to have the Cleveland Indians or the Washington Redskins?
What would you think if there were a team named the Jews?
And I'll never forget my response.
I'm very proud of it.
I said to the guy, sir, for 3,000 years, Jews have been looking for fans.
It would be one of the great moments in Jewish history.
Let's go, Jews.
Yay, Jews.
Buy Jew paraphernalia.
Get a Jewish hat.
People are.
America is so easy to live in.
That people are looking for problems.
They are looking to be offended because maybe life is boring to them.
The left is an offense-giving industry.
That's it.
Oh, you should be offended.
Oh, Eddie, if you're not a white heterosexual Christian male, you should be offended by breathing.
Life here is a living offense to you.
All it does is make unhappy people and make relations between people worse.
It just creates tension.
Again, my message is you choose whether to be offended.
You're a female, you're a Native American, you're a Black American, you're a Jew.
You've chosen.
And it's a very bad choice.
God, to go through life constantly thinking you're offended, I pity you and I pity the society.
Okie dokie.
Let's take the questions and we begin with a video question.
And here we go.
Take it away.
Hello, Dennis.
A Crusade for Fountain Pens00:03:58
My name is Connor.
I'm 20.
I live in Los Angeles.
And you kind of inspired me to start collecting fountain pens.
So, my question for you is can you show some of your fountain pens and give us a little information about them?
Thanks.
Wow.
I have lived.
A full life.
A 20 year old has been inspired into fountain pens.
I have a crusade on behalf of fountain pens.
They are so much fun to write with.
They're so beautiful.
The richness of the ink flow from it, most of you have never even seen one, let alone written with one.
In fact, a lot of people don't even write with anything anymore.
But by the way, it's a very good thing to write.
You actually remember better.
I always, when I give a speech, I write very few notes.
Most people are unaware that I even have any notes because it's usually on the back of a business card.
But I never type them out and then print them out.
I always write them out because I remember better what I've written than what I have printed.
This is, tests have been done that when you hand write something, you are much more likely to remember it.
But knowing that this was the question, I chose a few of my.
Favorite pens very quickly, and they're all from different countries nearly.
So, this is my current beauty.
Can we zoom in?
Because these are you see it?
Yeah, this is a stunningly gorgeous pen from France, and it writes like a dream.
This is one of the richest blue.
This is a beautiful American pen, also writes like a dream, and that one is black.
And perhaps my all time favorite is from Switzerland.
This is a very, I probably guess I would say masculine pen.
It's sort of like armored steel.
And it's this pen.
I have the same pen about 20 years ago, and I left it in a New York taxi, and it's expensive.
And I could have bought a replacement.
I'm revealing something about myself which may or may not elevate me in your eyes.
But I'm not telling it to you as a good or bad thing.
I'm just telling you what I did.
I did not buy the replacement for another five to ten years.
I don't remember how long.
Because I wanted to sort of pay the price of losing it.
Isn't that interesting?
But anyway, now I have it.
It's a magnificent pen.
It's from Switzerland.
This one is from Italy.
The Italians have a natural ability to make beautiful things.
I guess I have some partiality to blue in many of these.
Three more to show you.
This one is a lavender purple, I guess.
Yes, a purplish.
Japan make the nib.
The nib is what the ink comes out of on top here.
They're usually gold on the best pens and they're steel on less expensive pens.
The Japanese letters, have you ever seen them?
They're very, very complex.
They're characters, they're not letters.
So, a.
A Japanese pen has to be very precise and fine pointed to be able to write Japanese characters.
So, in a certain sense, the Japanese probably make the best nibs because of the Japanese language.
Evil Done in the Name of Anti-Racism00:08:32
Two more.
Another stunning blue one from Germany.
And finally, where is my final one from?
This also is from Germany.
This is Porsche Design.
Isn't that interesting?
Porsche designed a fountain pen.
Can I give you these to hold for me?
So, anyway, enjoy yourself.
They go from $20 to $2,000.
And go on the internet or go to the ideal as a pen store.
Okay, that was.
By the way, on my happiness hour on my radio show, and I've written a book on happiness, I point out the more things that bring you joy, the happier a human being you will be.
And I am blessed that a lot of things bring me joy.
Okay.
Do I double click here?
Yeah, I do.
Next, Christina, right?
Is that the first one?
Yeah.
30 years old, Lynchburg, Virginia.
Hi, Dennis.
Hi, Christina.
I've been listening to the fireside chat for about six months, but I've been working through them mostly chronologically.
How do you weigh the importance of a person's motiveslash intention behind an action against the goodnessslash evilness of it?
How do you weigh their intention against the net result of it?
Aside from knowing we're human and inherently fallible, How do you reconcile well intended efforts that have had bad consequences?
Well, I could spend obviously the whole opening comments on this particular matter.
So there's a difference.
For example, let us say I bought you a Christmas gift and I had only good intentions and it was not something you wanted at all.
What matters then is. that I intended to give you a nice gift.
So their intention is 90%.
That's a non issue.
But the result, remember, is not evil.
It's disappointment on your part, but no evil was done.
But when people have good intentions and evil is the result, I have contempt for those people.
It does not in any way excuse the evil of the result that they intended well.
The 20th century is filled with people with good intentions who did massive evil.
The biggest example is communism.
Communism killed 100 million people.
Not combatants.
This is innocent civilians.
Oh, because people were intoxicated by equality or equity, as they now put it.
In the name of equity, in the name of progress, more people have been slaughtered than in the name of anything else.
Isn't that something?
Oh, and they all meant well.
You know how many people gave secrets to Stalin, one of the The second greatest mass murder in history?
They gave him nuclear secrets.
They gave him the atom bomb.
That's how the Soviet Union developed the atom bomb because of spies in Britain and the United States who thought, oh, what a beautiful thing that they're making in the Soviet Union a world of equality.
No freedom, no liberty, no rights.
Gulag, 20 to 40 million people murdered by Stalin.
But hey, what the hell?
Equality.
That is why wisdom is more important than intentions.
Intentions are nothing compared to wisdom.
Wisdom is the knowledge of the consequences of your actions.
That's what matters.
It's what matters in America today.
All these, oh, anti racism, anti racism.
The amount of evil being done in the name of anti racism is incalculable.
Plus, just the gigantic lie of it.
The deprivation of real education from children.
All it is is a.
Facade to teach America hatred and to bring down the system of liberty that has made this the freest country in the history of the world.
So, intentions are on especially macro, in other words, social issues are largely irrelevant.
Who intends badly?
Very few people intend to have bad intentions.
So, think about it.
Who wakes up in the morning and goes, Oh, another day to do evil?
Very few people.
The vast majority of bad things have been done with good intentions.
Okay, very important question, obviously.
Next, Nick37, Springfield, Virginia.
Wasn't the other one Virginia?
Two of Virginia in a row.
Dear Dennis, thanks for your fireside chat and your calming voice of reason from the words you say and in the tone.
I can see why Otto sleeps so soundly during your discourse.
That's hilarious.
Otto, I must say, Otto sleeps.
Is he coming back in?
Yeah, let's see what happens.
This is funny.
You saw him walk out.
Maybe this will be the first time both Otto leaving and Otto coming.
And the answer is oh my God, he's staying at the okay, here he comes.
Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you Otto Prager.
This is all because he was at the vet today.
This is, as you all know, he would be sleepy right now and probably snoring.
All right, it is what it is.
Megan, that's the famous Megan arm.
No, he's gone.
This is atypical behavior, but he was traumatized at the vet.
Okay.
Anyway, I see why Otto sleeps so soundly during your discourse.
He sleeps soundly during everybody's discourse.
I don't take any credit with my calming tone.
You keep fighting for America, but you also seem to notice that we're at a point of no return.
When is that point official?
Would that call for secession and how would secession look in your point of view?
Thanks in advance and God bless.
I didn't say we're at a point of no return.
I just want to make that clear.
We're not at a point of no return, but we are at a tipping point.
There's no question about that.
This is the darkest period in American history since the Civil War.
That's 150 years ago, more than 150 years ago.
It's almost unbelievable for me to say, but the forces undoing the American Revolution of liberty, of individualism, of limited government, they are in retreat.
And it always begins with freedom of speech, because the left suppresses freedom of speech wherever it gets into power, from the Russian Revolution to your local university.
There is no instance in history of the left being in power and free speech being allowed.
There is no instance.
And America is no different.
Liberals love free speech.
Conservatives love free speech.
The left has never allowed for it.
At what point could you see secession?
Well, there already is something akin to that taking place with a great many conservatives, people who do believe in freedom, leaving blue states and going to red states.
That's one example of this happening.
Many Californians where I live are moving to Texas, for example, or Florida, and they just want freedom.
So this shift is already somewhat taking place.
The problem is the people, let's say, from New York and New Jersey, Connecticut, going to Florida.
So they flee the consequences of the left, and then they reelect the left where they go.
It's not intelligent.
The Problem with People Fleeing Consequences00:04:28
Right?
That's exactly what happens.
People bring the values that they fled from with them.
Some Latin Americans do that.
The human being is a problem.
All right, Molly30, Kansas City, Kansas.
Hey, Dennis and Otto, even though I'm an avid podcast listener, I've never actually seen Otto, but he sounds pretty great.
He's not here now, right?
Does God have a gender?
If so, what is God's gender?
Does the gender of God matter?
Why or why not?
I ask because I work at a small private Christian university.
Like many, our university struggles to navigate our world and social pressures.
This year, our choir performed a rendition of the 23rd Psalm, but switched God's gender to female, he to she, and so on.
Wow, she maketh me lie in Pastor's Green.
I have my own thoughts, but I'm curious about yours.
Thank you for your time, and God bless you and yours.
Anyone who says she instead of he with a biblical phrase is doing something unethical, having nothing to do with religion, nothing.
You can't change what was written.
You want to make up a new psalm using she, that is perfectly in your right.
But to take something that says he and change it, it would be like. painting over a Michelangelo painting because you don't like that there's a male there and making it into a female.
There's no difference.
Changing a painting is the same as changing literature.
That's what they're doing.
It is immoral what they've done.
Forget religion.
It has nothing to do with religion.
You can't bastardize a text.
But the arrogance of these people, it's so arrogant.
Gee, I don't like what the original says, so I will change it.
Write your own.
But you can't change what the original says.
But that your church in, where would it be then?
I guess presuming Kansas?
That a small church in Kansas would do this shows you how much leftism has infected normative Christian life as it has Jewish life and Catholic life.
Does God have a gender?
No, God does not have a gender.
However, God is depicted in male form.
There's no neuter in Hebrew.
So you either depict God as male or female.
If you read my rational Bible, and I have a lot of dignity, but I beg you to read it.
Not for my sake, but because that's the wisest books ever written with the Bible.
And in Genesis.
It's called The Rational Bible, my commentary on the first five books.
Third book is coming out, Deuteronomy.
But Genesis has been published, and I have a very long essay on why God is depicted as male and not female.
And I'll give you one hint.
Because God is a moral authority, and when God says, be good and be compassionate, Men are more likely to listen to a male saying, be good and compassionate, than to a female.
It's just, it's more effective.
Ask single mothers, or ask married mothers for that matter.
Anyway, I have an essay on why God is depicted as male in my Genesis commentary, The Rational Bible.
But God Himself does not have a gender as such.
God does not.
God does not have male organs.
Well, God is not physical, so it's sort of irrelevant.
But changing the words of the text is profoundly wrong.
God Does Not Have a Gender00:00:58
How's our timing?
About 30.
Wow, the inner clock is still working.
It goes fast.
I hope you think that.
It's good that I think that, but I hope you think that too.
So, my friends.
I was going to say on behalf of Otto, but it's because that's instinctive.
Otto, who is a little hyper from his visit to the vet, is not present for me to say in his name.
Anyway, it's great to be with you.
I'm Dennis Prager, and I'll see you next week.
Tomorrow, Untimeless Wisdom with Dennis Prager.
I realized in high school at Yeshiva that I wasn't getting the answer to the biggest single question I had.
And I thought the biggest single question every Jew had, but they didn't acknowledge it.
And that is why be Jewish?
Join us tomorrow to hear more on Timeless Wisdom with Dennis Prager.