Joe Rogan Experience #1221 — Jonathan Haidt Transcript

Transcript

0:00 In four, three, two, one. enjoy it. And some of them, not only did they get peer reviewed and accepted into these journals, Yeah. Yes. And they just substituted in something about feminism for Nazism, something like that. They made up fake names, and a lot of them got accepted. And he said, you know, and 63% of the attempted humping, because the thing of the article was the idea that, you know, you go to a dog park and you see dogs humping each other.

3:09 And if you read – so I'm writing a letter for – a lot of us are now writing letters in support of Boghossian. Yeah, it was an expose. Imagine if your children are going there and your children are being taught at this school that's willing to accept this kind of nonsense. it's almost like some religious dogma that you have to follow. We're very good at forming teams to fight the other side.

6:16 But a university puts us together in a way in which you are really motivated to disprove my ideas and I'm motivated to disprove yours, You come back and we go back and forth. and what I mean by that is political combat, as some people within universities see that what we're doing here or yeah a trend well so so the you know the book that uh the book that i just put out in september

8:43 It all starts in 2014. And so our whole book is an exploration of why. like it's things like rising political polarization. So left and right never particularly is getting more and more intense. And so any question that has a political valence, Basically, kids who were born in 1995 and after, Gen Z, they had really different childhoods, and they're not as prepared for conflict and college.

11:32 of things and to reinforce the idea that freedom of speech and free debate are critical aspects Even people like Christina Hoff well, these poor kids, they're going to have to go into the workplace. I know it's strange to look at it from the outside. And so I go around the country and, you know, people on the right expect that, oh, my God, it's chaos and mob violence on campus, which isn't true.

13:31 happening. But if you go to the elite liberal arts colleges in the Northeast and the West Coast, But at the top schools in general, it has. The world is a large place. But we got a lot of coverage of that in the 80s and 90s. of trust between students and professors. And when we don't trust each other, we can't do our job. We can't risk provoking, being provocative, raising new ideas, raising uncomfortable ideas.

16:05 person standard. So, you know, for Professor, what's one? So a professor just wrote to me But if I have a class of 300 students, a lecture class, I know that some of them subscribe to this the rise of authoritarian populism, there are a lot of weird trends that are happening in multiple No, I love thinking about complex systems. to be working out and training and practicing. And that doesn't hurt anybody. That doesn't

19:34 They find people and cut off their heads, not just for fun, for prestige. But if necessary, if there's a fight or if there's somebody within their larger community that can also get you points. imposing external cost on others. And that's what makes you so insufferable, because you are playing So even the people who do it recognize that they're always on eggshells.

21:52 There's no fun. Mock it. There's patterns that you see in people that, from a distance, like if I look at it, when It's like these patterns of behavior, these predetermined patterns. weird to watch on the outside. It's like, well, this is such an easy pattern to slip into. Yeah. Well, that's right. So there's data from the Pew surveys. They've been

24:07 up the volume. So we evolved to do us versus them. And the more we see, if it's us, America versus them, communist Russia or Nazi Germany, well, then we all come together and that's great for And that means there's no nuance. And we and I would take them into sex differences, the origin of sexual orientation. You know, MBA students have to know but not in the percentage of non-tech employees in Silicon

26:53 Well, these are, well, I'm not going to call them children. They get value from it. And so these microaggression reporting systems, So there's a good intention behind it. That's what it felt like. And that's why, so, you know, Greg Lukianoff came to therapy. And in that, you learn these 15 or so cognitive distortions, like catastrophizing, I'd begun to see this, you know, the safe spaces, the microaggressions, the trigger warning requests.

31:00 They protest. They bring demands to the president. They're screaming at her husband. I think so. Yeah. So there's all these threads coming together. It didn't come out of nowhere. And when you watch that from the outside, you think, well, obviously, they've got to punish these students. it was like, wow, here's a new pair of spectacles that I can put on. And suddenly I see all these

33:39 And so if the bad groups have more, it's because they took it from the good groups. And so the point of everything is to fight the bad groups, bring them down, create equality. scholars and African American sociologists in the 70s first coined the term, but it really becomes racist claims. So perfectly legitimate point. How do you know, there could still be subtle or veiled racist claims. So,

35:28 And that's something, a judgment we can make. Well, how do you measure microaggressions? Like, who's taking surveys? Yes, tremendously. Ultimately, for everyone's sake, I mean, even for the sake of the people that are embroiled in all this controversy and chaos, it would be fantastic across the board. That would be, what a wonderful world we would live in if this was no longer an issue at all.

38:09 Okay, I'm 55. So if you look at where we were in 1960 or 63 when I was born, everyone like a person. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. So I don't want to say that things are reversing. Yeah, I agree. But you feel like there's a slow down or an error, a glitch. Yeah. I think that, so in chapter three of The Coddling, Greg and I look at identity politics. good groups and evil groups.

42:10 Much better is an identity politics based on common humanity. I shall shout for the rights of all mankind. That, I think, is an alarming trend. And it's really strange. But that's if you're playing the truth-seeking game. they're the accused, I want to define my terms to make it maximally easy to convict. So the professors, this is coming out of their mouth?

46:18 It's that it's crippling. You get to attack others, but no one can touch you. the goal is victory over racism, let's say. then white privilege doesn't exist well i'm not sure i'm not sure i'd agree with you on that so and you know this morning I mean what's you have the ability to go out in the world and engage with in a certain way that I don't have as a woman.

48:43 Yeah. Okay, you're right. it never crosses my mind that someone's going to humiliate me because I'm Jewish. Should we therefore be telling kids, okay, so, you know, judge people based on their appearance, be suspicious of people based on their race and gender. I agree. Every woman's encountered creeps. allows each other to completely understand each other's feelings and appreciate them which may

52:15 Yeah, yeah. the reality changes, then you make progress, but yet people feel worse and worse. And so I think But if you handle it wrong, if you try to make people see race and other groups more and you damaging it is, not just to our culture, but to you as an individual, to look at people in that really crazy and they're a minority to the point where now they've had to have a class action lawsuit.

54:57 Well, okay. I still am ultimately a liberal in the sense that what I dream of is a society in which people are free to create lives that they want to live, you know judge not lest ye be judged My hope, and this might be naive, is that what these far left and far, like the really extreme, what it represents is the extreme poles of this i'm very influenced by steve pinker who i know you've had on the show uh and matt ridley and

57:52 you can have brain damage. So as we've gotten rid of a lot of the worst things, that's great. They change things, You're disregarding your white privilege. about the way the mind works The death rate for kids has been plummeting for all causes other than suicide, which has gone up. So he had predicted the collapse because he said the banking system is really convoluted and it's never been tested.

1:01:20 That's right. are going up. Yeah, that was a really shocking part of your book. That's right. It's stunning And the more we freak out about it, the higher the allergy rate goes. here is an Israeli snack food. It's a puffed corn with a peanut powder dusting on the outside. number. Because these were kids who were already predisposed. But the half that were predisposed,

1:04:52 Most of them. Because I was on a plane once and they informed us that they didn't want us to even eat peanuts on the plane kids, boys and girls have different social interactions, but boys tease each other, right? Okay, that's terrible. Kids have to have thousands and thousands of conflicts. They have to be exposed to insults and exclusion and teasing.

1:07:00 Like I have a friend, and his brother used to beat him up when when they lived together You have to experience stress. You have to have cortisol, and then it drops, goes up and down, is acceptable? It's almost like snake venom, like giving them a little bit so they develop a It had to be at least a threat of violence. It's too far if a kid is mean?

1:09:57 Right. We can't have that. Right. So you'd have to allow everyone in your group because you don't there's a rise of anxiety and depression and girls are cutting themselves at such high But that's a giant learning opportunity. You want to give them abilities and skills that they do things that then indirectly give them self-esteem. But when there are adults present who are supervising,

1:12:50 I was born in New Jersey, lived there until seven, San Francisco from seven to 11, Florida. Yeah, my parents were gone all day. What do you mean? just got out of jail wow the guy ran off yeah he was super creepy but you know i was eight i didn't Okay. So, so back then we were negligent in that we just, we sent our kids out and we There are guys who masturbate.

1:14:53 And then the crime wave begins to end rapidly in the 1990s. But the combination of overprotection and then social media seems to be the main part of the example. making it like these people were negligent and criminal. And they were saying, no, I'm trying the idea that it's extremely rare is not comforting. Well, that's right. So we think Well, I have a grown one who's 22, and then I have a 10 and an 8.

1:18:08 but there's a lot of parents that don't pay attention to their kids at all, So I guess I'll just narrate it for people who are listening and not watching the video. And what you see is that the rate for boys is around 5%. And then around 2011, it starts going and it goes way up to the point where it goes up from about 12% to now about 20% of American

1:20:20 Or they said such as depression. And it hits, at 2012, it goes on a very sharp upward angle. Can't say crazy. But yeah, it's... I think we have another slide there. just means they're comfortable. It doesn't mean that there's an epidemic. for girls is really, really different. So the averages are higher. So self-harm has always been millennials. It's affecting Gen Z. I think, wait, is there one, hit the advance key because I think

1:23:36 It's up 189%. So if you look at what happened in this country and all around the world, You know, I mean, my son is 12. Why is that? Girls bully each other by damaging the other girl's social relationships, spreading rumors, That's one mechanism. The other two mechanisms So all kids are subject to this. and got this stuff in middle school is different from being a girl born in 1990, let's say,

1:27:58 So that's one thing. the device. So once we're beginning to realize this, the nature of these technologies, the fact that what is good for adults may be terrible for 12-year-olds, 10-year-olds. friend and he was the only one who was excluded, it would be really hard for me to stick to my status overnight and it interrupts their sleep. We can't be having teenagers who have interrupted

1:30:40 night she had it on, because we could check. We're like, I had it on for one day. Well, okay. You've got to get devices out of the bedroom. When we were kids, you'd call each other on the phone. I would like them to have some skills or at least some understanding of what's going on. Well, middle school kids are just coming into this. There's some research. So Jean Twenge has a book called iGen.

1:33:15 If you want your – look, I go around the country. phones and Facebook accounts and Instagram accounts. And they, I'll say it right now, and the kids want phones, man. at least to go with their friends to playground stores. One is we have to get used to that And so it's a simple, it's a watch. That's it. Whoa. And I say, oh, come back this way. It's just children wandering around on their own.

1:36:17 Everything's going to be fine. If you put your kid in a car and you go into a store and you leave the windows open, your can happen to us as well as to the kids. And so I am selling an idea that we've totally botched this and we need to undo it. they're outside. I told them to go outside. You can't be arrested for that. And until we have and meditation, those three factors being enormous aids in acquiring a certain amount of happiness.

1:40:00 And then I weaned myself off. That's right. Yeah. So in chapter two of the Happiness Hypothesis, so the book is based on 10 ancient ideas. And one of the ancient ideas is you can predict, not with a lot of accuracy, but you can do better than chance, who's going to go You're going to be less successful. There's a lot of evidence for all three. I don't think it's hard.

1:42:41 discomfort. This is one of the reasons why people don't like exercise. if it's been shown to be beneficial. you're like oh it's that thing it's one of those things that i don't want to do i want to go play he's shooting down state It really is what it is. an example would be, you know, like, how do you learn to climb a tree? You know, when we were And so the general principle, again, is that... Well, actually, here, I'll bring up one other idea from the happiness hypothesis.

1:46:01 training the elephant. And when the two work together, then you get the best results. We've given them too many after-school lessons and too much supervision of their play. even though I've never taught anyone ever in class? their time, but barely any. By fifth or sixth grade, there's more evidence that homework is And so I think we're going to find people more open to changing what we're doing.

1:48:32 Yeah. and you add to that the sense of empowerment that parents have to fine-tune or control and be involved. That could be a good learning experience. And why is that not a massive part of the curriculum? One of the things I cover in The Righteous Mind is we're all designed for confirmation bias. what we believe. So this set of arguments in chapter two of On Liberty is timeless. I mean,

1:51:37 And he said, Jonathan, I love what you're doing you read this text, find Mill's metaphors, because Mill uses a lot of wonderful metaphors, and And so we think that this book, if this book was assigned in every high school for seniors or every incoming freshman class, we think that people would think a lot better. i'm seeing this way more from the left which is very disturbing to me because growing up

1:54:08 This is not necessarily the trend that we're seeing today. people to download it for free too. We want to get the word out. We think these are the ideas Does banning it push it underground and let the people feel that they are victims of being silenced, things that come back stronger, or is sunlight the best disinfectant? diversity, any group in which everybody thinks the same is at risk of turning it into an ideology,

1:56:21 basically giving them ideological peanut allergies. That's a great way to look at it. them down while they're talking you have an opportunity when that person's in front of you to listen to their idea and there should be an opportunity to What I mean is, if you have a group of people interacting with certain norms or laws that ban intimidation and violence, that make people have some accountability

1:58:03 And so within a university, I totally agree with you. And so one thing that I'm very concerned about, I don't see why it is that we can ever let people start an account where there's no verification of who they are. saying such nasty stuff that it feeds back and changes people's And controversial ideas, especially in this day and age, that might not really be that

2:00:37 where it slurs and it's guilt by association, those people will in some sense lose points, lose credibility, be downgraded. And so now people will say that I'm alt-right adjacent. If you're making a guilt by association argument – if you say an adjacency argument, that's guilt by association. so that somehow or another these things are all related like boy that is a yeah that's a squirrely

2:03:06 So I approach this as a social psychologist. of unbalanced, like you eat only sugar or something, so you have an unbalanced diet. And we have to rise above it. We have to call it out when we see it, as it were, It's been great fun talking to you, Chuck. Wow.