Douglas Murray on Joe Rogan: “Politicians are using trans rights as a bartering ram for something else”.

[RandomGel]

More light. In this podcast Joe Rogan and Douglas Murray discuss many issues but there is a great discussion on identity politics.

Quite rightly Douglas Murray describes politicians as using trans rights as a battering ram for something else.

Joe Rogan refers to the TRA mantra “there is no such thing as biological sex” as ridiculous.

It’s heartening to see Abigail Shearer and Debra Soh referenced and praised for taking a stand, living their truth and refusing to go along with the crowd.

It is longer than 2 hours long but it is really is worth a listen. I certainly don’t agree with everything but much sense is spoken particularly around identity politics and the medicalisation of children as being something we will look back on with abject horror. I am so glad that these debates are happening and on such a large platform.

1.7 million views,18,000 comments from a posting of 2 days ago.

This is well worth a listen. There is an impassioned speech by Murray about Vaclev Havel's indictment of state enforced slogans which elicited applause from Jo Rogan. There is also a very interesting section on trans around the 1.44 mark, where Jo Rogan discusses the absurdity of those who have had the benefit of 30 years of testosterone entering female martial arts.

Quite rightly Douglas Murray describes politicians as using trans rights as a battering ram for something else.

Am I recalling it right, or did he never say what "something else" he was referring to? Saying what other people are afraid to say (or can't say for fear of getting sacked/censored) is a big part of his brand.

I can speculate what he meant (not on here, obviously) but I'd like to know if he is seeing what I'm seeing, and what others on this board are seeing. He has a very different perspective.

Yes, a great watch and I've just ordered his book too!

@Kantastic

Quite rightly Douglas Murray describes politicians as using trans rights as a battering ram for something else.

Am I recalling it right, or did he never say what "something else" he was referring to? Saying what other people are afraid to say (or can't say for fear of getting sacked/censored) is a big part of his brand.

I can speculate what he meant (not on here, obviously) but I'd like to know if he is seeing what I'm seeing, and what others on this board are seeing. He has a very different perspective.

I’ve read and listened to a fair few of his interviews and Podcasts recently, along with those of James Lindsay et al.

The ‘political agenda’ being pushed that the TRA movement is part of is the postmodernist/queer theory ideology where societal structures seen as oppressive are broken down with a view to destroying oppressive systems of power over minoritised groups.

If you can’t prove a claim using scientific evidence, then you claim the scientific method is an oppressive tool of the white supremacist patriarchy and must be broken down. Then there’s the ridiculous arguments over 2+2=5.

Demoralise a society enough, force them to tell untruths because not to do so would commit some terrible moral sin of siding with ‘oppressors’ and suddenly anything is possible. Societies ‘rules’ and norms break down. If there’s no definition of adult/child then there’s no padeophilia. If there’s no definition of property then there’s no theft. The only crime is then siding with the ‘oppressor’.

You only have to look at the CHAZ/CHOP and Portland to see where this is all heading.

Watched it last night. Good on trans issues, less so on women, work and reproduction. Their conclusion was women can't have it all - family and work - without ever considering why men magically can.

Another eye opening or top of the mountain moment. Policing in a pandemic:

BLM ✔️
Extinction Rebellion ✔️
Covid deniers ✔️
Trans march ✔️
Women’s rights - arrested for simply turning up.

A truly dystopian world.

Wrong thread!

I enjoyed hearing Douglas's opinions and he definitely nails a lot of what is happening right now. However, I found it difficult to separate if he was speaking only about the current race/trans/MRA/antifa extremists or if he was dismissing all attempts to create an equal, just society.

or if he was dismissing all attempts to create an equal, just society

Can you explain what specific policies you want to create Nirvana? The pendulum between freedom and 'equality' has swung to the totalitarian side. Can you explain what you mean?

@BewaretheIckabog

Another eye opening or top of the mountain moment. Policing in a pandemic:

BLM ✔️
Extinction Rebellion ✔️
Covid deniers ✔️
Trans march ✔️
Women’s rights - arrested for simply turning up.

A truly dystopian world.

A bit disingenuous as there were arrests at most of those protests. One involved a guy everyone claimed had been killed by the police.

A bit disingenuous as there were arrests at most of those protests

Can you explain what you mean?

@BovaryX

or if he was dismissing all attempts to create an equal, just society

Can you explain what specific policies you want to create Nirvana? The pendulum between freedom and 'equality' has swung to the totalitarian side. Can you explain what you mean?

Can you explain why you are asking? Can you give specifics in that explanation?

or if he was dismissing all attempts to create an equal, just society.

From my understanding, he was critiquing the strategies on both ‘sides’ to deal with inequality. On the ‘left’, he criticised the idea of having quotas or ratios of people of a certain characteristic on boards of companies. On the other hand, he criticised the strategy of the right of just ‘let the market sort itself out’.

I don’t recall him saying either strategy was ‘right’. I think the point was more that the stifling of discussion around the ‘difficult’ topics means that we are suffering from a major opportunity cost regarding what needs to be discussed.

Typicallly, I think his discussion on motherhood started off well but missed the mark terribly.

Can you explain why you are asking? Can you give specifics in that explanation?

Freedom and equality are mutually exclusive. We can see the results of trying to impose 'equality' all over the West. Compelled speech. #No debate. #No platforming. This is the current trajectory. It is totalitarian and profoundly undemocratic. That is my point.

Their conclusion was women can't have it all - family and work - without ever considering why men magically can.

I don't know whether I am giving Rogan too much credit, but I really liked and appreciated what he had to say about women and motherhood and I took away a different message. I understood him to say that plugging motherhood into our current capitalist system and treating it like it's a hobby women do on the side doesn't work. And this is true! I haven't listened to him talk about this before but I actually got a sense that unlike most men, he respects and honours motherhood and respects the ways in which women's bodies are different from men's. I really think for women to be liberated requires a fundamental re-organisation of our society that truly values the work of motherhood and caring. Not that all women have to do that, but most women do end up doing care work at some point in their lives, and it's feminine coded work for, ultimately, a biological reason. Rogan's analysis was extremely similar to mine as far as it went.

Though I guess he would probably not agree with me that motherhood is devalued because patriarchy relies on exploiting women's work for free and our current social structures would not be able to function if women's labour was valued and rewarded. Nonetheless I was very surprised because I know he's got a bit of a reputation for misogyny but I didn't get that feeling off him at all.

Murray talking about women, I don't like. Got a really weird vibe off him on the Triggernometry podcast, reeling off a list of mens' fantasies about predatory women as if they were real, with a little glint in his eye. But I think he too is right about motherhood. It should be at the centre of feminism, and it wasn't centred, and that's how we ended up with the man-pandering mess that passes for feminism today.

As somebody way out on the pointyheaded left side of the spectrum, it just makes me want to cry that the only voices of reason on self-ID include people like Rogan. On every other quote I've seen from him he's a fracking Trumpist.

And that's why this makes me cry. The right is against self-ID because it runs against their Gilead vision of the future. Feminists are against it because we want to end all the soul-destroying gender BS. Not cement it in place forever.

So when it comes to males in changing rooms and women's prisons, we're weirdly on the same side. But for opposite reasons. They (meaning "They") think so because women should stay in the separate box where they've been put. We think males should be kept out because women get to make the decisions on their own spaces.

It's diametrically opposed. These people are not our friends.

And yet they're the only allies we have on any part of this whole awful attack on women's rights. It's horrible.

On every other quote I've seen from him he's a fracking Trumpist

That is BS. Jo Rogan despairs of the US left. Because they are so busy excavating their fundament, they are alienating millions of voters. Do you imagine recent scenes from Kenosha or Washington DC reflect well on Team Biden? You know what amazes me? This identity politics toxic rabbit hole is a highway to relentless conflict. Is that the aim? Cui bono?

What Joe Rogan says about himself is that he's on the left except for gun control. He's also very pro free speech and he'll talk to pretty much anyone.
He doesn't support Trump but I think he's interested in him as a phenomenon and, unlike some on the left, he doesn't demonise people who voted for him. That's my impression anyway.

@Kantastic

Their conclusion was women can't have it all - family and work - without ever considering why men magically can.

I don't know whether I am giving Rogan too much credit, but I really liked and appreciated what he had to say about women and motherhood and I took away a different message. I understood him to say that plugging motherhood into our current capitalist system and treating it like it's a hobby women do on the side doesn't work. And this is true! I haven't listened to him talk about this before but I actually got a sense that unlike most men, he respects and honours motherhood and respects the ways in which women's bodies are different from men's. I really think for women to be liberated requires a fundamental re-organisation of our society that truly values the work of motherhood and caring. Not that all women have to do that, but most women do end up doing care work at some point in their lives, and it's feminine coded work for, ultimately, a biological reason. Rogan's analysis was extremely similar to mine as far as it went.

Though I guess he would probably not agree with me that motherhood is devalued because patriarchy relies on exploiting women's work for free and our current social structures would not be able to function if women's labour was valued and rewarded. Nonetheless I was very surprised because I know he's got a bit of a reputation for misogyny but I didn't get that feeling off him at all.

Murray talking about women, I don't like. Got a really weird vibe off him on the Triggernometry podcast, reeling off a list of mens' fantasies about predatory women as if they were real, with a little glint in his eye. But I think he too is right about motherhood. It should be at the centre of feminism, and it wasn't centred, and that's how we ended up with the man-pandering mess that passes for feminism today.

The bit about him talking about male fantasies of women with a 'glint in his eye', you do know he's gay right?

Joe Rogan is definitely not a Trump supporter. He does challenge the current state of the left, as he should, it's a shower of shit on both sides of the Atlantic. I really like him, I know he has said some things in the past which are not okay but he seems to genuinely care for women and can see the absurdity of identity politics.

Rogan's also had Bernie Sanders and Tulsi Gabbard on his show.

The bit about him talking about male fantasies of women with a 'glint in his eye', you do know he's gay right?

I originally had (yes I know he's gay) in brackets to pre-empt this comment, clearly I shouldn't have deleted it . Some gay men project a lot of weird shit onto women, albeit differently than straight men do.

Wherever Joe Rogan is broadcasting from, it puts me in mind of the interior of a Klingon warship.

I can't take to Murray either when he talks about women.

It's all very well to extol the marvels of motherhood but if a woman is economically dependent, she is at the mercy of a man's goodwill; a power imbalance that can end miserably if the goodwill is lacking.

Murray thinks he's analysed why mothers can't necessarily have it all and shouldn't mind so much about this because yay motherhood, but never addresses the key unfairness which is that fathers get to have yay fatherhood and economic power if the raising of a child that belongs to both of them is done by the mother. He then gets annoyed about the 'lie' of the gender pay gap because there isn't one for women pre children but I'm quite sure that for women post children it definitely on average goes to financial pot (but perhaps they shouldn't mind because yay, a baby). Plus, it bloody is drudgery looking after young kids - exhausting, stressful, infuriating and occasionally terrifying - no matter how much he wants to romanticise it. I think both sexes could do without the corporate world though tbh.

I agree with him on lots of other stuff though.

I am still puzzled as to why Joe Rogan is seen by some as a Trump supporter. Can anyone explain?

At the beginning of this year Rogan made a comment that he was going to vote for Bernie Sanders. It was clipped and tweeted by someone (can’t remember who).

There was a big fuss that ‘alt right’ Rogan was going to vote for Bernie, which would then make him ‘alt right’ as well.

It’s one of those ‘you are as far right as the furthest right person you’ve ever spoken to’ things. The fact is that Rogan has interviewed some fairy unpleasant people (thinking of Yiannopo-unspellable) and laughed along at his vile brand of misogyny.

Nevertheless, his interviews are really fascinating.