J. K. Rowling Isn't Wrong

So it's interesting that it was the conversation about J.K. Rowling that went viral and she certainly caused an endless stream of political upset in the UK and turned into quite a stunning advocate for free speech and she has in fact focused on this trans issue which is likely the most bizarre issue that's ever dominated the political space as far as I can tell and I guess one of the things that your video demonstrated was the pertinence of that issue to students who have questionable reasons for being concerned about it to begin with. Like why do you think that this particular student was possessed by the belief that transphobia was a thing to begin with because that's also a bastardization of words in in the manipulative possible way to take a clinical terminology phobia and then to append it to objection to anything that the person who's objecting or what would you say I can object to something if someone's irritated about that they're going to medicalize my objection and describe it as a pathology that's what happens when you use the term phobia it's unbelievably manipulative and I would say the radical leftists are stunningly good at that manipulation of language now you have a student who is objecting to JK Rowling on the basis of transphobia and you're asking questions about it now is that part of what also got you it's obviously one of the things that made this go viral but was it also one of the things that got you in trouble well there's no way for me to know exactly I think that in it I think there's a as you know most things in life are far more complex than a singular explanation I think that a lot of it was the virality itself given that we're a school where there are some loose practices there's been things like the the two principles just being removed there was a tax of scandal like a few years prior to my arrival because we have the way grades are assigned often it's the site's sitting there it's like okay what's Jimmy gonna get in your class give him like a 73 and there's no record there's no reasoning to it and that's literally how it occurs what so the why did they offer me nine thousand dollars to shut up or why to sign this and like why do you need an NDA it's so it's there's so there was worry about potential public attention well you can understand I mean the school that you're operating in is insanely complex there's absolutely no way to run a school like that that isn't full of trouble obviously because the whole school is built on trouble and so I can imagine that the people who are running the school would be nervous about that because I can't possibly see that there's any way that you could do it right right I mean that's a good point well you mentioned that teachers come for one day and they leave or they come for a week it's just it's it's designed it's a system designed to collate chaos and to try to produce some sort of order but it seems to me to be entirely impossible pretty much no matter what you do you're going to do something wrong it's a fair how the hell could you possibly avoid it that's every single one of those kids is a pitfall yeah and I don't mean that in the in the what that's not a criticism it's just a real while the system's designed so that every single kid that comes there is trouble on stilts and so and then you're also going to have the case that many of the teachers who are going to apply are going to be people who are applying to that school because it's a last-ditch possibility and so I often yeah you often uh I wondered that sometimes I'm like why am I here I mean the health insurance is awful it's like pay is not why why choose that's why people leave but but there's a lot of good people there that aren't it's not like this is the bottom of the barrel teachers they can't there are some of those it's like dude what are you doing right there'd be some of those yes but there are also many good people that are doing it because there's something fulfilling about it that I miss to be honest uh there's I miss it uh-huh well I I think what drew my attention to your video and also what made me want to talk to you is because I think the reason that that video went viral and drew the attention of the people whose attention it did draw was because you were obviously very sane and careful in an insane situation discussing something utterly preposterous and it was all that contrast that made it fascinating I mean the fact that that issue even arose in a school is ridiculous under anything approximating normal times and yet you handled it carefully and thoughtfully and you did it in a way that was obviously of educational benefit to the students and that none of that should be surprising actually like the manner in which you addressed it but it's also the fact that that same response to that question is surprising in the education system that made it go viral and so because we're so accustomed to seeing crazily woke ideologically possessed ranting narcissists acting as teachers ideologically addling children when they ask questions that they should have no concern about whatsoever like it just strikes me as utterly preposterous that a 15 year old kid would think that it was necessary for him to accuse JK Rowling of transphobia 17 okay so that's that that's just an indication of the state of the school system in general I don't think he was even accusing her I think he was just repeating what he thought was reality of course of course you know of course exactly well you said that as you investigated with you know some relatively elementary but also eminently same questions that revealed itself very quickly he was just spouting the cliches of the moment right the radical cliches of the moment and was he doing that because he thought he should like what what was your impression of the reasons for his questions he genuinely believed that that was what the truth what he thought that was reality he articulates that he's I've heard many classmates state this so it must be true in the same way you hear this often with people I just made a critique video with Barry Weiss doing this I was a little hard on her on Joe Rogan when she's saying make it's the same pattern she's applying this to Tulsi Gabbard and and he presses her on it slightly and and you and it it dissolves and we all are capable of doing we all do do this in our lives I'm not above it but no one's above it no one's above it we radically seek we we seek to establish consensus rapidly and radically and if there's no challenge to the consensus that's good because it means that we're unified but it also means that we can build a false consensus and that happens continually and I mean that's one of the dangers of so-called populism is that it's it's a false consensus right it's a consensus of the moment it's got no staying power it can't iterate across time now the antidote to populist consensus is something like alignment with eternal tradition because it stops that proclivity for rapid consensus from pathologizing I mean it's actually a good thing all things considered because if human beings couldn't reach agreement on most things rapidly all we would ever do is fight but the danger of course is a false consensus