How the Pathogen of Progressivism is Killing Common Sense with Dr. Gad Saad

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Charlie Kirk Show — “How the Pathogen of Progressivism is Killing Common Sense” with Dr. Gad Saad

Date: October 23, 2020
Host: Charlie Kirk
Guest: Dr. Gad Saad, author of The Parasitic Mind: How Infectious Ideas Are Killing Common Sense

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Episode Overview

This episode of The Charlie Kirk Show features an in-depth conversation with Dr. Gad Saad, a renowned evolutionary psychologist and outspoken critic of ideological trends in academia and culture. Saad discusses the central thesis of his book, The Parasitic Mind, which argues that certain "idea pathogens"—such as postmodernism, radical feminism, identity politics, and cultural relativism—are undermining reason and eroding common sense in Western society. The discussion unpacks how these infectious ideas spread, their real-world consequences, and strategies for resistance.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

The Origin and Danger of Political Correctness

• Political correctness as a “parasitic wasp”: Saad analogizes political correctness to a parasitic wasp that zombifies its host (02:09).
• Universities and pursuit of truth: He argues that protecting feelings has overtaken the mission of pursuing truth, leading academic inquiry astray (02:09).
  • Quote: “Universities are there not to assuage your feelings. Universities are there to take me wherever truth takes me.” ([02:09] Saad)
• Consequence: This attitude leads society “to the abyss of infinite lunacy.”

Postmodernism — The “Granddaddy” of Idea Pathogens

• No such thing as truth: Postmodernism denies objective reality, teaching students to deconstruct all knowledge and science (03:25).
  • Quote: “Postmodernism…is really a nefarious form of intellectual terrorism, because it removes the possibility of there being a truth to be discovered.” ([03:30] Saad)
• Real-life anecdote: Saad recounts a dinner with a postmodernist academic who denied that only women bear children or that the sun rises in the east (04:52–07:34).

How Idea Pathogens Spread

• Pretentious language as a shield: Inventing opaque, “impenetrable” language makes charlatanry seem profound (07:56).
  • Quote: “They will create endless prose of full profundity…people will attribute it to themselves being too stupid.” ([07:56] Saad)
• From campus to law and policy: These ideas, once fringe, are now mainstream and encoded into government and institutional policy—citing Canada’s D.I.E. (Diversity, Inclusion, Equity) requirements as an example (12:13).
  • Quote: “The blue-haired people become the prime minister of Canada… It becomes the law of the land.” ([12:13] Saad)

Militant Feminism, Biophobia, and Death of the West by a Thousand Cuts

• Feminism vs. biology: The noble aim of equality has been overtaken by denial of biological differences (15:38).
• Biophobia: The refusal to use biology to explain human behavior is unique to humans in the academy (15:38, 16:30).
  • Quote: “When it comes to humans, we are outside of our biology. We transcend our biology.” ([16:30] Saad)
• Consequence: Each small step erodes reason in Western civilization.

Cultural Relativism & Intellectual Retreat from Biology

• Reaction to misuse: Cultural relativism originated as a well-meaning reaction to the misuse of biology (Nazism, eugenics), but now denies any human universals and enables absurdity (18:32).

“Nomological Networks”: Fighting Idea Pathogens with Evidence

• Building a case like Darwin: Saad calls for amassing overwhelming, multi-disciplinary evidence to counter ideological claims (21:15).
  • Quote: “We have to develop that kind of discipline in building this tsunami of evidence whenever we take a position.” ([21:15] Saad)
• Activating your “inner honey badger”: Courage and tenacity are essential; most people are “cognitive misers” reluctant to challenge bad ideas (22:43).

Charlatans and Self-Doubt

• Charlatan tactic: The complex language and apparent depth make people doubt their own understanding, when often "if it smells like bullshit, it is bullshit” (26:01–27:19).
  • Quote: “They are charlatans, right? They’re faux profound.” ([26:21] Saad)
  • Anecdote: Saad’s wife realized after years she wasn’t “too dumb” for postmodernism; it was nonsense.

The Stakes: The Fate of Western Civilization

• Personal perspective: Saad, a Lebanese Jew who fled civil war and identity politics, warns of recreating sectarian disaster in the West (28:54).
• Collectivism & Identity Politics: Identity politics puts group labels over individual dignity—contrary to classical liberalism (32:12).
  • Quote: “Collective Munchausen”—the orgy of victimhood—has become a new currency (33:13–33:37).
  • Jussie Smollett & Elizabeth Warren: Case studies in manufactured or appropriated victimhood (33:39–35:29).

Utopianism as Motive

• Underlying drive: Saad explains that many pushing these ideas are “utopians” who feel society is diseased and must be torn down for a fresh start, be it Marxists, Islamists, or critical race theorists (36:14).
  • Quote: “…if only you adopt socialism, then we could finally all hold hands, make love, and sing John Lennon's Imagine.” ([36:53] Saad)
• Strange alliances for reason: Old foes—secular scientific thinkers and conservative Protestants—now find themselves allied in defending free speech, reason, and the value of Western civilization (37:34).

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Memorable Quotes & Moments with Timestamps

• On postmodern denial of reality:
  • “She looks at me… and says, ‘Absolutely not. There is some exotic tribe… where within their folklore, it is the men who bear children.’” ([05:44] Saad)
• On “DIE Religion” in Canada:
  • “It is now law in Canada … you have to put a DIE statement… If you win the grant, what will you do to support DIE principles? I do nothing… Well, if I said that, I wouldn’t get the grant.” ([12:56] Saad)
• On biophobia and academic denial:
  • “They don’t apply to humans… What you end up getting is what I call death of the West by a thousand cuts.” ([16:30] Saad)
• On the method of resistance:
  • “Activate your inner honey badger… If you come after me, you better come after me with a really big knife… otherwise I’m coming after you… because I so believe in the principles that I’m defending.” ([23:18] Saad)
• On collective Munchausen:
  • “The orgiastic victimology that we constantly see now as a form of collective Munchausen…” ([33:15] Saad)
  • “Elizabeth Warren does collective Munchausen by proxy… I get the ego strokes of their tragic history. It’s insane.” ([35:00] Saad)
• On teaching and truth:
  • “The truth is the truth whether you like it or not. So we need to teach kids that they need to be deontological in the pursuit of truth. I never sacrifice a millimeter to spare your feelings.” ([39:31] Saad)

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Segment Timestamps

• Introduction & Saad’s core arguments: [01:05–02:09]
• Postmodernism explained with anecdotes: [03:25–07:34]
• Academic jargon and why these ideas spread: [07:56–09:48]
• Real-world impact: DIE and academic grants: [12:13–14:17]
• Militant feminism and biophobia: [15:38–17:44]
• Cultural relativism & misuse of biology: [18:32–19:53]
• Strategies for resisting idea pathogens: [21:15–25:29]
• Charlatans, self-doubt, and pseudo-intellectualism: [26:01–27:19]
• Personal history and the dangers of identity politics: [28:54–30:12]
• Victimhood as social currency: [33:13–35:29]
• What the ideologues want & utopianism: [36:14–36:53]
• Alliance for reason and free inquiry: [37:34–38:20]
• Final thoughts—pursuit of truth vs. hurt feelings: [38:50–40:08]

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Conclusion

This episode is a bracing clarion call against the spread of anti-reason ideologies in Western society. Saad and Kirk forcefully argue that postmodernism, critical theory, militant identity politics, and radical feminism are not simply academic fads but existential threats to the foundations of the free society. Their prescription: steadfast defense of reason, evidence, individual dignity, and unapologetic resistance—like the honey badger. The stakes, they insist, are nothing less than the fate of Western civilization itself.

Recommended Reading:
The Parasitic Mind: How Infectious Ideas Are Killing Common Sense by Dr. Gad Saad

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Transcript

[A]

Thank you for listening to this Podcast

[B]

1 production now available on Apple Podcasts, Podcast 1, Spotify, and anywhere else you get your podcasts. Hey, everybody. Today on the Charlie Kirk show, the legendary Gad Saad. He has an unbelievably awesome new book, out the Parasitic Mind, where he talks about the ideas that are metastasizing all throughout our culture. We have answers about postmodernism, feminism, identity politics, and more from one of the leading intellectual critics of the academy. You're gonna love this conversation. Please consider supporting [e-mail] support email us your questions. As always at freedomarliekirk.com we have an AMA ask me anything episode coming up for Monday. And get involved with Turning Point [e-mail] Gad Sad is here. Everybody buckle up. Here we go. Charlie, what you've done is incredible here.

[A]

Maybe Charlie Kirk is on the college campus. I want you to know we are lucky to have Charlie Kirk.

[B]

Charlie Kirk's running the White House, folks.

[A]

I want to thank Charlie. He's an incredible gu. His spirit, his love of this country. He's done an amazing job building one of the most powerful youth organizations ever created, Turning Point usa.

[B]

We will not embrace the ideas that have destroyed countries, destroyed lives, and we are going to fight for freedom on campuses across the country. That's why we are here. Hey, everybody. Welcome to this episode of the Charlie Kirk Show. Gad Saad is with us today, who is the author of the the awesome book the Parasitic How Infectious Ideas Are Killing Common Sense. I think that is a perfect title considering how everyone is worried about how things are so contagious. Today's Gad. Welcome to the Charlie Kirk Show.

[A]

Oh, thank you so much for having me, Charlie. Good to be with you.

[B]

So you make some phenomenal arguments in this book. I'm still working my way through it. And the part of the book I was right around page 50 that really caught my eye was around political correctness. And you really go after how dangerous political correctness is for Western society. Can you build out kind of where. Where does political correctness come from? And why is it such a danger to the type of civilization that we have all come to enjoy?

[A]

Right. So political correctness, I analogize it to a. The sting of a parasitic wasp. So parasitic wasp stings a much larger spider, rendering it zombified. It then drags it into its burrow, lays an egg on it, and then as the egg hatches, it eats the spider in vivo. While political correctness zombifies us into Silence. It leads us instead of to the burrow, it leads us to the abyss of infinite lunacy. How did it start? Well, I think it starts when we start placing a higher currency on the protection of people's feelings than the unencumbered pursuit of truth. Right? So universities are there not to assuage your feelings. Universities are there to take me wherever truth takes me. But when I now have to be shackled and not saying this or not researching that lest it might hurt someone's feeling, we start going down a dark alley.

[B]

So the issue with the universities, and we deal with a lot of them, and you know it very well, is that it's not even that they try to interrupt the pursuit of truth. They almost evangelistically tell students there is no such thing as truth. Don't even bother even trying to find it. Can you help build that out?

[A]

Yeah. So in the book, I talk about a whole range of idea pathogens. And again, to draw an analogy, in the animal context, when we talk about parasite or brain parasites, we're actually talking about brain worms that can cause the host to behave in maladaptive ways. So Toxoplasma gondii is a parasite that can inflict the brains of mice so that when a mouse is parasitized by this particular brainworm, it loses its innate fears of cats, and it's actually sexually attracted to the cat's urine. I take that model, and I argue that idea pathogens, and I'm going to answer your question in a second, idea pathogens serve the exact same purpose, but instead of being brain worms, they're actually idea worms. Well, the granddaddy of all idea pathogens, to answer your question, is postmodernism, because postmodernism, as I call it, is really a nefarious form of intellectual terror terrorism, because it removes the possibility of there being a truth to be discovered. Right now, in science, we do wake up every day thinking that there is a truth to be discovered. Now, truth can change, right? It is provisional. What we thought was true in science 300 years ago might not be true today. But there is no point in getting out of bed if we thought that everything is shackled by subjectivity, everything is shackled by my personal biases. And that's exactly what happens with postmodernism. If I have time, can I give you a specific story that demonstrates.

[B]

Absolutely, yes. We're in no rush. Go ahead.

[A]

Thank you. So in 2002, I was invited by one of my doctoral students who had just defended his doctoral dissertation to go out for dinner to celebrate. So it was myself, my wife, him and his date. Okay, for the evening. And so he took me aside prior to the evening and said, I just want to warn you that the date that I'm bringing is a graduate student in postmodernism, cultural anthropology and radical feminism, Sort of the holy trinity of bull. And so he was trying to warn me, please be on your best behaviors. I said, oh, don't worry. I'm going to be on my best behavior. This is your celebratory night. Don't worry about it. Of course, that was complete nonsense. There was no way I was going to be on my best behavior. So about halfway through the evening, I looked to the lady in question and said, hey, I hear you're a postmodernist. No universal truths, right? Yes. No universal truth. Do you mind if I share with you what I think are some universal truths, and then you could tell me how I'm wrong? Go ahead. Go for it. Is it not the case that within Homo sapiens, humans, only women bear children? Is that not a truth? Is that a statement that is absolutely universally true. She looks at me with complete disgust, with scorn in her eyes, and says, absolutely not. What do you mean that's not true? She goes, well, there is some exotic tribe off some Japanese island where, within their method, within their mythological realm, within their folklore, it is the men who bear children. So by you restricting the conversation to the biological realm, that's how you keep us barefoot and pregnant. So after I recovered from my mini stroke, I then said to her, well, how about we tackle something that's a bit less contentious? Because it's way too controversial to argue that women bear children. So I'm going to give one that's a bit less controversial. Is it true that within any vantage point on earth, the sun rises in the east and sets in the west? So here she used another form of postmodernism. It's called deconstructionism. She argued, what do you mean by left and right? By east and west? What do you mean by sun? That which you call the sun, I might call dancing hyena. I said, well, fine. The dancing hyena rises in the east and sets in the west. She said, well, I don't play those label games. Now, she wasn't some psychiatric patient who just escaped the psychiatric institute. She was aping exactly what is taught in postmodernist classes. So this is back in 2002. So imagine how insane it is to indoctrinate students who pay 50, 60, $70,000 a year that there is no east and West. And it's not only women who bear children. We end up where we are.

[B]

Now, can you build this out further? Because a lot of our listeners are new to these terms postmodernism. They have no understanding of Jacques Derrida or Michel Foucault. And I always mispronounce the French name, so you have to forgive me, but, yeah, I butcher him. So go ahead.

[A]

So, Michel Foucault, Jacques Derrida and Jacques Lacan, the holy trinity of French postmodernist, the grand apostles. Right, so let me explain to you what they. Now, this is a theory. I don't have definitive proof, although I do point to some proof for my theory in the parasitic mind. Imagine you have a bunch of professors in the humanities and social sciences and they're looking across the campus at the physicists, at the chemists and the biologists who are doing great contributions. They're. They're mapping the human genome, they're landing us on the moon, but nobody's paying attention to us in the humanities and the social sciences. Well, maybe if we can develop a language that is as impenetrable as mathematics, then maybe we could also be the cool kids on campus. So therefore we will create endless prose of full profundity. And that way when I espouse all this garbage, then people will attribute it to them being too stupid, because they never say, it's because the guy who is speaking is a charlatan. It's because I'm too dumb to understand, understand the profundity. And they were able to pull it off for 40, 50 years. So there you go.

[B]

I have so many questions about that. But let's just get so basic for some of our listeners that are still trying to understand this stuff, because I first have become aware of postmodernism by visiting these university campuses. And the first time I came aware of it, four years ago, a Stanford student said, the laws of physics are completely subjective. I said, what are you talking about? I said, force equals mass times acceleration. They said, no, no, no, no, because force for me might not be force for thee. I said, I'd never come across this absurdity. Can you just help build out how they reject all science that we know to be universal? They reject all just in the empirical pursuit of truth. Can you please help build that out from just the ABCs of postmodernism?

[A]

Look, it's each of these idea pathogens, whether it be postmodernism or any of the other idea pathogens in the book so militant Feminism, cultural relativism, identity politics, they all start with a kernel of truth and a noble cause, but then it metamorphosizes in complete gibberish. So for example, the idea that men and women should be equal under the law is something that any sane person should support. So that's equity feminism. The problem becomes when we go from equity feminism to militant feminism, where in the pursuit of that laudable objective, we need to start arguing that men and women are indistinguishable from each other. There are no biological basis to any sex differences. Everything is a social construction. So social constructivism is another one of those idea pathogens. Now again, you can imagine how that idea pathogen is terribly intoxicating because social constructivism basically says that if Charlie Kirk has a child, that child is just as likely to be Lionel Messi or Albert Einstein or Michael Jordan, because it's only socialization that shapes our trajectory. It couldn't be because there are any innate differences across people. So it's hopeful. I'd like to believe that message, therefore I sign up for that idea pathogen. This is how each of those idea pathogens attacks the edifices of reason, resulting in someone like the guy that you talked about saying that no, no, physics is just a social construction.

[B]

And some people that are very successful, I'm talking about the highest levels of business finance in America, they refuse to believe this is actually being taught. I was just with a multi billionaire in Texas and we sat down at length, this was about a week and a half ago, and I walked him through postmodernism and I said, the rejection of science, the rejection of mathematics, that it's the spherical earth gravity, all these things that you mention, they think it's all frame theory and there is no such thing as truth. And it's all my. And he said there's no way this is actually being taught in our schools. I refuse to believe it. So can you just reinforce that this is not some fringe ideology? Because that's the other accusation I come under from critics is no, no, no, this is not predominant. This is just, you know, the intellectual calisthenic class that's trying to expand their horizons. Can you please just show how normalized this has become?

[A]

I always get this question because people have the exact same response as that billionaire friend of yours, which is, well, isn't this just some esoteric thing that's happening in one buildings in the humanities? Can we just ignore those blue haired people? It isn't right, because the blue haired people become the prime minister of Canada, right The Prime Minister of Canada, Lady Justin Trudeau, is a walking manifestation of all these idea pathogens, right? I mean, literally every single word that comes out of his mouth, every single policy is not some esoteric thing that was left behind in the humanities department. It becomes the law of the land. So let me give you an example. Diversity, inclusion and equity, which I refer to in the book as the die religion, right? Is perfectly contrary to. It is perfectly contrary to a meritocracy, right? Because a meritocracy says, hey, we run the 100 meters. Whoever crosses first wins. Now imagine in science or in academia, you would think it's the one who gets the chaired professorship or the Nobel Prize, or the award is the one who merits it the most. That's no longer the case. It is now law in Canada. And by the way, in many places, it's also in the US where when you put out a call, say for a grant, you want to apply for a four hundred thousand grant, thousand dollar grant, you have to put a DAI statement which basically states, what have you done in the past to support DAI principles? If you win the grant, what will you do to support DAI principles? I do nothing to support DAI principles. I hire the best people that they could be transgender people of color, they could be purple people from Mars. I don't give a damn. Well, if I said that, I wouldn't get the grant. As a matter of fact, a colleague of mine at a sister university of Montreal, a very notable physical chemist, was denied a grant because they didn't get past the die statement. He wasn't sufficiently progressive. They never read the rest of his grant. Maybe it could have cured cancer, but who gives a damn? Because he wasn't serious about the die principles. It's insane.

[B]

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[A]

Well, so it points to what I mentioned earlier, which is in the pursuit of a noble cause, which is that there shouldn't be institutionalized sexism, we end up murdering truth in the pursuit of that goal. Right? We can perfectly chew gum and walk at the same time. I could be fully supportive of equity feminism while not agreeing with the idea that there are no biological differences between men and women. I could fully support transgender rights, as I do, without agreeing that a 270 pound, 6 foot 5 guy with a 9 inch penis who used to be called Bob but now self identifies as Linda can now compete in MMA against biological women who are 1/3 his weight. Right? So I could have two thoughts in my head. I do have a functioning brain. But no. The activists say no. If I need to pursue this objective fully and assiduously, and if I have to murder truth in the service of that goal, so be it. Sorry, truth? No. Right. So whether it be militant feminism or transgender activism or what I call biophobia. Biophobia is the fear of using biology to explain human affairs, human phenomena. Right? Now imagine there are 2 million species on Earth for 1,999,999. We perfectly use biology to explain their behavior. But somehow, when it comes to humans, we are outside of our biology. We transcend our biology. So much of the social sciences teach, whether it be sociology or economics or consumer psychology or any discipline, it is always taught outside of biology. So I come along and I say, wait a minute. How could you study consumers or managers or employees or employers without, for example, understanding how our hormones affect our behavior and the response that I usually get? What are you talking about? Those kinds of things are relevant for the mosquito and the zebra and the dog. They don't apply to humans. So you see, what you end up getting is what I Call death of the west by a thousand cuts. Bit by bit, you erode the edifices of reason that we've built over many hundreds of years.

[B]

It's insane and it's infuriating and it really is suicide. You're exactly right. We are doing this to ourselves. We're doing this by platforming these, as you call it. I want to make sure I get this right. You called it pseudo intellectual terrorism or something of that sort. Right. Where did these ideas come from? And how did they get so mainstream, considering they are so foolish and they are incongruent with the people that are sending their kids to these schools, that are funding these schools, and many of the people that sit on the boards of these schools. Something that I don't quite understand is all of the mechanisms of accountability that are supposed to be checking and balancing the academy. They don't hold any of these views and they refuse to even understand or know it. How did this happen?

[A]

So let's take, for example, cultural relativism, since we've already discussed postmodernism for a bit. Cultural relativism is the idea that, you know, who are we to judge other cultures? Each culture is shackled by its own unique, idiosyncratic trajectory, so there are no human universals. Now, that was Originally started almost 100 years ago by a anthropologist at Columbia University named Franz Boas. The idea was that he and his colleagues wanted to remove the possibility of people misusing biology and understanding human affairs. Why? Because a whole bunch of folks had usurped evolutionary theory. Right? So take, let's say, later, the Nazis. Right? There's a natural struggle between the races. Hey, that's Darwinian. We, we, the Aryans won. Sorry, Jews, you lost. If we kill you, what's wrong with that? That's Darwinian. Of course, it has nothing to do with Darwinian theory, But all sorts of real nasty folks usurped evolutionary theory. So these noble professors decided to come along and now create a new edifice of knowledge that is bereft of biology. So again, as you can see, in each case, it starts off with somewhat of a kernel of truth, with somewhat of a noble cause. But in the pursuit of that noble cause, we end up killing truth and we end up with the lunacy that we have today.

[B]

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[A]

So in chapter seven, I talk about what are called nomological networks of cumulative evidence. It's a mouthful, so just give me a few minutes to explain it. So if you think back of Charles Darwin, when he was developing his theory of natural selection, he didn't run a study with 30 undergrads at Ohio State and then drop the mic and say good night Everybody. Instead, over 30 years he assiduously collected data from geology, from paleontology, from animal husbandry, from comparative morphology, from ecology, from biodiversity, so that when you put all that data together, it became unassailable that he was on the right path. Well, I argue that we have to develop that kind of discipline in building this tsunami of evidence whenever we take a position. So let me give you a concrete example. In the current context, if I want to prove to you, Charlie, that toy preferences are not socially constructed. In other words, the fact that little Johnny plays with a truck and little Linda plays with a doll, it's not due to the sexist parents, but there must be some biological signature. How would I go about proving that to you? Well, I could get you data from children who are too young to be socialized and show you that they already exhibit those preferences. I could get data from other animals, from vervet monkeys, from rhesus monkeys, from chimpanzees and show you that the inference of those other species exhibit the same sex sex differences. I'll do one more, although the network is much bigger than that. I could get you kids who suffer, girls who suffer from something called congenital adrenal hyperplasia, which is an endocrinological disorder that masculinizes the behavior of little girls, while girls who suffer from this disorder have toy preferences that are like boys. So bit by bit, I could put the epistemological noose around your neck. I don't need to get hysterical. I don't need to get emotional. I let the data drown you in your sorrow. You follow? But the problem is that that takes effort. And most people are cognitively misers. They're intellectually lazy. They'd rather use their emotions than to use their mental hygiene discipline. So that's one in chapter eight. I then turn this into what are some actual concrete calls to action. So one of the ones that sticks most with people is what I call activate your inner honey badger. The honey badger is a incredibly ferocious animal. It's the size of a small dog. You could get six adult lions approaching it. They will run away. Why? Because they look at this unbelievably ferocious animal and say, I don't want a part of that. Well, you need to have that kind of honey badger ideological commitment when you're defending your principles. The reason why I don't get canceled is because if you come after me, you better come after me with a really big knife. And because otherwise I'm coming after you. I'm coming after your ancestors, I'm coming after your debt. Why? Not because I'm a mean guy, but because I so believe in the principles that I'm defending that nothing could shake me off. I'm a honey badger. The problem, of course, is that most people don't have that reflex. Most people, if you go boo, they are cowed into silence. No, defend your principles. Let me. I found out that my children, they're in elementary school, their science teacher had a BLM avatar. So I wrote to the principal. I didn't leave it to somebody else to fight. I got involved. I wrote a very polite but very firm email stating that it is inappropriate during the exercise of her pedagogic duties for her to be engaging in political signaling. And secondly, was the principal aware that BLM was not just, oh, I love black people, BLM has a set of beliefs. And I shared some of those beliefs and I said, do you think it's appropriate for this teacher to be signaling those beliefs to the students. Well, the next day the BLM avatar was gone. Well, so imagine if everybody did what I did. I didn't get hysterical, I didn't get violent. I didn't pick it. I didn't burn down buildings. I simply engaged her reason in a polite but firm way. If each of us were to do that, we, we would defeat these idea pathogens by next Tuesday. If we don't, it's going to be a long ride.

[B]

I think also one of the reasons why people are afraid to interface on these ideas and you hit it perfectly early on, is that the ideas are such rubbish. They are so awful that people think that they are missing something and they're told they are. Like, you're not smart enough to understand this stuff. Can you just reinforce that? If you think it's complete and total trash, you're probably right and you should be unafraid to say so. It's one of the top tactics of the intelligentsia.

[A]

You're exactly right. Remember earlier when I mentioned that postmodernism uses a great trick, which is when the guy gets up and starts espousing gibberish, he relies on the fact that you're going to presume that you don't understand. Not because he's giving you bs, but because. But it's because you're too dumb to understand, right?

[B]

Yes.

[A]

My wife once told me many years ago, we've been married for 20 plus years. She told me, you know, when I hear you speak about postmodernism, it was such a relief for me because when I used to take those courses in college, I thought that I was too dumb to understand it. But now you're telling me that it was truly rubbish. So again, you're exactly right. That's how they get you. They're charlatans, right? They're faux profund. Right? But that's the beauty of it. I give an example in the book where you could take the exact same scientific study, the exact same one, and in one case you can add a picture of a brain image with all the colors, and the other one you don't. And then you ask people which one seems more scientific. The people will judge the one that has the brain image as wow, it's so much more scientific. That's marketing, right? It's all charlatanism, right? But people are too weak in their self confidence in terms of what they know. They succumb to it. No, if it smells like bullshit, it's bullshit.

[B]

And what we have done is by removing reason and removing, I think, a lot of the core teachings that have built the West. We have unprepared young people to cross examine these incredibly deceitful and bitter professors that teach this stuff with such authority to young people that already are searching. They're in a very vulnerable state, and they prey on them. These are intellectual predators. I've said this for quite some time, and they've done such a disservice to our civilization, to the West. And I think that's really one of the things that you hit on in this book as I'm working through it, which is that this idea of freedom and reason and true liberalism. I'm a conservative, and I feel like I have all of a sudden become a defender of true liberal values, right? Which I think is this incredible intersection, right. I'm an evangelical conservative Christian that my best friends on these things are James Lindsay and Peter Boghossian, who are not evangelical Christians. And it's kind of this incredible. I hate to use the term intersection. Intersectional coalition, but it's kind of. It kind of is where if you just believe in speech and you believe in the pursuit of truth, then you're kind of natural allies in this cause. Can you talk about how high the stakes are? This is not just some coffee table discussion. This is not just some, you know, debate. We hope we win. This is actually the fate of Western civilization 100%.

[A]

It's absolutely not hyperbolic to say that we are fighting for the souls of our society. Look, in chapter one of the Parasitic Mind, I explained my own personal background so that I can provide a context as to why I am so indignant about all this nonsense. I come from a culture that was defined by identity politics, right? So let me mention I'm from Lebanon, and we are Lebanese Jews who escaped Lebanon when the civil war started because it was no longer feasible to be Jewish in Lebanon. In Lebanon, everything is determined by your religious affiliation. Even in the Constitution, it says, who's going to be president will have to be of this religion, who's going to be prime minister has to be of that religion, and so on. So I have seen the ugliest manifestation of identity politics. So imagine if now I see with utter dismay that there is one of two political parties in the United States that is completely, desperately trying to replicate that which I escaped 45 years ago in Lebanon. And that's because the west is ungrateful. They are blase. They don't understand what's out there. And so they assume that the beauty of the west is something That's a default value. It's not. Take it from someone who tried to come to the West. The world is not made up of the West.

[B]

And the lack of gratitude, the lack of appreciation and the lack of understanding of what we have here in the west has created, has created a couple generations of people that then believe so incredibly dangerously that they themselves hold the answers to create something that is better. And I want to credit you and Jordan Peterson and you guys might not really realize it, but you have awoken millions of Westerners to really what's going on here. And it has manifested itself politically where you said you have Justin Trudeau who is nothing more than a postmodern identity politic pandering politician. And what's so scary about that is these ideas are no longer just quarantined to the academy is that now they have gone into corporate boardrooms, now they are running our tech companies and the highest levels of government where the people who control the police and the military are now making their decisions from a framework that is complete and total garbage. And it's dangerous. And it has resulted in every declining civilization in the history of the world. In our fast paced world, it's time to make reading a priority. At least it used to be. A new app called Thinker you guys have heard me talk [e-mail] Charlie T H I N k R has solved that problem by summarizing the key ideas from new and noteworthy fiction, giving you access to an entire library of great books in bite sized form. Read or listen to hundreds of titles in a matter of minutes, including old classics like Dale Carnegie's how to Win Friends and Influence People. If you want to challenge your preconceptions, expand your horizons and what? Become a better thinker, go to thinker.org charlie that's T-I N K R.org charlie to start an extended free trial and put your mind in motion.

[A]

Well, identity politics is really a collectivist ethos, right? It's basically saying that instead of placing the individual as the most fundamental unit, right? So for example, I'm not Gad Saad, I'm first a Lebanese Jew or I'm a green eyed Lebanese Jew, right? So it's always placing some collective identity marker ahead of my individuality. Yes, I'm a Lebanese Jew, but that's just a small part of my multifaceted personality. When I introduce myself to Charlie Kirk, I'm Gad sad with all my faults and all my merits. And of course that's the central foundation of classical liberalism, right? The dignity of the individual over the mob. But of course, that's not what identity politics is. Identity politics says no. We're going to have a battle between all these identity groups. We're going to pigeonhole people as oppressor and oppressed and so on. By the way, when I talk about victimology, I talk about something called collective Munchausen, right? Which is. I don't know. Do you know the term Munchausen? You know, that is.

[B]

No, it sounds German.

[A]

Munchausen is actually 10 years ago, I had written a medical paper in a medical journal where I was talking about Munchausen syndrome, which is when someone feigns illness so that they can garner sympathy and empathy. And I argue that the orgiastic victimology that we constantly see now as a form of collective Munchausen, it's a perfect

[B]

way to put it. You're exactly right.

[A]

Thank you. And it's grotesque, right, because Jussie Smollett wasn't satisfied in being, you know, an actor that was getting paid well until he became a victim. And if he wasn't a victim, he had to manufacture the victimology narrative. It's grotesque, man. It's insane.

[B]

No, I'm. I'm completely going to credit you with that. I'm going to repeat it for the next many months. Because what I have said is that victimhood has now become the ultimate currency. Is that Jussie Smollett, instead of wanting to properly apply himself to win, you know, Oscars or Emmys or whatever, his singer and, you know, actor, instead of wanting to do that, he believed that the ultimate level of achievement came in being targeted or punished by the Western ruling class, which he incorrectly thought was white conservative Trump supporting men in negative 20 degree weather in Chicago coming after him, where he applied his time, resources, skill and free time not to become a better person, but to stage an event that would then elicit his capacity, then have Munchausen syndrome. Munchausen, or. How do you say that? Okay, I think it's perfectly put.

[A]

Syndrome by proxy. By the way, let me just complete the thing. Munchausen syndrome by proxy is when you take someone that's under your care, your biological child, your pet, your elderly parent, and you harm them so that you could piggyback on their sympathy. That's what Elizabeth Warren does, right? She does collective Munchausen by proxy. Let me piggyback on the history of the indigenous people by pretending that I'm indigenous. That way I get the ego strokes of their tragic history. It's insane.

[B]

So help some of Our listeners answer this question. I get more than any other question. So I'll go around to all sorts of different groups. We're giving five speeches a day sometimes. And I get this question. Charlie, now I understand the rubbish of postmodernism better. Now I can see the fraud of critical race theory. Now I can see the danger of identity politics. But what do these people actually want? I get this question all the time. Why are they doing this? Why are they espousing it? Why are they spending billions of dollars for it? Can you help build out from your own theory? What is their goal in mind if they have one?

[A]

So I think it depends on which idea pathogen that we're talking about. But in a sense, they're all utopians. They all think that we need to dismantle the existing order so that we could start fresh, right? The Marxists think that, the communists think that, the Islamists think that, the intellectual terrorists in universities think that. So they all share this kind of puritanical utopian view that we are currently diseased. And if only you adopt Islam, or if you only adopt critical race theory, or if only you adopt socialism, then we could finally all hold hands, make love and sing John Lennon's Imagine.

[B]

And what I find to be interesting, as I mentioned earlier, is that the greatest partners in this are the Protestant Christians and the reason based scientific community, some of which might be secular atheists. I just think of James Lindsay and Peter Boghossian, because there is kind of an admission between the Protestant community and that community that this world is pretty screwed up. That speech really works. You know, the utility of being able to discuss ideas is important and critical. That Western society isn't a garbage heap and maybe we should try to preserve this thing. And I think that's kind of the new alliance that has been very, in an unusual fashion kind of put together.

[A]

Well, look, it's regrettable that this is true because I would love to be able to share my message and talk about the parasitic mind with everybody. But it's no coincidence, coincidence that it's much more conservative outlets that invite me. Why isn't Rachel Maddow inviting me on her show? Does she not support freedom of speech? I fight for women's rights and against female genital mutilation in the Middle East. Does she not support that? So it's insane that now anybody who speaks from my position supporting science, reason, logic, common sense, freedom of speech, freedom of inquiry is really, I find the home in the conservative camp. Sure, I love to talk to the conservatives, but why isn't the other side interested in my ideas. That's the lunacy that we've arrived at.

[B]

And it's not an inherently political book that you've written at all. It's not. It should be a completely, unanimously accepted piece of literature where you identify. And I want to get to the final thing, which is hurt feelings over pursuit of truth. You identify identity politics, radical feminism, postmodernism, political correctness, as these pathogens. I want to close with this. The hurt feelings over pursuing truth. How do we go about properly educating young people? Because we're doing a miserable job of it right now in the West.

[A]

So there is something in mathematics. It's called operations research. Operations research is an applied mathematics field where you're trying to optimize or minimize something. So, for example, there's something called the traveling salesman problem. If I want to go to 10 different cities, visiting each one once, what should be the route that I take to minimize how much gas I spend? Okay, so now let's apply that framework to the university. What's the objective function of a university? What is it trying to maximize? If it is the pursuit of intellectual growth, then we should stick to that. If it is the minimization of hurt feelings, well, that goal is contra the other one. You see what I'm saying?

[B]

So, yes, they're incompatible.

[A]

Yes, I study sex differences. I don't care how the results come out in light of hurt feelings. I study it honestly, using the scientific method, and let the data fall where it may. Right. But what people are saying now is, no, no, no, you have to be consequentialist. If the data hurts someone's feelings, suppress it. Nazi. No. The truth is the truth whether you like it or not. So we need to teach kids that they need to be deontological in the pursuit of truth. When it comes to truth, there is absolute truth. I never sacrifice a millimeter to spare your feelings. When I'm pursuing truth. That's it.

[B]

And that is exactly why you see this fusion of alliance between Christians and scientific reason, you know, people inside reason, because that is one thing that is agreed, and then the other side thinks that it's all nonsense. This is such an important book. I wish we had more time. It's the Parasitic Mind by Gadsad. You can check it out. How infectious ideas are killing common sense. Everyone pick up a copy. We're gonna have to have you back on our podcast to keep on exploring these ideas. And I think what you are doing is so incredibly important. And I'll be honest. Do not lose how blunt you are when you talk about this stuff. It's incredibly effective and it's needed because people need a wake up call with the danger this all is. Thank you so much doctor and hope to have you on again soon. Thanks so much for listening everybody. Get involved with Turning Point usa. Start a chapter. Get engaged. Get involved. If you want to come to our big, hopefully a celebration in Palm beach in December, go to tpusa.comsas the Student Action Summit. If you want to get involved with Turning Point USA, just go to tpusa.com email us your questions. Freedom charliekirk.com please consider supporting us at charlie kirk kirk.com support thanks so much for listening everybody. Listen to our sister episode. Our instant debate reaction. God Bless. Talk to you soon.