This episode of Joe Rogan’s podcast, first released 18 months ago, features moral psychologist Jonathan Haidt, who has studied the culture wars as deeply as anyone. I recommend the entire discussion as a fruitful approach to the current madness. Haidt focuses on how we have raised children since the 1990s and the dangers of overprotecting them. At about 1:20, Haidt shows some stunning graphs showing that girls are have been terribly hurt (much more than boys) by the advent of social media and smart phones, along with unrealistic conceptions of beauty.
This excerpt by Haidt begins with his description of classical liberalism (Min: 55:10):
I think young people are losing touch with some of the hard-won lessons of the past, so I’m not going to say “Oh, we have to just accept whatever morality is here.” I still am ultimately 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. They’re not forced to do things. They’re not shamed. There’s a minimum of conflict and we make room for each other. If we’re going to have a diverse society, we’ve really got to be tolerant and make room for each other. That’s my dream. I think in the last five or ten years, we’ve gotten really far from that. My first book, “The Happiness Hypothesis,” was about ten ancient ideas. One is that we’re too judgmental. You know “Judge not, lest ye be judged.” But I think the new version of that . . . if there were a 21st century Jesus, he’d say: “Judge a lot more. Judge all the time. Judge harshly. Don’t give anyone with the benefit the doubt. Don’t let anyone judge you. That is not going to be a recipe for a functioning society. So, no, I do not accept this aspect of 21st century morality.
Well I was too affected to watch the video. Normally I consider the Joe Rogan experience to be the pinnacle of all things good and correct (not joking). I have spent my life playing games and/or sports of all kinds. I use the games as an outlet when I want to compete but not have the risk of offending or hurting myself or my opponent in a physical sport (for example accidentally head butting somebody when going for a goal in soccer).
When I play scrabble (or video games), I go for the throat, because I know I can try my hardest and achieve full state of concentration have to worry about anything but making a high scoring word, or clearing the next level of the game. Whereas I have literally torn my body apart playing sports many times because I get lost in the game and try to do too much at key junctures in the game. Although now that I think of it I have hurt myself sitting still too long playing video games a few times when Age of Empires first came out. Ok rant almost complete. Right, about the wasted life… one could say a lot of things are a waste of time mr Rogan, such as sitting in a tattoo parlor…Ok rant complete.