America's Ideological Divide - John McWhorter

Dr. John McWhorter of Columbia University outlines his thoughts on the cultural issues dividing Americans to a crowd at the University of Mississippi. Hosted by the UM Declaration of Independence Center.
TIMESTAMPS
00:00 Intro
03:32 John McWhorter
31:33 Q&A

[@Grappapappa]

John is my model for what it means to be an academic and a public intellectual.

[@partiellementecreme]

John is like, the best person.

[@danielmoody3640]

Yes!!!

[@Grappapappa]

@@danielmoody3640 I have to be clear; I am not a public intellectual myself, only an academic and wanna-be public intellectual.

[@pamelaroyce5285]

He is one of my favorites and comparable to him is Ayaan Hirsi Ali.

[@soldierx2]

"seeing how far I could get without my notes." Good job John. Smart, honest and transparent. Love it

[@AFringedGentian]

John is a beautiful human being. I’ve learned so much from him and esteem him very highly.

[@jeffreyc5963]

Me too!

[@MelissaKnoxwriter]

I'm so often impressed with the way John McWhorter articulates what I feel but have not been able to articulate. There's wisdom and great vision in this talk. I can see him dissecting Roger Kimball's book, too, in interesting ways.

[@OceanRoadbyTonyBaker]

I don't know much, but I know sanity when I encounter it. Thank you, John

[@Beatit19]

Wow, what an impressive individual John is, I love listening to him. That story of what his mom told him when he asked about the difference between college-educated vs those who dont go to college is such an indictment on current college students and grads. Shared with kindness, of course, but an indictment nonetheless. The perspective and well-roundedness that a college education should offer society is sadly no more. In fact, I am seeing less tolerance and openness in college students than in others who havent gone to college. It’s frankly a cancer in society right now, not an edifying source for our youth and future.

[@Pacmon0]

great point. College closes minds in today's America.

[@farmbrough]

I love the way that McWhorter is very accessible and good at popularising his discipline, but also has the academic credibility to back it up.

[@gregorypatriciaandjiyajais8819]

John is a gift , clear and precise pointing out the irrationality and subjectivity behind extreme woke

[@62426637]

Thomas Sowell should get out more and discuss/debate with John & others

[@ChristinaChrisR]

Enjoyed this, both the speech and the q&a part. Mr McWorther is very interesting.

[@jonathancampbell586]

" Feelings " are Not facts! John McWhorter is Spot on!

[@Readabookfoofoo]

“We’ve identified problems with social media, but why aren’t we doing anything about them?”

[@katherinemoorhead338]

Because we are a plutocracy. If you have enough money, you can do anything you like, prey on the American people, and bribe your way out of it. Look at Purdue pharma, who ignited the opioid crisis and bought civil immunity and $11B from a bankruptcy judge. They murdered hundreds of thousands, leaving tens of thousands of opioid orphans. Their $6B fine is paid over 18 years, ROI on the $11B the corrupt judge allowed them to keep. O, and the judge now works with Purdue Pharma's counsel.

[@richardfeit8296]

Thank you professor McWhorter. Insights as well as action steps for caring for ones own authenticity without losing your shit...excellent :)

[@tbwatch88]

Love John so much. Wish he'd been my colleague.

[@williamsuesholtz6778]

It sounds a little bit like Thomas Sowell's "A Conflict of Visions."

[@bobkat8765]

Jefferson's expanded view on poverty: “I am conscious that an equal division of property is impracticable. But the consequences of this enormous inequality producing so much misery to the bulk of mankind, legislators cannot invent too many devices for subdividing property, only taking care to let their subdivisions go hand in hand with the natural affections of the human mind. The descent of property of every kind therefore to all the children, or to all the brothers and sisters, or other relations in equal degree is a politic measure, and a practicable one. Another means of silently lessening the inequality of property is to exempt all from taxation below a certain point, and to tax the higher portions of property in geometrical progression as they rise. Whenever there is in any country, uncultivated lands and unemployed poor, it is clear that the laws of property have been so far extended as to violate natural right. The earth is given as a common stock for man to labour and live on. If, for the encouragement of industry we allow it to be appropriated, we must take care that other employment be furnished to those excluded from the appropriation. If we do not the fundamental right to labour the earth returns to the unemployed.” Thomas Jefferson “I consider our relations with others as constituting the boundaries of morality... Nature [has] implanted in our breasts a love of others, a sense of duty to them, a moral instinct, in short, which prompts us irresistibly to feel and to succor their distresses... The Creator would indeed have been a bungling artist had he intended man for a social animal without planting in him social dispositions. It is true they are not planted in every man, because there is no rule without exceptions; but it is false reasoning which converts exceptions into the general rule." --Thomas Jefferson to T. Law, 1814. * It is a duty certainly to give our sparings to those who want; but to see also that they are faithfully distributed and duly apportioned to the respective wants of those receivers." --Thomas Jefferson to Megear, 1823. * "The only orthodox object of the institution of government is to secure the greatest degree of happiness possible to the general mass of those associated under it." --Thomas Jefferson to M. van der Kemp, 1812. The Obligation to Provide Asylum: "Shall we refuse the unhappy fugitives from distress that hospitality which the savages of the wilderness extended to our fathers arriving in this land? Shall oppressed humanity find no asylum on this globe? The Constitution, indeed, has wisely provided that for admission to certain offices of important trust a residence shall be required sufficient to develop character and design. But might not the general character and capabilities of a citizen be safely communicated to every one manifesting a bona fide purpose of embarking his life and fortunes permanently with us?" --Thomas Jefferson: 1st Annual Message, 1801. ME 3:338 "America is now, I think, the only country of tranquility and should be the asylum of all those who wish to avoid the scenes which have crushed our friends in [other lands]." --Thomas Jefferson to Mrs. Church, 1793. FE 6:289 "It [has] been the wise policy of these states to extend the protection of their laws to all those who should settle among them of whatever nation or religion they might be and to admit them to a participation of the benefits of civil and religious freedom, and... the benevolence of this practice as well as its salutary effects [has] rendered it worthy of being continued in future times." --Thomas Jefferson: Proclamation, 1781. Papers 4:505

[@michaelwoods4495]

Many of us, though too few, want to care for ourselves, our families, and our neighbors if needed, and we want to do it ourselves. We don't need or want politicians to confiscate the product of our labor and enterprise to buy votes for themselves. From whom do they buy votes? They buy votes from the recipients of their generosity, from the bureaucrats they hire to administer it, and from those who don't do charitable work but can avoid guilt because "we" are doing good, even if it's with other people's resources.

[@Readabookfoofoo]

It’s sad that simple decency is now considered conservative or right wing.

[@briane173]

I would submit that decency is viewed by the radical fringes of _both_ ideologies as _weakness_ -- that it's all about _power_ and that decency is not going to win what amounts to a war. I believe the tenor of the debate bears this out. Unfortunately, as a result, the "coalition of the decent" has had its voiced drowned out; social media certainly isn't the place to find reasoned and reasonable discussion about issues, and most certainly _journalistic_ media is going to PROMOTE rancor and division because it sells, and so the fringes have an oversized voice in media.

[@cgpcgp3239]

Are you kidding? Right wing is worse. I’m heterodox. My biggest criticism of mcwhorter is he criticizes extreme left but rarely the extreme right. He could have easily given example from the right.

[@morrisfletcher9075]

@@cgpcgp3239 - Here's a hint, its all coming from the left today. Sorry but its the truth. The left are the "baddies" meme.

[@scottmitchell1974]

​@@cgpcgp3239Give an example from the right that others from the right do not disown. The extremists from the left are covered for and/or ignored by the media to an overwhelming degree. Businesses are forever promoting (trying to be progressive? Woke?) all manner of extreme positions.

[@nancya7289]

@@cgpcgp3239 I just assumed that tendency was about professionally and personally he inhabits hyper liberal academic spaces. Since he's immersed in that sort of collective bias, he feels compelled to notice various sorts of punishment for not expressing views that are pretty far to the Left.

[@KAZVorpal]

The problem with the postmodernist obsession with power differentials is the assumption that they are central as a tool, rather than that they are a symptom of a bad system. Their zero-sum-game idea is to shift power around to whatever they want (which turns out to generally be themselves), rather than to advocate for a system where each individual has self-sovereignty. In other words, the problem is the very existence of this system that allows or facilitates coercive power over others, NOT that such a system should be shifted to be used in the way that the person thinking decides is best. We should not give more power to black people, or women, or homosexuals: We should protect the power of each individual over their own life; strip away the (coercive) power of others over them.

[@christiansmith-of7dt]

Yeah I did that

[@twelvecatsinatrenchcoat]

Could I send a message to ever single public speaking venue, especially those in universities: You can cut out the introduction speaker. None of us want to hear them. We don't know who they are and what they're saying. Just cut it out. ESPECIALLY on university campuses it's ALWAYS just some unbearable school administrator stroking their own ego.

[@harrymills2770]

We BETTER be able to talk across the divide, because as a classical liberal, so-called "conservatives" get it half right and so-called "liberals" get it half right.

[@stanzavik]

3:30 - McWhorter arrives

[@shaagarey469]

Thank you..I wish ALL videos would give the time when the good stuff starts up😉

[@stanzavik]

@@shaagarey469 They will..... just you wait 😉

[@colinebied-charreton1343]

Trying to understand why the opposite party thinks or that is a good thing. What if you have changed your mind and used to think like them, and thus, for a large part, already know what they think how they think? I am an ex-leftist and I really know what crosses most of leftists' minds - and to be honest, I have no time for that.

[@user-gt1dn2mb5b]

I enjoy listening to John and reading his books! Unfortunately, he is too firmly rooted in the world of academia which is only a small part of the real world.

[@user-cz5lj2vx1f]

Academia is McWhorter's PROFESSION. It's another aspect of "the real world".

[@wadetisthammer3612]

3:14 - Ha! They called him articulate.

[@shirleyfriend5005]

College isn’t the obit place to get general perspectives. Living life in the real world does that as well. College is its own little island. Very differing islands at that.

[@MattHunX]

The way the algorithm works really exacerbates what's already an issue, by shielding the person from just different (never mind opposing) views, even from the same source. For example, I see people, who I know are on the woke side, share a quote from John Cleese, about the use of the word "snowflake" (which was once almost exclusively used by the right to demean people on the Left for being overly sensitive, but which was since replaced by the word "woke" used by both sides and even Cleese himself, who has become actively anti-woke), and the people still sharing said quote from him are unaware of his current views on wokeness, so the same people who adore him, one minute, will quickly turn on him, disappointed, but also say it's not surprising because he's a sad case of an old, privileged white male, all the usual "rhetoric" by the woke Left, to dismiss views, without any effort to debate and understand. And so the algorithm separates the content it present people with so effectively that they're unaware of the same person's other views, until someone...like me...points it out for them. I probably miss stuff the algorithm doesn't shove in front of me, too.

[@user-cz5lj2vx1f]

Can you give an example of conservatives ALSO refuse to make "any effort to debate and understand". If we're ever gong to get out of this divisive spiral, BOTH liberal/progressives (the actual Left in the U.S. is TINY) and conservatives must do some self-examination and listening to one another

[@MattHunX]

@@user-cz5lj2vx1f Actually, conservatives have been the ones who used to refuse any effort to debate and understand the other side, on a number of different issues, ranging from religion to gay rights, to climate change, and general acceptance of science...etc. simply because of their religious faith and or because they believed the slant/propaganda of their own news, rather than objective reporting/evidence. A decade ago, they were still the easiest example of people guilty of such behavior, of plugging their ears and going la la la la, and listening only to their own side, but now...the democrats, progressives, liberals (same same same, no matter how much they want to say they're not - yes the 'woke' left IS a minority, and yet it still hijacks conversations and the steering wheel of its side - same thing on the right) they have become guilty of the same behavior, alarmingly fast, refusing to even acknowledge that they may be multiple angles to an issue, to a truth, focusing only on a particular positive side, and refusing to admit to the existence of the negative aspects or vice-versa.

[@BlueBaron3339]

Wow. Okay, I plead gulity, guilty, guility when it comes to Loury, Owens, and Thomas. Less so with Sowell but, yes, I have assumed ulterior motives. Without even *thinking* about it. And that's the problem. John McWhorter has a rare condition. He's hate-impaired. Sadly, I used to think I was too.

[@avatarofenlightenment386]

A reasonable liberal trying to make sense of the antics of the insane. Cannot be done but worth trying.

[@user-cz5lj2vx1f]

Yeah, been trying to make sense of the insane MAGA Cult for 8 years now

[@broadcastdeez]

John is never not great.

[@paulafortin1044]

McWhorter is mistaken in deciding God is what he imagined men meant by God, a projection of themselves and selves he considers himself obviously better than, more "modern" than. Jesus said "God is Spirit." The scriptures repeatedly declare that Spirit saying "My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways." Taoists say "no thought, no feeling.' McWhorter moves in a very narrow realm yet feels he has to push out the eternal. He thinks he knows. I took the challenge to know the truth and find freedom. I know now not to care at all what he believes. It was a long long road and I am almost out of here.

[@maggietinsley2516]

I voted for Trump while pinching my nose shut. He was the better of the two evils, and his policies were certainly better for our country. Look at what a mess we are in now.

[@lucienschmit1661]

Dr. Professor McWhorter should watch this, count how many times he says “and so”, and decide whether he needs to cut back a bit.

[@Titurel]

That's your take away...and so what?

[@user-cz5lj2vx1f]

what a PETTY reaction...that's all you got from this talk?

[@robertsouth6971]

I'm told freedom is racist.

[@scottmitchell1974]

JM - Great in most areas but suffers from the hubris many intelligent people suffer from: assuming "science" has all the answers. Ironically, that faith in "science" has reached a level that can only be called religious.

[@Aule22]

Just in case the professor reads this. Yo! You lost me when you confused generalizing, with the very specific term, "anthropomorphize."

[@cgpcgp3239]

Yeah that’s a weird use of it.

[@sameash3153]

How would generalize make more sense? Generalizing is applying an abstract notion to a whole population. He's being even more abstract than that. He's saying people see "racism" as a concept to be a living entity that acts in the world even independently of people's actions. The actual usage of "systemic racism" almost is exactly that, where racism is conceived as an invisible infrastructure that sets out and predestines human interactions. They are not generalizing when they say that. They are not saying "a lot of people were racist, ergo we can generalize people in the current society to also be racist", but they speak of it in a religious sense: "people are guided by institutional racism", anthropomorphizing racism as a leader/guide/demiurge-who-traps-us-in-his-own-creation

[@kuaran]

I think @sameash3153's comment makes sense. My guess is that McWhorter wanted to show us that we are dealing with something that is more than just a generalization, i.e. it is essentialism, which is associated with a human-like nature and an abstract form of agency that goes beyond any individual agent. It resembles a conspiracy theory that assumes that all whites or all blacks have same intentions defined by their group identity and ethnic markers and that they share the same victimhood (blacks) or the same guilt (whites) as a legacy of the racist systems and practices of the past. It is a legitimate question whether the term anthropomorphization is the most approprioate one to be used here, and more importantly, in what sense it is used in the given context. Anthropomorphization itself can be used to describe any entity, including Popper's World 3 entities, such as any products of human thoughs from legislation to statistics or social systems. Rather, what puzzles me most is, what does the anthropomorphization of the aspects of racially oriented theories, phenomena, or views factually imply. Is an assumed collective agency enough to say that anthropomorphism is at play? Or is it a kind of new 'monadism' (rooted in the ideas of Gottfried Leibniz) in which each human represents a racially determined, antagonistic totality? Or, should we just speak about generalizations, essentialism, contextualization, grand narratives, systemic view, or something else?

[@Aule22]

Far too many words. I don't have time to read them. But that relates to what I said above. But I will say it more generally this time. If you want to communicate the idea that the cat is on the roof. Just and only say, the cat is on the roof.@@kuaran

[@user-cz5lj2vx1f]

great comment @@kuaran

[@cgpcgp3239]

Mcwhorter only talked about one side of the divide. As if it’s only a problem on the left. No criticism of the right. The intolerance on the right by maga, gop is worse. How can he be taken seriously.

[@noodlewhitley]

I agree, and find his stance very suspicious because of that bias.

[@sameash3153]

Maybe you just think we are more intolerant than we actually are.

[@morrisfletcher9075]

It isn't worse, not by a long shot. Its is a problem for the left, 85% of it comes from them.

[@scottmitchell1974]

List the intolerances so we can address them.

[@cgpcgp3239]

@@scottmitchell1974 Who’s we? What you mean by address them?

[@billnorris8457]

Poor John McW. All religion is not the same. Why do we have the defined term ethical monotheism? As it is very different from concepts like duality? Sound ethical monotheism allowed American Blacks to minimize the hindrance of very real state racism. Over this injustice, Black Americans brought into being the Harlem Renaissance. The just about 1,000 packed churches were not singular but self-evidently critical. Post-modern irrationality and materialism undid the advancement for a significant number of Americans. By subsuming the sound social ethics of Judeo-Christain civic. The challenge is Lessica Tarloof spiritualism is postmodern or irrational while claiming science. This is how we get to the insistence of totalitarian zombies to install this self-evidently mutually exclusive logical paradox as the mandatory state cult. Indeed, post-modernism is the rejection of the reason-driven Enlightenment. That feelings as deluded perception is equal to striving towards rational objectivity. The summing up was excellent. But atheism is the most primitive religion of all. Nothing scientific or logical about this belief. Especially as atheism as a state cult results in more slaughter and human suffering than all other observed alternatives. There is never a treaty of Westfalia in primitive atheism. So the slaughter of materialism or atheism returns again and again. As exemplified now by the slow-motion elimination of Tibetan culture and the enslavement of Muslims to achieve Chinese or Hann Culture National Socialism. Poor John McW. He simply has a self-imposed disabling blind spot. Despite his well-advanced age, John dug in like a rebellious teenager. Kant is rightfully dismissed as hopelessly naive today. Based on empirical experience. But he never goes out of style with the foppish romantics or post-modernists or irrational materialists. John is brilliant. But he clearly is a disorganized romantic rather than a rationalist or empiricist. While existing in a delusion of general rationalism. Poor John McW. He has all that is needed to be a true elder. Except for the intellectual curiousness. One does not have to have faith to be an American Patriot. But one does have to seriously contemplate the nature of the religion and morality necessary for our political prosperity. Especially why and how the Northern European Humanism or Judeo-Christain ethic built the material abundance we now enjoy as Americans. Plus that little thing of eliminating slavery as an institution for the first time in human experience. Kant is a worthless crutch in this enterprise. Which is why the clearly dated lean on him so heavily. Irrational emotionalism = romanticism.

[@radscorpion8]

brotato that's a lot of thinking

[@ericmiller8408]

And not particularly getting past the concept "You wrong. Me right. Diminish and dismiss the wrong!"

[@ericmiller8408]

But! They do have god on their side

[@billnorris8457]

@@ericmiller8408 Revenge of the (massed) snarks! All that and not one cogent rebuttal! ;) More amusing than a barrel of materialist and nihilist progressive monkey people!

[@billnorris8457]

@@radscorpion8 Wow that is very weak even on the snark scale. But I doubt you can do better! ;)