40 here. So I was so excited to get up and blog on Sunday. I was up. I was wide awake by 1 a.m. I was up at 2 a.m. Had my very rare cup of coffee and just started blogging for the next few hours. So I was working on this particular blog post which is forming the foundation of today's show applying the Garometer by Australian psychologist Matthew Brown and Irish anthropologist Chris Kavanaugh, the Garometer, trying to apply that to Dennis Prager. So what type of person falls hard for a guru and God forbid that there may be someone out there for whom I play a guru role. So what type of people are looking for gurus? Let me tell you about my situation when I first heard Dennis Prager. It was August of 1988. I was 21 and I was at UCLA a month before the dormitories opened up because I'd been hobbled by chronic fatigue syndrome for the previous seven months and my family suggested doctors that I could see in Southern California. They didn't want to pay for a hotel. So I was just living out of my car sleeping in the bushes outside a golf softball field. And so I was feeling pretty desperate, pretty lonely. It's pretty much on my own for a month before school started. And so my primary companion was my radio. And so I listened to a lot of talk radio and then on Saturday and Sunday nights on KBC radio, started listening to Dennis Prager. And this is voice, this commanding manner, this charisma, this confidence that spoke to me. It sounded like this was God speaking at Mount Sinai. And so I was in desperate need for a virtual friend. And I was in desperate need for a virtual father figure because I didn't much of a relationship with my own father. So I needed comfort security. I needed something. All right. And so I was in a state of pretty high anxiety. I was in a state of depression. My life had just fallen apart due to my ill health. All my plans amounted to nothing. I was looking for a way to try to make sense out of life. Then Dennis Prager came along and I embraced his approach. It's like, oh, yeah, God, Judaism, ethical monotheism. I want to enroll in the fight for good values. And so it was absolutely intoxicating for me. And it gave me meaning and purpose and transcendence. I had something to live for and I felt like I had someone Dennis Prager understood me and who was a good role model. And I preferred my virtual father to my real father. And I preferred my virtual friend Dennis Prager to many of the people that I was interacting with in real life, particularly when I went home to Northern California. I was living in an isolated part of Northern California and how desperately I tuned my radio to KABC when the sun went down so that I could try to pick up Dennis Prager's voice from Los Angeles all the way into Sacramento. It was like a lifeline for me. And so whatever the criticisms that I have of Dennis Prager today, I mean, I may very well not be here, right? Without the kindness that he showed me, right? And without him enlisting me in the battle for good values and feeling like, you know, I was important. I had a role to play. I first met Dennis Prager in person on a Friday night, January 28th, 1994 in Tampa Bay. And then after he spoke Saturday morning, so that would have been January 29th, 1994. So I would have been, I think, 27 at this time. He kind of motioned me over just he was driving away in his car. And then he saw me and he's like, motion me over it. We got to talk privately for about 10 minutes. And he said, he said, Luke, it gives me inner peace. It gives me a source of comfort that if something happens to me, that you'll be around to fight for good values. I mean, can you imagine what that meant to me? That I was a source of, you know, comfort and peace to Dennis Prager because I was around to fight for good values. Now, in retrospect, in 2023, I realized that Dennis Prager told this to dozens of people, probably hundreds of people.  And Dennis says, well, if it just, if it changed your life, then it would have been worth it. And I'm sure he's used that, that very line to thousands of people and the people who have high anxiety like Julie and like me, right, those kind of lines are a lifeline. They're intoxicating. They are soothing and calming. This is a virtual friend. This is a, well, in Julie's case, it's a real life friend. But for most people who listen to Dennis Prager, it's a parasocial relationship that, you know, provides a sense of meaning purpose, transcendence, and comfort in life. And so when I was basically bedridden from 1989 to 1994, I was spending my money. I spent almost all the money I had, not seeking cures to my chronic fatigue syndrome. I spent almost all the money I had sending Dennis Prager tapes out to my friends who frequently didn't listen to them, who laughed at them, who said that I must be mad. And I realized now, yeah, they were right. I was, I was mad. I was getting much of my meaning of purpose in life from my imaginary or virtual friend Dennis Prager. And because I became convinced that like Dennis Prager was such a great man, that simultaneously buoyed up my own sense of self because I had some, you know, slim slender connection to Dennis Prager. And so I was connected to the great man. So the greater Dennis Prager was, the more important Dennis Prager was, the more prescient Dennis Prager was, right, that the greater I was, because I recognize his greatness, and that I had, you know, a slender personal connection to Dennis Prager, you know, as connected to this source of greatness and life and love, and it was embarrassing. And I looked back and see, you know, how eagerly I jumped into the Dennis Prager cult.  Do you feel, you know, disconnected from people in your life?  Then you'll find a virtual guru, a parasocial relationship with a YouTube personality or a talk show host.  You might very well prefer it to flawed people that you know in real life, because when you getting it from a YouTube host or a podcaster, or a radio talk show host, right, you're getting a performance. So Dennis Prager always says, you know, if you listen to me on the radio, that's who I am. That's me. But it's not. It's a performance. What I'm doing now is a performance. All right.  This is a performance. I have to use five to 10 times the amount of energy talking here to my cam, all right, speaking across. We're live on YouTube. We are going out live on Twitter. We are live on my Facebook profile and my Facebook page. We are live on Odyssey and we are live on Rumble, right? And, you know, monitoring the sound quality and the visual quality and all these different platforms and the chat takes a tremendous amount of energy and it is a performance, all right? This is not, you know, the real 40. It's just, you know, one aspect. And so when Dennis Prager says, oh, you know, what you get to know on the radio, that is the real me. It's not true. It's a performance. But it's very intoxicating because you feel like you're developing this parasocial, you know, relationship. So it's interesting to watch the effect that Dennis has on his protege, all right, the new look forward, Julie Hartman. Actively destructive of children. An article in The Atlantic that just came out, we have to bury the hatchet and no recriminations over mistakes made in the two years of COVID. In other words, what? Yes. Mistakes? What mistakes? Like locking kids down for two years. Don't start getting angry at teachers. Everybody makes well-intentioned mistakes. This comes from the God. It was evil what they did, evil. And it was done all over the world, not just in this country. Teachers hurt kids without giving a damn about them. They're hypochondriacs and they're woke. I am so angry at what they did. I'm so angry about what medicine did, not allowing people to visit their dying relatives because of COVID. In the name of health, the amount of evil that is done, I think in the modern period, contemporary, not modern, more vile things have been done in the name of health than in any other name in free societies. And by the way, I said this years ago, my motto, health uber alles. You know what that means? So in Germany, the song, in the Nazi room. Right. This is something that gurus do all the time. I said this years ago. I made this prediction 15 years ago because gurus and pundits, we make so many predictions, but we only remember the ones that we were right about. We, they, and I came to tell you about all the predictions that we got wrong. They claim prescience. They issue Cassandra-like warnings. It was Deutschland uber alles, Germany above all. So I've dropped Deutschland and just made health uber alles, health above all. One of the most startling and disappointing things that I've seen in the past two years is the way that doctors who I growing up thought were the most morally upstanding people around us, alongside teachers. Right. So notice how he commits epistemic sabotage. All right. He's, he's trying to diminish all these other sources of information that, that then elevates him. He's what's left when you diminish doctors, health agencies, academics, you know, experts, when you get rid of all these other sources of information, say, oh, they can't be trusted. You know, I'm the only one you can trust. Right. This is how a cult leader works. Now, this is a very low level form of court. This is not the equivalent of that Christian evangelist in Kenya said, no, come, come stay with me and starve yourself to, to meet Jesus. Right. This is a, a much lower level, but it does have a court-like quality and notice the destructive effect that it has on Julie. She doesn't trust any of our institutions. Right. But she does trust Dennis Prager. Now, I say apply equal levels of skepticism to Dennis Prager and to doctors and to Yale There's two, but, but especially doctors because they, they, I always thought they have an especially high moral obligation to not cause harm. That has been so deeply upsetting. And I have to tell you for a time, I couldn't, I didn't really believe it. I didn't really believe that doctors were reeking this much havoc. I thought, oh, maybe they just truly believe that the COVID vaccine is effective, or maybe they truly believe that lockdowns are warranted. No, it's been a real fall from grace for me.  My heart breaks for you. Well, come on. Who does she trust? All right. She trusts Dennis Prager. And is that really such a great choice? Right. Dennis Prager is not the worst person around. He's not the best. He's, you know, another bozo on the bus. And he's got some strong points and some weak points, but he's having a destructive effect now on her ability to assess what is right and wrong, true and false for a generation.  And you're right. You're right. Well, it scares me. Right. She says, I don't trust anything. You're right. Not to, right? Don't trust anybody or anything but me. Right. So Dennis Prager says he's always been faithful to his wife. And I absolutely believe him. But this is how, you know, men of a lower moral quality that Dennis Prager operate. I mean, when you're trying to groom a woman or groom followers to your court, you tell them, you just start banging down all the other sources of comfort and meaning and purpose and information in there. Oh, you can't trust your parents. You can't trust your family. You can't trust your boss. You can't trust doctors. You can't trust accountants. You can't trust lawyers. And it soon gets down to, you can only trust me.  This is not what Dennis Prager is doing. Dennis Prager is a very holy man. He would not engage this way. But this is a classic thing that, that men in particular do. Right. When, when you see a mark, right, you try to separate that mark from, you know, all hurt natural defenses and then say, I will protect you. Now give me a blow job. I mean, this is how men operate. So if you can isolate people, all right, then you render them defenseless and you can be much more predatory, sexually, financially, emotionally. You can't trust the rabbis. You can't trust the priests, the ministers. You can't trust psychologists. You can't trust therapists. They've all been corrupted by the left. Right. But I will protect you so much. And I talked to you about this on the phone the other day is that people my age, like remember, remember what you were about. Okay, let's declare a pandemic amnesty. Just two days ago, Atlanta, the Atlantic, we need to forgive one another for what we didn't said when we were in the dark about COVID. Okay. So gurus and pundits don't want people to forgive each other. What would happen if people started forgiving each other? All right, they'd have much less need, enthusiasm, drive passion to listen to pundits like Dennis Prager. Like if we walked around recognizing the humanity and other people, people on the right, on the left, in the center, people are apolitical, people are super political, super religious, totally secular, gay, straight. If we just, you know, recognize the humanity of people, recognize most people are trying to do the best they can. And forgiveness is our natural state, right, when we let go of the winds of the past. But if I'd been able to let go of the winds of the past, do you think that I would have been vulnerable to falling into the Dennis Prager cult? No, I would never have fallen so hard for the Dennis Prager cult if I'd been able to forgive. But because I was not in a healthy place because I had high anxiety and depression and, you know, struggling with real world relationships, you know, I developed this, you know, parasocial, you know, ideation and fixation with Dennis Prager and this virtual father figure was going to be my guide. So once you start forgiving people, once you start letting go of the wounds of the past, you're going to have much less need, much less of a fixation, that much less of, you know, an intense drive to tune into what some pundit or guru is going to say, right? Your need for gurus and pundits goes way down when you implement into your life some sort of system or practice that allows you to let go of your old wounds. And then forgiveness comes naturally when you recognize that other people are as flawed and palpable as you are. I wasn't in the dark about COVID. In April 2020, I headlined, tweeted and wrote a column and broadcast. This is what pundits do all the time. Like I saw these things, you know, way before anyone else, like I was ahead of the game, right?  And they don't tell you, they didn't tell you all the things they got wrong, right? They didn't put this in context. This is just like classic, you know, self aggrandizement. It's international mistake in human history. I said that it was vile always being done to children. It was cruelty, sadism, not allowing people to be with dying relatives. I wasn't in the dark and I'm not a doctor. Well, how about what came out a few days ago about the Department of Homeland Security working alongside Silicon Valley to Dennis is not in the dark, guys. You can trust Dennis like everyone else is in the dark, but not Dennis. You can't trust anyone else but Dennis shadow man and suppress quote unquote misinformation. Oh, that's what that's that's so those people shouldn't be held accountable. They should get amnesty. Exactly. So yeah, so you were saying that, right? See, if you forgive and recognize that people trying to do the best they can, right, that the Twitter files are a little more complicated than, you know, we've been so that these, you know, grieving stories either on the right or the left are much more complicated than, you know, the various sides portray them. And you don't really have need for a guru or a pundit to whip up your hatred of the other side, right?  That being said, I am happy that I am at least aware of it. Even I shouldn't say happy. I am thankful that I'm at least aware of it because what scares me even more is that so many people, including my own best friends, totally trust these institutions and don't know how thoroughly corrupt they are. And that's worse because at least, God forbid, God forbid, I can't believe this happened. I just committed a sin. Like I was like reaching up onto my tippy toes and kind of bending over to the side. God forbid, I was looking for a nip slip there. Like here she's talking about these lofty values and I'm talking about lofty values. And why, my God, why? Why, I Lord, right? When I have the best of intentions, I only want to communicate holiness and truth and God's will on this show. And yeah, while I'm trying to do that, I'm like reaching as high as I can on my tiptoes and bending to the side, trying to look to see if there's a nip slip there. My God, I need to call my sponsor. You know, I'm very careful that who I choose is my doctor, for instance. Well, it's not worse for them psychologically. True, but it's worse for them in the long term. I would rather know than not know. No, I couldn't agree with you more. It's like the old question. If you could be given an injection to be happy all the time. Okay, so this is what I was getting up for at 2am yesterday morning and 4am this morning decoding Dennis Prager. So overall, I would place Dennis Prager kind of in the middle of the pack of guru. So I think he's less damaging, less toxic than say Eric Weinstein and Brett Weinstein. He's more intelligent than Joe Rogan. He's more damaging, more toxic than say Oprah or Brene Brown. So what do we mean by guru? Reading here from the work of the grometer by Chris Kavanaugh and Matt Brown, I guru referred to an influential teacher or popular expert subset of gurus who make liberal use of pseudo profound ball, referring to speech that is persuasive and creates the appearance of profundity, little guard for truth or relevant reference to relevant expertise. So that's what you get with Dennis Prager.  You get a flood of speech that sounds profound and feels persuasive, but the speech is accompanied with little regard for truth or expertise. So quality number one of the guru is a galaxy brainness, all right? Someone who presents ideas that appear to be too profound for an average mind to comprehend, but are in truth reasonably trivial, if not nonsensicals, gurus present themselves as fonts of wisdom. It's an all encompassing kind of knowledge that tends to span multi disciplines and topics. Their arguments often link together disparate concepts such as quantum mechanics, logic and the nature of consciousness. Guru will often present themselves as a polymath who can offer novel insights with reference to many different fields. They'll often allude to their own accomplishments and exaggerate them to a shameless degree. They'll completely offer hot takes on technical topics and with a wave of their hand dismiss the perspectives of genuine experts. This is of course a confidence trick that relies on the recipient being convinced of their unique intellectual power. So what kind of recipient is going to be more receptive to these kinds of confidence tricks? Someone who has above average need for parasocial ideation or a parasocial relationship or for someone who'll come along and relieve them of their great anxiety and depression. Someone who finds navigating reality just a little too difficult and wants to retreat into an online world where they can get custom made their own virtual friend or virtual mentor. So I would rate Prager a four out of five in this galaxy brainness. So here are some examples. So December 12, 2022, Dennis says, I've been right on virtually every issue that I've differed with the majority on in my life. So do you think he's right there? Do you think he's right? He's been right on every issue where he's differed with the majority on in his life. I skeptical of that play. Same show Dennis says, if the truth is allowed out, there is no political left. Okay, I think that's ludicrous. The left wing political orientation, the right wing political orientation are evolutionary adaptations. In certain circumstances, a left wing adaptation, say, which is more welcoming to strangers than a right wing adaptation may be more adaptive. A left wing orientation that is less punishing may be more adaptive, a left wing orientation that is more willing to experiment with ways of organizing, say, families, communities. In some circumstances, that might be more adaptive, particularly in a low threat, low danger environment. In other circumstances, situations, a right wing approach of say hierarchy rather than democracy may be more adaptive, or great suspicion and fear and negative feelings towards outsiders and strangers may be more adaptive. And many circumstances sticking to the old tried and true traditional ways of doing things is more adaptive than, you know, experimenting with new forms of family. So April 4, 2023, Dennis says, I know from years of experience with homeschooled kids that overwhelmingly they turn out happier, finer, kinder and more intelligent, right? Homeschooling apparently raises people's IQ. Wow. Who needs studies when Dennis Prager just knows these things, guys? He's just able to apply his galaxy brain and you don't need those Dargon Pesky academic studies, right? You can just get it from Dennis. And 2010, he says, I wanted the answers when I was a kid. I wasn't given them. What is the Jewish role in the world? In 14 years in Yeshiva, I never learned the Jewish role in the world. So he's, Dennis was thinking about the big issues. He was just, you know, way too smart, way too intelligent for his peers, like his teachers, his rabbis, they just couldn't give him the answers that this galaxy brain needed. April 5 this year, Dennis says, the great lack in young Americans' lives is religion. It is the direct cause, not only cause of all the depression, lost sense of identity. So supposedly American youth have astronomical rates right now of depression and loss of identity. Okay, so if that's true, I suspect that Japanese and European youth don't suffer from the same amount of depression and loss of identity that American youth have said to suffer from, despite the Japanese and the Europeans being much, much, much more secular than American youth. So I don't believe that the lack of religion is the direct cause of the depression and loss of identity in American youth. I don't think it's the number one cause. Much 27 this year, right? Dennis Prager, who is not mystical, all right, who can read Hebrew. I've never heard any other Jew who is not mystical and can read Hebrew say the following. I've come to entertain the possibility of a devil. It's been so diabolic what I've experienced the past three years. It is hard to explain our rational grounds, the madness that has taken over, right? So to hear it in an intellectual, smart, non-mystical Jew who can read Hebrew, entertain the idea of a devil, that devil is causing most of our problems today is about as un-Jewish as belief in the divinity of Jesus of Nazareth. I mean, just you don't know how bizarre sounding that is from someone who can read the Torah. April 14 this year, Dennis says, climate change is the single best way for Joe Biden and the left to overthrow Western civilization and destroy the economies of the Western world. He's got the galaxy brains. He sees their nefarious plans. April 14 this year, when the government tells business what to do, that is one of the true signposts of incipient fascism, right? That thousands of non-fascist governments have told businesses what to do. It's hardly a sign of fascism. People with power frequently tell people with less power what to do. It's the way the world works, right? It's less a sign of fascism than a sign of being human. The strong will always take what they want and the weak will endure what they must. Luke is too innocent to know that bottle-bottle blondes are out there in the wild. A waitress I know even dies her eyebrows or to get the golden look and a glance from Luke 4 types. Prediction coupon, Julie Hartman leaves Dennis and we stop getting Dennis clips played on the 40 show there. Okay, Dennis says to 719, the left has been working to destroy this country for centuries. They're not working to destroy this country. They are following their experience of reality and following their own genetically imprinted and early childhood experiences to try to make America better from their perspective, right? Different people experience reality differently. Different people have different gifts. Different people have different forms of childhood imprinting. And so that's why people come to the perspectives that they do.  I'm skeptical of that claim. July 14, 2017, the news media in the West pose a far greater danger to Western civilization than Russia does. Really? I mean, Russia's got nuclear weapons, right? Russia can launch nuclear weapons at us compared to the New York Times. I would say that Russia poses more of a danger. January 30, Dennis says, I think meat is the healthiest food there is. I got that from Jordan Peterson. He's getting his health advice from Jordan Peterson. So in general, I'm struck by the awe that the ignorant frequently displayed towards Dennis Prager and the lack of awe shown to him by those who actually know something. And I agree with what Paul Gottfried said, January 28, 2020. I think Dennis Prager is an intellectual Bulgarian of a kind I've rarely encountered in this world. He said such ridiculous things about history, fascism, democracy, and so forth. It is hard for me to bestow any respect on his intellectual accomplishments. And Paul Gottfried wrote December 17, 2017, right wing celebrities play fast and loose with history. Forget Trump. Jenna Goldberg, Dennis Prager, Dinesh D'Souza, muddle facts sell box all the time. Gottfried notes one of the most ludicrous examples of the conservative movement's recent attempt at being sophisticated was an exchange of equally uninformed views by talk show host Dennis Prager and Dinesh D'Souza on the subject of the fascist worldview. The question was whether one could prove that fascism was a leftist ideology by examining the thought of Mussolini's court philosopher Giovanni Gentile. Gentile defined the fascist idea while serving as Minister of Education in Fascist Italy. He was one of the greatest philosophers of the 20th century. It'd be hard to summarize Gentile's thought in a few pithy sentences. And not surprisingly, Canadian historian of philosophy H.S. Harris devotes a book of many hundreds of pages trying to explain his complex philosophical speculation. Hey, that's no big deal for such priests of the GOP church as Prager and D'Souza. They zoom to the heart of Gentile's neo-hegelian worldview in 30 seconds to say it with absolute certainty that he was a leftist. You have to assume that Prager, D'Souza, and the rest of their crowd know this intuitively, as much as they give no indication of having read a word of Gentile's thought, perhaps outside a few phrases they extracted from his doctrine of fascism. Their judgment also clashes with that of almost all scholars of Gentile's work from across the political spectrum who view him, as I do at my study of fascism, as the most distinguished intellectual of the revolutionary right. According to our two stars, what has been laughably named Prager University, Gentile proves that fascism bears a deep kinship to today's left. After all, Democrat progresses in full agreement with Gentile, love and push for a centralized state, which manifests itself in stuff like recent state expansion into the private sector. Among the questions that are left begging are these. The modern left and Gentile agree on the purpose and functions of the state. For Gentile and Mussolini, glorified Roman manliness have rallied to the present left in support of feminism and gay marriage. The Gentile back in the 1920s favor the kind of stuff the administrative state is pushing right now. The answer to all these questions, which of course wouldn't be acceptable at Prager University, is an emphatic no. So control of the national economy by the Italian fascist state down until its German puppet version was established in 1943. It was about the equivalent of that of the New Deal America. Right. 2014, Dennis says, one of the deepest disappointments in my life has been Jews opposition to wars against evil. Why should Jews not support fighting on behalf of the victims of the greatest evils? Gosh darn these Jews. Abby, when do you begin with that? Strangely, the Jewish tradition is silent on how active Jews need to be in lobbying their Gentile government to go fight a war overseas against evil. The ongoing rabbinic tradition doesn't say a whole lot about that. So two days ago, May 27, Loponius brought this to my attention. Dennis Prager says, if America abandons Israel, that is the end of America as we know it. Then Dennis says, last July 26, the average 12 year old student out of Yeshiva has more wisdom than almost any student at Harvard University. So the great thing about making claims about wisdom is they cannot be falsified. There's no objective test for wisdom and who has the most wisdom. But you hear these Prager statements and it's easy to feel that you're getting some profound insight into life. I remember there was this one man who worked with Dennis Prager at KBC Radio for many, many years and he found himself going home every day thinking about what Dennis Prager had said on his show. Then he began noticing that Dennis didn't really understand or hadn't read thoroughly many of the articles that Dennis was reading from on the show that Dennis didn't really dig too deeply into the many events that he was commenting on with his show. He noticed that Dennis just kind of used the news, used events to get on a soapbox with all his favorite Pragerisms, however disconnected they might be from reality. It was the same critique that the Brandeis Bardin Institute Board had of Dennis Prager when he was its director between about 1977 and 1983, like Prager had a stock, you know, three speeches that he gave over and over and over and over again.  So this man who worked with Dennis at KBC realized it was just all a con. So in a few months, the man went from years of fascination with Dennis's thinking to disgust with Dennis. And that disgust reaction, it just never let him left him. They never picked up another guru. So that's the end of the first test of the Garometer. I gave Dennis Galaxy Brainness a four out of five. Right. Test number two, courtishness. Being a guru is a social role of guru. It's only a guru if there are people who regard them as gurus. So how gurus interact with their followers and their critics, their in-group and out-group is often quite revealing. Gurus are not usually bona fide cult leaders. However, social groups they cultivate often with themselves positioned as intellectual leaders can have some elements reminiscent of cults. So a key characteristic of cults is the establishment of clear in-group and out-group identities primarily between the cult members, courted virus, and outsiders. However, there will also be internal discrimination made within the cult, such as between an inner circle of favored members, the broader normal members, and problematic or troublesome members. So I went from maybe inner circle of favored Dennis Prager member to the broader normal members and then a problematic or troublesome member who needed to be exorcised and excluded. So cult behaviour is characterized by emotional manipulation and control. Gurus manipulate their followers and potential allies. They engage in excessive flattery. They make intimations that their followers are more perceptive, more morally worthy and more interested in the pursuit of truth than outsiders. That's you guys. That's you. Show me how to love you because you guys are just so perceptive, so morally worthy and just so much more interested in pursuit than those people who watch those other streams. So a guru will put effort into signaling a close and personal relationship with their followers. Guys, if you watch me on this show, you really know me. This is who I am. We're so close. We're so bonded. Just show me how to love you. All right. So gurus encourage the development of parasocial ideation. So praise and regard for the guru is usually reciprocated. Oh, well, thank you. Thank you, Loponius, for all those compliments. Well, but I mean, you're a very wise and perceptive man.  It's such an honor to have you here. Disagreement or criticism is usually dismissed as coming from an unworthy person. Does not truly understand the significance of the guru's ideas. Now, the guru will wish to avoid the appearance of being a controlling leader. Inconsistent with the flattery of their followers and the idea of cultivating a community of like-minded and clear-sided individuals. That's us here, man.  However, they do not want their privilege position challenged, right? Because like you get in the way of their predation. They will not be very happy. They may often wistfully talk of a desire to engage with good faith critics who truly understand their ideas. Yeah, man. I just wish I had some good faith, you know, intellectually honest is the phrase that she used. I just wish I had some intellectually honest critics that I could engage with, but instead the people who criticize me, they're just on such a low level, right? I mean, I would benefit from criticism from people who are intellectually honest. I wish I had more intellectually honest criticism. It's so lonely up here in the stratosphere. I just wish I had more good faith, intellectually honest criticism. Oh, yes. So we, guru's lament, we just been unable to receive the kind of robust, intellectually honest criticism that we absolutely yearn for, that I'm dying for. Just show me, show me how much good faith criticism you have. Of course, this is a sham. Anything other than forwarding praise will typically be designated as being low quality or badly motivated. Show me how to love you. Then you often get the emperor's new clothes maneuver. I know many of you won't be able to understand this, but I think the more perceptive of you might. I don't think many of you are in a place where you're ready to accept this kind of idea, but here goes. Now, few followers will want to admit that they lack the necessary qualities to appreciate that brilliance of the guru's insight and those that do reveal themselves to be potentially among the set of troublemakers that need to be exorcised. So when we're giving a score here, unhealthy social dynamics of in-group versus out-group, so unnecessary in-group versus out-group dynamics, sometimes in-group versus out-group is essential. Lots of flattery, controlling. Your followers are special, super charitable to friends and to allies, in-group people like us. The heterodox, non-ideological, committed to reason. And the great personal rapport that gurus have with their followers. So why am I talking about? This is what I'm talking about. I never met in person. I never met Jordan Peterson in person, but I said to him when we met right before lunch, something that is said to me by so many people who meet me for the first time, I feel like I know you. And that is the highest compliment in effect. I now understand what a compliment it is when I receive it because I never gave it to somebody before you. And I have watched you for hours and listened to you and read your book. And in fact, I didn't just read your book, I heard your book from you. So I want to tell you something without embarrassing you, but I think I like to, you open your heart and your mind and so do I. When I was very young, I realized that God or nature had given me what I have called a goodness detector. And gurus appreciate people with open hearts, open minds, open legs. I knew, I always knew. I mean, there are many ways to teach Torah, right? You can teach Torah over Facebook. You can teach Torah in person. You can teach Torah over Zoom. You can teach Torah through the tip of your penis. I mean, the various ways that you can, you can teach Torah, be a guru, right? They're infinite. Open hearts, open minds, open legs. And I was in the presence of a good person because that's all I really care about. I think brains are wildly overrated, wildly. That's why I think you're not right if you join Mensa. Why you would want to announce to the world your IQ is so bizarre to me that I, I'm sure there are nice people there, but I, maybe people like to, you know, hang out with people within their something in common. Like if you're eligible for Mensa, 98, 99% of the population is going to be rather boring to you. So people are desperate to connect with people. I think it's probably, you know, a legitimate useful way to connect with people. I don't understand it, but I always picked up that and I've, and I've always been right. It's, I'm batting a thousand essentially. And when I heard you read your book, the, he's always right guys. He is always right. He is just such a finely tuned instrument for detecting good people. He's always right. He has prescience, right? This is what you hear from Furuz Alta'i. Like I just played a few clips. It's like, I've, I've always write about this, but never I've differed from the majority. I've always been right. I said many years ago, now my predictions came true. All right. So this is, this is great. Like John Peterson and it's great. Like these are two gurus, all right. Like gurus who recognize another guru, anglers who recognize another angler, like con artists who respect each other's game, passion comes from, I just want to help people lead a better life. And it's, that's me. I just want to help you guys lead a better life. That's, that's all I want to do. And like smash that like button, you know, send down those super chats, but I just want to help people lead a better life. That's all. It's really quite overwhelming. It's really quite overwhelming guys. It's really, it's, it's quite overwhelming. You, you didn't just read that book. You, I won't say you sang it, but I like that you use music. I'm very much into music too. It's just so beautiful what you did with that book. I was just so moved.  You're a good person like me and those of us who think the way we do right out in group, we're just, you know, we're good people. We're clear thinking people and we yarn, we yarn. We're desperate. We're, we're, we so horny, we so horny for high quality criticism, right? We so horny for intellectually honest criticism. We so horny for robust criticism. If only, if only we could encounter some high quality, intellectually honest, me so horny for that robust high quality criticism. Unfortunately, all the critics, they're just at such a low level, but me so horny for. So this is the man that I'm honored to have this dialogue with because you're, everybody knows you're bright, but I know you're good. So I wanted to take that at the outside. I have something to say about that. Good. He's always just about to cry. See, I don't think it's true. I mean, this is why I got motivated to do what I've been doing. And I've been doing what I've been doing for, I would say since about 1979 in one form or another, because things take a long time to generate. And one of the things I learned in the early 80s was that people have a great capacity for evil. And I didn't really understand that of myself until the early 80s, something like that, after meditating on it for a long time. And so I would say it's not that I'm, I would never claim to be good. I think it's dangerous. But I did become terrified of how terrible I could be. And I mean, I became terrified about how terrible human beings could be. And that's one thing, but that's easy. It's easy to confuse that with other human beings. You know, it's a different thing to understand that it's true of yourself. So if I call Jordan Peterson and Dennis Prager con artists, I'm just saying that's a portion of what they're doing. I'm sure without even realizing, you know, a portion of what I'm doing is con artistry too. Right.  Dennis says some good things, some smart things, some funny things. I'm sure Jordan Peterson says some good, smart wise things too. These are not, you know, deliberate con artists in the conventional sense of the term, but there is a con that's operating here. And you will in all likelihood have less clarity, right? You in all likelihood be damaged. The more content you take in by Dennis Prager, I just don't know enough about Jordan Peterson. I often recommend to my students that they read history as a perpetrator and not as a victim or a hero. And people very seldom do that. And it's no wonder. But I would say perhaps that I became terrified enough from learning what I learned that I tried to avoid the pathways that lead people to the dark places that they go. And there's something in that that might approximate good. Yeah, it does approximate good. I would agree with that. So Dennis Prager from first grade through 12th grade, he was always elected president of his class because he has charisma. He's got a sense of presence. And remember, he told, you know, he told me in January 2029, 1994, you know, it brings me a sense of peace that, you know, that if something happens to me, that you'll be there to carry on the fight for good values, right? Can you imagine it be as a, you know, disturbed, lonely, troubled, anxious, depressed, frightened young man, starting to get some recovery from years of being bedridden, you know, you can imagine how intoxicating that was. And now, now, you know, I realized that Dennis says this to dozens, if not hundreds, if not, you know, thousands of people. But, you know, he's very, he's very good at tuning in to, you know, the troubled, needy, anxious types and providing it with reassurance.  Just ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. I will find, find my way to them. Right. Here's another great intellectual. From Fox News and Talk Radio, Mark Levin, posing tough questions here to Donald Trump. I've talked to a lot of important people, Supreme Court justices, presidents, presidential candidates, brilliant people. And talking with you is really the most impressive conversation I've had. Number one, there's very few people who could sit there and speak the way you do from subject to subject to subject to subject.  Amazing. As you go through the history of presidency and I read these letters in this book. How do you do it? Show me how to love you. It was a phenomenal presidency. Wow. Phenomenal presidency. How do you do it? And the reason you don't get the credit that you deserve is because perhaps that's going to be up to history. When people look back and say, wait a minute, he was right about this and this and this and so forth. History, we're going to have to wait for history. I mean, this is just like Dennis Prager. I told him in something like 1995, I was frustrated that his teachings were more influential in Jewish life. And he said, you know, my teachings won't be recognized for another millennia. History will vindicate Dennis Prager. So I was still a little bit under the sway, just a little bit, just a smidgen under the sway of Dennis Prager. Like in 2010, I was walking around Loma Linda University. It's a Seventh-day Adventist University in I think San Bernardino County with a friend and he asked me, what did I think of Dennis Prager? And I said, oh, I wish Dennis Prager ran for president. I wish Dennis Prager ran America. I wish Dennis Prager ran the universe. That's what I said. My God. I said, I wish Dennis Prager ran the universe. And my friend said the universe. All right. Yeah, I was looking to his Paul. Like, well, why? Because during some very dark years in my 20s, Dennis was kind to me and I formed a parasocial relationship to Dennis Prager. And he enlisted me in the fight for good values. And I preferred him as my virtual father to my real father. So I basically, you know, tuned out my real father. I, you know, fixated on Dennis Prager, my virtual father. I spent all my money sending Dennis Prager tapes to my friends who thought I was mad, thought I was sad, mad, and bad, and dangerous to know. Okay. So let's get back to the Garometer. So this is, what kind of courtish tendencies does Dennis have? I gave him a three out of five. So I'd like to think that I'm a kind, genial, moderate marker here of Dennis Prager. So that was an example there of Dennis telling, you know, Jordan Peterson, everyone knows you're bright, but I know that you're good, right? Our in-group, right? It's just overflowing with goodness. I mean, where did this conversation take place? Right, Jordan Peterson? The parallel. It took place at the 2019 Prager Youth Summit. Did you make it to the 2019 Prager Youth Summit? Just imagine how many natural cures for COVID you could sell at a Prager Youth Summit. Just imagine how many sales or supplements you could sell at a Prager Youth Summit. And by the way, I'm speaking to you from the Relief Factor, Pain-Free Studio. No, not. And Dennis gets to speak to people from the Relief Factor, Pain-Free Studio. But I mean, that must be sweet getting to hang out and broadcast in the Relief Factor, Pain-Free Studio, man. You could probably sell a lot of Relief Factor at these Prager Youth Summits. Between us are so eerie to me that in my book on Happiness, which came out in 1999, I actually have a chapter on the necessity of having a tragic view of life. And then I hear you speak of, like just now, this tragic view of life. And ironically, if you don't have that, you can't be happy. So it's just another example of this, and that you're getting this message out. If you want to comment on that, please, if not, I'll go on.  I don't know when you're going to react. Well, there's this old idea. You all know this idea. It's an idea that's expressed, for example, in the classic Disney movie, which I really like, called Pinocchio. And you know when Pinocchio is attempting to free himself from the forces that manipulate him as a puppet and to become an autonomous being, he is required to go to the darkest place to find the worst monster and face that voluntarily. And in doing so, he rescues his father. And that's a very old idea. I don't know how old it is. It's one of the oldest ideas we have in written form. And there's no doubt that in its pre-written form, it would be tens of thousands of years older than that. And it's a very strange idea. Okay, let's go back to Rank Prager, a three out of five on courtishness. So May 7, 2021, Dennis tells John Peterson, I can't find a thing you have ever said that isn't ennobling. I love your work. I can't find anything you've ever said that isn't ennobling. Okay, that's pretty sweet. Go from there into issues of free speech and perhaps beyond that as well. So welcome, guys. Thanks very much for talking with me today. Dennis, maybe you want to start talking a little bit about what I said. And then they had no quotes. But anyway, I've had the same experience, Dennis. You know, I have hundreds of hours of... I know you have. I know that. I can't find a thing you've ever said that isn't ennobling. I love your work. I wrote the introduction to your biography. And Leponius, bro, I can never find a single thing that you have ever said that isn't ennobling.   They make personal attacks. They're vulgar. They're uncharitable. They're unchristian. But Leponius, in all your comments, man, I can't think of a single thing you've said that isn't ennobling. Bro, I love your work, bro. Show me how to love you. That's all I want to say. Show me how to love you. So remember when... Oh, this was good. Remember when Dennis told Julie Hartman, I don't have an age? Oh, man. Oh, good. I don't have an age birthday. Yeah, don't have an... Oh, unlike regular people, Dennis doesn't have an age. Really? That's not a response I would expect from you. I know, and I'll tell you why. Because in the public's view, I don't have an age. So I don't talk about it much because... Yeah, the public view. I like real mortals, right? In the public's view, Dennis Prager doesn't have an age. He's just timeless. He transcends time and space, history, the normal constraints that limit regular people.   Age is nothing but a number, says Dennis Prager and R. Kelly. How old I am. But I feel the same as I did when I was your age, and I act the same as I did in terms of energy in your age. But I don't like to emphasize it because I prefer that people just think of me as Dennis. Yeah, guys, don't think of him as 75 years of age, all right? Please, don't think of Dennis as 75. Just think of him as Dennis. Think of him having a soul that is ageless. Think of Dennis as timeless. Think of Dennis as outside of history. Think of Dennis stepping outside the normal constraints that limit people, right? He transcends us. Does that make any sense? No, I tell you that all the time.  You know the other person who I thought of? Weirdly, Donald Trump. That's correct. He seems ageless. Nobody talks about his age. Yeah, he really is. Ageless. Beautiful. Oh, come on, Loponius. Let's please, let's go back to that ennobling. All right?  Let's bring back the ennobling, Loponius. I'm really disappointed in you, bro. Okay, Dennis Prager, October 31, 2022. We're obliged to fight like they did on Normandy Beach. Oh, I can't find that's not a transcript, but he says we're obligated to fight like they did on Normandy Beach. So who are we supposed to be fighting? The Democrats and the elites, guys, we're obligated to fight like they did on Normandy Beach. I didn't Jim Jones say things like that and Charles Manson. So the guru will often put effort into signaling a close and personal relationship with their followers, essentially encouraging the development of parasocial ideation. And Dennis said, just I played earlier, you know, people are always saying to him, I feel like I know you and Dennis says, you do, you do. So this idea that gurus and pundits and talk show hosts say that their private private self is identical to their public self. This is a delusion. So encouraging parasocial ideation, right? When you encourage that, you're encouraging a delusion, right? Sometimes it's a delusion that's comforting, sometimes it's a delusion that is destructive, right? There are plenty of cons that you can buy into that, you know, will still benefit your life.  Say psychological relationship experienced by an audience in their encounters with performers in mass media. So viewers may come to consider media personalities as friends despite having no real life interaction with them. It's an illusory experience, right? Media audiences interact with persona, right? This isn't the real person. This is Luke Ford's performance, right? And they experience these mediated interactions as if they're engaged in a reciprocal relationship with them. But what you and I have going on here, this is reciprocal. This is real. But those other people, they just get the faux parasocial relationship. Parasocial interaction is an exposure that garners interest in a persona. And it becomes parasocial after repeated exposure to the media persona causing the media user to develop illusions of intimacy, friendship, and identification. I mean, that's what happened to me listening to Dennis Prager.  And then you learn positive information about the media persona that results in increased attraction and the relationship progresses. So I talked to people who knew Dennis Prager in person. Parasocial relationships are enhanced due to trust and self-disclosure provided by the media persona. So I share with you my pains and my vulnerabilities. Then you feel closer to me. Then you're more loyal. You feel more connected, right? As though we're close friends, you observe and you interpret my appearance, right? Leponius is the most perspicacious member of the show checking out my appearance.  And so media personas can have a significant amount of influence over media users and inform the way they see the world and what they buy. So you've got parasocial interaction, PSI and parasocial relationships. So parasocial interaction means the one-sided media person perception during media exposure. Parasocial relationships stands for what a viewer has going on with a media person. So parasocial relationships typically fill the needs of typical social interaction, but they potentially reward insecurity, right? If you've got a dismissive, avoidant attachment style to others, you may find the one-sided interaction with a virtual persona to be preferable to dealing with people in real life. So I think that probably spoke to me, right? Those who experience anxiety from typical real-life interactions, they will find comfort in the lives of celebrities being constantly present for them. What is stopping Luke from recording at the beach? I've done a fair bit of it. I haven't spent much time at the beach. I was going to go yesterday, but I got wrapped up in my blogging, right? YouTube creators earn money off their fans through memberships, patreons, superchats. So fans then feel entitled to specific details about the lives of creators or even specific content. So the divide between a YouTube creator's life and their work is a very fine line. 40% of millennial YouTube subscribers claim that their favorite YouTube creators understand them better than their friends do. And so I felt like Dennis Prager understood me better than many members of my family and many of my friends. So parasocial relationships are a psychological attachment in which the media persona offers a continuing relationship with a media user. User may continue and grow to depend on them, plan to interact with them, count on them much like a close friend. They develop a history with them. They believe they know the person better than others do. And so you seemingly get all the benefits of a real relationship with no responsibility or effort. You can control the experience and walk away from parasocial relationships freely. So we used to have people in this chat who are no longer here, right? You can come, you can go. So you can bond with a YouTube creator or a pundit and this might lead to higher self-confidence, a stronger perception of problem focused coping strategies, a stronger sense of belonging. But parasocial relationships can also reduce self-esteem, increase media consumption and media addiction. Parasocial relationships with media persona increase when the person is lonely, dissatisfied, emotionally unstable and has unattractive relationship alternatives. And so that's what was going on for me when I fell into the Prager court. So many people use parasocial relationships as a substitute for real world contact. So key characteristics of courts is the establishment of a clear in-group and out-group identity, right? Between court members and admirers and outsiders. So December 5, 2022, Dennis says, my wife and I so love epic times. We not only spend our own money, we send the money. These are important and good guys, epic times. So Dennis tends to talk in terms of good guys and bad guys, right? The good guys are the in-group, the bad guys are the out-group. And a more sophisticated approach would be noticed that good and the bad things of the same people and the same institutions do regularly. So in general, the world is not divided into good guys and bad guys as much as it is divided into different situations, discrete, separate situations confronting different people with different gifts. So Dennis ran the Brandeis Bardin Institute, a Jewish institute in Simi Valley from 1977 to 1983. And he came along when Shlomo Bardin, the founder, was most vulnerable, right? Shlomo Bardin saw the end coming, needed to pit someone, he pitched Dennis Prager as its successor, and then Shlomo Bardin dropped dead. So under Dennis's directorship, Brandeis was the swinging door, they'd pick up 200 members one year, lose 150 the next. And the Brandeis Bardin board complained that Dennis Prager lacked intellectual depth. They argued he was basically a three-speech man. And they said that membership grew tired of hearing the same speeches time after time. And they also tired of what they said were regular bouts of vindictive paranoid behavior by Dennis Prager. So some people bothered that Dennis was this strong dominant figure at the Institute. And Dennis had to be a one-man show. So strife and dissension within the board over Dennis Prager's leadership resulted in constant conflict. The seven years of Prager's tenure in Simi Valley were filled with conflict between himself and the Brandeis board, whom he accuses of treating him miserably. He was victimized. At Brandeis Prager says, I learned many Jews are uncomfortable with paying another Jew to do something Jewish. It was the problem that he tried to make BBI into a different type of institution. Dennis developed followers, right? Like a court leader that he turned off many people by leaving no room for intelligent disagreement. He bullied and antagonized a lot of people.  Like he caught one young Jewish man listening to non-Jewish music on his Sony Walkman and ejected him from the Institute. Another thing that courts do is intentionally keep people in the dark. It's kind of a courty move that Prager makes most every day on his radio show. So he also does it in his book, Nine Questions People Ask About Judaism, trying to keep people in the dark about various Jewish traditions of heaven and hell. Now it's interesting to watch Dennis Prager's effect on, you know, Julie Hartman, his 23-year-old protege. I just played the video where she says, I grew up thinking doctors, along with teachers, were the most morally upstanding people. Maybe doctors truly believe that lockdowns are effective. Now I look around in our society and think, who can I trust? Right? Dennis Prager's epidemic sabotage, his epidemic corruption, has, you know, accomplished its mission with Julie. She doesn't trust anyone except, basically, Dennis and people that Dennis gives a kosher certification to. And Julie reminds, they laugh at me like I was on QAnon. My friends have this, this crazy notion that I've been radicalized. You seem ageless. I'm trying to think of others. I mean, there are people that we know who I could mention. Okay. What else we got here? I'm not aware of what is happening. Would you take it? You wouldn't take it. I wouldn't take it. I don't know if your friends would, but that's the world they live in. The thing is she's been radicalized. You're right. I wouldn't take it, but the problem is they may be happy in the short term, but then long term, when they take, you know, many doses of the COVID vaccine and God forbid something happens to their health, they're not going to be happy. So the thing that continues. How long did I know Dennis Prager in person? I met him. I started listening to his show and calling his show in the fall of 1988. I first met him in person in January of 1994. I went to the same synagogue as him until basically 1998. So I knew him in person for about four years. And I've seen him periodically over the years. He's a very friendly, amiable, very easy person to talk to. So if he saw me on the street, right, in all likelihood, he'd say, Hey, look, and like, you know, wave me over. And that's my experience with him over the past few decades. He used to just amaze me is how little people know about what's really going on in this country. For instance, I keep mentioning I was having a debate with this person about the Electoral College, the same person I was having a debate with about Trump versus Biden. And I said to him, this is a 65 year old corporate lawyer. He I could tell that he was in some ways quite well read smart guy. And I said, because he was talking about integrity. And I said, well, do you I was laughed at who says that Dennis, you know what, it just happened. I had one Williams on a major liberal commentator. He's on Fox and he writes for the Hill to his great credit. He came on the show. And I said to him, I'm just curious. What do you think about having six year olds in so many schools go to you know, you'll find this to be interesting. I have a suspicion that some not not my close friends, but some of my more peripheral friends have this false notion that I've been radicalized. That's crazy. Why would people think that Julie Hartman's being radicalized? I mean, she doesn't trust any institutions. She doesn't trust anybody except, you know, those that Dennis gives a kosher certification to. Why would they think that she's in some kind of cult? Why would they think she's being radicalized? Why would they see any parallel between, you know, Prager you and QAnon? This is crazy talk. Crazy. I tell you, this is nuts. Because they truly believe that the things that I just mentioned to you, which are 100 percent true. And by the way, shouldn't even be called deemed right wing beliefs because they're just facts. They think that those things are conspiracy theories.  And why would people think that she's being radicalized? She doesn't trust any institutions. She doesn't trust anyone. Why would they think she's in a cult? Do a lot of conservative research. Never met anyone who's been on QAnon. Never heard of it before the left made a huge deal of it.  I mean, do you, I know it seems obvious to say, but it just, I can't believe that this is our world. There are real, really bad things going on and they think it's just made up. That's why I told you these two crazy, crazy. I think we'll end with this. Why would people, why would people want to distance themselves from me when all I could talk about was Dennis Prager for years?  But why did they think I was crazy that I ended some kind of cult? I got a question from a young person on my fireside chat. For those who don't know, I do fireside chat. Okay, this is like galaxy brain stuff here, guys. This is a revolutionary theory and it sounds incredibly profound. It does. It's very convincing, very persuasive week for Prager. You got a lot of viewers around the world, mostly young people. And it's a half hour every week. We've done 262 of them. That's a lot you can really binge. Anyway, I got a question from some young person somewhere. How do I know what to trust? How do I know what's true? It's a very, a very real question. So I like being under pressure because I do my best under pressure. Others are different, but I do. I do too. Really? Unlike mere mortals, right, Dennis Prager does his best under pressure. Because of all my swimming. Oh, that's right. Makes sense. Well, I didn't swim. I mean, I can swim, but I'm not competitively. So in another video, Dennis, Julie tells Dennis, I am turning into you.   Anyway, I came up with an interesting answer. I came up with a few answers. What do you think of this answer? I said, those who wish to censor others are usually lying. And that sounds incredibly profound. I mean, that sounds right. That's very persuasive.  He talks about himself too much. I said, it's the Luke Ford show. It's mostly about Luke's world, books, articles, videos, arm dresses. Oh man. And I've never come up, I've never come up with that answer because it's a very good question. How do you know who's telling the truth? On any given, is it the left or the right? Well, if you are telling the truth, you are okay with those who differ with you speaking their minds. In fact, you want them to that's right because it exposes. Yeah. Why would anyone care if ISIS has its own channel on YouTube? Because you're okay with other people speaking their minds. Why would anyone care if Al Qaeda had their own channel on YouTube? Why would anyone care if people were promoting on social media, like drinking bleach or doing all sorts of dangerous or unhealthy things? Why would anyone care? You hardly care, guys, if you're lying. There's something nefarious about you if you're one of those democratic satanic pedophiles. So, man, apparently I've got a parasocial relationship with Art Bell, but his mother won't get into a parasocial relationship with me.  I mean, what does she do with all her spare time if she's not interested in forming parasocial relationships with YouTube personalities? Forty earned your six YouTube viewers the old fashion way. Luke left out the payments from preggy you to get fake views from in-year abuse views on his lame content. Good times, man. When I don't do a show for like five days and then I come back, I feel strong. I'm invigorated. Oh, my God. We've got, you know, Victor Davis Hansen speaking to Jesse Waters. How could I possibly resist? Okay, so some people like me prefer that virtual father dentist praying to their real father. The dentist tells people, you know, it's very important to respect the parents, have the best possible relations with your family and friends that you possibly can. But the net effect of his teachings on many people is to drive people apart. So I was bedridden in my 20s with chronic fatigue syndrome and I spent thousands of dollars almost all my savings, not getting well, but I sent it sending Dennis Prager tapes to my friends, many of whom did not listen to them. They laughed at me. They thought I had lost my mind and they were right. That 1989 I read a letter to Dennis Prager to tell him what his teachings had done for me. He wrote back, I received many letters, but few have touched me as much as yours. Get better. You are needed in the fight for good values. So I would wager that Dennis Prager has written over a thousand letters or emails that contain that sentence. I receive many letters, but few have touched me as much as yours. He is so good with those lines that make you feel amazing. So from the perspective of today, I'm not sure I would have made it through this dark time in my life, you know, bedridden chronic fatigue syndrome for six years in my 20s. If not for Dennis's kindness and attention to me and his enrollment of me in the fight for good values, my life now had a purpose, right? Hero system is a biological necessity. So Friday, January 28, 1994, Tampa Bay, Florida. I met Dennis Prager for the first time. Next day, we spoke privately for 10 minutes. He said it gave him great comfort that if anything happened to him, I would be there to carry on his battle for good values. I was overwhelmed. Years later, I realized, you know, this is a line he's used with thousands, if not hundreds of people. Right. Dennis says that Douglas Murray is his favorite English thinker. So, polemicists of the feather flock together. Gurus respect the game of other gurus. Those who are working a solid angle respect their fellow anglers. On the other hand, scholars aren't fans of hacks and hackery. Dennis says that when he reads criticism of him, it has absolutely no effect, right? It might, you know, affect lesser, lesser morals, but it doesn't, doesn't affect, doesn't affect Dennis. When I read, so here we go. One 1910. But just didn't, didn't cue things up, right? The more prep you do, the better the show. I didn't do it quite as much prep as I should have in your suffering because of my sense. And I'm not alone just announcing it. If, when I read and there are many people who hate my guts, you just explore the internet and you'll find it. And I think it has no effect on me, none whatsoever, as you know. And none, by the way, none, truly. I thought maybe you would have one percent of an effect on you. It doesn't. Correct. But it does. My father would say that all the time, that criticism, personal attacks just had no effect on him.  But it's not true. Like, if you're around Dennis Prager in person, you can see that if he, if he's correct, he bleeds. Like if, if he gets, you know, sharp, pointed criticism, it causes him pain. He is not exempt from the, the concerns and the fragilities and the vulnerabilities of mere mortals. I've interviewed thousands of people in my life. And one thing that struck me from doing that is everybody has a considerable number of vulnerabilities. Like everybody's more, more vulnerable than I perceive them. So this idea that the criticism doesn't bother him at all. In fact, he wishes he had more of it, but good faith criticism, like intellectually honest criticism. That's what he longs for. Tell me about them. It, I, I, it doesn't tell me about you if you disagree with me, but if you hate me, it doesn't tell me anything about me. It tells me everything about you.  It's not going to be the only emotion you have to him. You'll, you'll appreciate his humor. You'll appreciate his wisdom when he is wise. You'll appreciate the good things that he does, but you will hate him for polluting public discourse for damaging lives, for encouraging all sorts of no self-destructive anti-social behavior.  I know that I aim to do good and do good. There are, there are very many people who have better marriages because of my male female hour. There are many happier people because of my happiness, both happiness lectures and happiness hour. There are many people who, who have reconciled with their parents because they heard me. Okay.  How many people are kinder because they were influenced by a leftist zero? Not only, not only really, really most social workers are leftists. You don't think anyone has been improved from interacting with a social worker. Most psychologists, most therapists are leftists. I would expect many doctors are on the left. Most teachers are on the left. You don't think anyone has been improved, made kinder by having a kind teacher? I think the absolute nonsense is what he was, he was just saying. So let's keep it classy here guys. I mean, this is, this is a show of radical love and inclusion, right?  There's nothing inappropriate there. I mean, Dennis Prager says he's always been faithful. I have no reason to, to not believe him. So let's, let's keep it classy. All right. Yeah. May 11, Dennis says Donald Trump announced that if he is elected president, he will pardon all of the January 6 political prisoners. They are political prisoners, right? I'd say that's kind of a courty attitude towards the January 6 rioters. All right. The grometer, number three, characteristic of gurus, anti-establishmentarianism. It is necessary that the orthodoxy establishment, the mainstream media, the expert consensus are always wrong, at least blinkered and limited. They are generally incapable of grappling with the real issues in the rare occasions when they are right. They described by the gurus as being right for reasons other than they think. A guru consultant agree with the establishment because it is crucial to their appeal that they offer a unique insight. So why do I call Dennis Prager a guru, not just a political commentator? Because of the effect that he has on thousands and thousands of lives, including my own. Like he, for those who are anxious, troubled, lacking something like lacking, you know, good relationship with a father figure, he encourages a parasocial relationship and he turns a lot of lives upside down and you don't get that from most political commentators because his effect is much more like that of a guru than that of a political commentator. So gurus don't agree with the establishment. It's crucial to their appeal that they are offering unique insight. They're giving a fresh hot take that's not available elsewhere, that's repressed or taboo. So the guru's popularity benefits if their iconoclastic views coincide with the prejudices or intuitions of their followers. Gurus are drawn to topics where there is a split between the expert consensus of public opinions such as climate change, GMOs, vaccinations, lockdowns. The guru is merely agreeing with an expert consensus on a topic such as COVID and there is less reason to listen to the guru, send money to the guru. Instead, you listen to experts. So the guru is highly motivated to undertake epistemic sabotage. This is perhaps the key problem with what Dennis Bragg is doing to disparage authoritative institutional sources of knowledge and expertise. So gurus use ambiguity and uncertainty with their criticisms because they often like to tell you about their qualifications and academic background. But the main traffic of gurus is in sabotaging other sources of information and wisdom. They tend to have a fractious relationship with other gurus. They may make alliances of convenience, but they're also strongly incentivized. It can be with other gurus. So our group is everyone else, the outside world is the enemy to debunked, the institutions, the experts, the establishment, all corrupt, can't trust any authorities, mainstream media, can't trust experts. So you try to undermine all other sources of information to make yourself much more important. That but how many people are angry or unhelpful, yes, unhealthier, all of that.  But he's just a radio host. He's got Prager University. It's got 50 full time employees, right? He probably the most booked public speaker in Jewish life, certainly in the top three. He goes out giving speeches for years at 10, 15, $20,000 a speech. I mean, he plays a guru role in the lives of tens of thousands of people. From college. Woke. Are they kinder? Are they more respectful? Are they a finer human being? It is not possible to become woke and become kind. No, it is not possible. It's like becoming taller and shorter at the same time. You can't. They're mutually exclusive. Well, I say that I say to people sometimes when I'm debating about religion, I say, if you were on trial and you could have a jury of 10 or 12, how many are in jury 12, 12 religious people or 12 non religious people, who would you want? And most of them say that they get interesting. So they would say, well, it depends. You know, knowing that I was a leftist, I would prefer secular people. So it, but you're thinking of just where politics had nothing to do with your crime while you're charged. Yes. Who would you trust more to well, I have and it's the same thing with woke people. Would you rather have 12 non woke people?  Right? What do I need to talk about? Do I need to talk more about air supply? I'll stop talking about myself. Just let me know. What do I have to do today to get your mother onto this show into this chat? Blessing us with her presence. Okay. So anti establishment. Terrainism. I give Prager a four out of five. So on the death of George Floyd, Dennis says the chances of miniscule that the knee on the side of the net caused him to die. Cause Dennis knew better than those who performed the autopsy to the 21 2020 Prager posted to Facebook voter fraud. It's for real. The evidence is overwhelming that voter fraud is not an important issue in American politics. March 28 2012. He says, I'm certain my school would have asked to medicate me under the same rules we have today. And I don't know if I'd be the same person I am today. If I'd been medicated. So Dennis feels out of step with any authority essentially, but his own everywhere he goes. He's unhappy with rabbis. He's unhappy at home. He's unhappy at school is unhappy at university at Brandeis Bardin. He fought with his board. So unhappy in two marriages that ended in divorce at KBC radio. He struggled with the management. He's in no man's land in Jewish life, not fitting into Orthodox conservative reform Judaism.  This greatness is a burden. Dennis was like Harry Potter before there was Harry Potter. So when I argue that someone like Dennis Prager engages in epistemic corruption, I'm arguing that he manipulates knowledge for his personal professional and monetary gain. And by so doing, he pollutes the discourse. Storymark Shapiro told me in 2012 that Dennis Prager has no influence in Orthodox Judaism. So you may well think that Dennis Prager is like Jesus, right? Both came from non prestigious communities Nazareth and Brooklyn. Both had solid, unspectacular Jewish educations. Both started public speaking at a young age. Jesus in the temple at age 12. Dennis in temples at age 21. Both preached a simple version of Judaism that gave greater weight to ethics and ritual. Both preached with messianic fervor and moved thousands. So Dennis Prager autographs Bibles. Both were not known for their humility. Jesus claimed to be God's son. Dennis says that his contributions won't be recognized for a millennia. Both have been largely rejected by the Jewish leaders of their day. Both had not prestigious professions. Jesus was a competer at Dennis Talk Show host. Both had devoted followings among the common people, the ignorant people, while the intellectuals despised them both. So Dennis caused the COVID lockdown. The greatest mistake in the history of humanity. So David Simon, who created the wire, he says, never mind the burning of the library at Alexandria, European colonialism, 1914 alliances that provoke the Great War, the Weimar left and center failing to unite against Hitler. Former U.S. Representative Joe Walsh says, I work for the same conservative media company that Dennis Prager works for, Salem. Prager is no dummy. He can't believe this, but this is what sucks about conservative media. You get rewarded for being outlandish for enraging your audience. I did it at times too. It's wrong. It's dishonest. Frank Lund says galaxy brain stuff from the University of Prager. Joan Goldberg says, let's assume the lockdowns were a mistake. The biggest in human history about the reparations on Germany after World War I, sending Lenin back to Russia, carve out the slavery in the U.S. Constitution, the fire of Alexandria, cancelling the TV show Firefly. So I just finished a couple of weeks ago Dennis Prager's commentary on the book of Genesis. He notes, it's often tempting to use drama or exaggeration to make a point. Thank God Dennis never uses drama or exaggeration to make his points. It may work the first time, but once the person acquires a reputation for exaggeration or melodrama, his credibility is lost. And Dennis Prager's producer Alan Estrin, who was very kind to me during the four years I went to Stephen S. Wise Temple. He was a good friend. He says about Dennis, through his radio show, his writing now Prager U. Dennis Prager, changes the way you live for the better. Makes you a better person, a better father, a better son, a better mother, a better daughter. Name another public figure who does that. Well, that's interesting, but I'll give you one that's proof. So I asked Pearl and Sam Olinner, O-L-I-N-E-R, two professors at Humboldt State, Cal State Humboldt, who were both sociologists, secular, totally secular people, secular Jews. And I interviewed them. This is about So your mother, she sees the sight and sound of Luke on her TV.  My content is not aimed at her. She just likes Trump. She had the COVID vaccine four times. Well, I mean, your mom and I, we have a lot in common. Like, we both love to get the COVID vaccine. I'd have another one today if I could.  LaPenia says, in Prager's defense, I had a friend put his knee on my neck. I was fine. I could breathe normally. I would do speeches for $1,000. Yeah, I could take your mother for another booster shot, bro. Next time I'm in Canada. 35 years ago, because they wrote a book on altruism, which is very interesting to me, why people do good. I'm more interested in why people do good than why they do bad, because the why people do good is the outlier. And I asked them because they were writing about, among other things, rescuers of Jews, non-Jewish rescuers of Jews, because if you rescued, if you hit a Jew with a Holocaust, you were risking your life. Right, but Jewish institutions, like, what's the main one that honors Jewish rescuers, Yad Vashem in Israel? They don't honor any rescuers who got paid. So the Danes, who I think they rode Jews out of the country on row boats, right? They're not honored in Yad Vashem because they got paid for their labor. So Yad Vashem and Jewish institutions, generally, they try to make the number of rescuers as small as possible by setting up all these barriers to honoring any non-Jew, their contributions during the Holocaust to try to make it look as heinous as possible as though the entire world had just turned their back on Jews. All right, let's get back to the Garometer. Garometer number four, grievance mongering, a cult generally have more than a few bones to pick with the supposedly nefarious forces in the outside world. Feelings of frustration and oppression being excluded and disregarded and deprived once manifest rights and recognitions represent a potent set of negative emotions. Gurus rely on narratives of grievance pertaining to themselves and their followers to drive engagement. The worldview in which all is essentially fair and just is not one that will encourage people to search for alternative ways to view the world. Gurus engage in personal grievance narratives. They not only encourage emotional connection and sympathy for the Guru, they provide a convenient explanation for why someone of their unique talents is not being well supported or given the recognition they deserve by the outside world. They also relate to conspiratorial ideation in explaining why their own special ideas and perspectives shared with followers have not been recognized and accepted by the outside world because their ideas have been suppressed by malevolent and powerful actors for selfish reasons. So I would rate Prager a four out of five on this trait. On April 26 last year he said, all the less charges against me are lies, lies. May 1 he says, the left's desire is to destroy this country. Freedom is under assault in America. The Ku Klux Klan said color matters. The Nazis said color matters. Now the left says color matters. Well color didn't matter much to the Nazis who murdered six million whites in the Holocaust while simultaneously allying with brown Arabs and yellow Japanese. Dennis says the only difference between the American left and the communist totalitarians is opportunity. All leftists want to control speech and thought. Says that California is not the Soviet Union. It is moving toward the Soviet Union. Now instead of juicing up needless hatred between people, right, Sinai Hinam in the Hebrew causeless baseless hatred, Dennis could choose to use his talents to promote understanding. He could explain that left and right politics are evolutionary adaptations that enabled our ancestors to pass on their genes. In some circumstances, a left-wing approach to welcoming strangers is more adaptive. Other circumstances, a right-wing approach of fear of strangers is more adaptive. In some situations, a traditional hierarchical approach to organizing community is adaptive, while in other situations, a more democratic approach is more adaptive. Organizing life in a new way is sometimes more adaptive. Other times, organizing life following the old time-tested ways works best. So we generally see the political left in terms of associated support for equality and tolerance of departures from tradition. The right tends to be more supportive of authority, hierarchy, and order. So the left and the right experience life differently. They each have their own strengths and weaknesses we can learn from each other. But that's not exciting. You're not going to sell a lot of focus factor or a leaf factor if you say that we can learn from the left. Dennis says that Jewish Lee has been a lonely journey. So why is it been a lonely journey for about the most booked speaker in Jewish life? They're getting paid 15,000, 20,000 a pop lecture on Torah? Because fellow Jews are deluded about what really matters. I'd have a grievance too if I believe that. Dennis says, my brother frequently says to me, you are a religious party of one. Why is he a party of one? Because other Jews just don't get it. And Dennis says that the Brandeis Badin Institute Board treated him miserably. You know who else treated him miserably? Disney. When Disney took over KBC radio, decided the only thing that mattered were ratings. They put in a general manager who said, none of this high quality talk stuff. We've got to go down in the gutter. Thought I was going to be fired. I wasn't prepared to do everything this woman wanted me to do. It was a very tense time. And he says, it cost him my TV career because I wouldn't do the stuff they asked. And this is grievance narrative. Through the use of public appropriation laws and lawsuits, Americans today are less free than at any time since the abolition of slavery. And Dennis says, if there is a real fascist threat to America, it comes from the left. His appetite for state power is essentially unlimited. And remember when Dennis said that Keith Ellison should not be allowed to be sworn into Congress on a Koran, but must use the American Bible. Dennis wrote, it is not I. It is Keith Ellison who is engaged in disuniting this country. He can still help reunite it by simply bringing both books to a ceremonial swearing in. Had he originally announced that he would do that, I would have written a different column filled with praise of him, and there would be a lot less cursing and anger in America.  Right. So I'm using the garometer of these books, Christopher Cavanaugh and Matthew Brown, here they are speaking with Renee Dorester about online ecosystems. The level of that issue too, whereby when we are critical about like the various anti-vax messages or that kind of thing, a lot of the times people presented that we uncritically ingest the information from any institutional source, which is not the case. Isn't it an MPC? Yeah, in any case, it's a bit of a bug bar because my sense, possibly the same I think as most reasonable people is be critical of all the information you consume, like you know, but way in terms of the relevant expertise that is associated with whoever's delivering it. So I'm kind of curious about that issue though, like as you just mentioned before, you were embroiled in a controversy recently, primarily because Michael Schellenberger framed you as the leader of the censorship industry, right? And you know, there were releases of messages back and forth and there was very sub-stack articles targeting you and that kind of thing and fact usations that you were involved with the CIA and that this had been uncovered and so on. So I'm curious in that respect, given that that's going to happen, but just how do you address that? You know, if you're involved in the kind of work that you are, that you will almost inevitably become part of the conspiracy nexus of the institutions trying to silence free thinkers, especially if you're looking for like programs to push back against anti-vaccine, this information or that kind of thing. I know you've been on Rogan, you engage with heterodox speakers, but it didn't really prevent you from becoming a villain in that ecosystem. So yeah, I'm curious about your thoughts. Oh, well, not from that was sort of funny. Like what people say to you in the DMs is very different, of course, than what they say, you know, in public and Twitter sometimes. So I don't think it was the entire heterodox community that kind of went down that particular rabbit hole, but you know, it's a it's a really interesting question. So first of all, I think just to point to one particular thing, the quote unquote censorship industrial complex, that was not that was not based on anything sourced to the Twitter files. That was based on a man named Mike Benz, who was a Trump appointee who'd been a speechwriter for Ben Carson. He spent a couple months at state and then he started calling himself the foundation for freedom online, right? So he created a website, he started blogging and he took our report on the 2020 election. And what we did during the 2020 election was we had analysts, a bunch of students who would kind of pay attention to narratives specifically related to claims about voting, not under Biden's laptop, completely out of scope, just claims about voting. And a lot of the claims about voting really became very linked, particularly by President Trump to delegitimizing the election. So a lot of it was mail in balloting as fraud, you know, this is fraud, that is fraud, all these allegations of fraud, completely unsubstantiated. And so we were in touch with state and local election officials. And so when we would see some of these narratives, we communicated with them, sometimes they sent them to us, sometimes we pinged them and we said, Hey, you know, what's the story here? Or, Hey, this is kind of breaking out. You know, maybe you should respond. There was no collusion to take down tweets. But this man, Mike Benz, took our report and went in a part where at the end we say, we just went and, you know, after the elections over, after January 6th and everything, we took the hashtags of very, very highly viral things, right? Things where there had been a whole lot of activity and we pulled down all of the tweets from Twitter historical data about them, giving us about 22 million. Mike Benz either, let's say tiredly misread that part of the methodology and said that we had censored 22 million tweets and then that we had censored every narrative that had these hashtags in it. And then in the course of doing so, we had censored millions of tweets, silencing millions of voices, targeting conservatives, et cetera, et cetera. So Benz begins to write these blog posts and he reframes himself as a censorship, sorry, as a cybersecurity expert. I think Schellenberger calls him like the head of cybersecurity at State Department on Rogan, it's completely nonsense. But that is where all of those claims come from. So there is no evidence of any of that in the Twitter files. That's kind of the most remarkable thing about this entire situation. But based on that man's kind of blog posts and his sort of misreading of how we worked and what we looked at and what we did, Schellenberger really ate it up and he just kind of regurgitated it under oath to Congress. And I was very surprised by that, I have to say, because I thought, you know, surely I've been engaging with him one-on-one because he reached out in December. He wanted to know about content moderation. He didn't even know the basics, but he was already writing about it. And so I just, you know, I talked to him, engaged with him off the record for months. But again, when it came right down to it, rather than reaching out to me and saying, hey, I've got this guy who I connected with who's briefing- So looking at Pete Hankseth of Fox News on the screen right now, he's like a younger version of Dennis Brager. Me for my congressional testimony, he says you censored 22 million tweets. Nobody ever asked me that question. Right? You know, so it was a really remarkable kind of construct in which, and I get it, he's got a sub-stack. He needs to make money. He needs to grow his audience. And the way that conspiracy theories work, you have to create a villain. Because, I mean, I just explained it to you, and it probably sounds very console-literary, like, you know, red string on a whiteboard kind of meme, right? It takes a long time to debunk point by point all of the crazy allegations in a conspiracy theory.  Whereas for him, all I have to say is she censored 22 million tweets. She's the head of the censorship industrial complex. You know, and people who are not critical, haven't read my work, don't know who I am, don't know that I've advocated against takedowns for the better part of five years now, or like, oh yeah, that's her, you know. And so that's how the, you know, the bespoke reality works, unfortunately. And that's- So this is a conversation between three sinister leftists, right? This woman's the leftist. The two hosts are leftists, right? And yet they're having a completely reasonable thought for noir's conversation that is worth listening to. That's how, you know, it's not, we're not surprised by it. I'm not surprised. And the right wing is in this story of the idiots, right?  It is a, you know, it is a response. I mean, I think the, again, the question comes back to, what do you want? So do you want elections in which viral lies spread and proliferate and election officials are threatened and people don't cross the outcome of the elections because incentivized parties are lying? So speaking of ex-maus getting threatened, like now meteorologists are getting threatened because people don't like various political legislation about climate change.  Now it's the meteorologists.  Or is it reasonable for platforms to label some of these claims? Right. I would ban people for doxing on social media. I would ban people for threatening harm, particularly physical harm, threatening violence, promoting criminal behavior and, you know, promoting any behavior that's like clearly harmful, such as drinking bleach. I'm for banning all those people. Reasonable for elected officials to counter speak about these claims. I still maintain that the answer to that question is yes. And I still maintain that a label on counter speech isn't censorship. And really that's, you know, the most basic argument I can make about it. Well, just like she just presented in a very common, sensical, reasonable, left-wing perspective. I thought she made some excellent points there. And I think her right-wing critics were not operating good faith and lacking in expertise. There's a anecdotal experience that I think confirms the level that censorship has reached on this topic for all the furor that's around Joe Rogan and we ourselves covered in depth his episodes with Peter McCulloch and Robert Malone. And there was, like you say, a fire hose of information. So our episodes are like three hours long and we barely cover, you know, one third of what they said. That's obviously wrong in that. But the outcome of all those editorials, all those articles of all the hand-wringing was that Spotify put up a little blue tab that says this contains, you know, information. But we get it. Every single podcast that mentions COVID gets the exact same thing as Rogan.  And the episodes where the N-word was mentioned were taken down. So there was that as well. But just to say that, you know, like, think of the mass amount of sub-stacks and discussions in podcasts over Rogan being destroyed. And what was the outcome? A banner on his podcast. He hasn't stopped talking about COVID. He hasn't stopped promoting anti-vaccine stuff. But I didn't want to make you opine on Rogan. The thing that I did want to ask you about Rene is, so, you know, what you just outlined, and this is me saying it, not you, that when I listened to the conversation between you, Barry, and Michael Schenberger on Sam's podcast, I enjoyed the conversation because there was a difference of opinions and it was well conducted. So the major problem I think with right-wing figures, you know, online, is that they lack expertise, right? They lack depth and they don't have a particularly strong commitment to the truth. Sam had a good balance, but I couldn't help constantly getting the impression that Barry and Michael were dilettants who have not done basic. Dilettants, that's the word. Like Dennis Prager, Mark Levin, Hugh Hewitt, Sean Hannity, even Tucker Carlson, much of the time.  Research on high moderation functions or even just the kind of policies that were in place or what the agencies are. And that's been my constant impression with the Twitter files, is people have, you know, very interesting access. You could present interesting material just from the moderation discussions that have to go on or, you know, whatever your position on the actions that they end up taking, but instead it became this, you know, hyperbolic politicized things where everything was presented in the most sensationalized way. And I want to just ask you that... That is a pretty fair characterization of much of, you know, right-wing, you know, punditry public discourse. Back to analyzing Dennis Prager, decoding Dennis Prager, putting Dennis Prager through the grometer. All right, trait five of the guru, self-aggrandizement and narcissism. It's impossible to be a guru without having a sense of grandiosity and an inflated idea of one's self-importance. For all of being a guru means cultivating praise and attention, demands a certain level of charisma and charm.  That's what he asked for on his birthday every year. Now, the trait of narcissists is a belief in one's uniqueness and that only special people can appreciate them, right? I've only got nine viewers right now, but you are so special.  You're not a moron, right? You're special to me. So gurus tend to have a thin skin when it comes to criticism. They expect that the world should be much more recognizing of their talents than it does. Narcissism is the key personality trait of gurus. People without overconfidence and attention seeking will find the role of guru uncomfortable and they will flee from it, even if it is thrust upon them. So a normal person will flee from the role of guru, right? Usually only damaged people will embrace being a guru. People are not narcissistic. People with genuine expertise, people with genuine insight in a given domain will tend to find the guru spotlight and unwelcome distraction. People on the spectrum of narcissism will find any attention, any regard, highly satisfying. This will be their motivating factor for engaging in going way beyond whatever talents they might have to engage in the pseudo profound nonsense techniques described here. So this lack of self-awareness common among narcissists also seems to explain why gurus such as Dennis Prager seem to believe their own baloney. This is narcissists love themselves. They're in love with their own ideas. They tend to be incapable of seeing the degree to which they are fraudulent. So I gave Prager a three out of five. So here are some examples of Dennis Prager's self-aggrandizement. He explains why he wrote the rational Bible commentary. Somebody has to explain these biblical texts. They will go further into oblivion. So I'm tad skeptical that Dennis who autographs Bibles has the ability to save the Bible. Julie tells it. It's revolutionized my life. Okay. I wonder if we can... Well, I talk about this with my... I wonder if I can find... Oh, I can't find the time stamp for this, but she says revolutionized my life. If all I did was affect you, it was worth writing. So Dennis, he's used that line at thousands of people. Julie, when I was done reading your Bible commentary, Dennis, I went from seeing the world in a secular way to seeing the world in a religious way. And I walked down the street and I look around me. I feel more connected to life. I mean, you probably have the same experience from viewing this show. You just appreciate every day more. Dennis stated, I believe that I have brought more people to a belief in God, to taking the Bible seriously, to Jews embracing Judaism and to others embracing Christianity than any other living Jew or Christian. Well, here's my concern. Given the poor epistemic quality of Prager's reasoning, I wonder about the qualities of these religious conversions. Epistemic means how do we know what we know? So it kind of reminds me of all the Christian evangelists buzzing around my father. And when they all get together, they'd all boast about the hundreds of people they baptized. And this led these people to just see everybody as fodder for Christ. Dennis declared on this radio show, I've never been hurt by a friend. I have a built-in antennae for who to trust. I have perfect pitch, right? Never been hurt by a friend, right? Anyone who says they've never been hurt by a friend is clearly wrong. So Prager believes what he's saying. He is clearly deluded. And Dennis says, I've never had a female friend, right? Friendship with the opposite sex, guys. That's just for mere mortals. For self-described, highly sexed men like Dennis Prager, it's just not on. Dennis says, I have never been envious of another human being in my life. So only mere mortals experience envy. Not those who transcend time and space. Dennis says, I didn't think my parents loved me when I was a kid. I didn't do much with my family. What I did was develop antibodies. I was vaccinated against emotional problems, right? So unlike mere mortals, Dennis Prager has been vaccinated against emotional problems. So where do we go to get this vaccine against emotional problems? Like, does he really believe that he's being vaccinated against emotional problems? Now, 2012, Dennis says, that's the reason I became something. Because my parents at an early age, you're on your own, have a great life. And I've had a great life, and it wasn't easy. So that's the reason that Dennis Prager became something. Now, I would say it also helps Dennis Prager cultivates courtishness, that he practices epistemic sabotage, and he directs a river of pseudo-profound nonsense on the radio. I'd say that also helped him become something. And I also suspect he is wrong, if not lying when he claims his parents said to him, either literally or figuratively, you're on your own, son, have a great life. I mean, can you imagine these parents saying that to a five-year-old and eight-year-old? Ah, Dennis is not happy with the Jews because their Jewish identity is overwhelmingly ethnic. Few have gone through the soul-searching of asking, why am I a Jew? But Dennis went through the soul-searching. If I am Jewish, I said, I want to be Jewish because I chose to, not because I was raised in it. That's why I studied all these other religions. I wanted to come to Judaism on my own. He was not like ordinary mortals. He was like Harry Potter. He was special. So since an early age, he's been obsessed with good and evil. So Prager's obsession with good and evil only goes as far as he gets to play a starring role in this cosmic drama. So answers about why people commit evil or why people do good that don't play to his vision of himself as the moral leader in this cosmic drama, they don't rate with Dennis. For example, people with low average IQs have a below capacity for empathy, and hence a below average capacity for decency.  So kind of an explanation with regard to why people do good and why people do evil that gives Dennis Prager a starring role in this cosmic drama. He's all up in that. You'll be glad to know that Dennis Prager is the last person in the world who walks around with a victim mentality. It's only mere mortals feel like victims, right? Gods do not feel like victims. And Dennis says, I don't care about Jewish culture. That's why the board at Brandeis Bardin Institute got angry at me. They were very into Jewish culture. I was very into Judaism. So do you think that that's really why the board at Brandeis Bardin Institute got angry at Dennis Prager? Not for any of his personal qualities. For no other reason, it's just that Dennis didn't care about Jewish culture and he was just really into Judaism. So Dennis says he left Brandeis Bardin in 1983 and the board treated him miserably. Dennis tells Julie Hartman at an early age, I wanted to do good and I wanted to influence people. To do good, right? And says I had this ambition that I would understand life as well as anybody who has ever lived. And one of the reasons I thought I had a chance because I have no prejudices, right? Dennis Prager has no prejudices, right? Mere mortals have prejudices.  But Dennis, there was no dogma that he had to meet, right? Everyone else has a hero system. Dennis Prager has no hero system. He gets to transcend the concerns of mere mortals. Like everyone else, Dennis Prager confronts life straight on. Why? Because Dennis Prager doesn't have anything to prove. Only mere mortals have anything to prove. Do you think gods have anything to prove? But Dennis, nothing matters except what is true, right? He's got no personal prejudices. He's got no emotional problems. He's got no agenda. He never, I never read anything with an agenda other than is it true and will it make a good world? That's it, all right? Everyone else has blind disarm, but not Dennis Prager. I wasn't burdened by psychological problems in my thought, such as anger at men or anger at women. So everyone else has psychological problems, but Dennis Prager got the vaccine in psychological problems very early on in life. So Dennis has no psychological problems. You'll be glad to know, Dennis announces, I have the training of a rabbi, but I never sought rabbinic ordination. All right, highly dubious claim. Dennis says, last time I felt physically unsafe, I was in my early 30s. So only mere mortals feel physically unsafe. Dennis has gone 40 years of his life without once feeling unsafe. April 20, 2011, Dennis says, took until the Reagan administration to realize that if I didn't fight, I was going to lose this country. Wow. So if Dennis Prager didn't fight, America was going to be lost. Only one man can save us. Dennis Prager. So when the OG Simpson verdict was announced, Dennis said to his teenage son, David, please forgive me. I am handing over to you a worse America than my father handed over to me. But what kind of man apologizes for not being able to change the direction of a country of 300 million people? Leponius, please forgive me. The US Supreme Court has made gay marriage the rule of the land. I am handing over to you, Leponius, a much worse North America than was handed to me. Forgive me, Leponius, for not defeating the US Supreme Court when it came to gay marriage. Forgive me, Leponius, for allowing America to invade Afghanistan in 2001 and Iraq in 2003. Please forgive me. Forgive me for America electing George W. Bush twice. I wasn't able to stop that. Please, please forgive me. Please forgive me for Obamacare. I wasn't able to stop it. Reagan changed me with one sentence. Government is not the solution, it's the problem. That's what made me a Republican. In the 20th century, 100 million civilians were murdered. Who murdered them? In every case, but Rwanda, big government. So sometimes government is the solution. Sometimes government is the problem. Sometimes it's a bit of both. And if there wasn't government around, we'd live in a state of nature which would likely be nasty, brutish, and short. So for plenty of problems such as crime, pollution, and roads, most countries have found that government is the best solution to some things. How else would you enforce standards? Like, what countries that do not have government-provided police parks and passports should America emulate? So David Margolis profiled Dennis Prager in the Jewish Journal in 1992. Uncomfortable with his lack of academic credentials. He's lectured hundreds of times to American audiences about Soviet Jewry. That wasn't the only subject in which he claimed expertise. Left onto the Jewish lecture circuit with talks of why Jewish youth was alienated from Jewish life. All right, back to the grometer. Number six point, Cassandra complex. Gurus like to claim prescience among their many talents. Their heightened insight gives them a superior ability to predict the future, and they will enjoy dwelling on those instances at which they made a purportedly correct prediction. They will not mention or acknowledge the times when they got it wrong. So I remember when Dennis Prager proclaimed that Bob Doe will never win the Republican nomination for presidency because he said something skeptical about Israel circuit 1990. That was obviously wrong. All right, narrative of grievance plays a big role in being a guru. A heightened sense of how the world is not right ought to be fixed and that they are the persons to do it as a common feature of Gurus. So Dennis Prager published a column. Could it happen here? It is happening here. We're becoming Nazi Germany guys. Unfortunately, the broader public has failed to recognize the Gurus genius, has failed to heed their advice, and thus the world launches from calamity to calamity because you guys aren't listening to Dennis Prager. So Gurus positioned themselves as a Cassandra. They see the future. They warn of calamities that will be avoided if only they are heeded. And then if you're a follower, you get a positive role because you get to support, defend, and promote the Guru. And by so doing, you can make the world a better place. So I would give Dennis Prager a five out of five on this scale. Back to decoding the Gurus. The degree to which it's frustrating or productive, you do engage with the heterodox fear. And I think that's good. There are discussions on there that are not hyperbolic and partisan. I think people have genuine questions as well. But how do you deal with that fact that there's so much heat and fury around the topic and so much strong opinion, but coupled with a lack of research? That's a bit that I would find personally hard to deal with. I have had my run-ins with Sam Harris on a similar thing where he talked about the Christ Church shooter manifesto in some depth on several podcasts. He never read the manifesto. This is a particular paragraph of mine because I've published research about manifesto analysis. But yeah, so that lack of research, it just really grits my soul. And I'm sorry to project it onto you, but I'm just curious because you deal with it much more directly. I think the only, you know, I don't, I really like, first of all, I like arguing, but I also really like engaging with people that I have disagreements with. I've always felt like, you know, I had fun on the same. Yeah, Putin and Zelensky definitely need to sit down with Dennis Prager so they can sort out their disagreements. Right. So Prager's Cassandra complex. Joe Biden and the Democrats, Prager says, why do these people want to destroy the economy? So in school at the Shiva Flatbush, right? And before that Prager's classmates liked Dennis, right? They always elected him class president. They're amused by his big mouth, but it never occurred to them that he was a good source for truth or for morality. So in the more than 50 years since Dennis Prager graduated high school, none of his classmates, the best of my knowledge, have changed their opinion about Dennis Prager just being a big mouth. Uh-oh, greatest of all freedoms, guys. That of speech is disappearing in America, says Dennis. Our justice department is becoming what the Soviet Ministry of Justice, Soviet security agencies and Soviet judges were. It's just becoming tools of the ruling party. So we've got an actually syndicated radio host telling his listeners they live in a country that's increasingly like Nazi Germany. I would say that's not a good way of creating an appropriate level of safety in listeners.  Instead, it seems like the man is frequently just pouring poison into the American soul. Enraging people is a great way of getting listeners, but it makes them less happy and less effective in life. You know, outside of a few motor zones, life in the United States for Dennis Prager listeners is generally safe and free compared to other countries on this earth. So inculcating gratitude might be a wiser and more moral path for a man intent on doing good. There are situations in life where rage is a more adaptive approach than gratitude, such as when you are fighting for your life in a dark alley, but these examples are few and far between. So by claiming he sees America on the road to Nazi Germany, Dennis Prager gets to place himself at the very center of things. He feels confident that there's nothing more pricing for you to consider than his ideas. Dennis says the USA Today is a rag sheet on the level of Pravda, right? It's not just a flawed publication. It doesn't just have some mistaken op-eds. It's Pravda, guys. If you supported the March 30th Trump indictment, you are not on the side of truth or of concern for America. So Prager must have learned early in his life how to use this tremendous power of drama to command attention. I wonder who he copied. Where did he get this from? We are becoming like the Soviet Union. We sold our soul in the early 20th century when they said the government should educate our children, guys, public schools, right? That's selling our soul. Uh-oh, LGBTQ pride is totalitarian, right? He pride parades clearly in other Auschwitz in the Prager perspective. Uh-oh, America's become the greatest exporter of destructive ideas. Young Americans voted to ruin their lives, just reading titles from his recent columns. Why my friends and I had more wisdom when we were 12 and college students than faculty have today. Is Canada becoming North America's Cuba? Art Bell, you live in Canada. Is Canada becoming North America's Cuba? COVID-19 and the failure of America's major religions. A brief guide to leftist destruction. The left is evil, and liberals keep voting for them. Right, point number seven in the Gourmetre. Revolutionary theories. Right, if galaxy-braininess refers to a breadth of knowledge, the ability to forge connections between disparate topics, then their professed development of revolutionary theories displays the depth of their knowledge. Connected with their narcissism and worthiness of being a guru, they are greatly attracted to claiming that they have developed game-changing and paradigm-shifting intellectual products. This is the credential and the resume of the guru. Right? Just as I said, it's not the right thing to do. Just as the public were keen to seek out Albert Einstein's opinions on all matter of topics unconnected with physics, people also find it natural that one who's accomplished something great in one area should be qualified to offer advice on all sorts of topics. Now, genuinely, revolutionary theories, such as general relativity, a few and far between. So the guru is compelled to manufacture constantly new revolutionary theories. I would give Prager a three out of five on this score. So he came up with the great line. The bigger the government, the smaller the citizen. All right, even though there's no evidence for it, it sounds good. And Dennis says, I am not looking for great lines to make a better living and get a bigger audience. I'm looking for important points to touch people's lives. Like Deepak Chopra, Dave Rubin and Reverend Sun Young Moon and Gwyneth Pautra and Oprah. I'm sure that Prager does touch many lives. He says many things that sound profound. The final analysis, though, is most crowd-pleasing points are epistemic sabotage.  That's the production of ersatz wisdom. It's a corrupt epistemic that creates the appearance of useful knowledge, but has none of the substance. So the guru is highly motivated to undertake epistemic sabotage to just barrage authoritative and institutional sources of knowledge. He tends to disdain academic studies, but when he finds ones that support his point of view, he embraces them like truth bombs against the left and frequently doesn't read very carefully to push his personal ideological agenda. Dennis Prager tends to treat truth like a used tampon. Point number eight on the Garometer pseudo-profound BS. All right, this is their core business. This is their stock and trade. They are most comfortable in the role of armchair opinionator. The wise man graciously offering their advice to eager seekers of wisdom. So revolutionary theories and galaxy brainness describe the content of their discourse. Pseudo-profound BS describes the form of their discourse. There's language that is cognitively easy to process. Superficially appears to be profound. Fun analysis turns out to be trite, meaningless, contradictory or tautological. So Dennis and Jordan Peterson are pretty good with this. The idea that you have to journey to the darkest abyss to free the spirit of your father. But there's a reason for it and it has to do with the tragic view of life, which is that you can't discover what you're capable of being or withstanding. And those are the same things without, if you hide away from any of the things about life that are terrible but true. And the reason you can't discover who you are without doing that is that only necessity will force that out of you. And I mean that from the perspective of learning, if you go work in a palliative care ward, you'll learn to deal with death. You'll learn that the psychological strategy is necessary, the steps. You'll become more informed. But it's deeper than that even. We know now from a biological perspective that if you put yourself in new situations, in new and challenging situations, that new genes turn on in your nervous system and code for new proteins that produce new neurological structures. And so you can't even be what you are fully biologically, unless you expose yourself to everything that you can expose yourself to as you journey through life.  Revolutionary theories just pour from this man. Okay, so I'd give Prager a three out of five. There are some examples from his book, Think a Second Time. Nothing in the history of the human race has caused more evil than the belief in the importance of blood. Right, so the belief in the importance of blood is just the flip side of genetic altruism. People prefer, you know, those they are related to. American values have universal applicability and they are eminently exportable, awesome. So someone like myself would see American values or Japanese values or Canadian values or Russian values or Australian values as the product of a particular people surviving and transmitting their genes in a particular environment. Every child is a blank slate, says Dennis. The Dennis Prager advocates the Proposition Nation, a country that's primarily united by shared beliefs, rather being a particular people. He advocates the Proposition Family, parents and children who are united by their shared beliefs. Says, as a father my purpose is not to pass on my seed but to pass on my values. Dennis Prager does not believe the family is a big deal when compared to the importance of the individual. So Dennis Prager said, traditional life in Europe became you are defined by your family, but that's not the way it ought to be. You are defined by you, not by your family. People think family is a big deal. It's not. It's a big deal. Who are you? All right, so Prager views that we are primarily individuals rather than members of families, extended families, tribes and nations. This is a very modern and liberal perspective. It's the opposite perspective of a great intellectual like John Jay Mearsheimer in his great 2018 book, The Great Delusion, Liberal Dreams and International Realities. So there John Mearsheimer wrote, my view is that we are profoundly social beings. From the start to the finish of our lives, and that individualism is of secondary importance. Liberalism downplays the social nature of human beings to the point of almost ignoring it, treating people as atomistic actors. Political liberalism is an ideology that is individualistic at its core. Assigns great importance to the concept of inalienable rights. Yes, concerned for rights is the basis of liberalism's universalism. Everyone on the planet has the same inherent rights. This is what motivates liberal states to pursue ambitious foreign policies like invading Afghanistan and Iraq. So public and scholarly discourse about liberalism since World War II is placing enormous emphasis on human rights. Human rights have defined the most elevated aspirations of social movements and political entities. They evoke hope, provoke action. Now, from a traditional perspective, from my perspective, Mearsheimer's perspective, humans do not operate as lone wolves. Humans are born into families, into tribes, into social groups, into societies that then shape their identities well before they can assert their individualism. Individuals usually develop strong attachments to their group. They're frequently willing to make great sacrifices for their family. Humans are tribal at their core. The main reason for our social nature is that the best way for a person to survive is to be embedded in a family, a society, a community, a tribe, and to cooperate with fellow members rather than act alone. Remember I talked about that Netflix series on apes in Africa, and when the apes got separated from the group, they would often be attacked and killed by other apes. Safest place is life within the tribe. Despite its elevated ranking, reason is the least important of the ways that we determine our preferences. It's less important than socialization. Humans have a long childhood in which they are protected and nurtured by their families, ideally, and their surrounding society, and so they are exposed to intense socialization. They're only beginning to develop their critical faculties. They're not equipped to think for themselves by the time an individual reaches the point where his reasoning skills develop, such as age 25. His family and his society, his community, his religion have already imposed an enormous value infusion on him. So the individual is born within eight sentiments. They're not born a blank slate. So people have very limited choice of formulating a moral code because so much of their thinking about right and wrong comes from inborn attitudes and socialization. So Dennis Prager's whole agenda is reworking people's moral code, but reality is people have very limited choice in formulating their moral code. So if John Mirsheimer is right, and I believe he is, then Dennis Prager is just another guru spouting pseudo-profound nonsense. And so this idea that a country or a family should primarily be held together on the grounds of ideology, that we should love our parents or our siblings or our children because we agree with their views on the Constitution, that's ridiculous. And what best predicts lifetime outcomes, genetics, right, nature not nurture, the main determinant of how much money people make, how well people form at school and at university. Dennis says, I don't know what I've learned morally that I didn't know in fifth grade. I can't think of a single moral insight. So he hasn't learned anything morally since fifth grade. Dennis says, the word for servant, the word for slave is the same in the Torah, which is why Jews don't like to be servants because they think it is slavery. Did you ever meet a Jewish waiter? Jews don't wait. Jews don't want to serve anybody. That's very ridiculous, right? If you're going to make money, you're going to have to serve people. Dennis realized early on that his own instincts are simply identical to God's Torah, right? Dennis's instincts and God's instincts are identical. And I blow my mind says Dennis, my natural mode of thinking was the Torah's mode of thinking, right? Dennis was just aligned with God, right? His way of thinking was the same as the Torah's way of thinking, right? That's his discourse, man. Can you imagine what that's like to realize that you and God are on the same wavelength? That you're thinking, God's thinking, it just meshed. Don't remember when, but it was early on. Amazing.  And it blew my mind.  So when Dennis says his instincts are identical to the Torah, saying that his instincts are identical to God's instincts. Can you imagine what a revelation that would be as a lad to realize that you and God have the same instincts? My natural mode of thinking was the Torah's mode of thinking. Wow. And that's why I feel it's a moral obligation to get it in print. Thank you, Dennis. Because if you take those five books seriously, you will think morally clearly. You will think clearly about everything. And you'll be so much happier. Yeah, well, you could testify. Oh my God. I mean, your life will, society will run better. Your life will run better. Personally, you will feel enriched and fulfilled and happier. I really think, and I know it sounds sort of extreme, or perhaps like I'm hyperbolizing to say it, I think it's the answer to everything. Oh, I know it's the answer to everything. That's why it's frustrating that it isn't out there more. I know. As much as it's out there, my biggest frustration is it's not out there more. This is talking about his own Torah teachings. Because his instincts are identical with the Torahs, like his instincts that are identical with the author of the Torah, who is God, Dennis Prager's perspective. His instincts are identical with God's. He has walked through his life with the identical instincts as the creator and sustainer of the universe. This is the answer to evil, or even unhappiness. You know, I said this, I know I said the first part on our podcast, but I said the second part in the Prager You video I just filmed, and I think it's worth mentioning here. You know that I think it's incredibly creepy that people my age fight against things that most of them have never seen before. Racism, climate change. Oppression. Oppression, you know, what are their words? Can you imagine what it's like to be aligned with the master of the universe, have the same instincts as the Torah? Homophobia, transphobia, et cetera. But on the flip side of that, the things that they disparage, they have never tried out before. So sad that more people don't get to tap into Dennis Prager's mode of thinking, which is identical with God's mode of thinking. And this is the answer to everything, guys. Dennis Prager's teachings. So there are over a million Jews in the world who base their lives on Torah. I don't think anyone seriously could look at them and say, oh, these guys have the answer to everything.  They have an answer, right? They have many good things going on, but you're not going to look at Orthodox Jews and say, oh, these guys have the answer to everything, to evil, unhappiness, because they have Torah. Dennis says, I don't remember meeting cruel religious Jews. And Dennis says it is our task to figure out what is eternal in the Torah without just using what we are comfortable with. Dennis says, tribalism is racism. Tribalism is a curse for modernity. And like any ethnic neighborhood, I don't think it's the American ideal. If you see another person, you should see another one of God's children. You should not see white or black, right? It's a very dangerous idea that race and culture are identical. Race is race, culture is culture. Either guys, we believe we are all God's children and character matters more than skin color. We don't. Racism, that people of a certain skin color are inherently different. It's not only evil, guys. It's moronic. To divide people by pigmentation, general rules and money is wrong. We should divide people only by good and bad. And Dennis says that the spread of Christianity is the best hope for Africa. Point number nine from the Garometer, conspiracy mongering. To gain real insights, real specialized knowledge that nobody else can see. That takes hard work. Even a lifetime of study. That's not nearly enough for a guru who needs a steady supply of fresh original content to supply to their followers and justify their status. To be a guru, they must set themselves up. Not only is uniquely insightful, but to be above and apart from all orthodoxies, including established political and ideological groups, they're encouraged to go beyond standard heterodoxy, contrarianism and skepticism into the realm of conspiratorial ideation. The expert consensus, by definition, tends to supply the most reasonable and evidence-based perspectives based on current information. The guru is in a position of needing to provide a strongly contrasting perspective and to supply the arguments that back up their bold claims in a compelling way. This leads them inexorably dow