Bonus: Jesse Interviews Ben Burgis, Author Of "Give Them an Argument: Logic for the Left"

Blocked and Reported

Katie Herzog and Jesse Singal

Unknown

4.6 • 4.1K Ratings

🗓️ 6 June 2020

⏱️ 89 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

For this, the first-ever patrons-only Blocked and Reported interview, Jesse interviewed Ben Burgis, a philosopher, prolific writer for Jacobin and other outlets, and the author of Give Them an Argument: Logic for the Left. Among other subjects, the duo discussed self-sabotaging messaging on the left, the flaws in Jordan Peterson's conception of 'post-modernism,' and the class element missing from the police-reform discussion. At the end, Jesse tried to get Ben to turn him into a socialist. Did it work? Only one way to find out.

A few articles by Ben: "Socialism and Human Nature," "Capitalism Isn’t Working. But What Would a Viable Socialist System Look Like?," and "Why Jordan Peterson Is Always Wrong."

Below you'll find a guide to what is discussed at which points in the podcast. Enjoy!

12:15 - Ben on the problem with Oxford-style debate

20:30 - Jesse and Ben discuss the dangers of assuming people who make ‘bad’ political choices are fundamentally evil or broken

26:15 - on “if you criticize U.S. foreign policy, you are pro-al-Qaeda” - style argumentation, and the frustrating extent to which the left is now adopting it

29:00 - online, staying chill is the best revenge

31:45 - IT’S JORDAN PETERSON TIME

49:20 - the silliness of the fight over ‘platforming’

52:38 - the problem with making maximalist positions like “abolish the police” the face of leftist movements

56:50 - “DURING PRIDE?????”

1:02:00 - NYC DSA’s deplatforming of Adolph Reed, who stands accused of “class reductionism”

1:04:45 - another DSA controversy, this one over “white saviorism”

1:08:00 - Ben on the overlooked class element of the police-reform debate

1:15:20 - you don’t want to broadcast the myth that white people, particularly poor ones, have nothing at stake in police reform

1:19:55 - Jesse wraps things up by saying, “It’s better to be a wussy liberal than a socialist — CHANGE MY MIND”

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.blockedandreported.org/subscribe

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Hello, welcome to Blokken reported. I am Jesse single. I'm alone. I'm without
0:06.5	my co-host Katie Herzog. I miss her. She'll be back soon. I'm here to present
0:11.0	you an interview I did with Ben Burgess. Ben's a really smart guy. I will let him
0:15.4	introduce himself momentarily and we talked about a lot of stuff. Everything from
0:19.6	the importance of and limitations of debate to Jordan Peterson, to the fight
0:24.4	over no platforming to the arguably self-defeating maximalist way lefties
0:30.1	portray important issues. At the end we also got into the missing class element
0:35.3	from a lot of the discussion of police reform and we talked about some other stuff
0:39.1	as well. Check the show notes for a guy that lays out the major subjects we
0:43.7	discussed and where in the episode you can find them. This conversation is
0:47.3	almost an hour and a half long. I'm also going to do a shorter cut for the free
0:50.4	version so we'll make it clear when that pops up in the an upcoming free
0:54.6	episode that you can sort of skip that. We'll put it at the end of the episode.
0:57.1	Definitely let us know how you like this sort of long form format with with
1:01.4	either me or Katie interviewing someone alone. We know we want to make interviews
1:05.7	of fairly frequent part of the podcast but exactly how to do it is still up in
1:09.5	the air and some feedback from you. Our trusty patrons would be much
1:12.7	appreciated. Thank you guys so much. I hope you're surviving the apocalypse okay
1:16.7	and I also hope you enjoy my conversation with Ben Burgess. Hello Ben Burgess
1:23.1	how are you doing today? I'm good man how are you? Good you are holding you
1:27.9	hanging in there during our present apocalypse. Yeah yeah I I mean
1:34.9	considering the plague and depression and and civil unrest and and and
	...

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