We've tried to make the point that to some extent, you know, like there's a disparaging

connotation with gurus, and the way that we have framed that, particularly with the online

secular gurus, it's overall negative, right? The way that we add the key characteristics that we identify of that set.

But they're actually, you know, public intellectual or prominent think or whatever you put to it

is fundamentally a neutral thing.

People can be Carl Sagan types or they can be Andrew Wakefield types.

And there often is similar kinds of rhetoric or levels of confidence that individuals have.

And, you know, charisma is a huge part of that.

So I don't think it's our position would not be that like anybody that takes on the role of a public intellectual that promotes themselves and does multi-R, like individual lectures into a camera.

There's something special about those people.

That's definitely true.

Like, but if you can, you know, monologue for hours.

But it's more that there's a particular type of exploitative rhetorical style, which I think is more

toxic and more damaging.

And that's the main thing that we're critiquing.

Welcome to the unspeakable podcast.

I'm your host, Megan Down.

I guess the culture, that's capital C culture, has officially reached peak podcast, since this is a podcast interview with a podcaster whose podcast is about podcasts.

Chris Kavanaugh is the host of Decoding the Gurus, a podcast that by its own description is an anthropologist and I

psychologist listening to the greatest minds the world has to offer and trying their best to

understand what they're talking about. But a little more specifically, I would say what they're

doing is trying to map the messages of a particular category of online thinker.

...