 Is it okay to notice cultural differences amongst groups that correspond with racial differences? Is it okay to make judgments about those cultural differences, or is that racist? Is there any way to respect the uniqueness of every individual while still recognizing patterns amongst groups? These are the difficult topics we're talking about on the 73rd episode of Patterson in Pursuit. I have a theory. I think that people from upstate New York, on average, are more likely to be depressed and grumpy and cranky than people who live down south. My theory is because I don't think they get enough sunshine in upstate New York. Is that okay to say? Is that something that I need to back up by saying, by the way, I'm from upstate New York? Would it be inappropriate for me to say something like that if I didn't come from upstate New York? It's not a stretch of the imagination to see how that corresponds with the topic this week, which is race, culture, and judgment. I've invited back on the show T.K. Coleman, who came in episodes 40 and 41 to talk about race relations in America. We're continuing that conversation this week and next week. Next week's gonna be about race and politics. I'm not gonna give too much introduction for this episode. T.K. Coleman is the Education Director at Praxis. He travels around giving inspirational speeches to people, opening their minds, blowing their minds sometimes. I highly recommend checking out some of his content online. T.K. Coleman.com is where you can find it. And if you value the conversation that we're going to have over the next two weeks, you can go to patreon.com slash Steve Patterson to become a supporter of the show. So I hope you enjoy finding this conversation valuable with T.K. Coleman. What's up, man? Hey, T.K. It's great to talk with you again. I just met you for the first time in person a few weeks ago, and we sat down for, I don't know, at least an hour. And I was thinking, I'm not gonna talk T.K. Zear off about philosophy, and about ten minutes in, I started talking about philosophy. It was like ten seconds. It was. Yeah. How's it going? That's great. Let's talk about space. Exactly. Well, I really enjoyed it. I told you this before. I have maybe three weeks or so after we did the last interview on race, and in a very short period of time it became my most popular episode. To me, it tells me this is a topic that people really want to hear discussed. Most people aren't really comfortable talking about race, but I feel like you and I have a good enough rapport. We have a good enough grasp of language, of philosophy. We respect one another where we can really talk about things that need to be talked about. Absolutely, man. Either that or we're in a good position to get people to sign a petition for us to be the stars of Miami Vice Reboot. So this is how I want to kind of frame the conversation where I want to start, and then I'm sure there's a million things that will be brought about. But I want to talk about race and culture. So I think a lot of people are unanimous in their condemning of racism as understood as because you have a particular skin color, I'm going to negatively judge you and I'm going to do things that harm you. I don't want to associate with you. I don't like you because I see you have a different skin color than I do. Something like that. But they're a lot less comfortable talking. Do you disagree off the bat? Somewhat. So I agree with you that once you define the word racism that way, most people are on board saying, yes, I think that's bad and yes, I'm not guilty of that. But I also think it's important to point out, at least in my experience, that I have never observed someone who actually is racist, who thinks of himself or herself as racist. In that context. Nearly everyone say that again. In that context. So even when you're talking about people that have these beliefs about skin color. Yes. So even if you find what you believe to be a really great uncontroversial example of someone who's racist and you assign that label to them, they'll probably react to it quite defensively. And they'll say something along the lines of I'm not racist. I'm just looking out for the concerns of tribe X or I'm not racist. I'm just being real about certain correlations that exist between this and that. This doesn't mean they're right. But I'm saying this because I don't think defining the word racism and saying that we mostly agree about this. I don't think it gets us anywhere significant. I don't think it really solves anything. Yeah, we got to do the definitions. But when you actually talk to people that you might think are racist, you'll find that they hardly ever think of themselves in that way. They just think they're rationalist and realist who are doing whatever it is they have to do in order to make sure that certain forces that they regard to be genuinely evil don't harm them and others like them. Well, I think where, and at least in my conversations where things definitely get further into the murky realm is when we talk about culture and the connections that people see between race and culture. So most of the people or virtually everybody that I associate with in my life I think is pretty open-minded and pretty tolerant of people of different colors. But much less tolerant, much less accepting or universally open-minded of people that are of different cultures. There are some cultural patterns, some cultural behaviors that they just don't like. And usually they're okay with talking about it, maybe in private. Say, oh, I just don't like when I see this behavior in this group. But what has happened is that identification of cultural patterns that you don't like in large parts of the discourse has been identified with racism. So if I say something like, I've noticed when I've traveled the world, when you're standing in lines at tourist attractions, Chinese people tend to cut in line all the time. It's a cultural thing. I don't think it's because of Chinese biology. I think there's something in cultures, maybe it comes from communism. I'm not sure where they're much more accepting of cutting in line. You see it everywhere and people who have traveled around. And this is something specific to when you're visiting like China, as opposed to here in the States. I've never been in China, but it's true in pretty much any of the countries I've been to where there are tourist attractions and there are long lines. If you see people cutting and pretty like overtly cutting, I'm going to put at least 90% chance, maybe a little bit higher, that they're Chinese. Now, I say that definitely sounds like it's more than a neutral, casual cultural observation. Oh, yeah. No, I sound racist. Right. I'd say I don't like that cultural trait. I don't have anything against Chinese people. I have nothing against their body composition, their framework. But that cultural trend that I see that I'm assuming comes from culture, I have a positive dislike of that. And so people might say, oh, that is racism. Now, because I don't use that definition of racism, I say, no, it's not racism at all. It's just like I don't like this trait that I see that comes from people of a certain group. What do you think? Is that racism? Can we talk about whether or not that qualifies as the big R, the big racism? Or is that, if so, is it a problem? What do you think? So we definitely give ourselves and each other permission to make cultural observations like that when it has to do with things like religion or political ideology or even sports fanship. Right? So we can say things like, yeah, Lakers fans tend to be so superficial. They just show up at the games because they want to be seen. Right? Right. And Riggers fans are like violent. Yeah, but we're allowed to say that. Right. Or we can say football fans tend to be like this, baseball fans tend to be like that. Even with religion, we can say, you know, Christians, you know, especially like maybe evangelicals or non-denominational Christians, if you go to one of their churches, they're going to be a little bit more like this, a little bit more preachy in this way. And we're pretty comfortable with that. I think the difference with what you're talking about here though is we are linking a cultural observation to someone's nationality or ethnicity or race. And so we can say, well, I'm not talking about the fact of being from China or I'm not talking about the fact that you are Chinese. I'm just saying Chinese people happen to be late all the time. Well, it still just sounds like a roundabout way of slandering people who happen to be Chinese. So I can totally see how a person would react to that as if it's different from a cultural observation based on religious belief because it's pretty close to the definition of racism that you just gave, right? Where you're saying something about someone based on race. It sounds a lot like it. But you're not saying something... I would disagree with that because you're not saying, I don't like Chinese people because of this behavior. You're saying, I don't like this behavior and I don't like that I observe it coming from one culture that I think reasonably you can make the connection between they come from China, therefore there's going to be some Chinese culture there. And I don't like that behavior as expressed by that individual who comes from that culture. So it's not like I don't like the chineseness. It's that I see people as individuals and certain individuals who come from certain cultures do things in a way that I don't like. And you would say that sounds like racism? Yes, so we got two components here of what we're dealing with. One is we're dealing with the what does this sound like component when I'm talking to everyday people? How am I likely to be understood and what's the logic behind that? And then the second issue is, is there a rational basis for making these kinds of claims? Can we make scientific statements about things like people being more likely to be late because they come from a certain kind of culture? Those are two separate issues. But if we're talking about the issue of why do people understand it in this way? Why do people see it that way? Do we have to go beyond arguments we can give for why we think we're reasonable in saying things? Because effective communication has only been achieved when the goal of communicating has been realized. So if I say please pass the salt and you think I'm an asshole and that wasn't my goal, it behooves me to understand why you think I'm an asshole for communicating that way, even if I think the way in which I word it myself is quite reasonable. So when you say things like this, the first thing is you are identifying, at least in this example, a negative trait. I imagine people aren't going to be as uncomfortable if you stereotype people who are Chinese as being exceptionally brilliant or as being really creative or as being such great contributors to society. I mean, people usually don't mind being stereotyped in a positive way. If you say, TK, every black person I've met is really good looking and just really smooth. I'd be like, oh man, I might like that. So people tend not to care as much when you're identifying positive traits. But if you identify a negative trait and you associate it with someone's ethnicity or nationality, fair or not, I think you are always going to be understood. Almost always going to be understood as being racist. And I think if you want to have a conversation about making observations about culture, you're going to have to be really creative and really delicate with how you get that conversation going. If you want that other party to participate without getting distracted by, oh, I think you're being racist. Does that make sense? It makes sense. But can I push back? I mean, can I challenge it? That seems like that's it. That's when it gets interesting. That seems like it's toxic. It seems like this is kind of coming back to the conversation we had last time about communicating the importance of your intention versus your action, what your intention. If you come at it from a standpoint of I'm communicating as an individualist, my identification of what humans are is not group identity first and then the individual, it's the individual who happens to have certain biological characteristics, certain traits, happens to come from a certain family, all those things. So I'm starting from a standpoint, I would say, that is kind of impossible to square with a genuine racism. When you see everybody as individuals, it's like to be a racist, I don't even know if you can square that circle. But I think it's also helpful to say that I see individuals as individuals, but I also see patterns emerge based on geography, socioeconomic status. There are patterns in race. And it seems like if we want to understand the world around us, it'd be helpful to talk about those kind of patterns, especially when they're negative or when they're positive. So I agree with you there. I agree that recognizing patterns wherever they could be recognized can be quite useful. And I also agree that there do seem to be patterns that emerge when we observe how people from certain geographical regions behave. Like East Coast people are very different from West Coast people in some pretty clearly identifiable ways, even if we debate the outliers. And that seems to be true among a variety of different lines that we can use for dividing it up. However, if the goal of making these observations is only to make a point and feel justified with the point that I'm making, then we don't need to have any kind of conversation about how we were at things. Just turn on the camera, go on your YouTube channel, say what you got to say, put it out there, people who like it, like it, people who don't like it, don't like it. I definitely don't preach a philosophy that says, always be nervous, tiptoe around the issue and make sure you don't offend anybody. But if the goal is to get a conversation going with people who traditionally react to these kinds of observations in an antagonistic way, then it behooves me to understand and appreciate why that audience has that reaction, because that might give me some insight on how I can involve them in the conversation. Now, if I don't want to be involved in the conversation with them and I don't care about what offends them, then I'm all good. There's nothing for me to do other than go ahead and keep doing my thing, saying what I have to say. But if you're trying to factor the other party in and you're saying, this person doesn't want to talk to me or this person's always offended by me, and that bothers me, then you have to go beyond how justified you are and you got to ask yourself, why are they responding this way and what can I do about it? Well, what if it's not just about race, though? What if it's about talking about the metaphysics of what a human is? Or what if it's talking about ethics? There are some conversations that have to be had in the fundamentals of ethics. We get down to, does human life matter? We have to entertain the idea that maybe it doesn't. Maybe it does, and we got to explore those possibilities. But if you can't even state the claim because you're worried about how somebody might react, isn't that a problem? Isn't that like, well, that problem's on you. If you can't entertain the fact that I'm not an evil person by stating this observation, making this proposition, that's not my problem. That's not helpful. Well, it depends because you said there are some conversations that have to be had, right? And I understand the word conversation to have a very distinct meaning. That's a different sort of statement from there are some things that have to be said, right? I think there are some things that have to be said, in spite of the fact that no one likes them. And the solution to that is to exercise the courage necessary to say them. This is why I don't sympathize with people who cry and complain all the time about what you can't say. You can actually say whatever you want to say, right? You don't get to decide how other people react to that. So when you say, well, nobody can say what they really feel nowadays. What you really mean is we can say whatever the hell we want, but I'm afraid of the social cost I'm going to have to pay based on who will get offended by that, right? So if all you're saying is there are some things that have to be said, they're not politically correct. People are going to get mad. The solution is to go ahead, be the guy, to exercise the courage to say those things and own it and recognize that not being liked, not being popular, not being able to run for president or whatever or pissing off someone's mom. That's going to be one of the consequences that comes along with being somebody who keeps it real, being somebody who dares to have an opinion. And we all have to choose to be like that in certain areas of life. However, if you're talking about conversation and you're saying I want to have dialogue with someone other than myself, and I want to do something other than just give a lecture or give a talk where I express my opinion and I want people to hear me out and I want people to listen to me and I want to persuade them of what I think. Now I'm playing a different game. Now I'm playing a game that says it is important to me if you get offended because I'm not getting what I want. And if that is important to me, now I have to play by the rule of learning your language. It's kind of like in the arena of romance. If the goal is to get you to go on a date with me, then I got to learn your love language and I have to speak it. And it's okay if I don't want to put that time in. It's okay if I don't want to care about that sort of thing. But that means I need to own it and say, all right, I'm fine without you. Okay, so let's put this into practice. I think it's very well put. I tend to agree with most of that. And I've already established myself as the guy that everybody hates. So I have no problem with taking on that role whatsoever. But Steve, really quickly, I think this is very important because there are a lot of people who want to have their cake and eat it too. They want to be the politically incorrect. I keep it real. Say whatever I want to say kind of guy. But then they still end up crying and complaining when there are people that say, I don't like you. You're evil or you're stupid or you're mean or you're racist or whatever. And at some point, you got to wake up to reality and say, is your goal being liked by everyone? Or is your goal speaking your truth regardless of the consequences that emanate from it? And yeah, you can be irritated by people that don't like it, but you're not a victim. You're not a victim for being willing to pay the price for what you want to say. But there's got to be a line there somewhere. Because let's take an example where I'm trying to communicate information about my health state. And I've got a big problem with my knee. And every time I talk about it, everybody goes, actually, this kind of happened with my shoulder because this was the case. Years ago, I had shoulder problems. And I was on a basketball team. And occasionally, I didn't understand the reason. Gosh, I got to be taken out of this game. This is terrible. I couldn't fix it. Everybody laughed at me. They mocked me. Now I just make it up. You're a whiner, Steve, blah, blah, blah, blah. Years I dealt with this. Not just at basketball, but other areas, too, when my shoulder would bother me. In martial arts, for example. They thought you were making excuses. Thought I was making excuses. They made judgments about me that turned out in hindsight to actually be unfair. Because through a series of very weird events, long story short, it turns out that there's a nerve that goes from your shoulder to your diaphragm, premium diaphragm to your kidney. And I was having kidney trouble, which caused me to have diaphragmatic trouble, which caused me to have extreme shoulder pain. I didn't realize this connection, and nor did any of the doctors I had seen before. Once I got some surgery on my kidney, which fixed the kidney problem, fixed the diaphragm problem, fixed the shoulder problem. Totally by accident. And then it was like, those bastards this whole time. They've been judging me. They've been mocking me. That's been affecting my social life because they thought I was making stuff up, but I actually wasn't. So that's a circumstance where it's like, I'm trying to communicate true information. And your judgment of me, just by communicating the true information, it's unfair. It's unjustified. I'm deserved. All right, so let me play Devil's Advocate here. Sure. So you're communicating true information, and you're asking the other party to place faith in what you're saying as true. They don't have access to the same data that you have. They don't feel your pain. And maybe they're making other observations, whether those observations correspond to reality or not, that give them some basis for skepticism, and they question you. They don't believe you. Now, either you're telling the truth or you're not. Either what you're saying is empirically verifiable or it's not. If it is, you can go get a doctor to look at that situation and verify it, independently of their faith in you. And once you do that, if you turn out to be right, I guarantee you you can take your medical papers to those same skeptics and say, aha, see? And they'll probably feel bad and say, ah, yeah, you're right. But the important issue here is, what's important to you? Is what's number one on your agenda validating the fact that you really do have this injury and getting it fixed? Or is it getting these other people to accept that you're telling the truth? You can decide if you want to care about that or not. And if you do want to care about it, then it would behoove you to understand that they probably have a reason for being skeptical. And all you have to do is go do the work to provide them with the evidence that they need to place faith in what you're saying. And if you're not willing to do that work, that's totally cool. But you've got to own the consequences that come with that. If you don't care about getting the evidence, don't care about their opinion. So what about, though, the circumstance that actually happened? This isn't even hypothetical, as I tried for years to figure out what the heck was going on and the doctors were clueless. And it was only by accident a decade later that I had this kidney trouble that then accidentally resolved my shoulder pain. So that's a decade of this ideas going around, the social implications that happened because of that, because people made it arbitrary judgment, thinking that my intention was wrong and I was lying to try to get attention or something like that. And I couldn't even prove it to them. Okay, so a couple of things. I'm not going to defend the way they handled it, okay? I'm not going to say that making fun of a guy because you think he faked an injury is a nice thing to do. I don't know the full context of that. That's not how I get my kicks in life. If someone says they're injured, I tend to have the personality type of saying, well, you know your body best, right? Whatever. But in fairness, you've been in enough philosophical debates to know what it's like to want to believe what someone is telling you, but to not have enough data that you find to be convincing, right? And you can't just force yourself to accept what someone says as true if you don't have evidence. Now, in this particular example, you freely admit that you were not in a position where you could have proved your claims. Like you knew it from the inside out because of this subjective experience of pain, but that's not something you can transfer. So you freely admit that you had no objective evidence that could have convinced them. So why would we expect those people to believe you? I'm sure your mom probably believed you. I'm sure your best friend probably believed you because they have that kind of relationship. But why should they believe you? Granted, they may not have responded to their disbelief in the most mature way, but I don't find their reaction of skepticism to be all that surprising. Isn't that what we all do when we don't have evidence of something? But here's the problem. Now we go back to the racism example, because as the claim then, when I state observations about patterns that I see in the world, I now have to have lengthy proof that I'm not a racist. If my desire is to communicate true information in a way that doesn't necessarily upset people, but if it does, okay, it's my observations of the world, do I then have to say, oh, and by the way, I have to prove to all my listeners and all the people listening, here's this, you know, look, I had all these conversations as a relationship with somebody. I'm like, I'm not a racist. Is that what we're saying? That's what you got to do in order to say things like this? I'm not saying that, but this reminds me a lot of something that I see on Facebook a lot. Someone will go on Facebook and they'll make a statement that they have to know is polemic, right? I mean, you have to know when your beliefs are polemic. You could still think your beliefs are right, but you got to know the difference between a belief that's just going to ruffle some feathers versus a belief that's going to be relatively uninteresting, right? If I get online and I say, I believe that the woman who claims to be my mother actually is my mother that's really not going to ruffle any feathers. If I get online and I say, you know, I believe that college is a scam, I wasn't born yesterday, man. It doesn't matter how much I may accept that as true, I'm going to ruffle some feathers. So you got to know when you're going to do that, right? I see people get on Facebook, they make an observation that they know people are going to get ruffled up about. And then when those people do what you'd expect them to do, they comment, they get angry. What's the evidence for this? Or how dare you say that? Then they come back. I don't owe it to you to give a long speech or write a research paper defending everything I say. I'm free to just say something if I want. Now here's the thing, that person's absolutely right. But so is the naysayer. So is the skeptic. You are free to say whatever you want. And you never have to defend anything that you say. I'm not aware of anything you could say that's going to cause you to get locked up for saying it, even if it's false, right? I mean, there are a few issues, but not very many. And at the same time, that right also belongs to the people who are skeptical of you or who are offended by you. Don't they have the right to say, I disagree or I think you're stupid or I don't like when you say that. And if you're not willing to back up what you say and defend it, if you don't really care about their opinion and their concerns, you're free to just keep on moving, man. You're free to keep on moving, being the polemic guy that you have chosen to be. But if you care, if it bothers you that these people are misunderstanding you, then you've got to own that and be willing to do the work necessary to bridge the gap. But if you don't care, don't care. I think there's a middle ground here, which is to say for the most part, I don't care. But I do for those individuals that have some intellectual curiosity intellectual honesty and be like, okay, well, this is an idea I've never encountered makes me a little bit uncomfortable. Is it backed up? Is this something, rather than jumping straight to the conclusion, oh, this is a bad person because they said X, this must reflect on them being a racist or something like that. They're like, okay, well, let's see, let's treat it as an empirical observation and then do their own research. Now that's the people, those people who have an open mind, those are the people I want to reach. And I also would say, because those are the people I want to reach, I want a more rational culture. I have an issue with people immediately jumping to the you're a bad person argument. When I say things like it is true, I am saying a true thing that when I've traveled the world, this is the observation that I've made about people cutting in line. Nothing, it says nothing about my intention. It says nothing about anything other than I keep my eyes open when I'm standing in line. I would say if we want a rational culture, there should be absolutely nothing wrong with that. I would add to that, if we want a rational culture, then we should start by investing in those who choose to be rational, right? So of all the people who respond to the things that you or anyone else might say, by saying, oh, you're a bad person for having that opinion, we can divide them into two categories. There are people for whom that is just their default. And you're not going to change them by argument. That's how they react to people believing in something they don't like. They're not open-minded. And they reveal themselves to be such after you try to dialogue with them. And there comes a point where you realize, this isn't going anywhere. I'm not going to change these people. They're not going to change me. It's a waste of time. Okay, proper response for people who prove themselves to be that way. Then there are those people who don't know any better, right? Maybe they're not good at arguing. Maybe they're not good at detecting logical fallacies. Maybe they have some misinformed beliefs, but they're open to dialogue. And you see some evidence of genuine curiosity and a genuine willingness to examine evidence that is contrary to what their opinions are. Those are the people that you invest in. And even then, if you decide that you're going to invest in these people, because they're worth having conversation with, then you do have to play by the rule of taking into account why they're so resistant to what I'm saying and seeing if I can find a different way. Because the purpose of persuasion, the purpose of selling, is it to argue for my right to say it in this way independently of how you feel? The purpose is to try to figure out the entry point that works for you without compromising the integrity of what it is I'm trying to say. I will quote my mother here, because when you were talking about this, this actually reminds me what she used to say to me all the time. She used to say, Steve, speak the truth in love. Because I was big on the speak and the truth part, but the method, the loving way of communicating is not something I've spent that much time exploring. Though a little bit more now, and I have a professional interest in doing so because I want people to not just immediately shut down when they hear all the true things that I have to say. There's an idiot proverb I like that says, once you've cut off a person's nose, there's no use in giving them a rose to smell. There you go. Okay, so we've established, I think, a good starting point that I'm willing to say as a philosopher, as somebody that's okay with stating things I know to be unpopular, I am okay with cutting off people and having them label me things that are all incorrect, but that's going to be their knee-jerk reaction. When I say I have seen patterns emerge all around the world from individuals, I view them all as individuals based on their geography, socioeconomic status, race, all these other things. And because my desire is to live in a world where other people are individualists, they are aspiring to be as excellent they can be, they respect private property rights, they respect life, they respect truth, I would even say they respect love, put a little ethics in there. I feel a kind of obligation to say certain behaviors that come from individuals are going to be destructive towards that goal. Certain behaviors are going to be constructive towards that goal of living in that kind of society. Certain behaviors can be personally destructive, certain behaviors can be personally constructive. An example would be for years when I was a teenager, I grew up in, well, I just should say I grew up, I spent several years in a really poor community in upstate New York, and there was a culture there, still as I'm sure, a very strong culture there of what I call anti-intellectualism. There was an active mockery in putting down the people that were intellectually curious. It wasn't cool, it was cooler to be like, oh, I don't need education, like whatever, that's for city folk, that kind of thing. I don't like that. Not only do I not like that personally, and I don't want to be around that, I don't want those intellectual individuals to be stuck in that kind of culture. I want to say, hey, guys. You say that was an upstate New York thing? Upstate New York, yeah. I love it. They were like, we don't need no education. I love it, I'm moving to upstate New York. Not just formal education, but reading books, thinking, sitting down and thinking about a question, what is the number? They'd be like, what are you doing? And it's not just unique to upstate New York. That's a trait that I think you see all across the world, really, is there are enclaves where they are disparaging of the individual's pursuit of excellence. So number one, I don't want to be around that, because I lived around that, and it's stifling and toxic to the individual. Two, because I care about other individuals, I don't want them to be stuck in that. I want them to know there's an alternative way of living. There's a better way of living. There's a superior way of living, and you don't have to listen to the judgments of your peers and your neighbors who are trying to put you down. You can do better. You can live a happier lifestyle. Now, when I say that, in concrete terms, that's going to upset people, because I'm going to say like the trait, let's say, of the Chinese individuals that I'm saying, oh, cutting in line, that cultural trait. They say, wherever it comes from, if that's the mainstream thing that happens in China, it's destructive. It's not good. It breaks the social harmony for these reasons. Now, do you think in your judgment that that is something not worth doing, not worth saying too inflammatory? Or is that something that's like, okay, that seems pretty reasonable. The goal is to make everybody's life better. So to identify cultural traits that you think are destructive in this case is an okay thing to do. Like, hey, people who come from cultures that are okay, that support cutting in line, listen, hear me out. This is not actually a good trait. Do you think that's a reasonable approach? Is that a loving approach? Or should it still be like, no, that's going to be too inflammatory? So it depends on what is meant by reasonable here. If reasonable means, do you think I have a rational basis for uttering propositions that articulate cultural patterns, then we have to have a discussion about the evidence for that, right? Is this really true? Let's go ahead and philosophize about that because I think it is somewhat of a debatable claim and there are multiple sides to this. Okay. On the other hand, if you mean, is it reasonable if you mean, can I expect this to be an effective way of getting my point across to people that I want to become allies with me? I'm going to say no, not because I want reality to be that way, but because I understand that when you're soliciting cooperation, you often have to take other people's sensitivities into account in a way that can be uncomfortable. Okay. For instance, this is why I have some trouble with the way in which we react to people being offended, right? So we bemoan the fact that people are so sensitive nowadays, people are so offended. I think a more important question then, should you be offended is, do I care? Do I care? Because if I don't care about what offends you, then it doesn't really matter. So I think Michael Jordan is better than LeBron James will ever be. And if you're offended by that, I genuinely don't care. If you want to talk about it, that's fine. If you don't want to be my friend because of that, I genuinely do not care. I won't lose a bit of sleep about that, right? So I don't care. And maybe I think you should or shouldn't be offended, whatever, but it just doesn't matter to me enough to analyze it. On the other hand, let's say you're my wife, and my opinions about MJ really do bother you, right? And you're offended. Well, I'm not going to get squishy about my true beliefs and pretend to believe something else. I'm not going to go to my wife and be like, well, maybe it doesn't matter. No, I'm going to keep it real. But at the same time, if I care, then I'm going to have to communicate with her in a way that helps me get to the bottom of why it is she's so deeply offended by me. And I got to be open to the possibility that there might be something I can learn from this. So it sounds to me, and just correct me if I'm wrong, it sounds to me like when you talk about, when you Steve Patterson, I'm not talking about some other guy, but when you Steve Patterson, talk about these cultural observations, you're coming at it from a kind of like personal freedom, personal development vantage point where you want to see people extricate themselves from attitudes that hold them back from living the best, freest kind of life. And you want to see them kind of not be held back by those sorts of things. So it sounds to me like you care. It sounds to me like you're coming at this from the vantage point of a compassionate guy that's really passionate about other people's success. Am I wrong on that? No, you got me. Up until you said that last thing, I was going to say, oh, no, no, but the way you put it there, you got me. And this is actually interesting because as a side note, when my wife and I talk about some of these ideas and not caring, I always think from my perspective, it must be that I don't care because I keep saying these things and people keep losing their minds when I say that the mathematical ideal circle doesn't exist and everybody lose their minds, whatever. I mean that, you know, that's their problem, that's not mine. That must mean I don't care, but I think it's wrong. I think what you've just said is correct. I do actually very deeply care. I think these are the most important ideas in the world. I deeply care about people's personal development. I want having experience in toxic cultures. I want individuals to break themselves from those cultures. So it's something like I care, but not enough, I guess, to change the language. Or maybe it's that, maybe it's I don't know what language to use in order to save these really liberating and important ideas in a way that doesn't turn people off. Yeah, well, you know, there are levels of caring too. So I'm careful about what I say in a one-on-one conversation in a manner that differs from when I'm giving a lecture or I'm giving a keynote talk, right? So I might say something like, you know, power begins with you, not with politics, to a general audience, right? I may say something like politics is just a lagging indicator of change that occurs at the individual, social, cultural levels, right? When I'm talking to a general audience. Because there are a lot of people out there. I don't know what all the hangups are. Some people might find that controversial. Some people might find it so obvious that it doesn't need to be stated. It doesn't need to be stated. So I don't know where the misunderstandings lie until the Q&A happens or something like that. But if I'm having coffee with a buddy and I say, you know, politics is just a lagging indicator of cultural change and they say, how dare you say that? If I say, you know, power really begins with you, not with politicians. How dare you say that? Well, in this moment, I'm not being Ann Coulter, okay? I'm not getting a paycheck for how good I am at being entertaining or ruffling people's feathers. There is a context in which that might be the goal. But this isn't that context. I'm talking with a buddy. It's important to me that he believes what I'm saying. I'm not entertaining someone who's watching and giving me money to be entertaining. I'm not trying to make someone laugh because they already believe what I say and I want to rally the tribe. I'm trying to rescue a friend from what I take to be a very dangerous idea. And at that point, I'm going to say, I'm not going to, you know, plant my feet in the ground and be like, well, well, that's the way it is, buddy. I'm going to say, tell me what bothers you about that. What is it about that that you find so offensive? I'm going to actually listen. I'm not going to be defensive, right? Because I care about the result in a different way in this context. I think that's important. And I think you can own both. I think it's okay to identify when you don't care. And I think it's okay to identify when you do care and to not look at any of those as a sign of weakness. You're not always obligated to care and you're not always obligated to be one of those guys who's like, oh, it doesn't matter to me what you think. Sometimes it does. Okay, so I think the way that, prior to this conversation, the way that I'm thinking about the relationship between race and culture and individualism is going to be shared by lots of people. At least I should say lots of white men, right? I think because a lot of them don't talk about this. It's like they can't share it with anybody, but I think what I'm going to talk about is going to resonate with a lot of people. Okay. I think that in order to achieve that end goal of helping people, of having a better society, a freer society, a more tolerant society, and individuals who are liberated from toxic aspects of their culture, a key ingredient in that is identifying the problem. So if I were in Hornel, New York, which is this upstate community I was talking about, and I went and I saw a speaker that said, hey, guys, I want to let you know that if you feel like your culture is putting you down, is keeping you down, saying that excellence is not a good thing, that if you're a nerd, that's a problem. That's bullshit. There is another option. There's another set of ideas out there which says, no, you've got the potential inside of you to do great things. And if you're a nerd or if you're a musician that's hyper-focused on whatever you're doing, whatever it is, you should be able to freely pursue that and embrace it and take it full speed ahead, 10 out of 10 devote your life to it, and that's great. And the pursuit of excellence is a great thing. And for me, I would find that inspiring. I'd be like, oh, I didn't know that was even on the table. I want to learn more. I want to keep going down that train of thought. For me, I feel like that would be valuable to hear it, to hear say, hey, look, this is a toxic part of Hornel, New York culture. I can talk about it. I can identify it. And it can change. There's a way, there's an opt out. There's an alternative. I feel like that would have been very helpful. Now, do you think that's not, that wouldn't be helpful? Or do you think that an obstacle to that kind of way of talking is the skin color of the person who's communicating it? So if I'm saying, hey, this is a part of Black culture that I think is negative and unproductive, but I have white skin and that's not going to solve the problem. Don't even bother doing it that way. Yeah. So if you ask a question like, is it helpful? You're asking a question that requires empirical investigation in order for us to arrive at the answer. Because to ask, is it helpful, is really to ask, is this an effective strategy for generating a desire reaction from the group of people I'm talking to? And I, and we can't philosophize our way into that answer. Now, we can use philosophy to debate whether or not we have the right to speak that way, whether or not there is a logical reason for putting the ideas across that way. But if we want to know if it's helpful, we got to do it and we got to see how the audience reacts. And then we can't be victims about that. We have to be students of that. And if the audience says, I'm not hearing you, I'm not hearing you. If the goal is what you say it is, then I have to make myself a student of that and I have to come back and say, all right, how do I communicate this in a way that I want them to hear me? I mean, this is my life as an entrepreneur all the time. I have ideas about what's reasonable. And I think to myself, oh, this is going to be so good for my customers. And then I put it out there and sometimes my customers confirm and say, we love this. And sometimes the customers say, I don't like it. Now, at that point, as long as I'm functioning as an entrepreneur, I can decide what I'm going to do with that. Do I say, well, screw you guys, this is how it is? Do I humble myself before this knowledge and say, all right, what have I overlooked? What can I learn from it? So for me personally, and this is just based on my experience because I do a lot of this kind of work. If I'm talking to a group of people in New York or a group of people in Chicago and I observe that in their culture or subculture, there's a certain kind of mentality that's stopping people from being their best. Maybe in one culture, it's religious dogmatism. Maybe in another culture, it's the poverty mindset or a victim mentality, whatever it may be. If I say, there's a poverty mindset in Chicago, in my experience, that usually gives somebody the opportunity or what I call the easy way out of debating me on that point. And when it really comes down to it, I don't give a damn if people agree with me or not about the dominant mentality in Chicago. I just want people to get the point that at the end of the day, don't allow yourself to be held back by anything or anyone. I don't care if it's a cultural alliance, a family alliance, a who went to school with me alliance, a race, ethnicity alliance, you have the right to become the best possible version of yourself. You have the right to do what's best for you. And just because there's somebody that you went to school with or grew up with who doesn't get that, you know, that doesn't have to be an excuse to hold yourself back. That's the message I want them to get. And for me, I don't want to get sidetracked on somebody that's going to love debating me for hours about, well, I grew up in upstate New York, young man, I've been living here for 40 years and now we're going to debate for hours on that. And even if I win that debate, I still didn't get what I wanted. So for me, I like to go straight to the goal. Like if something is truly an obstacle, then I can call out the actual obstacle. I don't really profit from having a conversation about what geographical region or what culture or country this obstacle comes from. I can see that being interesting philosophically. But if I'm coaching someone or giving a motivating talk, I'm going to identify the obstacle and I'm going to inspire them to overcome that to reach their goal. You know, I don't care where you are. If it's holding you back, get the hell out of there. If it's a physical condition or a psychological condition, get the hell out. So do you think then maybe what's going on is that I'm doing a projection here? That it's like a psychological projection because I think were I in that circumstance, this is the way of talking that I would resonate with is like, let's identify exactly these cultural problems that are keeping you down. They're keeping yourself down. These thought patterns in the Hornel High School, maybe even people, specific people, specific principles that say, do things this way, think this way. That's wrong. That's bullshit. There's a better way. Don't accept the authority of these people because they don't know what they're talking about and they're wrong about these things and these thought patterns are hurting you. So I would resonate with that. I go, yeah, yeah, that's right. Okay, that's great. You know, I feel like that'd be inspiring. Maybe that's projection though. Maybe this is, are you saying that that's probably an error that from your conversations, that's probably actually not the way to reach people? Or maybe it's not a projection. Maybe you've got some empirical data that substantiates your use of that approach. So let me give you an example from my life. Sometimes when I talk to certain audiences, they won't let me get away with saying anything that sounds remotely positive or inspiring unless I make a couple of dramatic sounding concessions first about how negative reality is. Otherwise, they're gonna dismiss me as a delusional guy who's way too fluffy, right? So there really are certain audiences where the only way I can get them to listen to me is if I start off by saying something like, look, I know life sucks, all right? I know that if you go after your dreams, not only are you likely to fail but you're likely to get your ass kicked in ways that you couldn't even possibly imagine. I know that life is unfair. I know that life is harsh, but now what? And then I can start giving the positive stuff and they'll receive it because now they've been convinced, all right, TK isn't asking me to accept some fluffy view of reality. He's asking me to exercise resilience in the face of odds that we all agree are pretty damn rough. However, there are other contexts where if I go in talking like that, they'll be like, whoa, dude, that's too negative. They just want me to go right into the fantastic aspects of life, all right? There are some contexts where I go into if I utter a swear word, they're going to immediately write me off. They're not only going to be distracted from anything I say after that, but they're going to question my integrity. My dad's a pastor. I cannot go into his church and give a talk about anything and let the word damn come out of my mouth. I'm done. They won't hear me. Like there's empirical data for that. On the other hand, there are some contexts where if I don't say that, they might be like, oh, this guy's a little too vanilla for me. There's nothing wrong with making observations about different contexts and learning from how audiences react to us, choosing when we care about that and making sure that we subject ourselves to that information as a student when we have decided that we care about it. And also choosing when we just don't care and not allowing ourselves to be too flustered by it when people don't receive what we have to say. Does that make sense? It does make a lot of sense. And I think this is a partial explanation for why so many people do get so upset by being called racist and all these slurs that I think for the most part don't apply to them in the way that they're intended to apply by talking about cultural traits. I do think that most people, when they're talking about culture, they're not ill-intentioned. I don't buy that. Just from having the conversations, you actually listen to them. You let them explain what they mean by their words. And they probably would agree with how we're talking here. Like, yeah, well, we think that certain behaviors lead towards negative outcomes. And certain behaviors, certain mindset leads towards the advancement of the individual or the unleashing of the individual. But when they try to communicate it by saying, hey, look, these things are bad, boom, they get the label. They go, oh, it's like saying, damn, in the church. They go, oh, you're a bad person. Like, you must be a bad person because you used that word and now they just shut out and they don't listen to anything else that you have to say. Well, look, I'm going to say something that might be quite contentious here. And I say this with an acknowledgment of the fact that there are some people who have suffered some unfair treatment in the form of losing their jobs, losing their families because of false accusations. So I grant that as an exception. However, there is a lot of whining that goes on in the world today. And I'm going to call it for what it is. There's a lot of whining that goes on on all sides. And I'm not going to buy for a single second that everybody out there that's whining about being labeled a racist is a victim. I'm not saying that if someone labels you a racist, they are correct in saying that. But I'm also not going to assume that you are a victim just because someone reacted to you in that way. In fact, I'm going to say the same thing to those people that many of those people have been saying to people who claim to be victims of racism. I'm going to ask some skeptical questions. I'm going to ask for a little bit of evidence. And I'm going to say, well, maybe it was this, maybe it was that. I mean, seriously, this is what happens when people say, yeah, well, somebody, I remember when Oprah Winfrey talked about an experience she had in a shopping center where someone treated her wrongly for being a black woman. And they basically set some things to her that made her feel as if she was being treated rudely because of her race. All right. And she kind of walked it back pretty quickly because when she expressed her opinions, she found out very quickly that there are a lot of people in this world who don't want to hear that kind of talk. They do not want to hear people talking about how much they think they are the victims of racism, especially somebody as rich as Oprah. Right. So she walked it back really quickly. And there were lots of people that expressed skepticism. Right. This is what happens. This is what happens when someone says I am a victim, whether that's I am a victim of racism or I am a victim of being unfairly labeled a racist. And there are a lot of complex factors involved and why people would label you that. And I'm not just going to assume that because someone says I'm a victim that I ought to react as if they are without taking a look at the evidence. I get that there are a lot of people out there frustrated about the fact that they are being unfairly labeled racist. And I'll grant up front that there probably are a lot of people out there who use that, especially in the political battle. I'm not a very political guy. And in the political game, there are lots of people who use certain labels like that because they know it pisses you off or they know that it discredits you. And in some ways, I think the R-word is kind of like the N-word for white people. I think there are a lot of people who feel like, ah, for so long, we didn't have a word like this, a word that could just get inside of you and make you lose your mind and lose all self-control. But now we found it, right? And I think there are a lot of people who enjoy that. They know that calling a white male like the racist word can screw with his mind and his heart in the same way that like calling a black horse in the N-word. So yes, there are some people that kind of get off on manipulating in that way. But look, communication is hard work. It's extremely hard work. And if people aren't labeling you a racist for unfair reasons, they're labeling you something else. I mean, every single day there are people who in spite of their sincere intentions get called jerk, asshole, chauvinist, insensitive pig, and all they meant to do was check on another person to make sure they were okay. All they meant to do was just ask what they thought was a simple question. But communication is hard work because we have a lot of baggage that we carry into conversations. And we don't all react to language the same way. We don't all define words the same way. And I think sometimes we prematurely act as if we're victims because we're not willing to do the hard work to learn from the people that aren't receiving what we have to say. And we're not being honest enough about the fact that we do care. We do care about those people receiving what we have to say. Communication is a lot more than just feeling really good about the way in which the words come out of your mouth. Communication is a lot more than just feeling rationally justified about the evidence that you can present on behalf of the truth of what you believe. Communication also means understanding where the other person is coming from and figuring out a way to communicate with them so that they can receive what I have to say. Again, if you don't care about that, don't care about it. But I don't want to hear you complain. And if you say you don't care, I want you to back that up. But if you do complain, you do cry, you do want people to understand you, you got to do some work, man. And a lot of people aren't willing to do work. They just want to go on Facebook. And they just want to say, you know, it's not racist for me to say that, you know, black people have a hard time showing up to work on time. And it's like, okay, I don't care about what philosophical argument you can give for that. I'm going to just go ahead and conceive that maybe there's some argument you can give that proves that right. But I wasn't born yesterday, and I'm not stupid. And I know that when most black people read that, they're going to get pissed, and they're going to think you're racist. And if you don't care, have a nice day. But if you do, there's something you can learn. And there's a better way you can communicate. Okay. I think I agree with pretty much most of that. It's so interesting talking to you today, because every time we've done this, this is the third time now, I have kind of a layout of things that I want to talk about. And then from the very beginning, we don't get to almost any of it, because all of this is so good and it's so new. You have a way of thinking about these things, which is genuinely foreign to me. Like I haven't encountered these ideas. And so it's so exciting. I want to keep exploring them. And I get more and more persuaded by them. So what do you think about this? Do you not acknowledge that with the frequency of the accusations of racism, that one of the unintended consequences of that is that it destroys race relations? So in other words, part of the read, I feel like if people could talk to one another as you and I are talking right now, white people, black people, all other races, if we could have this kind of conversation, we're not agreeing, we're just being respectful. And now we're trying to persuade, you're doing a little bit better job than I am of you. I feel like this solves a lot of the problems. But because of the accusation of racism, I feel like that drives this wedge between this kind of discourse. So I agree it's correct to say people treat being accused as a racist as a kind of bludgeon to say now I'm a victim, the world is screwed up because you can't say anything out without being labeled racist. But there's a measure of truth to it. And it does seem to make all these things worse because most people are now less likely to express these ideas. They're less likely to engage in a real conversation like this because they don't want that tension. And then tensions get worse, race relations get worse, there's a mutual understanding deteriorates, and then we get acts of racist violence like we just saw in Charlottesville and places that we see all over the country. So wouldn't you say that there's a line there at which there is some legitimacy to having an issue with how liberally the word racism is thrown about? Like that has externalities, doesn't it? You know, it's interesting. So first, I have to grant what you're saying. As an active charity, I just have to grant that this is actually a frequent occurrence, that this is not merely the case of a lot of people overblowing, I mean, blowing out of proportion experiences they've had, but this is kind of funny because I gave a communication workshop to an all-white audience a couple of months ago, and we were talking about a variety of different things, but one of the questions from a person in the audience was, what do you do when people call you racist for your views? And it was kind of funny to me because I've never been called racist for any of my views, right? If there is such a thing as black privilege, maybe this would be it. This isn't something I wake up in the morning really being concerned about. There are things you could say to hurt me, but calling me a racist just isn't one of them. In fact, and I would think many black people would kind of side with this. It's sort of like, this is why I compare it to the N-word because if you call a white person an N-word, they'll probably look at you like, what? Like you're a weirdo, right? It doesn't hurt or sting in the same way if you use that word with a black person. Well, in a similar way, you call a black person and the racist word, you're not going to get the same reaction that you typically get. Like that word seems to have a power with white males that it doesn't seem to have with black males. Like if you call me racist, I'm either going to be curious or I'm going to think that's really funny or I'm just not going to care. And it isn't because I don't think I'm capable of being racist. It's just, it's not a trigger term for me, right? It just doesn't, that word just doesn't have any power in my life. And I just can't imagine at any point in my lifetime ever really being concerned if people think I'm racist. I might be concerned about people thinking that I'm a jerk or people thinking that I'm a bad father or something like that, but racism, no, that's not a concern. So I just want to put that out there that's quite interesting. And I also, through hearing people like you tell me this, I also can begin to empathize a little bit with a kind of skepticism that I have heard every single time I've been around when another black person or myself has told some kind of story about, yeah, the cops were following me and I know it was because I'm black or oh my gosh, did you see that? Did you see that moment right there? You know this because I'm black. A lot of times when white friends have been present in those moments, their instinct of reaction was, are you sure it was that? Maybe it was something else. Maybe it had nothing to do with that. Maybe you're just reading into the experience. And you can kind of see the skepticism because from their vantage point, it's sort of like, not only does that not happen to me, but I can't even imagine that happening. I have a difficult time believing that's what's really going on with you. There's got to be something that I don't know. And I'll be honest and say that I'm tempted to think that way, right? Like when I hear white males complain about this epidemic of being called racist all the time, I'm tempted to be like, is that really happening all the time? Like seriously, is this really happening all the time? But that's just me being honest about thoughts that are going on. Not beliefs that have congealed. But accepting that, accepting that as a common thing, I would say in the first two conversations we had, I talked about the importance of not putting race on a pedestal and activating the kind of creative intelligence and critical thinking that comes from asking yourself, what would you do about this if it were something else other than race? So because there are certain topics where we sort of turn off the critical thinking faculties that we use with everything else. And I think religion, politics, and race are definitely in the category of those topics. Right? But I would say, all right, let's take out the word racism and let's take the word asshole. All right? What do you do in real life if someone listens to your express an opinion and they say you're an asshole? And I'm willing to say most people have experienced some variation of that. Maybe not that particular word, but most people have been labeled something mean and unfair as a result of expressing an opinion and being misunderstood. So how do you handle that? That's my question. Usually, I think, well, this person has no idea what they're talking about, but it's an unfair, emotive, snap judgment that's just not based in fact. Unless there are some exceptions in which I am an asshole, there are certain cases when somebody presumes a certain amount of knowledge and they think that I don't know something and I'll give you an example because it's kind of funny. I was having a conversation the other day online with somebody we were talking about the position of matter in space and this individual tagged one of his friends that's a physicist and the friend who was a physicist came on and said, oh, well, Steve, don't you know? It's an elementary knowledge that in quantum physics, one of the first things we learn is that there is no objective position of particles in space. It's all wave probabilities just set me up because I was like the presumption of it and I was an asshole that it said like, well, actually that's not the case. That's one interpretation of quantum physics. And I said something like it would make sense that you wouldn't understand that there are under other theoretical interpretations because you're a physicist and we're taught in school. That's the reason for your theoretical ignorance is because you are a physicist. So that's kind of an asshole thing to say, but in general, although I was correct, I would say that that person, most people when they label me as such, it's just not correct, it's just ignorance. Okay, so what do you do? Do you just go, do you just shrug it off and say, I don't care, I know they're being ignorant? Depends on the person. Most of the time, yeah, I do just shrug it off. What if your wife says it? Well, that would be a very big deal and I would probably immediately be like, whoa, what did I do? We got to sort that out. But what if your wife says it and you are convinced that you are not being an asshole? Then we talk it out. And I mean, this kind of things have certainly happened. I think they probably happened to everybody. I conclude something like, well, something in the way that I communicated made her conclude that I did it in a really brash way, though of course that was not my intention. I just have to understand that's how it was understood. Yeah, so I think then your reaction is more fundamental than just assuming that people are being unfair. Your reaction comes down to, all right, do I really care? Do I really want to have a continued conversation with this person? And do I have a reason to believe that such a conversation would be profitable? If the answer to those questions are no, then you tend to write them off. It doesn't matter to me if they think I'm an asshole or not. On the other hand, if the answer to those questions are yes, as is the case with your wife, then you say, all right, I'm not going to pretend like I believe something other than what I believe, and I'm not going to get on bended knee begging them to like me, but I am going to try to approach this conversation from the vantage point of someone who might be able to learn something about communication the way she responded to me. Because even if it's entirely her issue, I might be able to learn something about how certain ways of explaining things are a touchy issue for her, right? Even if they're not touchy for me, and that might help me come at it from a different way. Because sometimes I might explain things in a certain way, and you may say, I don't like that word. It's like, all right, I'm not attached to that word. I'll use this one, you know? And then we can move the conversation forward. So I would say the same thing with somebody labeling you racist or labeling you as a racist. Or labeling me racist. There are some people who use that, like I talked about earlier, and you know. And sure, there's a margin of error, but you know that some of those people aren't worth talking to. Right. And I like the way Ben Shapiro deals with a lot of these kinds of situations. I think it's worth going through a lot of his Q&As when he gives talks because there are some people that are genuinely interested in philosophically challenging him or questioning him. And there are some people, they're just interested in exerting power over him. They're just interested in making him squirm and making him nervous. And I love the fact that he never squirms. He never bows now. He never backs now, even if he makes a concession. But he's very good at kind of detecting like, nope, I know where you're coming from. You're not looking for an answer. You're not looking for an even-sided argument where we both listen to each other. You're looking to use that label as a way of having power over me so that you can then control what I do. And I'm not going to give you that control. And there are some people, man, you have to deal with them like that. You got to let them know. You got to recognize that it's a shit test that they're trying to find, what's that thing you're afraid of? What's that label I can give you that's going to make you beg me to give you my approval? And then once you're caught up in that game, you're done for because now you've given me the power to determine whether you're good. By the way, this is part of the reason why I had such an issue with something we talked about in our first discussion, which is making it really important that people believe you when you say I'm not racist. Because I don't think that's something that you could possibly prove. And I could take you to some places where if you as a white male got up there and said that and you said I have no elements of white supremacy in my belief, you will get laughed at. And people will push you and push you. And once you give them the power to kind of determine if you are racist or not, you become the little puppet and they can just pull you along the way. So there are some people that you have to deal with like that. But then on the other hand, there are times where you got to accept that communication is tough. You can't play the victim and you can't just assume that because someone labeled you that way that they are wrong because it's not just about intentions. It's possible that you could be giving someone very good reasons to think that you are a certain way by the horrific matter in which you argue for your point. I know that we all think we're amazing at making arguments. I know that we all have a hard time believing that there are ways in which we can improve how we express ourselves. But sometimes we actually give people reasons to believe things about us that are not true because we haven't taken the time to appreciate the complexity of contextual communication. Yeah, that definitely rings true. And when you said that, I brought up the Jason Brennan situation that happened with me where he was an individual who chose very particular words. Not much gets under my skin if you look at the threads of what I deal with and people insulting my intelligence or whatever it's like, whatever you're wrong, I can prove it. This guy took his opportunity to say, Steve, you're a liar, you're a thief, and you're a plagiarist. Now, for me, in my value system, that's like the nuclear bomb, especially the liar. I mean, what are you talking about? That's so massively important to me. That was very, very effective as a shit test and successful in getting under my skin where now I have to say, because this is my valuation system, kind of like the racism example, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. No, this is absolutely false and I can prove it and I'll take as much time as I need to to prove that these specific allegations are not true. So maybe that actually in context makes a lot of sense that that's exactly what's going on is, okay, I'm going to find something that's not about the ideas, but something that's going to get under this person's skin and to have power over them. And that also makes sense, not just with that example, with the racism allegation in general. It's like, because that's important, I want to communicate a true individual ism to people. When people call me a racist, or that word's actually been watered down, but theoretically I can imagine a situation if somebody called me a racist, that's like, whoa, whoa, that's a big claim. I really want to sort that out because it's important to me to communicate. That's not who I am. Yeah, so there are a few things here. First, my colleague and partner Isaac Morehouse, he says, he often says, decide who you want to be a hero for and then ignore everybody else. So I would say 90% of the time, if there's somebody on the internet or whatever that wants to assign a label to me or make a personal attack, 90% of the time it has zero to do with the legacy that I'm trying to create or the battle that I'm fighting for, the mission that I'm living for. And there's not enough time in life to respond to everybody that's got a label they want to assign to you. And in many cases, the people who are most eager to assign labels are people who have the lowest opportunity costs because they don't have projects that they're trying to complete. They don't have goals that they're trying to finish. Like they exist for you to comment on the stuff that you create. So you're the biggest loser if you spend all your time replying to that. So most people just aren't worth responding to because if you win, what do you gain? And even if you do win, you lose the opportunity to engage people that are ready to learn, that are ready to receive what you have to say. And at this point, I've got too big of a family. I've got too many customers. I've got too many people that need help that are actually open to the solutions that I offer to be squandering all of this opportunity that is before me by responding to everybody out there that's got a label they want to assign. And it's also important to know when prejudice is combined with power. All forms of prejudice are not combined with power just because someone assigns you with the label unfairly because of something you say or the way you look. Doesn't mean they have the power to do anything about it. Doesn't mean they have the power to inconvenience you or oppress you. Everyone with a mean opinion is not irrelevant. It's not relevant. So somebody can say something and guess what? My mom and dad were still tight. My wife still loves me and she still got my back. My customers still have faith in me. My business is still intact. You know what I mean? Like everything is going to be okay. And it's important to know who those people are because they will run you to the ground. They will eat up your energy and they will waste your time. Yes, trolling is real. And too many people are bound by the fear of missing out when it comes to responding to everybody that's got something mean or negative to say. Here's the last thing. When it comes to someone saying you're a liar, you're a manipulator, you're a racist or anything, I don't think you can ever really get anywhere when you converse with those people from a state of fear. So whether they're right or wrong, and regardless of how open-minded you are, I think the moment you adopt a state that looks and sounds like, why would you say that? I mean, you're already weak. You've already lost because you've already made too much at stake. Entangle with the possibility of you being wrong. Hey, look, maybe they are right. Maybe there's some aspect of your life that you need to take a deeper look at maybe you have a blind spot, but what precludes the possibility of you taking a look at that from a place of power? This is philosophy just like anything else. If I'm wrong about something, then I can maintain my composure. I can have a conversation with you about it. I can ask you questions, and you can share with me the evidence for why you think I'm wrong about something. Why do I need to sweat? Why do I need to cry? Why do I need to get angry? If I'm going to have this conversation, I'm going to have it cool, and we're going to discuss it. And if you're going to give me the run around and prove yourself to be someone that isn't capable of doing the same, then I'm neither legally nor morally obligated to persist in this conversation. So if somebody came at me, oh, you're a liar, you're a manipulator, you're a racist, and I decide that this person is actually worth my time, that I actually care, that there's actually consequence to this conversation. All right, man. What are your reasons for saying that? I'm interested in hearing what your reasons are. I'm not going to give them an excuse to be distracted by saying, screw you. Give me some evidence now. No, I'm going to give them one round to be sincere. Hey, man, I'll give anybody their day in court. Tell me what's your logic. I'm curious. What makes you say that? What makes you say that I'm a racist or a liar? And if they come back with some BS, like, uh-oh, well, I don't have time to do your research for you, Mr. Co- Peace out, man. I got work to do. Have a good one. Okay, well, so let's bring it back to the church example that you gave. And this will also tie into the whole thing that happened with Brennan. This is kind of a good connection here. So my concern is not as much with that circumstance, taking the time to try to demonstrate, no, actually, these claims are definitely false. It's not as much, oh, I want to persuade this person. It's that what if those accusations are coming from somebody who's in a position of authority, a position of power, somebody who has an audience. So when you are up on stage, let's say, and you're given this, the talk to the people in the church, and you say darn, and then the professor, or not the professor, well, could be a professor, the pastor, you know, kicks you off stage and says, well, I'm so sorry that this person just dropped, just said, damn. All right, and then everybody gasps and whores, oh, they said, damn. And then he keeps going on and on about that. What do you do now in that, or it could be racism, it could be damn, it could be claims of plagiarism, whatever it is, what do you do when you're the guy that's been maligned in front of the other people that are now listening and you don't, don't you want to respond to those kinds of claims? Racism played whatever it is. Yeah, so I don't think this is the kind of question that we can address too thoroughly in the abstract because there are so many variations of that theme and we have to deal with them all in different ways. So I'll address the specific example you gave and then I imagine that this is a segue into an example that's related to something about race or something you've observed and then maybe we can see how it is applied there. But for an example, for the example that you gave, I say, all right, let's look at it this way. Here we have a regular occurrence in the marketplace. Someone decides to hire another person to provide a service. I'm going to bring you in, you're a speaker, you're a teacher or whatever. I'm going to bring you in, I'm going to have you speak to my audience and I want you to address this theme or hear my goals for the conference, come in and you talk about it. And then you come in and you happen to say something that offends the sensibilities of everyone present. They interrupt it and then they say something like, we're not going to have you back or maybe they issue a bulletin. This guy is terrible. He came into this church and he said the word damn, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, a couple of things. Number one, if this happens, you are not the victim of someone violating your individual rights. As long as they maintain whatever their contractual obligations are with you, maybe you have an agreement with them that says they pay you for your travel or they pay you for the event, regardless of outcome, whatever. Maybe you have some squabbles over that. But at the end of the day, people have the right to like your speaking and they have the right to dislike your speaking. They have the right to inform their audience as to why you will never be invited again. The audience has the right to say, we don't like that guy. He is an offense to us. And this is something that actually does occur. And this is part of the education process. And I would hope that if anyone is ever in a position to go give a public talk, they would at least do enough research about the audience that they're speaking to to have a good idea of what that audience will and will not accept and be prepared to own the consequences. I know when I get ready to make a guest appearance on somebody's podcast, I'm not doing it out of fear, but I like to at least listen to a few episodes so that I'm not caught off guard by the style or whatever it may be of the podcaster. So that kind of research is basic. But if something like that happens, what else is there to do? Other than to own the experience as an opportunity for you to learn and look to bounce back. And for every church that says, we don't like this guy and he's never speaking again because he used the word damn, there's an audience somewhere out there that doesn't give a damn about your use of the word damn and would be more than happy to hire you. And in fact, if that church makes a whole lot of noise about it, I would encourage you to take advantage of the marketing opportunity that this gives you because there's going to be a whole lot of people that are going to get angry at those folks for making a big deal about your use of the word damn and you become their hero. Right. Well, I like that, except what if you didn't use the word? An example that happened about race recently in the libertarian community was Walter Block. Walter Block, I don't quote me. I don't remember the exact details of the story, but it was something like this, a New York Times reporter talked to Walter Block about I think slavery or something like that. And he had a line where he said, essentially, the problem with slavery is that it's coercive. It's the coercive institution. And as the libertarian, he's saying, coercion in all its facets is a problem. Like he's an anarchist. So like he's trying to say, the whole reason that slavery is an issue is because it's coercive and it's forced. That's what makes it an evil institution. And then he said the line, because if you think about it, slavery without the coercion would just be picking cotton and singing songs. In other words, slavery, the reason that we think it's awful is because people are forced to do that. They're forced to pick cotton. But the New York Times put that out of... This is easily demonstrable, right? If someone voluntarily chose to pick cotton and you paid them the same salary that you gave LeBron James for shooting baskets, we'd all be jealous of that guy, right? Exactly. But here's what happened. Poor Walter Block, who I don't think is a racist, made a totally legitimate political and economic point. New York Times took it out of context and essentially said to Walter Block, Loyola economist says that slavery is not so bad. It's akin to picking cotton and singing songs. So now it's not that he actually said those things in that way. It's that's a lie. That is a slur to Block in the New York Times, which is read by all these people, which is if he actually said those things in the way that the New York Times implied, that'd be a huge deal. Like that would be a... Legitimately, he would get a huge amount of criticism. So what about that kind of circumstance? What do you do there when it's specifically about race and whether or not what the New York Times said is true in the context of whether or not they represent the context correct is a huge deal on his career, on his personal relationships, that kind of thing. Sure. So interestingly enough, we just had this example with the Conor McGregor and Floyd Mayweather fight that's going to be coming up in a couple of weeks. During one of the press conferences or what have you, according to Floyd Mayweather, Conor McGregor referred to either him or black people in general as monkeys, according to Floyd Mayweather. And in an interview that Floyd Mayweather did with Stephen A. Smith, Stephen A. Smith says, now I didn't hear Conor say the word monkey and Floyd Mayweather says, I heard him. He said it. Now, I don't think we have it on tape or anything like that, but Floyd Mayweather says, he goes, I heard him. He called us monkeys and then Floyd positioned it as, I'm going to fight even more aggressively because of this because now I've taken it personally. And so Conor McGregor has had to answer a lot of questions about charges of racism and so forth. And in one of those interviews, I thought as Conor McGregor usually does, he turned it into yet another opportunity for trash talk. He said, first of all, I never said anything like that. And I think it's beneath him to try to turn it into something like that. Because if I were to ever use a word for Floyd Mayweather, if I were to ever compare him to an animal, it wouldn't be a monkey. It would be a rat because that's what he is. He's a little weasel. He's a little filthy rat. And he tries to use stuff like this to play mind games to get people riled up. But I'm not going to play his game. I'm not going to let him get in my head. I'm going to get in that ring and I'm going to knock him out. Now, I thought that was a great example of kind of how you handle that stuff, right? I mean, this is a part of life. Whether we're talking about race or anything else, psychological self-defense is a reality. There will be people that try to slander us. There will be people that try to manipulate us. There will be people that try to intimidate us, belittle us, frighten us because power games are a thing. And one of the reasons why I think it's so disempowering to automatically default to politics as the solution for everything when people offend us is that it robs us of the opportunity to develop the kind of creative intelligence that's necessary for everyday survival. I mean, one of the first things that every parent has to learn is how to psychologically equip their child with the ability to go out into a harsh world that you can't protect them from. If it's not about race, it's going to be about perceived physical attractiveness. It's going to be about weight. It's going to be about the kind of shoes you can wear. It's going to be about your ability, your lack of athletic ability or your ability in that arena. It's going to be about your economic background. Human beings are remarkably good, remarkably good at finding all sorts of things that have nothing to do with the content of your character to slander you for and to try to use as a basis for bullying you. That's a reality. And we have to be creative when these moments come up and we're all going to get them. We're all going to have those moments and you can kind of run away from them, be a victim about it, or you can say, this is BS, man. This isn't right. This isn't fair. But at the same time, I'm going to stand my ground. I'm going to speak my truth and I'm going to try to use everything that comes up in my life as an opportunity for me to promote whatever my mission is. And while I don't know a whole lot about the particular situation that Walter Block is going through, I know that he's nowhere near being the first guy that's misquoted or taken out of context by the media for the sake of someone furthering a political agenda and trying to, at his expense. It does happen. And it sucks that it does, but at the same time, if you're going to play in the big leagues, man, you've got to swing hard. And you've got to recognize that some unfairness is going to be a part of the game, but you've got to be creative about it and you've got to fight back. I do think that these circumstances are why so many white men, as you put it, are have a gut reaction to the accusation of racism is because if it does stick, if it, for some reason, it does stick, then it's damaging. It's genuinely damaging. It's not just like, if somebody calls you an asshole in the male community, it's like, okay, well, there's plenty of assholes. You know, that's a sign of masculinity, whatever. You've got a tough skin, whatever. If somebody calls you a racist and that sticks, it's like, well, that's, that is a significant deal in our culture, which is why I think you get the kind of sensitivity to that particular accusation. Hmm. You know, yeah, this is interesting, man. I'm not entirely sure what to say about that. I mean, I will say that context matters. I don't think this is something that's universally true. In other words, I don't think it's as easy as calling a white male a racist, regardless of context, regardless of evidence, and that person is going to lose his job. I'm not so sure we have a reason to believe that. And even in Walter Block's case, even though what he's going through is unfair, if you've described it accurately, I'm not so sure if this is going to cost him an audience that he would have otherwise had, right? I imagine when it comes to some of these types of things, the people that already hated him didn't need that, right? The people that already liked him are probably just going to, you know, continue to support him even more, and his existing fan base, people like you are going to come out and put them in its proper context, right? We just had something like this with one of the co-brothers, right? Somebody was sharing, I just saw on Facebook this past week, you know, a deliberate misquote. I forget what newspaper it was, but you had their fan base fighting for them, arguing for them, and so forth. And I think that is a market force that bears out. And when we do have examples of people being slander, people being called all sorts of things, and not losing their jobs, it does depend on context. So I'm not so sure we have a reason to believe that you can just call, that you can just pick a white male at random, call them racists, and then regardless of anything else, you're going to cost that person their job. But nevertheless, I do acknowledge that it's a damning accusation, right? I do acknowledge that it's a label that you don't want to have assigned to you. I certainly do acknowledge that. And I have no trouble understanding why that's such a powerful term, why that's such a trigger term for a lot of people. So I mean, I definitely can see that point, I get that. All right, that was my conversation with Mr. T.K. Coleman. Hope you guys enjoyed it. And remember, next week is part two of this conversation. We're talking about race and politics. So if you enjoyed this talk, you're definitely going to enjoy that one as well. I don't think name-calling and attacking people is a good idea for any topic. So what's really important is the honest communication of true information, the world as you see it. And it might be the case that the world as you see it is not the way that the world is. Maybe you've made fundamental errors in your conceiving of the world for one reason or another. Regardless, as rational individuals, we need to try to seek truth always and get feedback from other people with an open mind. So I hope that's something that you guys will enjoy doing. Tune in next week. Thanks for watching.