https://youtubetranscript.com/?v=uLoO7-o-B9c
What advice can you give to current college students who attend a university that is hostile to conservatives and even classical liberal values? Well, you have the library. So, when I went to university, it was still the case that mostly you had to educate yourself. Like, you could find some professors who were worthy of attention, and you could get them to guide you through your learning. But you had to do the learning. You had to read the books. In some sense, regardless of how woke your particular college might be, you still have the library. You can read great books. And so far, that’s not illegal. So that’s good. And you can find out what those great books are by asking your professors. They’re not all going to be woke. But if that doesn’t work, it’s not that difficult to find what the great books are by doing some investigations online. And so, don’t despair. You’re still a student. You still have those eight hours a day that you could spend reading and thinking. And then you can also take the opportunity to learn how to defend yourself. There is some utility in being surrounded by those who are antagonistic to your intuitions, because the fact of their opposition can sharpen you. And so, as long as you take the opportunity not to falsify your vision. Students sometimes will say, well, I need to get a grade and I’ll just tell the professor what he or she wants to hear. It’s like, you should never do that. That’s a very bad idea. You should never do that at work. So I’ll tell you a psychological experiment that’s worth knowing about. So imagine that you bring a bunch of people into a lab and you get them, maybe you give them a questionnaire about their views on immigration. And then you rank them from pro to anti-immigration. I’m just taking a simple example. And then you take those who classify themselves as anti-immigrant and you get them to write like 700 words about why immigration is good. And then you take the pro-immigrant types and you ask them to write a 700 word essay about why immigration is bad. And then you get them to come back a week later and you give them the same attitude questionnaire. And what you find is that those who wrote the counter attitudinal essay have shifted their political views dramatically in that direction. And so what does that imply? Well on the positive side, if you’re taking a viewpoint different than your own voluntarily and you’re doing that as a matter of exploration, then it’s going to differentiate and make more sophisticated your political vision because you’ll be able to take a look at an issue from more viewpoints simultaneously. But if you’re doing it manipulatively, let’s say to get a grade, you’re going to write out false beliefs and then you’re going to believe them. And so if you practice doing that for four years, then you’re going to be the acolyte of the beliefs that you’ve deceived in the past. You’re going to have the beliefs that you’ve deceived yourself into supporting. Now the alternative is to believe that you’re wise enough to detail out explicit arguments that you don’t agree with and to ignore that and to wall yourself off from that and to not have it affect you at the same time that you’re maintaining your original beliefs. You can just forget that. That just you just do not have the capacity to do that. If you deceive other people habitually, you will corrupt your own vision. And that’s a very bad idea. And you know, there’s a sin in the Gospels, the sin against the Holy Ghost, which cannot be forgiven. And the nature of that sin has been debated for ever, let’s say. But I think that’s what it is. It can’t be forgiven if you corrupt your own vision. The reason that can’t be forgiven is because you’ve corrupted the very thing that could redeem you. You’ve interfered with the very process that would orient you that would reorient you in the world. They say there’s none so blind as those who will not see. If you obscure your own vision, then how will you not fall into a pit? So if you’re in a university that’s ideologically corrupt, we have an opportunity to defend yourself. You have an opportunity to make yourself sharp. You still have an opportunity to learn. And then you have an opportunity to pit yourself against those who would deny your vision. And you could really become educated if you manage that. Now, that’s very difficult. I’m not claiming for a moment that that’s easy. And I would say the other thing that you want to do is you want to surround yourself with people. You need a community to help you take that on. But the probability is pretty high that if you’re sitting in a class and it’s hyper woke and you have an objection that a good proportion of the people in that class have the same objection. In fact, perhaps the majority, even though they might be too timid to make that objection known because they’re afraid of the tender mercies of the woke mob. And there’s real reasons to be concerned about such things. But there are real reasons to be concerned about the alternative. I don’t want to be mobbed, therefore I will falsify my speech. It’s fair enough. I can understand why you don’t want to be mobbed. Because that is definitely not pleasant. It’s equivalent to it’s a real blow to be mobbed. It’s really, really hard on people. It’s really, really hard on people. And so I understand why people are afraid of that. The problem is they’re not afraid enough of the alternative. If you kowtow to the tyrannical mob, you are now a slave. And if you practice being a slave, that’s what you’ll be. And if you practice being a slave, you will deliver the same kind of violence. You will deliver the power that you would have had to the tyrants. And it’s way more wise to be more afraid of that than to be afraid of being mobbed. Because that’s really not a good outcome. And you wonder what happens in… … You know, in these states that have gone so terribly wrong, why did Nazi Germany deteriorate the way it did? Why did Russia and China deteriorate the way they did? And the answer is, well, people kowtow to the tyrant until everyone was a tyrant and a slave simultaneously. There’s the definition of a totalitarian state. You’re a slave and a tyrant at the same time. You’re your own tyrant slave. What a lovely situation to be in. It’s hell and you’re the ruling devil. And you live there. What a deal. That’s a totalitarian state. And so, if you’re in a woke university, don’t falsify your words. That’s the worst thing you can do as a student. It’s the worst thing you can do in your life. There’s a reason we believe in our culture that the word is divine. The word shapes the world. You falsify your relationship to your words at the peril of your soul. And you might say, well, what does that mean? I don’t believe in the soul. It’s like that’s really beside the point in some fundamental sense. There are worse things than death. If you don’t know that, you’re fortunate, I suppose. The corruption of the soul is worse than death. And so, and you corrupt your soul by falsifying your words. And so, when you go to university, woke or not, do not let the tyrant take away your tongue.