How to Identify a Bad Argument | Warren Smith

[RUSH TRANSCRIPT BELOW]Modern culture often treats popular consensus and media narratives as settled truth. Warren Smith, author of the new book “A Mind of Your Own: Independent Thinking in the Age of Misinformation,” argues that our society is increasingly convinced by misleading narratives rather than objective reality.

He is the creator of the Secret Scholars Society channel on YouTube, and he’s become known for using the Socratic method to introduce people to different viewpoints.

He argues that allowing ideas to conflict is essential to intellectual growth.

“We recoil often from conflict,” he said, “but that’s where growth occurs.”

Smith walked me through a host of questions: How do narrative manipulation and herd psychology compel people to abandon logic? How can one learn to identify fallacious arguments? And why does our culture so easily mistake emotional consensus for moral authority?

Views expressed in this video are opinions of the host and the guest, and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.

RUSH TRANSCRIPT

Jan Jekielek:

Warren Smith, so good to have you back on American Thought Leaders.

Warren Smith:

Thanks for having me.

Mr. Jekielek:

So, your new book cuts into the middle of something that keeps me up at night. It’s one of the biggest problems I have, in a way, in trying to figure out how this world is going to emerge out of, I think of it as, a misinformation crisis. I see a whole lot of what are, to me, obviously fallacious arguments, obviously, you know, kind of problematic sets of facts, which may or may not be true, constructed in different ways, catching fire and spreading through populations online, ending up with millions of people sometimes believing things which are frankly just pretty clearly untrue. How are we going to challenge this reality?

Mr. Smith:

Well, misinformation is difficult because it’s information. And I think about it as two columns: information and then how we wield the information, what to think versus how to think. What’s difficult with misinformation is I don’t know if this fact, let’s say, a claim about Israel, whatever the topic is, I don’t know if that’s true or not, but I can detect the reasoning from that claim. So if someone makes a point and then they start building on that, that’s the beauty of logic; you can see how the information is being wielded. 

You mentioned the fallacious nature of that. If it becomes fallacious, you can identify exactly where and point that out. And that’s extremely powerful. That’s essentially what interests me and what I was trying to explore with the book, because the information is never ending. And with the addition of AI [artificial intelligence], that landscape is always changing. But we do have control over our reasoning, regardless of what the first principle is that we’re using or the information that we’re building upon.

Mr. Jekielek:

Congratulations on your new book. You’re doing something I think incredibly important, you know, talking about how to foster independent thinking in this crazy world of narratives and misinformation and logical fallacies. That we’re being bombarded with all the time. And I’d love to hear your thoughts on the Lindsay Clancy trial. We have this situation where the facts were presented, I thought, in quite intricate detail. I don’t even think there was a ton of disagreement among the facts in the courtroom itself, from what I could tell. 

I didn’t watch the whole trial, but that’s from the limited watching and reporting that we did. That seemed to be the case to me. And we ended up with a situation where most of the jury reached a conclusion, which to me just didn’t make any sense, right, which was that she was innocent. And given the facts that were presented, and frankly, not terribly disputed. So can you shed some light here for me? What’s going on? Am I out to lunch? What’s going on?

Mr. Smith:

No, it’s a really interesting example. It’s an important one.That lone juror, you said the majority on the panel. Well, the vast majority, yeah. The vast, everyone but one. So, this is the perfect example of this dynamic of having a mind of your own when the stakes are at their highest. Imagine what this one man was feeling with all that pressure. It’s the perfect example of why this is so important. So, the question is, was she truly not in control of her actions to the point where she should not be held responsible?

There was one witness that was brought in that was claimed to be the foremost expert who has dealt with more of these cases than anyone, brought by her lawyer. Something jumped out to me that seems like a logical contradiction. He claimed that the psychosis caused her to have an out-of-body experience where she had no agency, because agency is the question here. If she had agency, she would be responsible. But claiming, nope, she had no agency. 

Literally, her logical chain, which was that she felt, and it’s all rather horrific, but that her reasoning, her rationale, was that it would be better to take the kids with her into the afterlife. It would be more cruel to leave them behind. And she articulated, I believe, after the fact, she said, go to God, is how she expressed it. So we’re clearly seeing a rationalization, which to me directly contradicts the first claim. That does not make sense to me. Glaring, glaring problem as well. 

She met Kevin Reddington’s friend, I believe a forensic psychologist, who goes to meet with her in the hospital. And I believe this was, it was at least a year afterwards. Some are saying it might have been two years. Meets with her. She uses his phone after speaking to this guy to dial her husband and then suddenly articulates a defense that says she was hearing voices. What can we deduce from that? 

Well, that sure looks like a legal strategy being put together. He’s instructing her, this is what you’re going to need to do. Here, use my phone, make the call. We need to initiate this now. There was no mention of ever hearing voices before. There was no mention of this psychosis; there was only the mention of suicidal ideation, which to me, if I were to make a guess as to what happened here, she became suicidal to the point that she did what she did. It was that she just, for whatever reasons, did not want to leave them behind, felt in a way it was better to take them with her. And that is what motivated this. So there’s a clear logic. And that was according to her own defense, that that was, well, the forensic psychologist, that was how he articulated it. 

So to me, a comparable scenario: a foreign government doses someone with a psychedelic that causes them to murder everyone, go crazy, and kill. Everyone in the house, and then they come out of it. It’s like they have been dosed by something external. That would be clear, something like that. I could see a case being made. I see no indications there of this. 

And then we could apply this to drunk driving. Well, someone drinks alcohol. We still hold them responsible, even though they could be blackout drunk and literally not remember it, even more so with this case. But we still hold them responsible because there is this, well, you chose to drink. And what’s the alternative? Legally, if we stop holding people responsible because they were blackout drunk, it sets a legal precedent. There’s no perfect solution, but we can clearly see why that would be a bad idea. I don’t know why we’re not applying the same reasoning in this case. 

The question becomes, why are we seeing such a phenomenon around this? We have never seen such a split between men and women. It’s remarkable how people, I’ve seen so many people doing street interviews, and consistently, most of the men, if not all, are like, no, hold her responsible. And the women, many of them, if not most, are split. I was asked this the other day. And I think at the core of it, the average person looking at this case, the reasoning I’m hearing is she had to have been crazy because she clearly loved her kids. It’s so horrific. She had to have been crazy because none of this makes sense.

Mr. Jekielek:

Well, there are a heck of a lot of things that don’t make sense to me in our crazy world today. And like, really, I mean, in pretty foundational ways, it doesn’t make sense. To me, I can kind of, this is something I really like about you, Warren, is that you have a lot of empathy for people. You know, this is what allowed for that, you know, your viral video that Elon Musk promoted that put you on the stage. Someone was sharing with you something, or you’re one of your students, and you responded empathetically and said, hey, let’s think this through. Okay, right. And so you’re trying to give as much benefit of the doubt as possible.I think I’m the same way, or I certainly endeavor to try to be the same way.

But this is the point. It’s not in doubt that she did this, right? Everyone agreed. The question just is how much are you accountable for your actions, right? And I think that you need a really extreme scenario, perhaps the fact that you were under the influence of, like you said, a psychedelic that causes you to go psychotic or something like that. Perhaps that might be an argument, but ultimately you did it. You killed these people, right? And this isn’t in doubt. So to me, it doesn’t seem to be, I don’t see anything close to some sort of escape from that accountability that you affected death on three innocent human beings, right?

Mr. Smith:

I’m trying to think about what someone who disagrees would say to me. They would probably respond and say, well, yes, you said the psychedelics. That would be an excuse. In this case, we have, she was on 12 different medications. All right. But again, the alcohol, someone drinks alcohol to the point of blacking out. We hold them accountable because they initiated that. The psychedelic being introduced, okay, if you were to take the LSD yourself and then kill your family, you would be responsible, right? It’s the mechanism. Were you involved in the chain as well? And also the medications. 

I’m not a pharmacological expert, but when I’m looking at these medications, it doesn’t add up. Seroquel, the benzodiazepines, none of these. And at the doses they were being taken, and listening to expert witnesses who are experts giving their assessment, it doesn’t alleviate responsibility given the science of Seroquel. Because in my understanding, she wasn’t taking this at astronomical levels. So, none of that I don’t think you can build a compelling case from the pharmacological point of view to compare with the LSD being introduced. To me, psychologically, I think it’s for people. 

So many people are shocked because she does look normal. She was building a snowman with them that day. She was doing fine. To acknowledge that, yes, she’s responsible is to acknowledge we’re all capable of doing this. People don’t want to think that they too have the capacity, even though most people would never act on it, because it is crazy. It’s just shocking. But that’s, I think that is why they want to say, no, she couldn’t have been capable of making this decision herself. It had to have been an external force that she’s not responsible for, because that would mean they have the same capacity, which I think horrifies people at a subconscious level.

Mr. Jekielek:

Right. Because it’s unimaginable to most people. But I see that type of argument. And actually, I think you mentioned in your book, you know, a number of times these kinds of arguments as if they’re like they create a definitive, you know, like they’re definitive or somehow. And again, to me, this is bizarre. And by the way, I’ll just mention this on the side. I have actually done a series of interviews around, you know, the influence of cocktails of psychiatric drugs on people. And I think it’s profound and, in some cases, extremely negative and hasn’t been dealt with. This whole question hasn’t been dealt with nearly enough, right? 

So, if anything, that’s the closest thing to an argument that would work in that direction. But you still have to be accountable for your actions, right? And you’re volitionally taking this medication, even if your doctor hasn’t told you all the possible ramifications. They can’t possibly know themselves. It’s hard enough to study the effects of one drug, never mind three or five or 12 or whatever, in combination. So, again, these are good points. It would be worth studying this question properly and so forth. I think so. But again, how can you use that to escape responsibility for doing something like this?

Mr. Smith:

Right. Well, the interesting question again, so we established what we just talked about, but there seems to be this larger push, and we’re listening to the jurors talk about this after the fact. They were describing it as though this was almost bigger than this singular case. It was pushing a larger cause forward. And it was almost as though that is what was at stake here. When in reality, this is simply to answer that question; Was she in her faculties? Like, was she responsible for that singular action, that one event? 

In the book I describe, I’m trying to really describe the laws of narrative and how powerful that is psychologically. I don’t think there’s anything, the more I think about that, I don’t think there’s anything more powerful psychologically than narrative. And my background for years, I had been studying the laws of narrative without even realizing it. When you’re in filmmaking and film producing and screenwriting, in that world in Hollywood, everyone, there are large amounts of money. Everyone is trying to crack this code and figure out how do we replicate this power, this elusive and tangible, because if we can, we can make vast amounts of money. And usually it fails. No one can quite understand it. 

So I started delving into these things, trying to understand, can I break this down in a way like, are these laws real? I do think they’re real. They just manifest psychologically, but I think they are as real, they’re as powerful and real as the laws of physics. They just manifest differently. 

So in the Lindsay Clancy case, we have, and there’s almost this social contagion of which I describe in the book as well as how this idea spreads. And then it becomes on another level, it’s this which side are you on? And there’s almost this fear element of you’re against women, you’re against progress, the larger cause. Don’t you understand what’s at stake here? It’s easy to lose sight of no, we’re just trying to answer that singular question.

Mr. Jekielek:

Yes, that’s very powerful, what you’re talking about. And, you know, central to a lot of the questions we’re talking about. I’ll just add—I don’t know if I should add this into the mix right now—but at Epoch Times, we distinguish ourselves in a large way by being truth-seeking media. We believe there’s an objective reality, and we believe our job is to try to offer as much information to represent that. Of course, you can’t get the whole story because you don’t have all the inputs, but you do your darndest to give people the right information so they can figure out what’s going on in the world. Today, they do something which is literally called activist journalism. That’s what it’s described as by one of the deans of the most prominent journalism schools, actually, in America. 

And this is an idea where there is a particular narrative, and you want to make sure that when you do your journalism, at the very least, you don’t go against that important narrative, or you build the story in a way to sort of adjust to this correct narrative, describing, right, sort of comports exactly with this way of thinking. But to me, that’s not even journalism, that’s propaganda creation, right? And so, yes, these narratives are unbelievably powerful. And yes, we have these new tools, you know, ever more powerful, right? Now, with AI-juiced-up social media and video, as I mentioned, and audio and everything to kind of sell the narratives, however fallacious they may be, right, get caught up in these contagions without even realizing it, without believing something.

Mr. Smith:

Yes, and I want to be clear that when I’m talking about narrative, just because something is a narrative, that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s bad. My point is, like, narrative is inevitable, so therefore seek to understand it so you can recognize it in your own life. When I was in the lead-up to writing this book and we were meeting with publishers and discussing the premise, I was talking about the importance of the laws of narrative. Their response was, wait, I thought you were trying to explain to people how to think critically. It’s almost as if they thought I was trying to teach people how to wield the power of narrative. 

And my point was, no, I’m not saying it’s a good or a bad thing. I’m trying to point out the reality of its existence so that you can understand when it’s being used against you or it’s being weaponized or recognizing it in your own life. But I mean, essentially, we’re all trying to write the narratives of our—we’re trying to live as the heroes in our own narrative.We learn from narrative on a level that’s what archetypes are. Journalists, yes, everyone, it’s inescapable. Everyone’s going to be using narrative to some degree. But as you articulated, there isn’t any news outlet that is fighting for what they believe is a noble cause or a right message, something larger, the activist journalists, right? 

And I experienced this in graduate school. The problem is that it causes one to then pick and choose because it’s not enough to simply acknowledge something because it is true. It’s, well, no, we can’t acknowledge that. Why are you acknowledging that? Well, because it’s true. Yes, but why? I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen that pattern. And then you start picking and choosing because you’re trying to fight for something larger. It’s difficult, though, because I, too, believe there are things worth fighting for. That gets into the complexity of it.

Mr. Jekielek:

Well, the question is, and we’re getting really abstract here, but the question is, is the narrative, and of course, the narrative is unbelievable. I mean, you have a whole chapter that talks about the rules of the narrative, narrative grammar, and so forth. Unbelievably important, right? By the way, I’ll tell you this: when I was long before I went into journalism, long before I went into human rights work, I have things that I think are very important as well. That’s what brought me there. I was studying evolutionary biology in university. I enrolled in a storytelling course, right? Which was, of course, not remotely in my department and so forth. 

And I argued, you know, I thought it was, you know, very convincingly with the dean of the department that this is one of the most important courses I could take because, you know, I’m writing grants, I’m, you know, whatever. Like there are a lot of things. They didn’t give it to me, okay? They just, I took it anyway because I thought it was incredibly important. But because I understood the importance of this, but that’s not, that’s not to fool people, it’s to be able to communicate effectively something that you’ve realized is true, right?

Mr. Smith:

Yes, something that you believe. It’s such a fascinating, I mean, it’s such a deep one, and I don’t want to take too much of your time with it, but no, it’s extremely, I’m constantly, I use it every day. Everyone does. And the very opening thought of the book is you’re in a game right now, whether you know it or not. 

Every day is a series of games, and that’s not to minimize what is at stake, and not to dismiss it. It’s just a game, right? No, that’s, but when you start thinking about it in that way, some describe this as game theory. It does allow you to recognize the importance of rationality, objectivity, to step back and anticipate, and understand there are participants in a game. 

Everyone is trying to achieve what is in their interest and wielding narratives for that. You can often anticipate what will come next. Therefore, you need to keep your emotions in check and try and strive to make the best move on the board in the effort to achieve the ideal outcome. And then you try and determine, how do you determine the ideal outcome? What is the ideal outcome? That requires wisdom, and wisdom comes from narrative. 

Mr. Jekielek:

Well, that’s, and, you know, this is why we have, you know, these stories that capture our imagination. You know, we have this much sort of celebrated and criticized Odyssey film recently. Why? Because the Odyssey is such an unbelievably powerful story, right? We wouldn’t be having that discussion if it wasn’t. I actually just received in the mail a fascinating new translation of the Odyssey, which is, for me, really uniquely, uniquely powerful, like deeply engaging in a way that I haven’t experienced in other versions. And it’s just, it’s just, it’s epic, literally, right? Literally, because it speaks to all those deep things. This is, you know, you argue this. I mean, of course, this is your area of study too, right? So you have a bit of a bias, right? I’m sort of being a little bit glib here, but no, I’m with you here. There are just these incredible, powerful archetypes and kind of, you know, needs that need to be fulfilled. And if you can, so this is my concern, right? 

If you can capture that system of storytelling or, or, or, you know, using the archetypes and, you know, put it into this postmodernist, nothing is true construct. And you can, you know, you can kind of fool a whole society into believing crazy things. And I’m really worried that this is kind of where we’re heading, right? This is why when I saw, I mean, I didn’t know exactly what your book was about when I saw the title, it was that this is, you know, this is something we have to do. And your book is more about, to me, how do you deal with whatever’s being thrown at you constructively and keep that independent mind, be that 12th juror that doesn’t. Because the other piece that’s also complicating, right, is we all have this strong need to belong and to stand out, to stand aside for most people, even people who are pretty contrarian, I might add, right? Like it’s very hard. It’s very hard. Everyone seems to think that it just needs to be this one way or these things are true and these assumptions are correct. It’s very hard to be the person who says, I don’t feel comfortable about this.

Mr. Smith:

You mentioned biology, and I’m fascinated by biology, reading Richard Dawkins. I think that it is a biological, an evolutionary result that we don’t fully understand these things either. There’s still much about biology we don’t understand, which is why it’s so interesting. But regarding this tribe, it seems theoretically plausible that historically, yes, if you were cast from the tribe, that could mean the difference between life or death. And so we do have this deeply ingrained fear of crossing, of being that twelfth juror, right? 

When I spoke to Jordan Peterson, he compared it to the defense mechanism of zebras, where their stripes are their camouflage, yet they are black and white stripes. How is that going to help you blend in with anything? Well, it’s not to blend in with the background; it’s to blend in with the herd so the lions cannot coordinate to bring down a singular zebra because they can’t communicate, we’re going after that one, and then coordinate. It’s just chaos, right? And it’s an interesting thought. 

Just my last thought on the narrative concept: a good example of this in our day-to-day lives would be Mad Men, for example. The main character is Don Draper. And again, all of that is being constructed by a master narrator. The man who created that was Matthew Weiner. But Don Draper, that character, he’s a master of narrative. And they examine this idea on multiple levels. Like Don Draper has created a false narrative, stole a narrative, created the narrative of his life. 

But every day at work, we see this in the first episode. He figures out how to wield narrative to sell whatever product he needs to sell. That is the most powerful—again, it’s the most powerful psychological tool you have to sell something. You need to make—he’s selling the kaleidoscope thing, the slide projector. Right, his goal is to get clients to come in there. Okay, we’re doing Campbell’s soup or Lucky Strike cigarettes. How are you going to sell? 

He needs to find a way to make people feel something from Lucky Strikes, Lucky Strike cigarettes, or whatever the product is. And that’s what he does, and he uses narrative to do so. You create it like this watch. I can think back consciously and critically about what led me to love this watch and to want to buy this. And it was narrative; it was a narrative surrounding the watch, the heritage of the brand, listening to other people making YouTube videos about this model and how their love for it and their journey, what it meant to them. And it takes on a life of its own. 

And there are some postmodernist philosophers in graduate school that expose you to this idea of the object versus a lot of that’s kind of not overly complicated, I think. But it’s more useful to think about it at this level in your own life. Just recognize what narrative is popping in. Be afraid of it, but you need to be in control of it. Don’t get swept. It’s so easy, though, because we all—the more I learn, the more I realize how little I understand. 

That’s really the essence of the Socratic method as well. That was the staple of Socrates; he never claimed to have unique wisdom. His whole point was to try and show people that none of us are as wise as we think we are. And Thomas Jefferson—it was the same thing in the last meeting, the last podcast. The public speech he ever gave, that was his whole point. So the older I get, the more I realize how little I know.

Mr. Jekielek:

You offer a five-step methodology when people are speaking with you to try to understand and respond effectively and actually build some sort of common ground, exactly, but actually, have a conversation where someone already has very, very strict ideas. I think this is very powerful. Before we go there, before I talk about some of the kind of amazing things that your book can teach us, do you find it odd? I’ve been thinking about this lately. We live in a society where, somewhere—maybe this is after World War II, I don’t know exactly when it started—but we accepted that it’s perfectly fine and moral to manipulate people into buying whatever, right? 

Like, it would be one thing to say that it’s done. Of course, it’s been done since time immemorial, right? We sort of, it feels like we live in a world where people are rewarded for being effective. That’s like, that’s like you get a big win, like the Mad Men, right? When they successfully manipulate people, as opposed to that, and I think that that’s different than convincing someone on the merits of something. You see, like these are different things, right?

Mr. Smith:

Yes. And that’s, it’s an interesting question, interesting point, because it’s something I deal with as well as a YouTuber who works with sponsors. There are sponsors that come along. And I guess here’s the way I would describe it; is it immoral or not? We would have to think through this, but because my job is to provide for my family. But if I stray away from the ethical and let’s call it betraying the audience to a high enough degree, I’ll be self-sabotaging that entire endeavor. So that keeps me on track. 

And ideally, yes, I’m only taking on sponsors that I really love. The reality is that’s not always going to be the case.There’s going to be these web servers that do things that I’m not that interested in, but I need a sponsor for that week. And there are people that are booking the sponsors. That’s the reality of the situation. And I am selling something. The way I try and do it, though, is because I do feel it feels off if I’m doing it in an inauthentic way.

So I try to be honest with the audience where, if I’m reading the script, I’m making it clear I’m reading a script. I’m trying to make it clear so they understand, this is a product that’s sponsoring this video so that I can continue to make this content. Take it or leave it at that. Take it or leave it, right? I’m not claiming this is something beyond that. That’s when I would get uncomfortable. So it’s, but that’s life as well. You’re always trying to walk that line. 

Mr. Jekielek:

So what can we learn from A Mind of Your Own? And actually, you know, I already know there’s a great number of things in there, especially—I’m particularly, personally, I’m particularly interested in the grammar of narrative because I’m, of course, in media. And you’ve presented this in a way that I haven’t seen before. But we don’t need to go there. Tell me where you think or what the response has been. Where do people see the value in A Mind of Your Own?

Mr. Smith:

Yes, I think where most people are coming to this book from is going to be YouTube, where I’m making content that’s largely either my own chess games that I’m participating in directly with someone. It’s examining other verbal chess games. That’s where most, that’s kind of where the majority of the audience is going to—almost all the audience is going to meet me through YouTube, that kind of content. And then they can go explore the book if they want to understand these methodologies. Like the book was my attempt to really take my mind and put it on the page over the two years of writing and trying to. It’s really how I see the world, my philosophy in the most thorough way, the most important lessons, and process everything I’ve learned from this, what I think is most important. 

With the laws of narratives, we’ll just go over the first one. Law number one: conflict drives story. And so without conflict, you don’t have a movie, whatever it is. But that’s so that’s true with these YouTube videos where I am examining conflicts. We recoil often from conflict, thinking conflict is a bad thing. But that’s where growth occurs—conflicting ideas, watching the game that occurs between them. Where does my model break down? When it meets this model, now I adjust accordingly and then rinse and repeat. And that’s growth. That’s where growth comes from. 

And so, yes, I have tried to, well, really, because I was asked, okay, we saw, everyone saw your initial, the one, the video of you teaching, doing that with a student essentially. Well, yes, there is, there is, there’s always going to be conflict if it’s successful. Then there’s conflict in there. I’m not berating a student, but there’s a conflict we’re examining. All right, articulate my process. How would I communicate that in steps?  I attempted to do that at the end of the day. 

The signatures of my style or method, when I really get honest with myself and look at what I’m doing, is it unique? What’s unique about it?  I think that because I’m brief—usually I’m more long-winded, right, with you today—but usually, if I can get it done in five words in one of these exchanges, don’t go beyond five words. There’s no reason to. In film school, I was taught when you’re going in to pitch a movie, as soon as you get the ideal outcome, stop and get out. There are so many deals that have gone bad, pitches that have gone bad, because once they’ve gotten the green light, they get comfortable, and then it’s after that point they lose it. They say something dumb. 

Every word after that is a game where you are exposing yourself to openings when you do that. So it’s brevity, but going right at what is most important: the flaw. So it’s almost this flaw filter that I’m just often listening to someone. I ask a question. It’s constantly asking questions as well. It really is. It is the Socratic method as well, going layer under layer. All right. What are your thoughts on DEI? There is a response and there’s a flaw in there. Go right at it. Ask a singular question that addresses that flaw. Rinse and repeat. They offer a response. Do it again, then do it again. 

You’re going layer after layer until eventually they get to that moment where there’s nothing—they realize their entire premise is flawed, or they don’t, and you learn something. But that’s essentially the methodology in its most simplistic form. That’s what I do. Every time I talk with someone, when it’s a back and forth, when I’m talking to someone I disagree with, every time it’s some formulation of that.

Mr. Jekielek:

So, what you’re describing, okay, I know you’re, a central piece of how you approach the world is you try to be truth-seeking. But what you’re describing, right, could sound to someone like, you know, people who believe in this, you know, some of these postmodern critical theories or so forth, where really it’s just kind of a power play. And it’s just because it’s just a game to see who has rhetorically the better argument. And there’s inherently not, neither one is better than the other. It’s just that whoever kind of wields their rhetorical strength more effectively, that’s the winner and that’s the game. And when I listen to you talk about it, it almost feels to me like that. But at the same time, I know that for you, you put objective reality on a pedestal and trying to understand it. And I don’t think there’s a way to function in the world that’s going to work for us to kind of live together that doesn’t do that.

Mr. Smith:

Yes, I wish someone would challenge me on that. Like right now, I wish someone could present that to me because it’s a really important point—the idea that, oh, this is that’s why when I mentioned thinking of life, every day we’re in a series of games. You’re in a game right now, regardless of how you feel about it. And I tried to emphasize that that’s not to minimize this or treat it simply as a game for power. These aren’t just power dynamics. All we have at the end of the day is, it’s not to win rhetorically, it’s to examine, do you actually have a logical foundation or not? If there’s not that foundation, that’s when it becomes you’re trying to expose a rhetorical power game, if that’s what it is. 

Now, if there’s a logical foundation, they actually have a reason, right? What is the alternative? We follow the logic, which should be objective. It’s either there or it’s not. Like we’re talking about trying to arrive at the truth. Really, I think about it as we’re trying to figure out what is rational, what is logical, what actually works. 

I do this with examples like DEI, logically. It’s not, this is not an opinion. Like DEI logically does not work without crossing that first principle of the definition of racism. If racism is treating people differently based on the color of their skin, there is no logical way to enact that without crossing that line. And that’s not an opinion. And I can show that, demonstrate that verbally with someone who believes it’s fine. Right. And the only, every time, what will happen is they will redefine it to try and avoid that line. 

Now, am I rhetorically beating? Am I winning because I have superior rhetoric? Or is it because that’s what the logic is and that’s how the cookie crumbles? And we should go through it so that we can reveal that because the logic is either there or it isn’t, or it is not. What’s the alternative to take positions and just defy what is logical, which is largely what many of these positions do and what postmodernism does? So it’s not about rhetorically winning, but rather uncovering what is logical and what has a foundation. Does that make sense? Did I explain that?

Mr. Jekielek:

It does. And so you really are just putting logic on a pedestal. The thing is, there can be different inferences with respect to a certain series of parameters or a certain series of, I suppose, facts, I was going to say, but I don’t know if that’s the right way.

Mr. Smith:

I understand what your point is. Yes. Inductions with the Charlie Kirk assassination. Here are the facts. What are the potential inductions? You can have disagreements there. But again, so another example with DEI, where, okay, if you’re imposing equity, imposing a specific outcome, logically, this is not an example. This would not be where we just have a disagreement about the logic. There’s no logical way you can achieve a specific outcome without either lowering the process, the standard of the process, or allowing people through that would not otherwise make it through that process. 

If we already have 100 candidates and we want a certain number that are green, and 50 of them are green, and you say they go through the process, nope, only eight make it through. We say, nope, we need at least 60. Logically, there’s no way to do that without lowering the standards or allowing green people through that wouldn’t otherwise make it through, unless you can think of something I’m missing. 

But in an example like that, it’s not a difference of inference. You could say, okay, you could have a disagreement around, okay, but that’s not that big of a deal. But when you logically walk through it, if you’re willing to acknowledge the logic, you can’t—there’s not going to be any disagreement unless you can. That’s the beauty of this; it’s you’re actually examining cause and effect. There’s no other way. It’s not an opinion. As far as I can see, it’s not an opinion. 

And then you offer, you say, what am I missing here? And on that example, no one has offered, no one’s been able to point to something that I’m missing. They simply try to redefine what is important and say, what we’re just trying to do is get more green people by encouraging more green people to sign up. Okay, but that’s not what we’re talking about here. That’s advertising, expanding the pool. 

But we said there are 100 candidates for simplicity’s sake. If we have these 100 people that want to be firefighters, right? They’ve gone through the process. If those are the 100 people, what do we do? We can expand that pool, but beyond expanding the pool, that’s not equity, though; that’s advertising. We’re talking about equity. So you get specific about the terms with them.

Mr. Jekielek:

You know, one of the things I’ve noticed, I’ve been covering what’s sometimes called gender ideology and how different countries are dealing with it, what types of medical procedures are used for some years now. There was recently a study that came out of Finland, which is over 20 years, over 2,000 participants. And it basically shows very clearly, with very strong results, that people who had these—another term that’s used now, which I think is more apt, is sex-rejecting procedures—that people have bad psychiatric outcomes following those, right? Whereas the whole purpose of doing these things in the first place was supposed to help people with their kind of psychiatric realities and so forth. I’m mentioning this because I think there are a lot of these fallacious arguments around this issue, because the evidence only ever points in a single direction. 

These things aren’t very good things to do. They don’t actually help people. They’re kind of based on ideology. And this is even admitted by one of the big proponents of WPATH [World Professional Association for Transgender Health], which kind of established what a lot of people would end up calling standards of care, but they just said these are just their own opinions. I think it’s in a recent court case. But for example, I put together a bunch of these because I wanted to have something to work with. Like one of them is just that, look, every major medical association, university, and government institution agrees that trans women are women. So questioning this just shows that you’re a bigot.

Mr. Smith:

Yes. What does that mean?

Mr. Jekielek:

I mean, that’s a common argument, right?

Mr. Smith:

You’re absolutely right. That would be my first question to get the dialogue going. What do you mean by trans women? Because the response you’re going to get is, No, we’re not saying they’re biologically women. The definition of woman could be equally applied, and that’s okay. Why do you have a problem with that? So, only a few people would be foolish enough to argue against the biological argument of it. So that would be my first question. What do you mean by that?

Mr. Jekielek:

Right. I mean, do you want to do that in your fewest possible words, right? So what do you mean by that?

Mr. Smith:

Yes. That’s exactly right. Yes.

Mr. Jekielek:

Well, why?

Mr. Smith:

I could share my thoughts on this one to see if I can get it going. But for me, when I’m tackling this topic, I would ask them a question. This can be very powerful as well, asking because in my mind, I know what I think is most important, that flaw, the most important, where the rubber meets the road. I would ask them this. Okay, is there anything stopping me under the model that you’re advocating for? Is there anything stopping me tomorrow from deciding I am a woman, from becoming a woman, as you say?”

Mr. Jekielek:

And I’d say, well, no. Self-identification is paramount.

Mr. Smith:

Right. You would have to say, well, no, that would be fine. Okay. Do I have, so I now gain equal treatment under the law as a woman under your model, correct, or do I get equal treatment as a woman? So am I treated under the law as a woman? Absolutely. Okay. All right. So that’s the whole point, isn’t it? Okay. So that means I would now be able to gain access to women’s spaces with no recourse. If I’m in prison, is there anything stopping me from going to a women’s prison? Okay, is there anything? 

There’s this guy, and he wishes to prey on women in the changing room. Is there anything stopping him from deciding he’s a woman and gaining access to that space? And at that point, they’re probably going to claim, yes, but statistically, almost no one. Okay, but to be clear, there’s nothing stopping it under the law. Yes, but are you saying they’re going to go in and what, molest them or something? What if he just wants to go in there and just stand there? He doesn’t have to do anything, and there’s nothing you can do about it, right? So that would probably be the strategy I would implement on that one.

Mr. Jekielek:

Yes. See, my problem, I think, is here in doing this too, that I probably think too logically at the outset. So I don’t know. I don’t know exactly what I would say. But one thing I would—no, there is one thing that I would say, and I think you would appreciate this because we’re both empathetic people, right? And that is, you know, it would make this person feel a lot better to be called a woman, right? And why do you want to hurt their feelings? Why do you want to be cruel to this person?

Mr. Smith:

Right. And as long as we’re not addressing that question at a governmental level under law, which is what Bill C-16 was wanting to do, that’s what that means.

Mr. Jekielek:

That’s the Canadian law you’re talking about, right?

Mr. Smith:

Right. That would be an example of how that model could be implemented. That was the whole—when Jordan Peterson exploded on the scene because he was identifying that. It’s like, that’s fine, fair enough, but that’s between me and the person, right? And that’s a decision I’ll make, right? Because that can also be the sincerity. That’s, to me, all this comes down to the individual using their mind, applying their reason, and coming to that conclusion themselves. 

The government should not be involved in making that decision, requiring it by law. So I would ask the question, if I refuse to use your pronoun, should I be required to? Should there be any consequence? So inevitably, you’re going to get to that point where it’s just going to be between the individual. Anything beyond that is disastrous, I think.

Mr. Jekielek:

Well, most of these arguments, would you say, are really sort of a weaponization of people’s empathy, right? Like they’re saying, well, why, like, and codifying something that plays on people’s, you know, just kind of wanting to accommodate people and their needs.

Mr. Smith:

Yes, it’s God’s idea of suicidal empathy. Yes, there is this destructive compassion, but it’s also extremely hypocritical. It’s because it’s only for their allies and for those they deem to be victims. There’s very little tolerance. I can’t tell you, since you and I last spoke, how many strange interactions, and close friends I’ve had talk to me. Our kids ride on the same bus. So I see him at the bus stop, and I noticed he was acting strange and not making eye contact. And when I got home, it was the first day my kid was going to kindergarten, at the bus stop.

I got home, I was like, that was strange, whatever. And I’ve known this guy for years. I got a text from him. He’s like, yes, you probably noticed I was acting strange. Maybe we’ll have some disagreement on this. He was saying, because you spoke to Nick Fuentes, I’m not, and I must make sacrifices for the greater good. So your kid’s welcome to play with my kid, but I’m not going to acknowledge your existence moving forward. And I think the only response I can offer is, well, if you’d like to have a conversation, just let me know.

Because if we can get to the conversation, I guarantee his foundation will crumble. Because I suspect, I shouldn’t guarantee, I suspect a dialogue would rapidly become clear to him that, hey, if you’re going to forbid, like my conversation with Nick Fuentes was to challenge him on my areas of disagreement. What is wrong with that? Do you have any disagreements with me on that? Do you think that it is morally wrong?

Mr. Jekielek:

Well, to challenge someone on their fallacious arguments, especially if what you believe are their fallacious arguments, especially if you see that person as a destructive force in society, sounds like probably a positive thing to do. But a lot of people would say, well, and this is, you know, frankly, I think this has come out of, again, people subscribe to these critical theories or kind of, you know, we would kind of more broadly call woke ideology that just like you cannot platform, to even communicate publicly with any person that’s not on your team is quote unquote platforming them and you shouldn’t do that. That’s because they’re somehow morally, you know. 

And this is the, it’s, well, well, and the thing is, the thing, see, here’s, this is the question that you’re pointing at, right? Some people are morally quite dangerous and problematic, especially if they’re convincing, right? But this approach to the world just says that everybody that doesn’t share my exact approach to the world is like that, right? Which is a very extreme position, right? So I think these are legitimate questions you should ask. Like there’s people I don’t want to be hanging out with publicly because people will assume that I, you know, agree with their views or something like that, whether or not I’m right. But of course, it might not be true. But at some level, it makes sense to be conscious of that too, right? Not just like, yes, whatever.

Mr. Smith:

I don’t know. It’s an interesting one because, I’ll tell you, it is one of the guiding principles for everything. Every time I make a YouTube video, someone is going to be upset. It might be the person I’m making the video about. It gets challenging when you start doing videos. When I started in this space, I didn’t know anyone, so it didn’t bother me. And you start to meet people, and you start to almost have friendships in a way with some of these people. 

And then, if you want to examine a debate where they didn’t do as well as the other person and you’re trying to point out something specific, my point is, I have found something very important in saying that’s just how I’m going to follow the logic wherever it is and not worry about how anyone feels about it. That’s very difficult in practice to actually do, but it’s extremely important. So it’s not so much like, whatever, I’m not going to worry about it. 

But like this morning at the bus stop, there’s another neighbor that doesn’t know what I did and found out that I do YouTube. And then I was very conscious of the fact that, okay, he’s going to go home and Google it. And now he’s going to hate me. And I’m asking myself, why does he hate? Why would he hate me? And okay, well, he hates Trump. And I’ve pointed out things that Trump has done. But at the end of the day, what is the alternative? I have to let that go to some degree. Now, you don’t want to be reckless, though. I get your point.

Mr. Jekielek:

Yes, and by the way, your thing is to go to people who you think have logical fallacies and have those discussions so that people can see how those fallacies play out. So it kind of makes more sense for you to be talking with controversial figures who have a lot of logical fallacies in their incredibly convincing thinking sometimes, right?

Mr. Smith:

Yes. I’ll admit, though, I was surprised with Nick because that conversation came about from me making a response video when I didn’t know too much about it. And my point wasn’t very valid because the logic is either there or it’s not. And that was on me because when you look closer, he had a very good explanation for it. Now, I was surprised because in my conversation with him, we spoke for about an hour-and-a-half. He could have been pretending. 

I challenged him on the idea of having a king and the importance of the Founding Fathers, the model that they created, and how we shouldn’t compromise on that. And he agreed with me on that. So it does get challenging where, in a dialogue like that, there was nothing you could point to that would be fallacious. He’s very logically careful. If he doesn’t have a foundation, he’ll point it out. And there are some questions I could ask that show hypocrisy, but he’ll. 

Mr. Jekielek:

And so, just on this point, like leaving him aside for a sec, but just in general, right? This is the challenge. Some people are very skilled rhetoricians, very skilled, and they can do one thing at one time, another thing at another time. They can. And this, I mean, like this is. I’ll go back to what I mentioned, what keeps me up at night, right, is that what used to be a one-on-one conversation before media and then has been increasingly more one on a great many people, right? You can share bad ideas. When I say bad, I’m using them in the terms, in the sense that you describe, right? 

Ideas that are logically fallacious, but somehow specious, somehow attractive, right, but not consistent, or not true for that matter. And you can have a whole lot of people in a very quick time believe something that, and then that belief can be shifted again by another narrative that sort of virally moves through the population. You can create moral panics. You can create, I mean, and I’m not saying you can. This has happened repeatedly and seems to be happening more and more. And I just don’t know how we emerge out of this without somehow getting a handle on it.

Mr. Smith:

Yes, the thing that’s going to allow you to contend with that is logic. So, for example, and it doesn’t matter how good the rhetoric is, because what we’re describing when we talk about someone effective with rhetoric is essentially painting a narrative to create the illusion of a logical argument. Candace Owens, for example, could often be an example of this, where she’s pointed to things that are strange, but you’ll notice it’s very rare for her to get a one-on-one debate. 

Yes, we did have the Andrew Wilson example, but that cost him $300,000. There was a whole kerfuffle that led to that where it was, there was no way out of it. And she was kind of brought on because she was called out. It was kind of a last resort, is my point. And now when that happens, she was still able to, because she had a viral moment that created such a large fan base that overrides any of Andrew’s logical wins in the big picture, like there was that sense that she was winning, but there were effective wins on Andrew’s part using the logic. Like there’s no escape. 

If the logic is not there, I don’t care how good you are at spinning the narrative, you can’t escape that.  And this goes to the second most important law of narrative: show, don’t tell, which is everything in story, in filmmaking, on screen, content creation. What I’m doing every day is, I can tell you about how ludicrous postmodernism is, or whoever we want to examine. If I tell people about what postmodernism is advocating for, like we tried it today, where you’re putting forth the argument, well, a man can be a woman. 

It’s like the audience is just going to dismiss that because they’re not hearing it from the person actually. But when I’m making a video, I show it. I don’t tell the audience that this person’s saying it. I literally show it and then contend with it. And I think that at the core is what makes this so effective because you’re seeing the words come out of their mouth.

Now, if Candace Owens can paint that picture, if I can show those certain points, or whoever it is—and this isn’t to beat up on Candace, like she has a lot of skills and valid points in other areas—but there are certain logical breakdowns that I grapple with and I think are fair to grapple with. And no one can counter those. All they do in response is point to Andrew Wilson not being able to recite the seven charges. Like they cannot contend.  

And all I can do is say, talk to me about it. I will invite you on. We can have the conversation. It’s very difficult for me to get people to come on. Lindsey Clancy, I struggled to get someone who would literally come on camera and put forth those arguments. They’ll say, well, I don’t want to get sued, and fine. Come forward and make the case that she shouldn’t be held responsible. Like this is a public challenge. If there’s anyone out there, anyone who would be willing to come on camera, we’ll do it live. It’s very difficult to find anyone.

Mr. Jekielek:

I’m trying to assemble, I guess, an arsenal, if you will. I’ve realized this—I’m talking with my team recently—that one of the things that this show is going to need to do is to help people figure out how to keep free minds in an environment where increasingly sophisticated tools are being used to convince you of things, in some cases, without you even realizing it. I’ve even encountered things myself, and I’m quite hard to convince. I’m structurally skeptical. It’s a hazard in a way, right? And I can see myself having been convinced of things that I didn’t realize just because of time and repetition and whatever—just some assumptions that I had that were wrong or whatever. So, this is my project. And I think your book brings an important piece of that in, which is this sort of thinking through one, how to think logically and communicate that.

And two, it’s very interesting explaining how narrative structures work. And as you start thinking about that a bit more, I think you can see people creating them too and being able to piece out those gaps that are in there. And so, just that process, understanding that we’re in an information war. You know, it’s interesting how you call it a game, right? Because somehow that word, it feels to me—I understand you’re not trying to trivialize it. It feels to me like it trivializes it. They say war, it definitely doesn’t sound trivial.

Mr. Smith:

In the same way John Nash talked about game theory, though, it allows us to look at it in almost a mathematical way.

Mr. Jekielek:

Yes, no, I get that. I understand. That’s what you mean by it too. Yes. Yes, I wonder, I wonder, but it’s just increasingly in this information war that we’re in that everyone is kind of stepping into and putting in, adding to the mayhem.

Mr. Smith:

Yes. I think it’s going to come down to the individual. And that has always been and always will be our greatest hope. And to me, the book, yes, examining the laws of narrative, that’s a subset of the book. This is not a book about narrative. I want to make that clear. It is something that we touch on because it’s so important. 

But at the core, this book really is about the individual thinking for themselves, developing that mind of their own. It’s the message that nothing will improve your life more than living in accordance with the fabric of reality. And that is why postmodernism is so detrimental because it is the opposite of the idea that there is the fabric of reality. 

And I use the example of the sailboat that is sailing in accordance with the tides and the winds, finding true north and navigating based off of true north, vs. the boat that everything is social conditioning in some form, social construct, and there is no objective true north. Which boat is going to be more successful in trying to reach its destination? So there are, and when we’re describing objective truth, at the end of the day, that’s what we’re talking about is trying to identify the fabric of reality. And how do we determine what is true so we can live in accordance with it? 

The idea is that you must become it before you can be it, becoming the person you want, you should be, you could be in that, and writing the narrative of your life, going on the hero’s journey within the narrative of your life, becoming that individual. Yes, the individual is the only hope we have. That’s the whole point of all of these methodologies and having the debates on epistemology and the five-step method. 

At the end of the day, it all comes down to the individual, really. It goes much deeper than politics because you’re faced—my point with the game as well—is that these problems manifest themselves way outside of politics. In the office, there are political games. In your day-to-day life, you’re facing decisions. Critical thinking is not just about figuring out who to vote for or navigating YouTube videos. 

Every day, you’re making decisions and you’re being faced with the pressures, the narratives, all of these techniques that you’re going to have to navigate. And that’s not a choice. You’re in it whether you like it or not. So, yes, play to win. And that’s not a bad thing. It doesn’t trivialize. It doesn’t minimize. It’s not a bad thing to want to win. It’s not a power game because you’re in it either way.

Mr. Jekielek:

It’s not a power game. It’s a trying-to-get-to-truth game.

Mr. Smith:

To live in accordance with what is real, because that will allow you to be, to reach your full potential.

Mr. Jekielek:

But you hear this today very often. I mean, you even hear it among people who believe in objective reality, well, you have your truth, I have mine.

Mr. Smith:

Well, as far as your experiences go, but there’s no believing in objective truth. That’s a result of postmodernism, the fact that we even have to say those who believe in objective truth. It exists, logically, it exists independent of whether we can grasp it or not. And I describe this as like mathematicians. 

A mathematician comes along and creates a breakthrough, but they’re not inventing anything. They’re uncovering something that was already there, giving it a name, making it possible to articulate so that others can build upon it. That’s essentially how all knowledge has worked. That’s the fabric of reality. We’ve made a new small observation about how this works in science. 

Now, postmodernists argue because we’re constantly uncovering new facets of reality, of understanding, our understanding of the solar system will evolve. Therefore, because it’s evolving, we don’t really know anything. We can’t claim to know objective truth. Okay, my counter is even if we can’t fully know it, it does exist and we can strive for it nonetheless.

Mr. Jekielek:

Well, and just one more thing that strikes me here. In accordance with objective reality, understanding it’s real also sets you up to deal with the ramifications of your actions, right? Because you’re asking yourself, like, what’s likely going to happen here? Okay. That’s part of your calculus. And I wonder, though, because there seems to be such a pervasive disinterest in our society for people having, deciding to be accountable for actions. Indeed, going back to Lindsay Clancy, the beginning of our conversation, it’s like a centerpiece of this whole question. And so many people seem ready to just say, look, yeah, why should she be accountable for that? Even though it’s very obvious that she did it, that isn’t even in debate.

Mr. Smith:

Because there are so many people that want to shake their fist at reality, and that objective truth that exists causes us to be judged. It’s very uncomfortable, and it causes us to have to do what we don’t want to do. It’s extremely inconvenient, certainly. And there’s this emotional appeal of the victim narrative that we see manifest in so many ways. It comes from postmodernism as well. And think about all the ways we see people latch onto, I’m actually a victim. That alleviates the burden of, Well, I actually have more control over my reality, where that boat goes, than I’ve been told, or that most people want to acknowledge. 

Now, that’s a stressful acknowledgment to make, that you are actually at the helm of your boat. And I try and go into this in the book. Jordan Peterson tried to describe this by asking his students, had you been a German in 1938 in Germany, right, could you have been a Nazi? Could you have been a guard at the camp? No, I never would have. Well, why? Are you somehow just born more enlightened? You’re made of the exact same thing, the exact same DNA. We’re all made of the same one equal temper of heroic hearts made weak by time and fate, as the Tennyson poem says. And we’re all made of the same stuff. 

And that’s a very, just with Lindsey Clancy as well, same capacity to—that’s a very unsettling thing. So it’s much easier. And most people will do what is—they’re like water. Most people will do what is easier. And it’s easier to be foolish than wise. It’s easier to be a victim. It’s easier to go with those narratives, but recognize when that’s just a narrative and rather than what is objectively true.

Mr. Jekielek:

Well, Warren Smith, it’s such a pleasure to have had you on.

Mr. Smith:

Thank you for talking. It’s always fun.

This interview was partially edited for clarity and brevity.