I listen to Alistair Campbell's podcast (The Rest is Politics) every week without fail - just as I read your Substack, Sarah. I was so pleased to see you two meet in person!
Thanks for sharing all this Sarah, I loved reading it and lots to think about. It's SO good to hear of someone progressive knowing how to push back effectively when dealing with a confident bullshitter! The words of a Yeats poem I studied at school keep coming into my head at the moment: 'the best lack all conviction while the worst are full of passionate intensity.' I'm constantly surprised at the lack of forward-thinking, grounded-in-humanity pushback in politics (but I also wonder whether it's there and I just don't see it thanks to media/algorithm bias). I would love to hear more of your thoughts on “How to not cede ground, without being a c*nt” (which made me LOL it's so perfectly to the point).
You know, a lot of what they use are undue influence techniques, that create unusually receptive emotional states, and Campbell and you are absolutely on the right track to point out the tactics rather than engage with the content to disarm them. The Open Minds Foundation has a wealth of resources about this: https://www.openmindsfoundation.org/exploitative-techniques/
Sounds like Alistair Campbell used what seems to be the most useful strategy for dealing with the bullshit - naming the tactics (in a non-inflamatory way) instead of engaging with them. Just pointing out that someone is deflecting, using a straw man, making a false equivalence, answering a questions with a question etc helps put some distance between you and the conversation, helps you emotionally untangle and lets others in the conversation understand (as you noted Sarah) that underneath the verbal acrobatics is a desire to win rather than seek understanding. A long, long time ago I had the chance to study rhetoric and persuasion at post graduate level and BOY is it coming in handier than I ever thought it would these days.
Agree. Just more of the same insecure bully to the room.
I would put a wager on the teleprompter breakdown being deliberate, which made him adlib and go off script.
But that may have been deliberate by the UN, to get him unscripted, where they know he could lose it easily.
Does make me ponder why so many listen to such inaccurate garbage with no facts behind it and not shout out or boo.
Australians literally booed Adam Goodes for a season every time he touched a football at games for his beliefs. Trump basically says "f*ck the planet, we're here to make money with coal" and there is silence.
For occasions like today and to counter attack a narcissist like Trump, the audience need only stand and turn their back on him in protest. Nothing would insult him more.
Can you imagine how it could have been turned into something so good if when he stated that climate change was a con, if everybody stood up and turned their back, similar to the John Howard speech when he refused to say sorry. How can we listen to that while at the same time trying to paint a veiled picture of Australia helping Pacific Island countries that are literally going under water. I know...lets give PNG an NRL footy team! Seriously.
I hadn't heard about this particular iteration of the rapture. People can really believe anything 😵💫
Regarding Yarvin's amateur debating skills. I've seen this a lot in a very specific demographic of mostly men, who clearly never made it into their school debating team.
Since your post last week on Kirk I made an effort to watch some of his 'debates'...he was just as amateur. Feels very year 9.
Are these people the adult versions of the kids that weren't selected to represent the school in inter-school debating? 😬 Feels like its either blatant anti-intellectualism or they really are just that dense.
Either way its troubling, especially as others lap it up. A sad testament to the education system perhaps?
I'm not sure it's the education system...I think it's a broad cultural anti-intellectualism and dialled up polarisation due to all the collapse factors. The influence of America's particular brand of individualism is also a factor...
Hi Sarah, I was in the audience on sunday watching Campbell interview Yarvin and I felt the crowd was not on Yarvin's side except for one young guy sitting near me who clapped various points he made. Maybe we were dumbfounded? What struck me was Yarvin's defensiveness and derogatory remarks about the UK, and his opinion on the safety of London streets, this coming from someone who does not live here. I was also in the audience when you were on the panel with the transhumanists and thought you held your own Sarah - you received applause from the audience numerous times and I don't recall the other speakers did. My goal is not to live in a constant state of bliss!
His comments about "England" were so offensive and clearly about antagonising.
Yeah, my transhumanist friends...very sweet, but somewhat transfixed by their thought experiments.
They, too, were were seductive and emphatic. It's so easy to get sucked into the intellectual sport of it all...but, as I said on stage, while we flirt with their thought experiments, the Tech Bros are using their theories and insights to actually go ahead with it all...before the moral conversation has been fully fleshed out.
Thanks for the write-up Sarah. I was actually the festival but succumbed to the overwhelm pretty quickly and sadly didn’t get to see you. In the few sessions I did manage to catch (deliberately avoided Yarvin), I found myself wondering about the nature of an event like this - from the outside it seems terrific - ooh, a festival of thinking - but the reality I experienced was a lack of time to say anything substantive and a regurgitation of old works. Also - I’m sad you ended up in a grim cafe, there are some really nice ones!
Hmm, well - I would have liked to see you with a solo talk! :)
I'm a transpersonal therapist, so I have a strong bias toward the personal and the rational spiritual - so I think I would have liked to see more small ideas than Big Ideas - and more questions and discussions vs sessions where people purport to have the answers. Maybe what I'm saying is greater opportunity for engagement somehow, but I'm also aware how difficult that is to make work well when it's a gathering of random people of all ilks. That said - I don't think that's what this festival wants to create so the answer might simply be - it wasn't for me.
It sounds like a deceptive recruiting environment, where crowd coercion is used to overwhelm new prospects as a deliberate (and highly effective) tactic. Rachel Bernstein and Cara Cordoni talk about these kinds of techniques in this episode https://www.patreon.com/posts/cult-hopping-pt-127771352 of Rachel’s podcast, IndoctriNation.
I see C Kirk mentioned here a few times and that description of ‘answering a question with a question’ or engaging ‘not to listen but to win’ do seem to pin his approach. Damaging, as others are dazzled and buy in. But I thought of Yarvin as not dangerous because of the power of those who have fallen under his influence (or who use him to their preferred ends). It’s good to hear that Yarvin isn’t much more skilled than Kirk it seems. It’s been plain to me that he is making an argument for collapse of where we’ve been headed (to prevent the final collapse of what has been…the elites taking all the power)
I'm one of the Brits who has never heard of Yavin (thankfully), but the bullshit peddling of this type I see online of course. Campbell does have an excellent antenna and attack-defence intellectual pincer brain for fighting right-wing shit-bombing. I think the quote below in your post is both the key question and cause of much introspective soul-searching of those of in the uncertain nexus of "progressive" "left" "liberal":
"Why are these clearly intellectually inquisitive people being seduced by this dangerous and cruel shit? I’d been thinking and feeling all kinds of things and writing notes throughout the sessions. My sense was that most people in the room were scared, feeling morally adrift and uncertain. As most people in the world, I would argue, are today. And scared, adrift, uncertain humans tend to cling to anyone who drives a certainty stake into the (wobbly) ground. It almost doesn’t matter what they say, if it’s said with unwavering certitude even the most dangerous, illogical ideas can feel safe. Like much of what US President Trump says to millions of Americans."
Added to your proscription for me, must be the decades of active undermining all forms of critical thinking and demonising those who are critical thinkers. This happens on so many different levels I don't want to attempt a taxonomy. But at the structural level with the undermining and defunding of all forms of education that don't serve the needs of neoliberal capitalism; at the cultural level with an almost pathological dismissal/ridicule of intellectual practices; and at a social level with a radically more proscriptive class system than anyone dare contemplate.
We're all, of course, part of a mass techno-social experiment in cognitive manipulation by the algorithmic tyranny of the online rage-machine.
Thanks for reporting from this event. I definitely couldn't stomach the performative, bad faith live trolling that you point to, and would likely duck out, heading towards the nearest cinema.
'Rapture'? There is quite a history for these non-events. The last I remember was 2012 and it captured a surprising number in the non-Christian, sort of quasi 'alternatives', crowd, even here in Britain. Got mixed up with sci-fi phantasies for some. So what do we feel about these US transhumanist CEOs making the singularities happen, anyone?
Meanwhile perhaps despite baseball caps and T-shirts and fizzy coloured drinks, the majority of the world's population has a great deal more to get on with than to care as you say, a shit about this load of stuff? Just the USA makes it look big this time round?
More importantly, real horror stuff like a city in flames these last nights, supported by 'Allied' military tech and ordinance, goes on apace. Perhaps material horror is the real emanation of these fervid dreams, the zeitgeist in the machine?
The machine takes charge, recruits whomsoever and their selling techniques, whatever, but lacks any actual understanding or strategic intelligence? (Horror is a feature not a bug when you raise and insert a zeitgeist beast of this kind and insert it into a machine? Apologies to WB Yeats.)
The JPs Yarvins and the Kirk’s of the world nailed a certain type of vibe and discourse. Which is enchanting, but literally bullshit.
To stop and not attack and just say “ick!!” I feel horrible in my body and my mind is spinning 😵💫 at what you are saying. Can we get back to a b or c please. Immediately stops the bad actor. Or brings your companion back to reality and the unknown and either the present or the future you are trying to create.
I wanted to say too, the “they should stop, know better, not say that etc” method or debate is dead in the water.
No one on the other side of the divide was ever listening to “woke” or what ever needs to be said or should not be said. So much hot air created by everyone 😅. The cat is out of the bag and it’s now a free for all. Gloves are off.
But we are learning and meeting the challenge.
The only way forward is to see the game , play the game , keep our values and humanity , and be willing to use our darker side or our honesty when needed to protect ourselves or create the better good.
Love this reflection, Sarah: "I also suggested that as women in the public eye we also have a responsibility to younger women to embody steadfast and comfortable reasonableness. We have to let go of our ingrained imposter syndrome. It’s now a duty. We can speak in nuances, we can allow for grey and intersectionality and all the stuff the post-woke crew deride (indeed, we must if that is our intellectual contribution), and we can, or must, do so sturdily." I'd expand this to ANY menopausal/post-menopausal women who are questioning how best to contribute/serve. Now more than ever, we need to alchemise our wisdom, reclaim our ground - be "sturdy" as you say (deep roots, flexible branches) and step into our roles as 'mentor/coach' - whatever that might look like. Sending courage.
I am in awe of the women in the public eye who bravely speak out. I have read some of the threats that these women receive and it is utterly terrifying. We must support these women.
*checks To-Do List* No "Rapture" on my list for this week. Guess, I'll carry on!
Thanks for the insights and perspective, Sarah. As always, you offer a clear voice that encourages awareness, critical thinking and a calm response to the deliberate chaos.
I listen to Alistair Campbell's podcast (The Rest is Politics) every week without fail - just as I read your Substack, Sarah. I was so pleased to see you two meet in person!
Me too! And frankly I could cuddle Campbell through the ether on his delightedly lefty ness. Rational is my word.
Thanks for sharing all this Sarah, I loved reading it and lots to think about. It's SO good to hear of someone progressive knowing how to push back effectively when dealing with a confident bullshitter! The words of a Yeats poem I studied at school keep coming into my head at the moment: 'the best lack all conviction while the worst are full of passionate intensity.' I'm constantly surprised at the lack of forward-thinking, grounded-in-humanity pushback in politics (but I also wonder whether it's there and I just don't see it thanks to media/algorithm bias). I would love to hear more of your thoughts on “How to not cede ground, without being a c*nt” (which made me LOL it's so perfectly to the point).
i'm still trying to find the techniques for the not ceding...being peri-menopausal helps...
You know, a lot of what they use are undue influence techniques, that create unusually receptive emotional states, and Campbell and you are absolutely on the right track to point out the tactics rather than engage with the content to disarm them. The Open Minds Foundation has a wealth of resources about this: https://www.openmindsfoundation.org/exploitative-techniques/
Ha, I'm right with you there! I'm about to hit 50 and I can feel my bullshit tolerance level decreasing daily.
Such a gift! So needed - but gee it can be hard when we’re in company of the folks who love the spin & aren’t used to being called out 🙈
Sounds like Alistair Campbell used what seems to be the most useful strategy for dealing with the bullshit - naming the tactics (in a non-inflamatory way) instead of engaging with them. Just pointing out that someone is deflecting, using a straw man, making a false equivalence, answering a questions with a question etc helps put some distance between you and the conversation, helps you emotionally untangle and lets others in the conversation understand (as you noted Sarah) that underneath the verbal acrobatics is a desire to win rather than seek understanding. A long, long time ago I had the chance to study rhetoric and persuasion at post graduate level and BOY is it coming in handier than I ever thought it would these days.
creating that distance is key!
I would have happily taken a good "Rapturing" over still being here and listening to Trump give that speech to the UN!
Bit of a shame they didn't all go up to heaven to be honest and leave us in peace.😏
His speech was particularly "No f*cks to give we're outta here" in spirit...maybe he was prodding the process?
Agree. Just more of the same insecure bully to the room.
I would put a wager on the teleprompter breakdown being deliberate, which made him adlib and go off script.
But that may have been deliberate by the UN, to get him unscripted, where they know he could lose it easily.
Does make me ponder why so many listen to such inaccurate garbage with no facts behind it and not shout out or boo.
Australians literally booed Adam Goodes for a season every time he touched a football at games for his beliefs. Trump basically says "f*ck the planet, we're here to make money with coal" and there is silence.
For occasions like today and to counter attack a narcissist like Trump, the audience need only stand and turn their back on him in protest. Nothing would insult him more.
we have all become so uncourageous
Can you imagine how it could have been turned into something so good if when he stated that climate change was a con, if everybody stood up and turned their back, similar to the John Howard speech when he refused to say sorry. How can we listen to that while at the same time trying to paint a veiled picture of Australia helping Pacific Island countries that are literally going under water. I know...lets give PNG an NRL footy team! Seriously.
I had the same thought! Clear out and leave us to get down to business.
I hadn't heard about this particular iteration of the rapture. People can really believe anything 😵💫
Regarding Yarvin's amateur debating skills. I've seen this a lot in a very specific demographic of mostly men, who clearly never made it into their school debating team.
Since your post last week on Kirk I made an effort to watch some of his 'debates'...he was just as amateur. Feels very year 9.
Are these people the adult versions of the kids that weren't selected to represent the school in inter-school debating? 😬 Feels like its either blatant anti-intellectualism or they really are just that dense.
Either way its troubling, especially as others lap it up. A sad testament to the education system perhaps?
I'm not sure it's the education system...I think it's a broad cultural anti-intellectualism and dialled up polarisation due to all the collapse factors. The influence of America's particular brand of individualism is also a factor...
Hi Sarah, I was in the audience on sunday watching Campbell interview Yarvin and I felt the crowd was not on Yarvin's side except for one young guy sitting near me who clapped various points he made. Maybe we were dumbfounded? What struck me was Yarvin's defensiveness and derogatory remarks about the UK, and his opinion on the safety of London streets, this coming from someone who does not live here. I was also in the audience when you were on the panel with the transhumanists and thought you held your own Sarah - you received applause from the audience numerous times and I don't recall the other speakers did. My goal is not to live in a constant state of bliss!
His comments about "England" were so offensive and clearly about antagonising.
Yeah, my transhumanist friends...very sweet, but somewhat transfixed by their thought experiments.
They, too, were were seductive and emphatic. It's so easy to get sucked into the intellectual sport of it all...but, as I said on stage, while we flirt with their thought experiments, the Tech Bros are using their theories and insights to actually go ahead with it all...before the moral conversation has been fully fleshed out.
This is so wise, Sarah. Thank you!
I think naming the tactics is vital. Thanks for sharing Alastair Campbell’s success in revealing Yarvin’s vapidity.
Thanks for the write-up Sarah. I was actually the festival but succumbed to the overwhelm pretty quickly and sadly didn’t get to see you. In the few sessions I did manage to catch (deliberately avoided Yarvin), I found myself wondering about the nature of an event like this - from the outside it seems terrific - ooh, a festival of thinking - but the reality I experienced was a lack of time to say anything substantive and a regurgitation of old works. Also - I’m sad you ended up in a grim cafe, there are some really nice ones!
What kind of subjects/works would you like to have seen more of? I've been reflecting a little on this...
Hmm, well - I would have liked to see you with a solo talk! :)
I'm a transpersonal therapist, so I have a strong bias toward the personal and the rational spiritual - so I think I would have liked to see more small ideas than Big Ideas - and more questions and discussions vs sessions where people purport to have the answers. Maybe what I'm saying is greater opportunity for engagement somehow, but I'm also aware how difficult that is to make work well when it's a gathering of random people of all ilks. That said - I don't think that's what this festival wants to create so the answer might simply be - it wasn't for me.
It sounds like a deceptive recruiting environment, where crowd coercion is used to overwhelm new prospects as a deliberate (and highly effective) tactic. Rachel Bernstein and Cara Cordoni talk about these kinds of techniques in this episode https://www.patreon.com/posts/cult-hopping-pt-127771352 of Rachel’s podcast, IndoctriNation.
Hey, the world without those hypocrites and Bible thumpers seems like a pretty good deal to me👍👍🤔🤔
I see C Kirk mentioned here a few times and that description of ‘answering a question with a question’ or engaging ‘not to listen but to win’ do seem to pin his approach. Damaging, as others are dazzled and buy in. But I thought of Yarvin as not dangerous because of the power of those who have fallen under his influence (or who use him to their preferred ends). It’s good to hear that Yarvin isn’t much more skilled than Kirk it seems. It’s been plain to me that he is making an argument for collapse of where we’ve been headed (to prevent the final collapse of what has been…the elites taking all the power)
I agree.
Edit: I meant I’ve thought of Yarvin as more dangerous (for the reasons listed).
It’s good to know his arguments aren’t well structured.
I'm one of the Brits who has never heard of Yavin (thankfully), but the bullshit peddling of this type I see online of course. Campbell does have an excellent antenna and attack-defence intellectual pincer brain for fighting right-wing shit-bombing. I think the quote below in your post is both the key question and cause of much introspective soul-searching of those of in the uncertain nexus of "progressive" "left" "liberal":
"Why are these clearly intellectually inquisitive people being seduced by this dangerous and cruel shit? I’d been thinking and feeling all kinds of things and writing notes throughout the sessions. My sense was that most people in the room were scared, feeling morally adrift and uncertain. As most people in the world, I would argue, are today. And scared, adrift, uncertain humans tend to cling to anyone who drives a certainty stake into the (wobbly) ground. It almost doesn’t matter what they say, if it’s said with unwavering certitude even the most dangerous, illogical ideas can feel safe. Like much of what US President Trump says to millions of Americans."
Added to your proscription for me, must be the decades of active undermining all forms of critical thinking and demonising those who are critical thinkers. This happens on so many different levels I don't want to attempt a taxonomy. But at the structural level with the undermining and defunding of all forms of education that don't serve the needs of neoliberal capitalism; at the cultural level with an almost pathological dismissal/ridicule of intellectual practices; and at a social level with a radically more proscriptive class system than anyone dare contemplate.
We're all, of course, part of a mass techno-social experiment in cognitive manipulation by the algorithmic tyranny of the online rage-machine.
Thanks for reporting from this event. I definitely couldn't stomach the performative, bad faith live trolling that you point to, and would likely duck out, heading towards the nearest cinema.
I think it's important that we be in those rooms collectively and we all observe each other responding with sanity!
'Rapture'? There is quite a history for these non-events. The last I remember was 2012 and it captured a surprising number in the non-Christian, sort of quasi 'alternatives', crowd, even here in Britain. Got mixed up with sci-fi phantasies for some. So what do we feel about these US transhumanist CEOs making the singularities happen, anyone?
Meanwhile perhaps despite baseball caps and T-shirts and fizzy coloured drinks, the majority of the world's population has a great deal more to get on with than to care as you say, a shit about this load of stuff? Just the USA makes it look big this time round?
More importantly, real horror stuff like a city in flames these last nights, supported by 'Allied' military tech and ordinance, goes on apace. Perhaps material horror is the real emanation of these fervid dreams, the zeitgeist in the machine?
or it's all distraction...
The machine takes charge, recruits whomsoever and their selling techniques, whatever, but lacks any actual understanding or strategic intelligence? (Horror is a feature not a bug when you raise and insert a zeitgeist beast of this kind and insert it into a machine? Apologies to WB Yeats.)
Well said Sarah
The JPs Yarvins and the Kirk’s of the world nailed a certain type of vibe and discourse. Which is enchanting, but literally bullshit.
To stop and not attack and just say “ick!!” I feel horrible in my body and my mind is spinning 😵💫 at what you are saying. Can we get back to a b or c please. Immediately stops the bad actor. Or brings your companion back to reality and the unknown and either the present or the future you are trying to create.
I wanted to say too, the “they should stop, know better, not say that etc” method or debate is dead in the water.
No one on the other side of the divide was ever listening to “woke” or what ever needs to be said or should not be said. So much hot air created by everyone 😅. The cat is out of the bag and it’s now a free for all. Gloves are off.
But we are learning and meeting the challenge.
The only way forward is to see the game , play the game , keep our values and humanity , and be willing to use our darker side or our honesty when needed to protect ourselves or create the better good.
it's a delicate dance
Love this reflection, Sarah: "I also suggested that as women in the public eye we also have a responsibility to younger women to embody steadfast and comfortable reasonableness. We have to let go of our ingrained imposter syndrome. It’s now a duty. We can speak in nuances, we can allow for grey and intersectionality and all the stuff the post-woke crew deride (indeed, we must if that is our intellectual contribution), and we can, or must, do so sturdily." I'd expand this to ANY menopausal/post-menopausal women who are questioning how best to contribute/serve. Now more than ever, we need to alchemise our wisdom, reclaim our ground - be "sturdy" as you say (deep roots, flexible branches) and step into our roles as 'mentor/coach' - whatever that might look like. Sending courage.
I am very happy with that expansion. In my book I write about the role of peri/post menopausal women...
I am in awe of the women in the public eye who bravely speak out. I have read some of the threats that these women receive and it is utterly terrifying. We must support these women.
The young women in Australia copping it...it's horrible. I hit a like on everything Abbie Chatfield writes now to let her know she's supported
*checks To-Do List* No "Rapture" on my list for this week. Guess, I'll carry on!
Thanks for the insights and perspective, Sarah. As always, you offer a clear voice that encourages awareness, critical thinking and a calm response to the deliberate chaos.