James Pew's Guest Appearance on Viewpoints

A podcast about ideas produced by Sean Rasmussen

By

James Pew

A few months ago I was invited by Sean Rasmussen to be a guest on a new podcast series he is producing called “Viewpoints.” I loved the concept, it’s all about ideas (good ones and bad ones). Sean was interested in discussing the variety of ideas we call “woke,” or for the more academic term, Critical Social Justice. The podcast was published yesterday.

Here are a few words of description from the Viewpoints website:

Break free from the orthodoxies of mainstream media. Hear diverse perspectives from interesting people across the political spectrum.

Broadening the discussion around politics and culture in Canada

That sounds pretty good to me. Check out our discussion on wokeism in Canada below:

Here is more about Viewpoints:

Long-form discussions that are respectful, insightful and thought-provoking.

Although we’ll be discussing topics that may be polarizing and difficult, we always conduct our conversations with respect, curiosity and humility. True understanding is the goal.

The host, Sean Rasmussen, of course, has his own political stance (classical liberalism, if you’re curious), but he gives space for people with different ideas to share safely.

Sean is a great guy. Easy to talk to. Smart. Curious. The conversation we had was intense, it covered a lot of ground. But I wouldn’t be me if I didn’t take issue with some of my responses. Its not that I wish to un-say anything, but in a few places I wish I would have said a little more.

The part of the discussion that stood out the most, and which I would have answered a little differently if given a do-over, was when Sean asked a great question about whether I felt wokeism was a conspiracy driven by people (subversive Social Justice activist types) or the product of a “mind virus.”

I do have a lot to say about the mind virus theory, and I went off in that direction during my explanation. However, I did not mean to give the impression that Wokeism is simply an emergent mind virus spreading across society. I do believe there is an aspect of Woke that is both emergent and a mind virus, however, I also think that the overall Social Justice movement has been at least in part determined by deliberate activism and social agitation of the far-left. And, I also believe there is a third piece - the super rich elite globalists, who are both supportive of many areas of wokeism, and often invest heavily in it.

I refer the reader to a book published last year by Seamus Bruner and Peter Schweizer, called Controligarchs. The book investigates the global elites of the World Economic Forum (the same elites who invest in radical gender surgeries for minors, antiracism, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, and other programs of the woke cultural revolution). From the books description on Amazon:

“How World Economic Forum (WEF) founder Klaus Schwab built an exclusive club in Davos where the top 25 WEF members—now worth more than $10 trillion—have more economic power than most world governments, and how these global oligarchs are seizing control over our future.”

Indeed, I would have felt better if my answer to what causes Woke had been broken down into three components - 1) the mind virus 2) the deliberately conspiratorial Social Justice activists and agitators 3) the globalists (deliberately conspiratorial WEF elites who are tying to re-engineer society).

There were a few other parts where my answers could have been better. But a conversation is so off-the-cuff and in the moment - so much more like a performance than an essay - that I feel its better to just leave it as it is, let sleeping dogs lie, let water flow beneath its annoying bridge of incomplete thought. In other words: whatever.

On a positive note, I do like the general shape of the conversation. Sean is a great interviewer with a talent for bringing my habit of digression back around to focus. Without that expert hand at guiding the direction of the conversation - keeping it on course - I can imagine it having being a confusing mess that jumped all over the place. I don’t think that is the case. There still are a few digressions, but that’s ok, isn’t it? For what is life without a digression now and then?

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Thanks for reading (and listening). For more from this author, read The Spiral of Silence - And the Countess of the WPATH Files: Mia Hughes

BREAKING NEWS:

1. A new long-form essay by Dr. M - Fulcrum and Pivot: The New Left Remaking of Toronto School Policy

2. James Pew has contributed a chapter to the new book Grave Error: How The Media Misled us (And the Truth about Residential Schools). You can read about it here - The Rise of Independent Canadian Researchers

Also, for more evidence of the ideological indoctrination in Canadian education, read Yes, schools are indoctrinating kids! And also, Yes, The University is an Indoctrination Camp!

There are now two ways to support Woke Watch Canada through donations:

1) By subscribing to the paid version of the Woke Watch Canada Newsletter for - $7 Cdn/month or $70 Cdn/year

2) By making a contribution to the Investigating Wokeism In Canada Initiative, which raises the funds necessary to maintain and expand Woke Watch Canada’s research and investigation into Dysfunctional Canadian School Boards, Education, Indigenous Issues, Free Speech, and other areas of Illiberal Subversion and the Canadian Culture Wars.