Let me make it just past: this is San Harris. Ok. Well, my friend Joe Rogan has come under considerable public scrutiny and personal attack in recent days, and I want to say a few things in response to that controversy. Hypocrites of Jos coverage of covert and vaccines. In particular, I was critical of his plan,

main Peter Mccullough and Robert Maloney. I reached out to Joe privately about that, and I said a few things publicly, as you might expect. I restrain myself in public because chose a friend, but I didn't leave any doubt about where I stood. My primary concern was that, given his vast audience getting public health messaging wrong, even a little wrong could do a lot of harm. Joe is generally considered to have the biggest podcast on earth and his greater reach than almost any mainstream media outlets. So this with great responsibility, but its responsibility. The Joe, never sought and has been slow to appreciate and understand why Morocco is not a scientist or an academic or a journalist or he's a comedian

and because he's a comedian, whatever the topic, he can always pull the rip cord by saying they'll do I know I'm just a comic wrote this in that I and many other pod casters can't do and he Pon cast so much. He sometimes produces twenty hours of content a week, so there's no way he can prepare for most of these conversations. Nor is there time for him to edit his pot cast his release. Everything live. He sent stop doing that, but the spirit of his Comcast cast hasn't changed. He just flips on the microphones and begins rolling with his guest. And while he may know something about their work, he is right. are often learning what they think in real time right along with his audience and then responding in the moment, based on his years of doing just this

Having long and searching conversations with an incredibly diverse range of guests and letting his curiosity be his guide on most topics, this approach The podcasting has served Joe and his audience very, very well, and the fact that the Joe Rogan experience is the biggest podcast on earth is all the proof we need of that. But this approached upon in doesnt work so well for every guest and every topic. what has been a comedian, always provide an alibi for getting your facts wrong. So I was very glad to see Joe Pivot last week at acknowledge that on the topic of public health, he could and should be more rigorous and care in the future. This was in response to kneel young another musicians, pointer, music off Spotify. In protest over Jos Messaging, around covered.

So when I saw that video I jumped on Twitter and said well, then brother because show promise to treat the topic of exceeds and covered with more care and to bring on other experts to balance the opinions of the heterodox people had been talking to. As you all know, the pandemic, as atomic I've hit several times and I've been distress to see how other pod casters like Joe, have covered it. I thought Josie Instagram video promising to do things differently, with a bound as good as it could have been he wasn't offensive. He didn't double down any mistakes. He acknowledged that he was. I understand the enormous role he now plays on our information landscape and promised to correct course. So bravo, but now another controversy has erupted for show also felt any.

To apologize somewhat cut together, a real of moments were Joe said, the inward on his podcast going back twelve years. I think in the second apology Joe made it clear that in none of those instances, what he using the word is a racist slur. Rather, he was talking about the word itself about its use in comedy and about its magically destructive properties, and apology, he went so far as to say that he was wrong to have use the word even in this way, and that is a white man. It's just not his word to use for any reason. In any context, I want to say a few things about this second apology and by the way it's being received first, I should say a few things about Joe as a person. Anyone who knows him and you dont have to know him. Personally, you can just be a fan of his podcast.

Because what you see there really is Joe anyone who has spent dozens of ours listenin to Jos, podcast knows to a moral certainty. The Joe is not racist And there really is nothing more. That needs to be said on that point simply no workable definition of racism that includes Joe Rogan in it far as there is an enduring problem of racism in our society, people I Joe, are not a symptom of it. Rather there, the cure Joe, is an extremely ethical listen and he has an extraordinarily large and diverse set of friends and social contacts. It would be hard to imagine someone less likely to actually. hair about the rays of another human being then Joe, said

Rogan is your version of a racist. You have reached Moral and political dead end once more. I think Joe actually went too far in his apology about using the inward is totally understandable, but he did because he's been taken, a tremendous amount of fire. Even the White House came after him this week. has been completely crazy. So I understand why I felt the need to disavow his prior use of the word entirely, but let me take em spell out why I think that a mistake there are simply no question. That american hysteria around the EU so the inward is pathological and dishonest and destructive of people's integrity and an offence to basic sanity I remember an example over twenty years ago, longer

or social media and of course, long before we spoke of cancel culture, we would have called a political correctness. Back then, where An aid to the mayor of Washington DC used the term niggardly in a speech. Niggardly is a synonym for stingy and it has no etymological connection to the inward. Needless to say, some genius in the audience, got mightily offended, and the controversy was such that the mayor's aid resigned and the mayor accepted his resignation. This person was later reinstated in another role, but as a sign of how far we wandered from the path of progress, that the end of a c p at the time recognised just how absurd,

and the meaning of its own interests, the initial taken of offence was Julian bond. Who is the chairman and Andy boys who pay said quote you hate to think that you have to censor your language to meet other people's lack of under and in an they said, seems to me that the mayor has been niggardly in his judgment on the issue. That was great right. That was decent. That was sane. Needless to say, we could not expect such a reasonable response from Nanda Boise P today. Here's what I think is patently true, morally and intellectually, and therefore politically. In the end, the idea that a white person cannot say

the inward for any reason, when discussing its use when reading huckleberry fin out loud when dissecting public controversies of the sort that I'm discussing now is completely insane to hold. This view is to a tribute magical properties towards is the very essence childish relationship to language, and it makes a mockery of the very real social problem of racism that is bigotry as apply. I'd through the lens of race and leaving aside the question of systemic racism, because there's a lot of debate about the scope of that problem. Today I don't deny that, exists and what has always been pernicious about systemic racism? Is it the people? Implementing racist policies need not be consciously racist to perpetrate further harm?

Of course the pendulum has also swung violently in the other direction. As I said before, on the spot cast, I think it's safe to assume that there is, almost no desirable place to work or study or mingle in american society. Today, in academia, in film or television or journalism or tech, you could literally take the highest status, twenty percent of every corner of our culture. There is almost no place, and perhaps there is no actual place at all, where being a person of color isn't a positive advantage for gaining entry in the year twenty twenty two of courses

the agents who now white adjacent again. There's a lot of debate about the ethics of all this and there certainly questions about affirmative action and related policies were, I don't even know what I think, but we can leave all of that aside, because that's not the sort of racism we're talking about the racism of which Joe Rogan has been accused is real racism, psychological racism. He likes white people better, Then black people, racism. When we're talking about a person using the inward to convey his racism using it in such a way as to reveal his racism? Well He meant to or not, then

Everything depends on the beliefs and intentions of the speaker to know. If a person is racist, we have to know what he thinks and feels about other human beings. Most importantly, we have to know what sort of world he wants to live in. To allege that a person is racist is of necessity to claim that he cares about the variable of race in ways that he shouldn't, but he prefers certain groups of people for reasons that he shouldn't that he takes pride in things they shouldn't and that he has contempt, or at least disregard for certain people based purely on the color of their skin or some other superficial racial characteristic, real racists, dont, want people of other races to truly succeed

And they feel more or less compassion for the suffering of other human beings based. Primarily on their racial identities. This is why the some of my best friends are black calumny is so silly and destructive. If a person is white and some of his best friends are black, I don't care what jokes he laughs her. He is not a racist in any way that society should worry about, and if you doubt that there is something you don't understand. About what it means to have good friends so using the inward, a racial slur is completely different. From

using it in some other way, and if you insist that the word itself is magically destructive, like Voldemort in the Harry Potter novels, if you insist upon treat in its use by a person of the wrong skin color in any context for any purpose as some kind of diabolical incantation. If you really believe that someone somewhere will be harmed by any conceivable use of the term based merely on the color of the speakers. Skin You are just morally unprepared to solve real problems in our world and any culture that takes us added. Is morally unprepared to solve real problems too, and this warm affair we are, we are mired in a culture that appears

totally unable to even identify much less solve real problems, because it has grown hysterical over imaginary ones. There are other things a jaw apologize for in the second video things which sounds like he should have a poet for these things he said is a comedian did now sound bad, even in context. He told jokes in the past that he wouldn't tell today is only decent to notice. However, that, literally everyone not just comedians, everyone is in this spot because the norms have shifted massively. You simply cannot judge comedy or any other cultural product from ten years ago by the sensitivities

Today is just not fair to because it doesn't give an accurate picture of a person state of mind, then or now, and most important. If you watch Jos recent video, there is no question that he offered a complete apology for things. He genuinely regret saying: what more could we expect a well intentioned person to do? I've noticed two reactions to Jos. Most recent video both of which they might moral errors to me. First, there were people who smell blood in the water and who are now calling for goes annihilation with even greater fervour. These are people ass, for whom no apology would ever be sufficient, though Ironically, these same people love redemption stories about murderers and rapists, provided they have the correct skin color.

find me a black man who has shot a cop and then apologized for it or in some cases, hasn't apologized for it and I'll show you vast numbers of people on the left who are eager to see him brought back into the fold and even canonized as some kind of saint but find a white guy who told a bad joke in two thousand and seven and these same people will want to see him destroyed for it. That is a bit of a pieocracy that everyone left of center has to become allergic to and then, of course, the other responses from the right or the alt right, where the Qanon adjacent or the, to call it politically. The anway to on line and weakness is the only problem I can keep track of response, which, in light of the left's reaction, has declared that appalling

eyes in always and everywhere a mistake. You can't give an inch to the Woke mob, otherwise you're finished so all you can do is stone Wall and double down. From a purely pr point of view, these people are necessarily that their often right in Jos case they probably all right. Here's one thing this important be clear about Joe didn't have to apologize of all the people. Who could whether a controversy like this by saying absolutely nothing or by telling his critics who just go to Hill Joe, is probably in the best position to do that, even if spot find drops his show, Joe will be fine. It would be trivially easy, framed created on platform where he be answerable to no one and legions of his fans would fall on there and he would still have the biggest podcast on earth, but he chose to apply

guys, because he genuinely regretted sane, certain things feel bad about how their resurfacing made. Many people feel, and that's exactly. how you would want him to respond, so in my view he took a risk by apologising. He did this because it was the right thing to do here is the culture I think we want or should want. We want people when they feel they have done something wrong to apologize. This is a way for them to express regret over regrettable things and

communicate their goodwill towards anyone. They may have hurt. However, inadvertently I've never had issued public apology of the sort that Joe has released twice this week. Press my time will come, but if I ever felt there was something I really should apologise for. I would find it very depressing not to apologize for fear of the apology, backfiring. A sincere apology is immoral, good has is the forgiveness with which it is often met. We want to live in a world where people offer sincere apologies. and we want to live in a world where sincere apologies are generally accepted. This is born of

Recognition that no one is perfect, each of us is a work in progress. Everyone is growing and forgiveness itself is one of our highest virtues. Forgiveness is a fucking miracle and we want a culture that makes us better at both seek in it and bestowing it, not one abuse every apology. the source of shame and as an invitation for further scorn. There really is a ray of ethical daylight here that we must recognise, asking forgiveness and receiving it.

Is how we repair our relationships and the fabric of society itself anyway, as I said Joseph friend, but I would like to think that I would defend any one of his character who found himself at the centre of a similar controversy and Joe. If your hearing this you can rest assured, the tens of millions of people who have never met. You know and love you for precisely who you are because, unlike almost any one else, you have built your career by letting them do that, and that is both remarkable and a true refuge at a time like this,

Keep your chin up my friend.