Mayor Pete Buttigieg is Needed, because Real Millennials are Misunderstood | Moral Libertarian View

Welcome to the new Moral Libertarian View, a podcast style daily program where we discuss big ideas to see if they can contribute to more individual freedom. Just like how Rome wasn't built in one day, the road to freedom is a long one, and continuous innovation coupled with skeptical critique is the way we will get there.

Today, we will look at yet another 2020 candidate that I haven't been paying attention to until now. Pete Buttigieg, or Mayor Pete as he is often called, recently came third in a poll, behind only Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders, and beating both Kamala Harris and Elizabeth Warren, which is good to hear because they are my two least liked candidates in the race. By beating Harris and Warren, Mayor Pete has won himself the right to some of my attention today. Anyway, this is what we need to know about him. He is the youngest candidate in the race. He was born in 1982, which makes him only several years older than myself, and this also means that he is a millennial. The other thing is that he is perhaps the first openly gay candidate ever. I know this isn't supposed to be relevant, but I included it because this is what people are saying about him. Nevertheless, he doesn't appear to play identity politics, and that's good to see. He's more like Tulsi Gabbard, who has identity credentials but won't play the game, rather than like Kamala Harris, who plays her identity cards at every chance. Between Tulsi, Pete, and most of us out here, it appears that us Millennials simply don't buy the identity politics stuff.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm not aware that Mayor Pete has put out many policies. One thing that he has focused on is his experience of life as a Millennial. I mean, older people may look at him and say, what do you know about life? You aren't even 40 yet! But then, the Millennial life experience has its own unique problems, and older adults often don't quite understand. Firstly, there's this myth that Millennials are snowflakes. From my experience, this is just not true. I mean, we are the generation who spent our teenage years in the aftermath of 9/11, why would we be politically correct snowflakes? Most of us don't support the so-called 'safe speech' stuff, that's an activist thing. On the other hand, the economic struggles of Millennials are very real. There's the difficulty in setting up a career because many fields have become saturated. That's why people do free internships to get into their desired field, and earn money as waiters in the evening. There's the housing affordability crisis. It has become too expensive for your average young adult to even rent a place in many cities. And then there's the loss of traditional expectations of settling down in marriage, which is the result of many years of postmodern damage to our social fabric, change that we are not responsible for but we have to live with. All this doesn't make for a very good life, right?

I'm sorry if it sounded like a rant, but many people imagine Millennials to be snowflakes who are into Foucaldian philosophy, when the precise opposite is true. What we need are leaders who understand that Millennials are being shut out of opportunities everywhere. This is especially true compared to our parents' generation, the baby boomers, when you think about it. Many of them married young, bought houses young, and got into their chosen career with fewer qualifications than your average bartender today. I'm actually grateful for everything the boomer generation did for us, but we do have a problem with opportunity right now. As a Moral Libertarian, equal opportunity is close to my heart. We need leaders who will address this generational inequality of opportunity. I don't know how far Mayor Pete's campaign will go, but if he at least gets to the debates and raises these issues, we will have an opportunity to have a serious conversation about them.

That's all for today. I'll be back tomorrow to discuss another big idea. Subscribe if you want to follow our story. The transcripts are available on my website, and my Medium profile. And remember to resist the hive mind and stay individualistic. The world depends on it.

Jordan Peterson vs Slavoj Zizek: An Open-Minded View

The upcoming debate between Canadian psychology professor Jordan Peterson and Slovenian intellectual Slavoj Zizek is perhaps the most highly anticipated debate this year so far. In a sense, this looks to be quite a polarized debate. People are already picking their sides. It's almost like a football match. It certainly has that feeling to it. Perhaps we should expect Peterson fans to gather together to watch the show, wearing matching Peterson shirts, and Zizek fans would do the same, wearing Zizek shirts. 

But I do consider myself a true intellectual, and as intellectuals we probably shouldn't see it as a football match with screaming fans on both sides. That is not what rational debate should be. Instead, we should see it as a meeting of ideas. And perhaps, some great new insights could come up, especially where the two of them share some common ground.

And what common ground do they share? Probably more than you think. Firstly, both Peterson and Zizek are ultimately for some kind of freedom. As a Moral Libertarian, the idea of individual freedom is the primary principle of my politics, and I would naturally be interested in any debate on freedom.

Because both Peterson and Zizek are ultimately for freedom, they do agree on certain important issues. From what I understand, both men are opposed to political correctness, and see it as a form of totalitarian control over individuals, as well as an impediment to resolving important social issues. I hope that they will dedicate some time to this issue during their debate. I firmly believe that the erosion of free speech and the acceleration of political correctness is one of the biggest crises of the Western world right now. The more focus there is on this issue, the better. Another thing I understand that Peterson and Zizek share is that they are both opposed to postmodernism. Political postmodernism is poisoning the minds of young people, and again, the more voices against postmodernist nonsense, the better.

I believe that, if we want to thorougly understand an issue, whether it be individual liberty, free speech, political correctness or identity politics, it is important to look at it from different angles. This allows us to form a detailed and nuanced understanding of the issues, and leads us to develop the most effective and evidence-based solutions to tackle the problems. Jordan Peterson and Slavoj Zizek will bring very different understandings of these issues to the table, and we will have an opportunity to look at them from different perspectives. This, in my opinion, is what is most valuable about the debate. I guess that Peterson will focus on logic and facts like he always does, and Zizek will focus on a more systematic perspective, like he often does. And both perspectives are valid to some extent, even if some of us hate to admit it. If Peterson fans and Zizek fans simply root for their man and refuse to listen to the other guy, a valuable opportunity to understand the issues will be lost. If, at the end of the debate, we conclude either that Peterson destroyed Zizek or that Zizek destroyed Peterson, it would be a sad conclusion. And it would also be inaccurate indeed, because we would be falsely concluding that one perspective is always correct over another.

I really look forward to the Peterson vs Zizek debate. I see it as a meeting of two of the world's most brilliant minds, and a great opportunity for two very different perspectives to mesh together. I really hope everyone out there approaches the debate with a similarly positive and curious attitude.

Is Beto O'Rourke 'Progressive'? IT DOESN'T MATTER!

Beto O'Rourke announced his candidacy for the 2020 Democratic primaries last week, and he is already facing attacks from both the left and the right. I mean, I personally haven't seen enough of Beto to say whether I like him or not, but I want to focus in particular on the attacks on him coming from the 'left'. Many leftist outlets have rushed to show how Beto isn't 'progressive', whatever that means. They present us with evidence that Beto voted more conservatively than 70% of Democrats in the House, and that he voted in line with Trump more often than other House Democrats, even if that was only 30% or so.

But if you think critically about it, what does 'progressive' and 'conservative' mean anyway? Aren't they subjective terms? I mean, is Donald Trump 'progressive' or 'conservative'? I seriously don't know. I'd say he is unclassifiable. In fact, you cannot neatly place people on a conservative-to-progressive spectrum. People have their right to form beliefs individually on each issue, based on their conscience and values. I guess it's valid to complain that Beto hasn't talked a lot about his policies yet, but it's simply pointless to say someone is 'progressive' or not. From my perspective, the only thing I care about is increasing individual freedom, returning the power from the elites to the everyday individuals, and unfortunately I don't know if Beto would be good on that front yet. But I certainly don't have any reason to care if leftist media outlets consider him a 'progressive' or not.

Another thing is, some of those who are out to say how Beto is 'not progressive' include an identity politics angle in their analysis. As if, by virtue of being women or minority, candidates like Elizabeth Warren or Kamala Harris would be better. Besides the fact that identity-first candidates will almost certainly lose in a landslide to Trump, I actually don't have any time for their identity politics, and I have explained the reasons elsewhere. Going forward, I vow to defend every candidate who is being smeared or slighted on identity grounds. I know this means I will be defending a lot of straight white men, but so be it, because I don't care how the identity politics diversity police thinks. I only care about advancing individual freedom, remember.