The following is an interview with journalist and author Lou Aguilar about his new novel “<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Washington-Trail-Slade-Cork-Mystery/dp/1964505089">The Washington Trail: A Slade and Cork Mystery</a>.”
* * *
Daily Wire: Lou, how long did it take you to write &#8220;The Washington Trail&#8221; and what sort of process do you use as a writer? 

Lou Aguilar: Two years. It was my first tough guy mystery novel, although I love the genre and its icons — Hammett, Chandler, Spillane, Fleming, and <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/show/the-andrew-klavan-show" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Andrew Klavan</a>, the modern master of the milieu. What I learned was that, unlike my three other novels, I had to do far more than advance the story with style. I had to leave clues that the reader could absorb leading up to the denouement and they had to be fair and not out of nowhere like “The butler did it.” I had intended to move to my Great Hollywood Novel next, but the publisher of &#8220;The Washington Trail,&#8221; Aethon Books, asked me to do two more Slade-Cork mysteries and I agreed. I hope everyone enjoys the characters and their adventures as much as we do.
DW: Tell us about your protagonist(s). Where do they come from and what obstacles do they face?
Lou: There are really two protagonists: private-eye team Mark Slade and Neil Cork. They were roommates at Georgetown University 12 years earlier — Slade an American History major, Cork English Lit. Slade comes from a long military family, Cork is a blue blood. After graduation, Slade joined the Army Rangers fighting in the Middle East, Slade became an FBI desk analyst. Slade had intended to wed his college girlfriend Nina Holt once back stateside, but she dumped him for her journalism career and is now a CNN Congressional reporter. Happy family man Cork reprimands Slade for his casual sex affairs to overcompensate for Nina. But Cork mainly lambasts Slade for his violent approach to solving cases, which undermines the agency’s sophisticated reputation. However, to survive their latest case, the two detectives must depend on one another’s distinctive skills — then just maybe save the country.
<div id="attachment_791789" style="width: 372px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Washington-Trail-Slade-Cork-Mystery/dp/1964505089" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-791789" class="wp-image-791789 size-large" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/09/71OUTnkoBSL._SL1360_-362x576.jpg" alt="Courtesy: Aethon Books" width="362" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/09/71OUTnkoBSL._SL1360_-362x576.jpg 362w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/09/71OUTnkoBSL._SL1360_-189x300.jpg 189w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/09/71OUTnkoBSL._SL1360_-768x1222.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/09/71OUTnkoBSL._SL1360_.jpg 855w" sizes="(max-width: 362px) 100vw, 362px" /></a>Courtesy: Aethon Books</div>
DW: You&#8217;ve mentioned a love for Raymond Chandler&#8217;s pulp detective novels and his intimate knowledge of the city of Los Angeles and how the city sort of becomes a character in the story. How does Washington DC integrate into &#8220;The Washington Trail.&#8221;
Lou: Only in Washington can the seemingly trivial case of a young romance gone sour escalate to a national security threat. To make this contrast work, I had to physically describe the city as ground zero for such international skullduggery. DC seems to have more of a crisp, solemn spirit in wintertime, which enlivens sites like Georgetown, Rock Creek Park, and the C&amp;O Canal, all significant in the story. The fact that Slade prefers traveling by bicycle highlights the setting.
DW: You’ve worked as a screenwriter in Hollywood. As a writer, what new tools did screenwriting give you and how have those translated into writing crime fiction?
Lou: I realize that the best suspense thriller movies – &#8220;The Manchurian Candidate,&#8221; &#8220;Seven Days in May,&#8221; &#8220;Three Days of the Condor&#8221; – were improvements on some decent novels (the film &#8220;Condor&#8221; cut three dull days out of James Grady’s &#8220;Six Days of the Condor&#8221;). So, I wrote the book thinking like a good screenwriter by making it impossible to improve upon it, only differentiate it. I’ve already turned it into a six-episode series script for some astute producer.
DW: You have also lived and worked in Washington DC in the past, how prevalent is the deep state? 

Lou: Washington was liberal when I lived there but nowhere near as far Left as it’s become. I worked at The Washington Post as a cub reporter at the tail end of the Ben Bradlee regime, and the guys who brought down Nixon had journalism standards the young punks now in charge eschew. DC really is a Marxist swamp: From academia – even once staid religious universities like The Catholic University and Georgetown – to media and government, including the Pentagon and the intelligence branches. In my novel, the FBI showing up is not &#8220;To the rescue.&#8221;
DW: Did any unexpected surprises emerge in the story as you wrote?
Lou: Did they ever. My story became even timelier as I was writing it. Two years ago, I posited a senile, vegetating incumbent President losing in the polls to his suspiciously ousted predecessor, and the Deep State (FBI especially) freaking out about the latter’s possible return. Because this time, it’s personal! And they’ll do anything to stop him – even murder. Reality actually caught up with my fiction. As far as the new Democratic candidate goes, maybe the events of my novel forced the switch. Ha. 
 
DW: Will you be hosting any book signings or events?
Lou: We’re mapping out a nationwide book tour now. I’m most delighted about the confirmed signing at the most prestigious bookstore in DC, <a href="https://www.politics-prose.com/?srsltid=AfmBOooeM3nYgNa773VF2GEVx6lQqK1Cd07HD_506yEvfHEFA3GHtJqV" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Politics and Prose</a>, on September 28th. I used to work there so it’s something of a dream come true. More book events to be announced soon. 
 
DW: If (and when) “The Washington Trail” gets turned into a movie, which actors do you see playing Slade and Cork?
Lou: My trouble is that Slade and Cork are young men (32), and I haven’t seen a recent movie featuring a virile, commanding young white male lead in a decade. Most current actors are minority acolytes to the ubiquitous and ridiculous &#8220;non-toxic&#8221; girl boss protagonist. But if there’s a young Sean Connery out there, then I’d love to hear him say, “My name is Slade – Mark Slade.” And for Cork, I think a young Robert Downey Jr. would be perfect.
* * *
About the author:
Lou Aguilar was born in Cuba and lived there until age six, when his anti-Castro scholar father flew the family to America one step ahead of a firing squad (for his dad, not Lou). He attended the University of Maryland, where he majored in English, minored in film, and found both to be dependent on great writing. He became a journalist for The Washington Post and USA Today, then a produced screenwriter, then an established novelist. His debut book, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Jake-Mayor-Lou-Aguilar/dp/1942756682/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3807CK7YE955N&amp;dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.kuimUlzrymLSG6hSgdPnSlfUDZlcMuX09RVLy75C_rs.3WeIJHGNH2zbIg8pT8vMfB0D8DmTQUyOENJeh_MnnjA&amp;dib_tag=se&amp;keywords=lou+aguilar+jake+for+mayor&amp;qid=1724771610&amp;sprefix=lou+aguilar+jake+for+mayor%2Caps%2C188&amp;sr=8-1" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Jake For Mayor</a>, came out in 2016 to glowing reviews. His second novel, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Paper-Tigers-Lou-Aguilar/dp/1947309552/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2N4P69RUKIJFC&amp;dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.I5Sf8lYXUcnKcgIKMdrZXLsaev5WI_pmCY_VZyLEdI1R7fDihaUU7fa7T79gEfBi.wxY0SHKF2dIQvsXigrMx-U3179DrhtzG-_eCFL_2Ohs&amp;dib_tag=se&amp;keywords=lou+aguilar+paper+tigers&amp;qid=1724771737&amp;sprefix=lou+aguilar+paper+tigers%2Caps%2C173&amp;sr=8-1" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Paper Tigers</a>, popularly fictionalized his Washington Post experience. And his third, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Christmas-Spirit-Lou-Aguilar/dp/1953271308/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3LOV3ZC0YLX3I&amp;dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.GQtqX2pEftCjXb7Du0zLelUIQ7NiHFBSf-dO_8TEuzPGjHj071QN20LucGBJIEps.ifYta8hn9V04Ocfosi0f7ZVA--xI-RLjDJjG_X2NnaU&amp;dib_tag=se&amp;keywords=lou+aguilar+christmas+spirit&amp;qid=1724771865&amp;sprefix=lou+aguilar+christmas+spirit%2Caps%2C189&amp;sr=8-1" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Christmas Spirit</a>, is a perennial Yuletide favorite. The Washington Trail is his first political thriller. Lou is also a culture columnist for The American Spectator.

Light trails at rush hour in Washington

‘International Skullduggery’: Interview With Novelist Lou Aguilar On ‘The Washington Trail’

'International Skullduggery': Interview With Novelist Lou Aguilar On 'The Washington Trail'

Books

Fiction

interview

Washington D.C.

<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/melania-trump">Melania Trump</a> just teased her new <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/books">memoir</a>, which she promised will include revelations.
“My Story. My Perspective. The Truth,” the social media caption said of the former first lady’s upcoming book. The accompanying video, which was shared on X, included more details alongside a compilation of her attending events with former President Donald Trump. 
“Writing this memoir has been a deeply personal and reflective journey for me,” she said in the video.
&#8220;As a private person who has often been the subject of public scrutiny and misrepresentation, I feel a responsibility to clarify the facts. I believe it is important to share my perspective, the truth,&#8221; Trump continued. 
<a href="https://www.amiracist.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.amiracist.com/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1724361346607000&amp;usg=AOvVaw1ZhyOQfEkxcMH_D1Ago3CQ">Tickets for “Am I Racist?” are on sale NOW! Buy here for a theater near you.</a>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
My Story. 
My Perspective. 
The Truth. <a href="https://t.co/ZCTwZSqZND">https://t.co/ZCTwZSqZND</a> <a href="https://t.co/HHGQaA6d5v">pic.twitter.com/HHGQaA6d5v</a>
— MELANIA TRUMP (@MELANIATRUMP) <a href="https://twitter.com/MELANIATRUMP/status/1831663511639851414?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 5, 2024</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
“Melania” is due to hit bookstores on October 1. Trump is selling signed copies on her website to preorder for $75. A collector&#8217;s edition copy, including bonus photographs and a digital collectible, is also offered for $150.
The 54-year-old former model has been married to Donald Trump since 2005. Skyhorse Publishing described the memoir as an “intimate portrait of a woman who has lived an extraordinary life,” which will include “stories and images never before shared with the public,” including snapshots of Melania’s childhood.
“Melania is a compelling and inspirational memoir that offers a glimpse into the life of a remarkable woman who has navigated challenges with grace and determination,” the publisher’s description <a href="https://www.skyhorsepublishing.com/9781510782693/melania/">says</a>. 
<a href="http://www.amiracist.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=http://www.amiracist.com/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1724211156439000&amp;usg=AOvVaw2xQ8bdTcpfdrPBAzczIuck">WATCH THE TRAILER FOR ‘AM I RACIST?’ — A MATT WALSH COMEDY ON DEI</a>
“In her memoir, Melania reflects on her Slovenian childhood, the pivotal moments that led her to the world of high fashion in Europe and New York, and the serendipitous meeting with Donald Trump, a chance encounter that forever changed the course of her life. Melania opens up about their courtship, life in the spotlight, and experiencing the joy of motherhood. She shares behind-the-scenes stories from her time in the White House, shedding light on her advocacy work and the causes close to her heart.”
It continued: “Melania offers an unprecedented look into her time as a First Lady who was born outside the United States &#8211; a role she embraced with honor and dedication. It brings readers into her world and presents an in-depth account of a woman who has led a remarkable life on her own terms.”
Her story is described as one of “resilience and independence” that showcases “her strength and unwavering commitment to her true self.”

Melania Trump

Melania Trump Offers Glimpse Into New Memoir, Says It’s Time To ‘Clarify The Facts’

Melania Trump Offers Glimpse Into New Memoir, Says It's Time To 'Clarify The Facts'

Celebrities

Donald Trump

U.S.

<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/stephen-king" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Stephen King</a> was dragged on social media after he made an overly-broad claim about how more than two dozen of his books were supposedly banned throughout the state of Florida.
In a post on Sunday on <a href="https://x.com/StephenKing/status/1829984944321360242?t=lXtwH0OPAbDSXXP6n3-pmg&amp;s=19">X</a>, the 76-year-old horror author claimed that “Florida has banned 23 [of] my books. What the f***?” It later went viral, with more than 14 million views at the time of this publication.
However, as many pointed out in the responses, none of King’s books have been completely banned in the state. Rather, Florida passed legislation in <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/desantis-signs-bill-requiring-transparency-from-schools-on-reading-materials">2022</a> that prevents “sexually explicit material” from being in school libraries and seeks to ensure there are only age-appropriate books.
&#8220;Babe, elementary school kids don&#8217;t need to be reading ‘The Shining.’ It&#8217;s not personal. It&#8217;s parenting,” one person <a href="https://x.com/JennMGreenberg/status/1830039496307486985">wrote</a>, referring to one of King&#8217;s works.
Another <a href="https://x.com/Artist_Angie/status/1830068424787312718">added</a>, “Removing books from a SCHOOL library [because] they may not be appropriate for the age group is NOT a ban Mr. King. The parents can go to a public library in town or any bookstore in FL and purchase or check out any book they would like including yours. You have a robust vocabulary and know the definition of the word ban. You should use it, sir.”
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
Florida has banned 23 pf my books. 
What the fuck?
— Stephen King (@StephenKing) <a href="https://twitter.com/StephenKing/status/1829984944321360242?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 31, 2024</a></blockquote>
“You’re lying. Some of your books that contain explicit sexual material were removed from elementary schools,” a third person <a href="https://x.com/Liz_Wheeler/status/1830601259373470051" target="_blank" rel="noopener">wrote</a>. “But let’s talk about why you’re mad about this… Do you think it’s appropriate for children to read about orgies?”
Florida Department of Education spokesperson Sydney Booker also disputed the book banning claim, stating, “There are no books banned in Florida. Sexually explicit material and instruction are not suitable for schools,” <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/stephen-king-florida-book-ban-viral-post-1947396">Newsweek</a> noted.
The horror author <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/stephen-king-trashed-for-making-comments-about-banned-books-does-this-include-pornography" target="_blank" rel="noopener">previously was trashed</a> by online users when he encouraged kids to find and read books that had been removed from school libraries.
“I’m not sure Stephen understands how creepy this is, considering the materials that are being restricted are openly pornographic,” Nick Frietas, a Republican member of the Virginia House of Delegates, <a href="https://twitter.com/NickForVA/status/1615792600027652099">agreed</a>. 
“Does this include pornography? Because I’m pretty sure parents don’t want you telling their children to access pornographic material.” Stephen Miller, former senior adviser to President Trump <a href="https://twitter.com/StephenM/status/1615834670108934144">said</a>.
“Periodic reminder that when they accuse us of ‘banning books’ they’re referring to graphic books containing pornographic content. Stephen King wants your kids to have access to these books in school,” Libs of TikTok shared.
Related: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/stephen-king-roasted-for-blaming-the-marvels-failure-on-adolescent-fanboy-hate-maybe-the-movie-just-sucks" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Stephen King Roasted For Blaming ‘The Marvels’ Failure On ‘Adolescent Fanboy Hate’: ‘Maybe The Movie Just Sucks?’</a>

Stephen King

‘You’re Lying’: Stephen King Gets Dragged For Book Ban Claim About Florida

'You’re Lying': Stephen King Gets Dragged For Book Ban Claim About Florida

Entertainment

Florida

Ron DeSantis

Daily Wire reporter Megan Basham’s new book “<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Shepherds-Sale-Evangelical-Leaders-Leftist-ebook/dp/B0CRQGNLMY">Shepherds for Sale: How Evangelical Leaders Traded the Truth for a Leftist Agenda</a>” hit the New York Times and USA Today bestseller lists on Wednesday after the book was released last week. 
“Shepherds for Sale” reached the #12 spot on the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/books/best-sellers/combined-print-and-e-book-nonfiction/">New York Times</a> bestseller list and the #109 spot on the <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/booklist/type/nonfiction/date/2024-08-07">USA Today</a> list among all books, competing with new releases such as Jonathan Haidt’s “The Anxious Generation” and Erik Larson’s “The Demon of Unrest.” It’s the first time Basham has hit the bestseller lists.  
&#8220;Seeing &#8216;Shepherds for Sale&#8217; hit the New York Times bestseller list is incredibly encouraging,” Basham said. “Despite Big Eva and today&#8217;s establishment powerbrokers&#8217; efforts to dismiss the truth exposed in the book, Christians all over the country are waking up. There is a hunger for genuine biblical truth and newfound courage to resist conforming to the world&#8217;s gospel of leftism. Thank you to everyone who has backed this book and embraced this vital discussion.” 
The book, which hit the shelves at the end of July, “documents how progressive powerbrokers — from George Soros, to the founder of eBay, to former members of the Obama administration — set out to change the American church. Their goal: to co-opt evangelicals for political purposes.” Basham’s book quickly jumped to the #1 bestseller in the Christian Church Leadership category on Amazon. 
“Shepherds for Sale” also details how a megachurch pastor pushed fellow pastors to move their views on sexuality to the Left and how leftist talking points on climate change and “systemic racism” have crept into American churches. Following the book’s release, Basham urged evangelical leaders to “get serious about tracing the secular Left influences in any number of evangelical institutions.” 
Basham’s book caused a stir on social media after its release as some of the evangelical leaders exposed in “Shepherds for Sale” have pushed back against the Daily Wire reporter. One pastor, Gavin Ortlund, even released a podcast episode on Basham’s book after she highlighted some of his troubling comments on climate change in “Shepherds for Sale.” Despite some pastors’ efforts to discredit Basham’s work, many Christians have heaped praise on the book.
“When church leadership does not know who is behind an organization, they should not agree to sign their public statements or participate in their coalitions. Also, the time for politely ignoring what is going on has come to an end,” Basham said. “It is time to follow the model of J. Gresham Machen in the 1920s and begin to directly call out compromise, capitulation, and infiltration. As he has stated, liberalism is an altogether different religion than Christianity.”

Shepherds for Sale

Daily Wire Reporter Megan Basham Becomes Instant NYT Bestseller With ‘Shepherds For Sale’

Christianity

Church

New York Times

USA Today

Daily Wire reporter Megan Basham&#8217;s latest book revealing the leftist influences on American Evangelicalism hit the shelves on Tuesday and quickly jumped into the <a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/new-releases/books/?ie=UTF8&amp;ref_=sv_b_3" target="_blank" rel="noopener">top 10 bestsellers</a> in new book releases on Amazon. 
In “<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Shepherds-Sale-Evangelical-Leaders-Leftist-ebook/dp/B0CRQGNLMY">Shepherds for Sale: How Evangelical Leaders Traded the Truth for a Leftist Agenda</a>,” Basham “documents how progressive powerbrokers — from George Soros, to the founder of eBay, to former members of the Obama administration — set out to change the American church. Their goal: to co-opt evangelicals for political purposes.” 
The book also documents how a megachurch pastor pushed fellow pastors to move their views on sexuality to the Left and how leftist talking points on climate change and “systemic racism” have crept into American churches. “Shepherds for Sale” is the #1 bestseller in Christian Church Leadership on Amazon. 
“Shepherds for Sale” hits the shelves as controversy erupts in the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC). Earlier this month, the board of the ERLC, which is the SBC’s lobbying arm, announced it was firing President Brent Leatherwood, who has faced criticism from conservatives within the SBC over his apparent friendly statements about Joe Biden and his advocacy for a red flag law in Tennessee. 
Hours after the announcement, however, the ERLC <a href="https://www.christianitytoday.com/news/2024/july/brent-leatherwood-erlc-president-fired-trustees-biden.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">backtracked</a> and said it was reinstating Leatherwood. Board Chair Kevin Smith, who took responsibility for firing Leatherwood, resigned after Leatherwood was reinstated. Basham said the controversy shows more proof of how the SBC is being influenced by legacy media, but she added that rank-and-file Southern Baptists are waking up to the political influences on their denomination. 
“The New York Times, CNN, the Atlantic, POLITICO, and many other secular media outlets, immediately howled about Leatherwood’s ouster. That tells you they understand how valuable he is to them in his position,” Basham said. “In the end, Leatherwood was reinstated, but there’s no question that this is not over because of the unhappiness of Southern Baptists with his leadership. They may not have media megaphones, but their demands for accountability cannot be held off forever.”
Basham urged evangelical leaders to “get serious about tracing the secular Left influences in any number of evangelical institutions.” 
“When we have leftwing billionaires like atheist George Soros or Buddhist Pierre Omidyar funding evangelical projects, (especially given their direct opposition to biblical ethics on issues like the sanctity of life and gender, sexuality, and marriage), we should ask why,” she said. 
“When church leadership does not know who is behind an organization, they should not agree to sign their public statements or participate in their coalitions. Also, the time for politely ignoring what is going on has come to an end,” Basham added. “It is time to follow the model of J. Gresham Machen in the 1920s and begin to directly call out compromise, capitulation, and infiltration. As he has stated, liberalism is an altogether different religion than Christianity.”

Daily Wire Reporter Megan Basham’s New Book, ‘Shepherds For Sale,’ Climbs Bestseller List After Release

Evangelicals

Leftism

Southern Baptists

The following is a transcript excerpt from Dr. Jordan B. Peterson’s <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/dr-peterson-x-elon-musk" target="_blank" rel="noopener">live interview</a> with Elon Musk. In this portion of their discussion, Musk describes when he began asking questions about the meaning of life, what led him to the resolution of his existential crisis, how he developed such a curious nature, and why he is motivated to continue learning. Dr. Peterson’s <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/watch/jordan-peterson">extensive catalog</a> is available on DailyWire+.
Start time: 00:38:37
* * *
Jordan B. Peterson: I&#8217;m very curious about your intuition. How did you cotton onto the fact that that antagonistic attitude towards birth that&#8217;s embedded in our culture now was something that should be called out and that was pathological?
Elon Musk: I should perhaps go back to what is the foundation of my philosophy because that, I think, helps build up to explain my actions. When I was, I don&#8217;t know, about 11- or 12-years-old, I had somewhat of an existential crisis because there just didn&#8217;t seem to be any meaning in the world, no meaning to life. So I actually read, tried to read, all the religious texts.
Peterson: At that age?
Musk: Yes, I was a voracious reader as a kid. So, I obviously read the Bible. I read the Quran, the Torah, a bit on the Hindu side, just trying to understand all these things. Obviously as a 12-year-old, you&#8217;re not really going to understand these things super well.
Peterson: Well, you understood it well enough to have an existential crisis when you were 11 or 12. That’s a start.
Musk: I was just trying to figure out, does anyone have an answer that makes sense? And then I started getting into the philosophy books, and I read quite a bit of Schopenhauer and Nietzsche, which is quite depressing to read as a kid. That’s depressing as an adult. But none of them really seemed to have answers that resonated, at least to me. But then I read Douglas Adams’ “The Hitchhiker&#8217;s Guide to the Galaxy,” which is really a book on philosophy disguised as humor. And the point that Adams tries to make there is that we don&#8217;t actually know all the answers, obviously. In fact, we don&#8217;t even know what the right questions are to ask. That&#8217;s where he has this, if you read the book, the Earth is actually a giant computer to understand the answer to the question, “What is the meaning of life?” and comes up with the answer 42. And what does that mean? It says, oh, you actually don&#8217;t understand; the thing [is], that&#8217;s going to take a computer far more powerful than Earth to understand what question to ask. That&#8217;s simply the wrong question.
Peterson: So was that the key realization? That the question was the thing?
Musk: I would say that that was a fundamental turning point.
Peterson: That&#8217;s very interesting because one of the things that you see constantly portrayed in Redemptive Hero myths across the world is that the adventure is the thing and the search is the thing, rather than there being a final answer as absurd as 42 might be. The conclusive answer is something like deep engagement in the process. So I&#8217;ll give you an example of that. The Sermon on the Mount is a very detailed set of instructions, so there&#8217;s three parts to it. The first is: Aim at the highest thing that you can possibly conceive of and keep modifying that so your aim gets better. That&#8217;s number one. Number two is: Make the presumption that other people have the same intrinsic value as you do.
Musk: Well, we have to be careful about that one.
Peterson: Ok, let&#8217;s discuss that. But it&#8217;s — what would you say — it&#8217;s a recognition of the universalist value of everyone who&#8217;s made in the image of God. It’s something like that. But the third thing is, once you do those two things, you can concentrate on the moment. And that seems to be, even technically, you can think about this as neuropsychological. If you&#8217;re looking for meaning, meaning is a form of incentive reward. An incentive reward is dopaminergic mediated. And incentive reward occurs in relationship to advancement toward a goal, which is a form of entropy minimization, as it turns out, according to Karl Friston, who knows this sort of thing. 
Musk: Entropy is the ultimate boss battle.
<h4><a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/dr-peterson-x-elon-musk" target="_blank" rel="noopener">WATCH: Dr. Jordan B. Peterson&#8217;s interview with Elon Musk on DailyWire+</a></h4>
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Peterson: Yes, right. Well, negative emotion signifies the emergence of entropy and positive emotion, on the dopaminergic side, signals its reduction. But there&#8217;s something that&#8217;s more complex there, because the higher the goal that you&#8217;re trying to attain, the more intrinsic value each step toward it comprises. And that&#8217;s neuro-psychologically accurate. So part of the wisdom of the Sermon on the Mount is that if you posit the highest imaginable goal, then any step toward it that captures your attention is also deeply meaningful. That&#8217;s an answer to what the meaning is — a process — rather than, say, something like 42. It seems to me that you were intimating that your discovery through Adams, that the question was the thing, was key to the resolution of your existential crisis.
Musk: That&#8217;s correct.
Peterson: Ok, so that&#8217;s part of the reason that you&#8217;re motivated to, say, build Grok 3 and look deeper.
Musk: To understand. To understand the universe.
Peterson: How old were you when you figured out that the question—?
Musk: 13 or something.
Peterson: What did that do to you?
Musk: Well, I was a lot happier after that because now it&#8217;s like, ok, well, I&#8217;m just going to accept that we are ignorant of a great many things, and we wish to be less ignorant. And anything we can do that will improve our understanding of the universe and make us less ignorant and have a deeper understanding of the universe, and even more questions to ask about the answer that is the universe, which is, I think, Adams’ central point, is good.
Peterson: And that was good enough to resolve that crisis?
Musk: It was. It was for me at least. And so, is this a religion? I don&#8217;t know. Maybe it is, but I think it&#8217;s a good one. I would call it the Religion of Curiosity.
* * *
To continue, listen to or watch <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/dr-peterson-x-elon-musk" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Dr. Peterson&#8217;s interview with Elon Musk on DailyWire+.</a>
<a href="https://www.jordanbpeterson.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Dr. Jordan B. Peterson</a> is a clinical psychologist and professor emeritus at the University of Toronto. From 1993 to 1998 he served as assistant and then associate professor of psychology at Harvard. He is the international bestselling author of “<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Maps-Meaning-Architecture-Jordan-Peterson/dp/0415922216/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&amp;qid=&amp;sr=" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Maps of Meaning</a>,” “<a href="https://www.amazon.com/12-Rules-Life-Antidote-Chaos/dp/0345816021/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&amp;qid=&amp;sr=" target="_blank" rel="noopener">12 Rules For Life,</a>” and “<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Beyond-Order-More-Rules-Life/dp/0593084640/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&amp;dib_tag=AUTHOR&amp;dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.nbV0WtVit9busCddbjMST-Oe7hjueQrxfqnQ4L3HXXUFdIaqlEBr0sp9HQWIq9ut9NlHDAFA0YQoDWVZfDtKNJI7VvlzWv2rMhs2KcAAIIppPRMWq4GIiFerkrssvBABAjeKlg3OFs3H8IHs5D8ktJ5uBg3K-SZ4hpKltaKkrhY6j-RKn-tTkBz29JZXP3Rhm9SB14rHUX1nol5d4z4Fi6f8fwhxXWCVGgkvOHSqG6E.iVF1NljuBEwrpumO9rQBh9FotnzaIo4K7K8HvNnC46k&amp;qid=&amp;sr=" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Beyond Order.</a>” You can now <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/podcasts/the-jordan-b-peterson-podcast" target="_blank" rel="noopener">listen to</a> or <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/watch/jordan-peterson" target="_blank" rel="noopener">watch</a> his popular lectures on DailyWire+.
Be sure to <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Who-Wrestle-God-Jordan-Peterson/dp/0593542533/?_encoding=UTF8&amp;pd_rd_w=38kcw&amp;content-id=amzn1.sym.f911c8db-3a2b-4b3e-952f-b80fdcee83f4&amp;pf_rd_p=f911c8db-3a2b-4b3e-952f-b80fdcee83f4&amp;pf_rd_r=133-1833056-3520340&amp;pd_rd_wg=3zvBk&amp;pd_rd_r=93a1419a-853b-4c49-a764-cbaa90d3073a&amp;ref_=aufs_ap_sc_dsk" target="_blank" rel="noopener">PRE-ORDER</a> Dr. Peterson’s newest book: “<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Who-Wrestle-God-Jordan-Peterson/dp/0593542533/?_encoding=UTF8&amp;pd_rd_w=38kcw&amp;content-id=amzn1.sym.f911c8db-3a2b-4b3e-952f-b80fdcee83f4&amp;pf_rd_p=f911c8db-3a2b-4b3e-952f-b80fdcee83f4&amp;pf_rd_r=133-1833056-3520340&amp;pd_rd_wg=3zvBk&amp;pd_rd_r=93a1419a-853b-4c49-a764-cbaa90d3073a&amp;ref_=aufs_ap_sc_dsk" target="_blank" rel="noopener">We Who Wrestle with God</a>” (Portfolio/Penguin. November 19, 2024.)

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The Foundation Of Elon Musk’s Philosophy 

Artificial Intelligence

Elon Musk

Jordan B. Peterson

Psychology

Readers Pass

Social Issues

SpaceX

Tesla

Twitter

Beautiful White Baptist Church in Crawfordville, George built in 1889

Christian Media And The Money Men

Bible

Christianity Today

Christians

To hear the media tell it, the world hates J.K. Rowling.
Ever since she stated her opinion on radical Left-wing gender theory, which happened to be different from the other members of the ruling class’s political party, Rowling has become a target of their vitriol. The best-selling “Harry Potter” author wasn’t like other celebrities who dabbled in dissent, however. Instead of backing down from her stance on trans acceptance, she doubled down.
“If sex isn’t real, there’s no same-sex attraction. If sex isn’t real, the lived reality of women globally is erased. I know and love trans people, but erasing the concept of sex removes the ability of many to meaningfully discuss their lives. It isn’t hate to speak the truth,” Rowling shared in a tweet in 2020.
“The idea that women like me, who’ve been empathetic to trans people for decades, feeling kinship because they’re vulnerable in the same way as women—i.e., to male violence—‘hate’ trans people because they think sex is real and has lived consequences—is a nonsense.”
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
The idea that women like me, who’ve been empathetic to trans people for decades, feeling kinship because they’re vulnerable in the same way as women &#8211; ie, to male violence &#8211; ‘hate’ trans people because they think sex is real and has lived consequences &#8211; is a nonsense.
&mdash; J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) <a href="https://twitter.com/jk_rowling/status/1269406094595588096?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 6, 2020</a></blockquote>
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That stance has been impactful for both fans who agree and disagree with her. Several prominent stars from the “Harry Potter” films spoke out against the woman behind the stories that made them internationally known. 
In 2020, Daniel Radcliffe, who played the titular star, wrote an essay for The Trevor Project and apologized for “the pain” Rowling’s comments may have caused transgender identifying individuals, as The Daily Wire previously <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/harry-potter-actor-daniel-radcliffe-insists-trans-youth-can-tell-us-who-they-are" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reported</a>.
“Transgender women are women,” the actor wrote in the essay. “Any statement to the contrary erases the identity and dignity of transgender people and goes against all advice given by professional healthcare associations who have far more expertise on this subject matter than either Jo [Rowling] or [me].”
Actress Emma Watson (who played Hermione in the movies) also shared her thoughts on X. “Trans people are who they say they are and deserve to live their lives without being constantly questioned or told they aren’t who they say they are,” she wrote. “I want my trans followers to know that I and so many other people around the world see you, respect you and love you for who you are.”
The media has been setting off attacks against Rowling ever since. They disparaged her and claimed fans were abandoning her, and the beloved “Harry Potter” series, in droves. 
“Harry Potter Magic Fades When Creator Tweets,” an NPR article <a href="https://www.npr.org/2020/06/10/873472683/harry-potters-magic-fades-when-his-creator-tweets" target="_blank" rel="noopener">declared</a>. 
“Harry Potter and the Author Who Failed Us,” a Vox story <a href="https://www.vox.com/culture/21285396/jk-rowling-transphobic-backlash-harry-potter" target="_blank" rel="noopener">echoed</a>. 
No doubt the “<a href="https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/how-rich-are-jk-rowling-james-patterson-and-the-other-top-10-richest-authors" target="_blank" rel="noopener">first billion-dollar author</a>” has received backlash online and beyond. But according to a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/90-actresses-reject-roles-in-play-attacking-j-k-rowlings-transgender-stance" target="_blank" rel="noopener">new report</a>, 90 actresses refused to participate in a play allegedly criticizing her, so Rowling must not be as hated as everyone claims she is.
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🎭 A play that criticises JK Rowling’s views on gender is struggling to cast women with 90 actresses so far rejecting parts.
Read more here ⬇️<a href="https://t.co/Iwmz1gaH4h">https://t.co/Iwmz1gaH4h</a> <a href="https://t.co/9MyPhj5ZZm">pic.twitter.com/9MyPhj5ZZm</a>
&mdash; The Telegraph (@Telegraph) <a href="https://twitter.com/Telegraph/status/1801329197828206989?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 13, 2024</a></blockquote>
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The play in question is called “TERF” and it’s scheduled to run at the Sir Ian McKellen Theatre in Edinburgh from August 2 through August 25. The acronym “TERF” is used as a derogatory term and stands for “trans-exclusionary radical feminist.” Since making the series of tweets, Rowling has become the most well-known of the accused TERFs. 
“This project has met some kind of resistance every step of the way, though I’ve been generally surprised by how difficult it has been for us to recruit the female cast in particular,” creative producer Barry Church-Woods told the Telegraph of the play, according to a previous report from <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/90-actresses-reject-roles-in-play-attacking-j-k-rowlings-transgender-stance" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Daily Wire</a>.
“I think it’s fair to say that a few things are coming into play in casting,” he continued.
A description of the production says, “Jo led a blessed life. Literary phenomenon. Cultural icon. And beloved. Completely beloved … until everything went to hell in a broombasket. Now, Jo’s surrogate children – Daniel, Rupert, and Emma – have had enough. It’s time for an intervention.”
TERF’s creative producer and founder of live arts company We Are Civil Disobedience Barry Church-Woods told <a href="https://www.thepinknews.com/2024/06/17/jk-rowling-play-edinburgh-fringe/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">PinkNews</a>, “It’s been very tricky casting this show, I think first in part because they’re actually quite iconic roles to take on, but definitely because there’s been a very vocal misinformed backlash to the project since we announced it early 2024.”
“Rowling has also become such a beacon for the issue that we’re dealing daily with the enraged ‘anti-woke’ armies of Breitbart and Fox News. It’s a lot of noise to come up against, and I imagine is quite daunting for anyone who is reading the vitriolic backlash right now,” he added.
“I think there may also be a couple of other factors affecting the casting of the roles,” Church-Woods said. 
Another idea posited for the lack of interest involves a “Harry Potter” television show that is rumored to be in production, which the stars’ talent agents could have their sights on. Being involved in the play could ruin their chances to be cast, the outlet noted.
The self-identified “queer” screenwriter Joshua Kaplan previously said the project isn’t a direct attack on Rowling. He claimed the play’s focus “is on relationships and how Rowling’s opinions have evolved” but is not “interrogating the substance of her opinions.”
“I hope the audience will walk out not with a message but a question. I want people to walk out saying, ‘Maybe I shouldn’t have put that on Twitter the other day,’” he said.
Church-Woods agreed that the play isn’t meant to be a negative statement on Rowling. “It’s ironic that the reporting of this project so far has focused on how the show is critical of Rowling,” he told PinkNews. “Yet we’ve never actually said it is. No-one has read the script yet apart from us and our legal team, and yet still they all hold strong opinions about it.”
Whether the questions raised in the play are explicitly or implicitly directed at Rowling’s stance on the trans agenda is irrelevant. The fact remains that if 90 stars looking for work aren’t interested in taking on the play, there’s a good chance that Rowling isn’t the villain she’s been portrayed as, despite the mainstream media desperately trying to convince us all otherwise.

“Harry Potter And The Cursed Child” Opening Day

Maybe Everyone Doesn’t Hate J.K. Rowling After All

Maybe Everyone Doesn't Hate J.K. Rowling After All

actors

Gender Identity

J.K. Rowling

Transgender

The following book excerpt comes from &#8220;<a href="https://www.amazon.com/False-Colors-Flag-Our-Occupation/dp/1684515874">False Flag: Why Queer Politics Mean the End of America</a>,&#8221; by Joy Pullmann (Regnery/Skyhorse Publishing. June 18, 2024.)
As Nathaniel Blake <a href="https://wng.org/opinions/the-lies-of-born-this-way-1691493975" target="_blank" rel="noopener">writes</a>, “the LGBTQ movement was built on a lie, and it is now breaking the promises it made to secure support from ordinary Americans.”
That lie is that queer people were “born this way.” The last ten years’ explosion in queer identification, coupled with social science research’s <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-019-02585-6" target="_blank" rel="noopener">failure</a> to find a gay gene, as well as its <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/00224499.2019.1577351" target="_blank" rel="noopener">findings</a> that sexuality is fluid, indicate that cannot be true. If people are “born queer,” the explosion in young people identifying as transgender simply wouldn’t be happening.
And it’s clear that identification is encouraged by social conditioning. As journalist Abigail Shrier writes in &#8220;Irreversible Damage,&#8221; “Those who teach gender ideology do not make adolescents transgender. They simply fill kids’ heads with gender options and ideology. Then, when the adolescents do experience a crisis, the heroic solution readily bobs to mind.” The multiple-hundred-fold <a href="https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/949842?form=fpf#vp_2" target="_blank" rel="noopener">increase</a> in children seeking transgender mutilation coinciding with the saturation of culture in queer imagery and ideology indicates that people aren’t born queer — a piece of evidence that erases any claim to legal privileges for immutable characteristics.
The survival of Western culture depends on strong natural families and government structures that protect rather than destroy those families. In homes and institutions like schools whose authority descends from homes, culture is passed on to children authoritatively in the form of normative moral judgments, loyalties, and distinctions. When one learns both at home and in school to restrain one’s passions, it frees the soul to participate in self-government through rational thought and dialogue: logic, argumentation, and debate. This rational self-government culminates in Western culture and its highest expression, the American form of constitutionally limited government.
<div id="attachment_752549" style="width: 395px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-752549" class="size-large wp-image-752549" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/06/71LYBanwOCL._SL1500_-385x576.jpg" alt="Regnery/Skyhorse Publishing." width="385" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/06/71LYBanwOCL._SL1500_-385x576.jpg 385w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/06/71LYBanwOCL._SL1500_-201x300.jpg 201w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/06/71LYBanwOCL._SL1500_-768x1149.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/06/71LYBanwOCL._SL1500_.jpg 1003w" sizes="(max-width: 385px) 100vw, 385px" />Regnery/Skyhorse Publishing.</div>
Sexual politics makes war against Western culture by attacking its origins in the father-headed household. Identity politics is an assault against the families who discipline their sexual relations within lifelong monogamous relationships. Its explicit goal is to overthrow Western civilization by overthrowing marriage and the families marriage naturally creates. Committed Cultural Marxists in the recent past, like the 1970s domestic terror group Weather Underground, followed New Left philosopher Herbert Marcuse’s “theory, outlined in his book Eros and Civilization, that sexual and political liberation are intertwined. They broke up monogamous relationships and asked members to submit their sexuality to the collective in order to surpass bourgeoise norms and ‘commit suicide as a class.’”
Sexual politics seeks to enact the Communist Manifesto’s demand for the “abolition of the family” as a means to abolish property and “bourgeoisie” social norms.  Marxist critical theory’s <a href="https://archive.org/details/marginsofphiloso0000derr">demand</a> for “inverting the hierarchies,” as applied by sexual identitarians, practically <a href="https://thefederalist.com/2017/11/06/bolshevik-revolution-reveals-six-phases-freedom-communist-misery/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">works out</a> to destroying marriage, the relationships between parents and children, and all strong male leadership. This is what sexual revolutionaries mean by their ubiquitous call for “smashing the patriarchy.”
Sexual politics’ true goal is not simply to grant government privileges to a tiny percentage of Americans who claimed discrimination — but who could have found workarounds such as powers of attorney to facilitate hospital visits between homosexual couples, or pro bono lawyers to write their wills and defend them in court. The goal was to destroy organic families as a mediating social institution that naturally limits government. The queer activist Masha Gessen made this explicit at a writer’s festival in 2012.
“It&#8217;s a no-brainer that the institution of marriage should not exist,” <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20130501084256/https:/www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/04/29/lesbian-activists-surprisingly-candid-speech-gay-marriage-fight-is-a-lie-to-destroy-marriage/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Gessen said</a>, voicing the stance of Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, and the Cultural Marxist Frankfurt School to loud applause. “&#8230;Fighting for gay marriage generally involves lying about what we’re going to do with marriage when we get there. Because we lie that the institution of marriage is not going to change. And that is a lie. The institution of marriage is going to change — and it should change and, again, I don’t think it should exist.”
Queer theorists and practitioners aren’t kidding that they want a Marxist cultural revolution. They have openly proclaimed that everywhere from street protests to “academic” journals for 100 years. This revolution is already well underway in far-left states such as California, Illinois, Minnesota, and New York. LGBT laws that are replacing the normative American way of life and its original form of government are at the spearhead of this violent regime change.
* * *
Joy Pullmann is the author of “<a href="https://www.amazon.com/False-Colors-Flag-Our-Occupation/dp/1684515874" target="_blank" rel="noopener">False Flag: Why Queer Politics Mean the End of America</a>,” out June 18 from Regnery Publishing. She is also the executive editor of <a href="http://www.thefederalist.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Federalist</a> and a happily married mother of six young children.
Copyright © 2024 by Joy Pullmann. Regnery is an imprint of Skyhorse Publishing, Inc., a Delaware corporation.
The views expressed in this book excerpt are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

Chalk drawing of a family

Erasing Marriage And Family Is The True Goal Of Sexual Politics

LGBTQ

Marriage

Marxism

Sexual Orientation

The following is a transcript excerpt from Dr. Jordan Peterson’s “We Who Wrestle With God” tour. In this segment, he explains the problem with the historical definition of sanity — being a well-constituted individual — is its sole reliance on the individual. He establishes a difference between being depressed and not being situated in the hierarchy of social order (having an intimate partner, family, job, and so forth). Social interaction is critical to finding meaning. Dr. Peterson’s <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/watch/jordan-peterson" target="_blank" rel="noopener">extensive catalog</a> is available on DailyWire+. 
Our Protestant, liberal definition of sanity is wrong. We tend to think of sanity in terms of internal psychological organizations. We think you are sane if your psyche is well-constituted or if you are biologically healthy in relationship to neurological function, as an individual thing: A well-constituted psyche means you are sane. The idea of self-actualization goes along with that. If you are a sane person, you are a sane individual: Sanity is the description of the well-constituted individual. 
One of the corollaries might be that you could regard any social constraint on the flowering of your individuality as antithetical to your sanity. I would say corrosive criticisms of social institutions tend to presume that axiomatically: “Nothing should interfere with my self-actualization. All social constraint is antithetical to that spontaneous organization and to sanity itself.” I do not think that is the correct notion of sanity. It is too atomistic; it is too individual. For example, how sane are you going to be in a terrible marriage? I do not care how well-constituted you are individually. This is a different question. 
When people would come to me and they were depressed, I would try to find out if they were depressed or if they just had a horrible life. Those are not the same questions because if you are depressed, you have a life that, in principle, should work but is not. So if they said, “Look, I have a lot of things going for me. I have a good job, I have a good family, my wife loves me. But man, I am miserable all the time,” we would delve into that a bit more deeply. That sounds like depression. But they might come and say, “I am miserable. I am suffering. I don&#8217;t even want to be alive.” Then I might ask:
“Well, do you have an intimate partner?”
“No, not really. And I have a history of catastrophic relationships.”
“Do you have any friends?”
“Well, I have this one person I phone once every month or so, but other than that, no I don’t really see anyone.”
“Do you have any close family?”
“No, my family is pretty fractured. I don’t get along with my mom and dad. I don’t see my sisters or my siblings much.”
“How about a career or, failing that, a job?”
“Well, I’ve always kind of been under-employed, and I just lost my job and that is not going very well.”
And so on.
You can walk through someone’s life and find out if they are reasonably embedded in a hierarchy of social institutions. If they are not — no intimate partner, no family, no children, no friends, no job, no career, no educational pathway, no engagement in civic responsibility, no church attendance, no spiritual life, no routine — then they are not depressed; they just have a horrible life, multidimensionally. It is no wonder they think they are depressed; there is nothing in their life that is working. But that is not exactly a diagnosis at the level of the individual; it is a diagnosis of the relationship between the individual and the structure containing social institutions. If you do not have an intimate partner, a family, any friends, a career or a job, any civic involvement or any involvement with religious institutions, and no creative striving, all you have left is pain. That is what you have.
<h4><a href="https://www.dailywire.com/show/the-jordan-b-peterson-podcast" target="_blank" rel="noopener">WATCH: The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast on DailyWire+</a></h4>
There is a different way of thinking about sanity. Sanity is not being well-constituted as an atomized individual. Sanity is what makes itself manifest if you are properly situated in the hierarchy of social order. Now, some of that is internal because of your mess of fragmented subpersonalities. For example, anger can pull you in one direction, anxiety can pull you in another direction, impulsive enthusiasm can pull you in another direction, and lust can pull you in a different direction — those are all subpersonalities in some real sense. They are ways of perceiving and acting in the world. You need to integrate them within yourself so that as an individual, you are integrated. But the nature of that integration is dependent on your integration within the broader social context.
You can think of sanity as a distributed phenomena. That is another reason you do not want to casually denigrate social institutions because we are social creatures — deeply social creatures. You can tell that because you can take the most anti-social people, the most violent predatory and parasitic criminals, and punish them by putting them in solitary confinement. Think about that: The people who like other people the least, who are most likely to pathologize their social relationships, and who would be long-term, habitually sadistic, violent criminals find it virtually unbearable to be forced into isolation. We are unbelievably social. One of the corollaries of being miraculously social is that to be well-constituted, you have to be a harmonious player in a multidimensional symphony of social interaction. 
It is very hard to stay on the straight and narrow without a partner who does not share your blindspots and correct you constantly. Now, that is annoying because there is tussling about it; there is a fractious, adversarial element to that because you are married, and you do not see eye to eye — and thank God for that because sometimes in your foolish instance of being right, you are wrong and wrong in a way that will take you out. So you better have a partner who does not think the same way you do. Fortunately, if you have a partner who does not think the same way you do, if you can get the dialogue flowing, that is a mutually corrective mechanism. Then, the truthful dialogue between partners in a marriage is actually the process by which sanity itself is generated, which I mean technically. You are too complex to regulate yourself — period — so you need other people to help you do that. If you have a wife or a husband, someone who knows you who is there for the long-run, you can help each other find the meaningful path and stay on it. You cannot do that alone.
* * *
To continue, listen or watch more content with Dr. Jordan Peterson on <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/watch">DailyWire+</a>.
<a href="https://www.jordanbpeterson.com/">Dr. Jordan B. Peterson</a> is a clinical psychologist and professor emeritus at the University of Toronto. From 1993 to 1998 he served as assistant and then associate professor of psychology at Harvard. He is the international bestselling author of “<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Maps-Meaning-Architecture-Jordan-Peterson/dp/0415922216/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&amp;qid=&amp;sr=">Maps of Meaning</a>,” “<a href="https://www.amazon.com/12-Rules-Life-Antidote-Chaos/dp/0345816021/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&amp;qid=&amp;sr=">12 Rules For Life,</a>” and “<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Beyond-Order-More-Rules-Life/dp/0593084640/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&amp;dib_tag=AUTHOR&amp;dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.nbV0WtVit9busCddbjMST-Oe7hjueQrxfqnQ4L3HXXUFdIaqlEBr0sp9HQWIq9ut9NlHDAFA0YQoDWVZfDtKNJI7VvlzWv2rMhs2KcAAIIppPRMWq4GIiFerkrssvBABAjeKlg3OFs3H8IHs5D8ktJ5uBg3K-SZ4hpKltaKkrhY6j-RKn-tTkBz29JZXP3Rhm9SB14rHUX1nol5d4z4Fi6f8fwhxXWCVGgkvOHSqG6E.iVF1NljuBEwrpumO9rQBh9FotnzaIo4K7K8HvNnC46k&amp;qid=&amp;sr=">Beyond Order.</a>” You can now <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/podcasts/the-jordan-b-peterson-podcast">listen to</a> or <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/watch/jordan-peterson">watch</a> his popular lectures on DailyWire+.
Be sure to <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Who-Wrestle-God-Jordan-Peterson/dp/0593542533/?_encoding=UTF8&amp;pd_rd_w=38kcw&amp;content-id=amzn1.sym.f911c8db-3a2b-4b3e-952f-b80fdcee83f4&amp;pf_rd_p=f911c8db-3a2b-4b3e-952f-b80fdcee83f4&amp;pf_rd_r=133-1833056-3520340&amp;pd_rd_wg=3zvBk&amp;pd_rd_r=93a1419a-853b-4c49-a764-cbaa90d3073a&amp;ref_=aufs_ap_sc_dsk">PRE-ORDER</a> Dr. Peterson’s newest book: “<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Who-Wrestle-God-Jordan-Peterson/dp/0593542533/?_encoding=UTF8&amp;pd_rd_w=38kcw&amp;content-id=amzn1.sym.f911c8db-3a2b-4b3e-952f-b80fdcee83f4&amp;pf_rd_p=f911c8db-3a2b-4b3e-952f-b80fdcee83f4&amp;pf_rd_r=133-1833056-3520340&amp;pd_rd_wg=3zvBk&amp;pd_rd_r=93a1419a-853b-4c49-a764-cbaa90d3073a&amp;ref_=aufs_ap_sc_dsk">We Who Wrestle with God</a>.” (Portfolio/Penguin. November 19, 2024.)

JP_FOR_DW_GDWOODMAN027 copy

A Different Way Of Thinking About Sanity

Depression

Mental Health

The results of our pornography-drenched society are in. And they’re hideous.
Pornography has disconnected men from women. It has led to less mating – after all, why date when you can get the dopamine hit of seeing bodies in various combinations at the touch of a button – and serious, society-wide sexual dysfunction (certain studies now claim that up to 30% of young men now suffer from erectile dysfunction). It has emptied wallets and souls. The average age of first pornography viewing for males is now 12. Some 73% of teens aged 13-17 have watched pornography. The brain can respond to pornography and its attendant dopamine hits much like a drug. And just like a drug, for some, higher doses may be necessary in order to achieve the original effect.
In the last few years, the question of pornography has reared its seamy head. The availability and regulation of pornography has cut across political lines: libertarians see pornography as a harmless good, a simple and disposable product that harms no one; traditional conservatives see pornography as a damaging and soul-crushing symptom of hedonistic individualism; radical leftists see pornography as a form of female empowerment, with women “finally” controlling their own sexuality; traditional liberals see pornography as exploitation of women, a form of patriarchal domination.
Oddly enough, our pornographic society is a sex-free, relationship-free society. We date less. We get married later, if at all. We have fewer children, if any. We do not form the little platoons of society – the family – necessary for its preservation. Not all of that is pornography, of course. But the utter pervasiveness of pornography isn’t a minor factor, either.
All of this was foreseeable. In 2005, at the age of 21, I wrote a book titled &#8220;<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Porn-Generation-Social-Liberalism-Corrupting/dp/0895260166/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&amp;dib_tag=se&amp;dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.FgmUDcYWQ-k9ZlvIuO-Vp3mAtqpf0gCS-q703gqFcwFQ2Iqcmi1934jgWkQvCHJ0Ec69uFf52e4Vfem5BAvl9TkHiv4XatNRmq4rAQwWqDtu2TRY3A5N5iQE59JHh7PPw4NDrnQggqkQBVXpN_iOVN16XfkAz7DmtXoXt8HK2M9XkWabmmO17A17Mi-ETB4ykgMqqsVq3v6P9cnWEfEQfKVKlOXR6MJfxpTMrYdgXMwL8elRv7z-IFFFOhC7iD31mgccTm-5cM-aUdwIg1FY_Iq4-UUgK4yZOTdL8JktDsI.4dEtzxnT8g1s-SbFTXZpYZzUZIKOGtzotAimZzBm848&amp;qid=1717512451&amp;sr=1-18" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Porn Generation</a>&#8221; – a book that was widely seen by many on both Right and Left as alarmist and prudish. That descriptor – prudish – was, at the time, one of the worst slurs you could toss at someone. It meant that you were repressed, that you were a Bible thumper. That you were – gasp! – judgmental. In the book, I wrote that pornography had become absolutely mainstream, from music to television to movies to education.
That was before the era of Kim Kardashian.
Here is what I wrote:
<blockquote>Our culture has bred hollow young men, obsessed with self-gratification. Young women are told to act like sex objects – and enjoy it…Society told the porn generation that final moral authority rests inside each of us – and in our vanity, we listened. The mainstream acceptance of pornography has become a social fact….In the absence of community-promoted traditional standards, subjectivism reigns. Nothing is expected of anyone; everyone may make his own rules about what is best. The “live and let live” societal model is a recipe for societal disaster.</blockquote>
To put it mildly, I was right.
Our society has begun to figure out that the sexual mores of a morally relativistic society are destructive – that age-old ideas about monogamy and marriage and the value of heterosexual relationships, cultivated over the course of millennia, might be more valuable than the latest slogan about the joys of licentiousness. Pornography’s obvious vacuity and the damage coincident with its ubiquity is a reminder that consent is not, in fact, the highest moral value: that just because people choose to engage in an activity does not make that activity morally good or acceptable. There can be pragmatic arguments over the nature of government power necessary to reverse the pornification of our society – do we have to delegate too much power to the government in order to squash the problem? Ought it be solved at the level of social censure rather than regulation? – but there can be no question that consent alone does not morally justify pornography. In the words of British legal theorist James Fitzjames Stephen, “It is one thing&#8230;to tolerate vice so long as it is inoffensive, and quite another to give it a legal right not only to exist, but to assert itself in the face of the world as an ‘experiment in living’ as good as another, and entitled to the same protection from law.”
<h4><a href="https://www.dailywire.com/show/the-ben-shapiro-show" target="_blank" rel="noopener">WATCH: The Ben Shapiro Show</a></h4>
The true answer to the question of pornography has been known all along: robust social institutions, as well as local regulations that make it difficult to create and obtain. We have a duty to our children to give them a society free of the scourge of pornography and its societal externalities. The Founders knew that, which is why they never considered pornography a protected class of free speech under the First Amendment. They would have scoffed at the very idea.
In &#8220;Porn Generation&#8221; I made a series of recommendations – again, recommendations snorted at, up until the point every American child had access to smut on their cell phones. Those recommendations included better parenting, of course; more church adherence; school vouchers; boycotts against products promoting social radicalism (see, e.g., Bud Light); governmental censorship where possible; cutting off funding to universities that promote obscenity. If any of them had been pursued in 2005, our society would be markedly better off in 2024.
They weren’t. But that doesn’t mean we can’t pursue them now. Pornography is merely a symptom of a broader underlying ill: a society that promotes libertinism as liberty, ignoring that a meaningful life is about liberty within a rubric of morality and responsibility. Any society that promotes libertinism rather than traditional liberty is doomed to the scrap heap.

Ben-Article-PAID

Why Pornography Matters

Ben Shapiro

Culture

Founding Fathers

Freedom of Speech

Pornography

Social Media

The following excerpt is from <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Detrans-Stories-Escaping-Gender-Ideology/dp/1684515017" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Detrans: True Stories Escaping the Gender Ideology Cult</a>, a new book authored by Daily Signal&#8217;s senior reporter <a href="https://x.com/MaryMargOlohan" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Mary Margaret Olohan</a>. The excerpt has been edited for brevity.
Helena’s lonely late-night shifts working at the cookie shop were giving her plenty of time to think about the choices she had made. “In some ways, it was a bit maddening, but dispersed within the general neuroticism were moments of clarity,” she writes.
“I remember deciding to take my chest binder off at work for the first time, because it was just me and one other worker who always sat in the back, and that f****** thing hurt. It felt so much more natural not to have anything constricting my chest underneath my work shirt.”
And she started skipping testosterone injections, mostly because of how anxious they made her. At this point, she says, she was only injecting herself with testosterone once or twice a month.
And as a result, the frequency of her “episodes” dramatically decreased.
She started wondering what this meant. Why was she feeling better, not worse, when she took less “T”? And what if transitioning wasn’t, in fact, helping her mental health?
That’s a forbidden question in transgender circles, she quickly found. “I remember browsing trans subreddits in hopes I would get some answers for what to do if transitioning wasn’t improving my mental health,” Helena said. “There were many posts asking this question, and by far the most common answer was to ‘just keep going’ and that one day, when you passed well enough, it would all be worth it.”
<div id="attachment_746099" style="width: 359px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-746099" class="wp-image-746099 size-full" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/06/71lxqCJ3CL._SY522_.jpg" alt="Regnery/Skyhorse Publishing." width="349" height="522" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/06/71lxqCJ3CL._SY522_.jpg 349w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2024/06/71lxqCJ3CL._SY522_-201x300.jpg 201w" sizes="(max-width: 349px) 100vw, 349px" />Regnery/Skyhorse Publishing.</div>
Helena began questioning her life choices up to this point. All these things she had done thinking they would “save” her had not done anything of the sort. “The only thing I didn’t outright question was my choice to be transgender,” she writes. “That would require a more up-front reality check.”
Helena started thinking about the comfortable clothing she used to wear before she started her transition process, back when she didn’t have to worry about whether or not her feminine clothes would make people doubt whether she was transgender. She thought about how much she hated the way she looked in men’s clothing (and “the way masculine styles looked on me in general”).
“I also wished I ‘wasn’t trans,’ and even recall making a reddit post to this effect, lamenting how even though ‘being trans’ was making me miserable, I knew it was who I really was and after I got surgeries it would be right for me,” she wrote. “This kind of thinking, I now realize after talking to so many detransitioners, is common in the weeks or months leading up to detransition,” she shared.
Helena’s “a-ha” moment happened in February of 2018. Her friend Jamie, a biological woman who also identified as transgender at the time and with whom Helena was then in a romantic relationship, made a video montage with pictures of Jamie and Helena showing the progression of their relationship since the day they had met — which was two days after Helena started testosterone.
“As I watched the video, I saw the way my face changed from so young, hopeful, and most of all, recognizable, to weary, deadpan, and foreign,” Helena said. “I began to sob uncontrollably,” she recounts.
“At first, Jamie thought I was crying because I loved the video so much, but I quickly informed her it was something else, but I wouldn’t say what. I cried, and cried, and cried. Every memory those photos evoked was flashing before my eyes, all the pain I knew was behind my eyes was emerging vividly. I saw innocence turn to anguish and I knew I had been on the wrong path for a long, long time. I didn’t know. I didn’t know it would be this way. I was just a kid,” she wrote.
“How could I have been so stupid?”
* * *
Copyright © 2024 Mary Margaret Olohan. Excerpted by permission of Skyhorse Publishing Inc.
Note: A portion of this article comes from Helena Kerschner’s Substack, “By Any Other Name,” prude posting, February 19, 2022, <a href="https://lacroicsz.substack.com/p/by-any-other-name">https://lacroicsz.substack.com/p/by-any-other-name</a>.
Mary Margaret Olohan is a senior reporter for The Daily Signal and the author of &#8220;<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Detrans-Stories-Escaping-Gender-Ideology/dp/1684515017">Detrans: True Stories of Escaping the Gender Ideology Cult.</a>&#8221; She previously reported for both The Daily Caller and The Daily Wire.
The views expressed in this book excerpt are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

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