DiscussMormonism.com

So, as I have mentioned on the board before, I am a huge Dennis Prager fan (I adore him and listen to his national radio show quite often when I'm driving between noon and 3pm) but for whatever reason, while I knew it existed, I never really paid much attention to Prager U (Currently, there are over 200 videos and counting - with over a billion views and counting)

over the last few days, I have been watching some of these videos. Like a few of my favorite vinyl record albums from long ago, I think some of the videos are fantastic while others on the album aren't as good, in my opinion.

Thus far, there are a few that I thought were, at the very least, interesting. And in some ways, they reminded me of some of the discussions on this board, so I thought I would share them. Here are a couple:

This first one is on "intersectionality" - (Ben Shapiro does it)
Here it is:

https://youtu.be/rc7VUoytoU4

This one is a guy on the streets of New York who asks random people "Do you have any Republican friends" - (I understand the real possibility that they only show certain interviews and that the video might be comprised of very selective clips with a very specific purpose - but, even if this is the case (as a conservative), I still found the video to be mind-blowing on several levels.

Here it is:

https://youtu.be/VKYfarmt-N4

And then there is this one on white privilege - It's made by a guy who does documentaries who went to a "White Privilege Conference" that was held in Kansas City. (You have to at least watch the guy at around the 2:30 mark where he "extends his white privilege on to her" - his wife)

https://youtu.be/41rwBgrWmUs

And finally, this is from Ami Horowitz - he interviews a UC Irvine student who had the American flag removed on campus by writing a resolution that passed.

I was blown away again. Here it is:

https://youtu.be/up3GzbLjPcc

Those are the ones, so far, that I found to be (again, at the very least) interesting.

Watch if you want - pass if you're not interested.

I should add - there are over 80 videos that are currently on YouTube's "restricted/censored" section. Thus, the views are not available in the public square.

Ceeboo -

Why do you keep on posting about Prager if you are so unhappy with the discussion that follows?

canpakes wrote:Ceeboo -

Why do you keep on posting about Prager if you are so unhappy with the discussion that follows?

Exactly. People will post, refuting what Prager says and CeeBoo won't even pretend to be engaging in any meaningful conversation about what's been refuted. He'll just keep pumping out more nonsense from a moron and tell everyone how much he likes it, as if anyone cares.

Lol. It would seem that a person who creates a video called, “Do You Have Any Republican Friends” isn’t interested in bridging any divide - he’s interested in widening it.

And then some folks wonder why we are where we are today.

So, no reaction/comments on any of the videos?

canpakes wrote:Lol. It would seem that a person who creates a video called, “Do You Have Any Republican Friends” isn’t interested in bridging any divide - he’s interested in widening it.

And then some folks wonder why we are where we are today.

I watched this to verify your statement.

Of course, the same thing could be done where I live, except asking about Democratic friends, and you could get plenty of similar responses. Not sure what this is supposed to prove that we couldn't have already guessed.

It's such a mystery why the GOP is associated with racism and bigotry. What on earth could have caused that?

Ceeboo wrote:So, no reaction/comments on any of the videos?

Sure! “Congratulations on being part of the problem”!

Probably what you weren’t wanting to hear, but true nonetheless. ; )

I wonder what the 'U' in PragerU stands for. Uninformed? Useless? Uneducated? Underwhelming? Untrue?

It certainly couldn't stand for University; otherwise, he's opening himself up to a Trumpf University-like scam lawsuit.

Ceeboo wrote:
This one is a guy on the streets of New York who asks random people "Do you have any Republican friends" - (I understand the real possibility that they only show certain interviews and that the video might be comprised of very selective clips with a very specific purpose - but, even if this is the case (as a conservative), I still found the video to be mind-blowing on several levels.

Here it is:

https://youtu.be/VKYfarmt-N4

I've been fascinatined by this theme in right-wing media and, uh, less educated conservative circles. The idea is that liberals exist in ideological silos. It's been around for decades, but recently there's been so much geographical self-sorting that it is becoming increasingly possible for people to operate in social circles where you encounter few people who are ideologically dissimilar or vote differently than you. And while this "man on the street" anecdotal approach isn't sound at all, it is true that it is easier to find people who would answer in the way their cherry-picking is aimed at than it had been. There is no shortage of Democrats who don't hang out with any Republicans.

The thing is, you can do literally the exact same thing in conservative dominated areas. Only, that doesn't quite capture it. For all the talk of liberals living in "bubbles" that this is playing into, it's actually conservative areas that are much more insular. This is simply by virtue of the fact that Democrats/liberals dominate urban areas and Republicans/conservatives dominate rural areas. Cities are just vastly more diverse than rural areas owing to their population. There are more varieties of people. You're far more likely to encounter different subcultures in the city. Cities are more economically diverse, dynamic, and prosperous. Cities have greater ethnic and religious diversity. There's just a broader range of humanity on display there. In fact, everything that exists in the country can usually be found in the city, but the reverse is not true.

This ends up feeding directly into the cultural attitudes of conservatism which is far more insulated from liberalism than the reverse. This shows up in mainstream conservative attitudes only masked by a tendency to think of their preferred cultural norms as the default or proper. Then on top of this, mainstream conservative material tends to be much more strawman-like in its approach to understanding liberal positions than the reverse, probably due to the strong anti-intellectual streak that has taken over modern US conservatism. They result is they are so much more in a bubble on average.

Yet, somehow, you get this video.

"Prager U". I guess a real source of education wasn't available?