for Domi
I stumbled upon this podcast a while ago by done by one of the most interesting thinkers in these days: Jordan Peterson. Feel free to stone me for this, but yes, I think when it comes to sober, sane and objective thinking and a critical examination of the world, Jordan Peterson does the job. Many call him a right-wing conservative Nazi I know, but I also know that those who do so are engulfed by leftist ideology to the extent that they often become the radical left which completely lacks liberalism in these days.
I must also point out that I, too, have a lot of problems with Peterson; I do not like that he is a capitalist, I am critical of his conservatism in education, I have a problem with his narcissism and entanglement with brainy thinking and talking. I do not like that he cannot go beyond a rational encapsulation of the world and refuses to open up other than mental engagement. Yet, in spite of all this, what he stands for is (unfortunately) really unique, as it is very very rare in these days to find thinkers, both left or right, who are not completely entangled in their ideology and who can act as real intellectual agents. (see a problematization of intellectual agency here.)
So, after this lengthy introduction of the interviewer, let us focus on the interviewee. Yeonmi Park is a young woman who spent her childhood in extremely difficult circumstances in North Korea. She escaped and followed the journey of refugees which is a very hard life to live. After terrible hardships she managed to get to South Korea, where, due to her extaordinary agility, she got into university, and ended up studying in Columbia University, New York. Obviously she is no ordinary piece of cake. And the two of them make no ordinary interview. This interview is not the usual terrible survivor story, there is a lot to learn for us here in the West from what she is saying.
Watch here: Tyranny, Slavery and Columbia University. I encourage everybody to open up to her and listen without second-thoughts and ideology-bound perspectives. (Watch it ‘till the end, the real fun starts in the last 45 minutes!)