#1244 Keegan Tatum: The Psychology of Politics, and the Reactionary Politics of the Conservatives

00:00 Ricardo Lopes: Hello everyone. Welcome to a new episode of The Dissenter. I'm your host, as always, Richard Lops, and today I'm here with a fellow YouTuber Keegan Tatum. He has a very interesting channel and TikTok page or TikTok account on the psychology of politics, and today we're going to talk about that, and we're going to bash conservatives, I guess, a lot.

00:29 Keegan Tatum: So once or twice, once or twice.

00:31 Ricardo Lopes: Yeah, so Keegan, welcome to the show. I mean, I really love your videos, so thank you so much for taking

00:38 Keegan Tatum: the

00:38 Ricardo Lopes: time.

00:39 Keegan Tatum: Well, thanks a lot for having me, Ricardo. I'm very excited to be on. And uh for anyone that wants to check me out, you know, you can just go Keegan Tatum, the name's right here, right? Uh, ON YouTube, Instagram, TikTok. TikTok is the best because they actually get this, pay us for our views. Anyway, so yeah, if you're into the psychology of politics, and uh my focus is what are the differences between people on the right and people on the left? What makes progressives and conservatives different, motivation is what really interests me.

01:09 Ricardo Lopes: Yeah, I'm going to leave all the links to TikTok and everything in the description, and I, and I I'm also going to send you a link later to add you as a collaborator on YouTube if that's OK, so people will get access to all of your content. So I mean, but before we get into the actual juicy stuff here about the differences between right wingers and left wingers, conservatives and progressives and so on. What is the psychology of politics? I mean, what is it that we can learn through psychology about politics and how basically people's political minds operate that perhaps we can't really do through, for example, political science, philosophy, and so on.

02:00 Keegan Tatum: That's a great and very big question. So, I think it's just looking at things from a different angle. So it's looking at like, What goes up here and turns into action because with political science, we're looking so much at either the ideas themselves or we're looking at behavior such as voting, but we're not looking at why, you know, I mean, I guess to a certain extent you might be looking at, OK, well, there's bad income inequality in this region, so they typically stratify to the far right and to the populist left, but I think it gives you a deeper understanding. As to why people make the decisions that they make, and I think that if you're somebody who is on the left, as, as one or two of the followers and people on screen might be, it's really hard to understand. Why is it that people don't act rationally? Why don't people see all the injustices, the inequality, the exploitation under capitalism, if I do, if I, if I'm allowed to say that, um, and why don't they act rationally? Why are they blaming immigrants, hating on trans people, being anti-feminists, like, why? Why? And I think that the psychology of politics. At least it's it's probably the best attempt we have to answer that kind of stuff.

03:26 Ricardo Lopes: So what makes, I, I mean, actually, I was going to ask you what makes someone conservative, but I'm going to expand the question and actually ask you from a psychological perspective, er. I mean, how do you define or what characterizes someone who tends to identify as liberal versus someone who identifies as conservative, and do you make a distinction between liberal and left wing because I mean, in the US, particularly, people, I see that people tend to conflate a lot liberal with left wing, which is something that we do not do at all here in Europe. Actually here in Portugal, for example, liberal, the liberals are very much right wing. So how do you approach that?

04:18 Keegan Tatum: That's a, that's a great question. We should define our terms up front. So in my view, Politics is about one thing, and that's power. When you get right down to it, people on the right stand for hierarchy and inequality in terms of power. So I'll just use the American example that means white supremacy. It means male supremacy. It means the. DOGMA of the Christian church over everyone else and most importantly it means the supremacy of the business owner over the worker. You take a look at any policy and if you break it down into power, what you ultimately come to is people on the right are about concentration of power and people on the left are about an egalitarian distribution of power. So that means expanding voting rights. I'm looking in a historical lens, right? That means expanding workers' rights, that means women are equal. Come on, what are we doing here, you know, uh, that immigrants are people. Maybe we should treat them as such. Everyone should have healthcare. If you, if you can imagine living in a country like that, I can't literally, literally can't imagine living in a country like that. But, um, well, I

05:28 Ricardo Lopes: mean, here in Europe we tend to have universal healthcare, you know, that's,

05:32 Keegan Tatum: that's what I'm, that's, that's what I'm alluding to. I, I, I know, I know. Trust me, I, one of the things, if it weren't for the psychology of politics, my thing was inequality and comparative politics, so. I have a little bit of that, and a little bit of that in my brain. So, um, and then the left-right spectrum, you know, you're talking about like the distinction, there's also a distinction between conservatives and fascists. In America, it's starting to blend. A lot of people, most people who identify as conservative in the United States are also fascists, but if you look at politics through a spectrum rather than buckets, I think it's very helpful and, and throughout this whole conversation. That's how I want everyone to think about everything that I say, where it's like, if you wanna know, well, well, what's the difference between a centrist and a progressive? Well, if I say something about a conservative, like conservatives are More intolerant of uncertainty and ambiguity, right? So they're the, they're the most intolerant. People on the left are the most tolerant, so people in the center are in the center, right? And so, psychologically speaking, do I make a distinction between liberals and leftists? This is very difficult to actually answer, and the reason is because unlike the right, where conservatives and right-wing authoritarians, AKA fascists, that's the most common form of right-wing authoritarianism. Those are pretty equal groups in terms of their numbers, at least here in the United States, which is where a ton of the studies have been done. Whereas the number of, of like liberal, center left, progressive type people are Far more numerous than leftists, and that's really true everywhere if you look at the data, you know, the number of anarchists and like truly democratic socialists are far outweighed by the center left. So the distinctions between liberals and leftists are not as well studied because it's hard to get enough of a sample size, particularly here in the United States. I would say that generally speaking, People who have a right-wing authoritarian psychology or personality, depending on what you, what you want to label it, there are distinct characteristics that differentiate them from normie conservatives. Right, so it's, it's like the relation between a, a square and a rectangle. All squares are rectangles, but not all rectangles are squares. Squares have unique properties that differentiate them, right? So all right-wing authoritarians have all of the qualities of a conservative, but not all conservatives have all the qualities of a right-wing authoritarian. Now, is that true of people on the left? I don't really see much evidence of that, other than to say there are slightly different emotional tendencies, so. When it comes to, you know, emotional intelligence, I don't think it's that. People that are far left have unlocked some new level of emotional intelligence, it's just they have more, right? They have a, I think people on the left have a greater sense of urgency than people in the center and center left, but there, as far as I can tell, really is nothing that Truly makes people on the left um different in the way that right-wing authoritarians are different from normy conservatives.

08:44 Ricardo Lopes: Right. I mean, do you think that when we talk about er liberals, conservatives, progressives, centrists, and so on, that we have to perhaps take into account the specific uh cultural context that we are talking about because as I mentioned earlier, for example, here in Portugal and I think it's more or less the same across Europe, at least Western Europe with tend to look at liberals as being right wingers or center right because they tend to be the ones who are economically conservative but socially liberal. I mean they might be, I don't know, in favor of euthanasia, in favor of trans people, and so on, in favor of gay rights, but they are very much hardcore capitalists, and some of them are even libertarians when it comes. To economics and people who we consider to be on the actual left here in Europe are the Social Democrats, the democratic socialists, the hardcore socialists, the Marxists, communists, and people like that. So people who are actually economically progressive.

10:00 Keegan Tatum: Two things to say on that. So, so often in my videos, I try to use the word progressive because in my view, Uh, you know, I know that more than 25% of my audience is not based in the United States. So when I say the word liberal, if you're in Britain, the Liberal Democrats are, as you say, they are a, a generous. If we're generous, they're center right on economics. If we're, you know, realistic, they're pretty far right in terms of the ideological spectrum. And so I try to use the word progressive because For me, the only point of words is to get the idea in my head over to your head, and I try to use the words that effectively communicate that as much as I possibly can. So, the literature often uses the term liberal as a catch-all term for people that are left leaning. I try to use different terms. The other thing I want to um note is. So, people who are like Stalinist, like pro-Soviet Union type of, you know, socialist or communists, they would actually be right-wing authoritarian for two reasons. First off, psychologically speaking, they do fit the model of right-wing authoritarianism, which is authoritarian submission, authoritarian aggression, so it's aggression on behalf of the perceived enemies of the authority and conventionalism. You live our way or Um, and that is often steeped in tradition, because that's what people are used to, and typically speaking, people on the right can't stand change, but I would just want to note that the the like the tanky Soviet Union defenders, they're actually right-wing and of course if you actually look at their political views, they really are for a highly stratified hierarchical authoritarian kind of society where power is concentrated. It's just not concentrated in the hands of a business owner, a capitalist business owner. It is instead concentrated in the power of the one-party state or the bureaucrat that runs the business. Effectively similar to the capitalist business owner, where they have autocratic control over the workers. So, I, that's why I, I, I hate the definition of left versus right that is like, oh dude, uh, the left is for more government intervention in the economy and the right is for less government intervention in the economy. It's like, OK, so you're gonna put Stalin and like Gandhi. Or us on the same but like that we're the complete opposite, that spectrum does not make any sense. I'll get off the soapbox for a sec. I hope I answered the question.

12:35 Ricardo Lopes: Yeah, I, I mean, but, but that's a very interesting take, that's actually one of the takes that I heard from you that I found the most interesting. So do you think that there's no Good scientific evidence or good enough scientific evidence to support the idea that there's left-wing authoritarianism, or do you think that all authoritarianism is right wing?

13:02 Keegan Tatum: I think all authoritarianism is right wing, and the, and the reason is, again, if you look at everything that the right has always stood for, it has always been for concentration of power, and you can't have a highly egalitarian society, which is what the left has always supported. That's also authoritarian, that's also totalitarian, like, those are what they call contradictions. So, the and the and what actually unlocked this was not studying political theory at all. It was studying the psychology of politics because uh back when I was at Columbia for grad school, the thing that I wanted to study for my like, big literature review, which we were required to do for that course, um, was to look at left-wing authoritarianism and I, I read. Everything that there was to know, everything that had been written, everything that had been studied, left-wing authoritarianism in political psychology is called the Loch Ness Monster, because people keep thinking it exists and finding no evidence of it.

13:57 Ricardo Lopes: OK, so, but, but just to be fair here, what do you make of people who are socialist or even communist or identify as such, and they point to some of what they consider to be the mistakes made in the former Soviet Union and other countries which adopted a form of state socialism, and they say that. I mean, basically they agree, for example, with workers' unions, I mean companies run by workers without any central authority, and they would, and they say that ultimately we Should even overcome the state, so we should have a stateless society. I mean, don't you think that at least the ones who support those ideas should be labeled as or considered left wing?

14:57 Keegan Tatum: If the outcomes that they support are for decentralizing power or for democratizing power and democratizing ownership, that's as far left as you can get, no doubt. So if you wanna talk about like the strategy of like, first we have to have a proletariat, uh, a dictatorship of the proletariat, and then transition, like, OK, I'm, I'm, I, the way that I work is show me the evidence that it can work and I'll agree with you. The problem is that you can't. Uh, THE small side, you can't force the kind of like transformative class consciousness requiring change without a whole lot of legwork like feudalism was not overthrown overnight and unfortunately we have a bias because we don't live that long as humans, um, in other words, we want the change now, right? And people on the left, one thing that's really different about people on the left versus like center left is that sense of urgency. The injustice is, it's always there, we have to fix it now, um. However, Um, when it comes to like the state running socialism, I really don't see much of a difference from the perspective of a working person, between having a capitalist business owner be the dictator of the workplace and having a government bureaucrat being the dictator in the workplace. You are still functionally. What word do we want to use? Powerless. I was gonna use indentured servant, but uh but that's not quite right, you know, um, you know, a wage slave. Um, YOU functionally have no power and the government can say, well, we're a government of the people, but it's like, Politicians lie, man. Just because they call it socialism doesn't mean it actually is socialism. Of course, language does change and you could argue that there are right-wing authoritarian versions of socialism like they had it in the Soviet Empire. Just like there are left-wing versions of socialism, just like with capitalism, the Nazis were capitalist, uh, America is capitalist, capitalists, we're far right, so were the Nazis. Uh, BUT also you have Sweden in the 60s, 70s. That was a pretty, I mean, as far as human societies go, that's one of the most left-wing governments you'll ever get, societies you'll ever get, and they were also capitalist. So, um, you can go either way in terms of how you'd like to define words. I really don't have a problem with either one, but that's not psychology stuff.

17:09 Ricardo Lopes: OK, OK. Yeah, yeah, sure. So, uh, getting into the psychology itself, what do we know? I, I mean, do we have any idea about what is the earliest age at which we can already identify, uh, conservative or uh progressive traits in children? I mean, can we, is it possible To tell whether a particular child already shows conservative or progressive tendencies in terms of their thinking, or is that something that we can, we can only do for adults?

17:52 Keegan Tatum: That is an interesting question, so. There were a couple of studies that I've read that show that children who are brighter, more intelligent at age 10 grow up to be more progressive, and children that are less intelligent grow up to be more bigoted, particularly racist. That's at age 10 or 11. However, that's not exactly like, uh, they. ARE conservative, they have these traits. I don't know if I really wanna count that. That's more of an intelligence first thing, which, by the way, I will say. One of the things about political psychology that's very interesting is it works from who you are as a person to explain your politics, rather than using your politics to explain who you are as a person. I just find that interesting. So, there is a study. Um, IF you want to look it up, look up Block. That's the, the two lead authors are B L O C K, Nursery School, Personality and Political Orientation, two decades later. It's kind of in the title, right? So, they looked at kids, they were aged 3 or 4, and they asked the teachers to give the researchers a description of their personality, right? So, Here is what I will quote from that, OK? Quote, preschool children who 20 years later were relatively liberal were characterized as developing close relationships, that's interesting, interpersonal connection, self-reliant, boy, does that ever, um, does that ever slap a conservative ego right there. Energetic, uh, which is probably, uh, uh, another way of saying extroverted or more personable, somewhat dominating. Relatively undercontrolled, so self-control, um, and resilient, so they aren't knocked down easily. Very good. Uh, PRESCHOOL children subsequently, uh, who are relatively conservative at age 23, were described as feeling easily victimized, easily offended, indecisive. So indecisive might be the result of having parents who were more authoritarian. And so they aren't used to really having to think through and make their own decisions. Interesting, uh, fearful, rigid, rigid is very interesting because conservatives are consistently found to be more closed-minded, uh, inhibited. And relatively overcontrolled and vulnerable. That was describing preschool children, 3 or 4 years old, who later grew up to be conservatives versus people who are more left leaning, and I find that, I find that very interesting, and you can see these kinds of tendencies pop up in, in your personal life when you're dealing with people that are more conservative or more progressive.

20:33 Ricardo Lopes: And I mean, what do we know about where these psychological differences between conservatives and progressives stem from? Is there any genetic or biological basis to them? I mean, I, I know that a few years ago I read some behavioral genetic studies that, I mean, supposedly pointed to at least some. Heritability, I can't remember exactly the percentage there, but I, I'm not sure whether those studies replicate it or not. Um, I mean, what do we know about that? Is it more of a genetic slash biological, biological thing or more of a, uh, developmental slash environmental thing?

21:21 Keegan Tatum: It's a great question. I love answering this one because it's so easy to fall into the thinking of like, oh, they're just dumber, there's no hope, uh, there's nothing we can do. They're gonna keep making kids and their kids are gonna be dumb and conservative just like them, right? But What we have to understand is, is, is, A, your environment is huge. Your environment is absolutely critical to who you become as a person. And also, your environment is critical in bringing out Some of what is heritable and suppressing some of what you inherit from your parents. So, for example, You might have a genetic predisposition for being more fearful and more anxious about your personal safety. However, if you grow up in an environment where your parents make you feel safe and secure and loved, That genetic predisposition for fear tendencies might not crop up as much as if, for example, you grew up in a um a a highly right wing religious household here in the United States, where they are constantly driving home that the world is very dangerous and that you should fear it. So, it's not just nature or nurture, it's also that nurture can play with nature. Think of nature as like a rough draft, and your experience acts as edits over time. That's a quote from some study, uh, from somebody much more intelligent than me. Um, NOW, there are studies into, for example, prejudice or social dominance orientation, so, Here's how I'll describe social dominance orientation, OK? So, there's the Trump supporters, they are the right-wing authoritarian followers, OK. Those are called right-wing authoritarians. Social dominance orientation is the Trumps, the Putin's, the Netanyahu's of the world, the cult leaders of the world, just your average, uh, dickhead boss, business owner, right? These are people with social dominance orientation where, where Uh, and a lot of them are sociopathic or narcissistic. There's a lot of overlap here, where it's like the point is to have power over people, like, that's how they really get off, that's what drives their ego, it's what makes them feel alive, um. So people with social dominance orientation, um, have been studied, people with right-wing authoritarianism have been studied, and it's been estimated that 40 to 60% of their prejudice is genetic. Or genetic predispositions. So, um, and keep in mind, Nurture interplays with nature. Right. However, when it comes to your political views overall, um, I, I think 40 to 60% is, is probably pretty reasonable based off of what I've read.

24:03 Ricardo Lopes: Mhm. And uh I've watched several of your videos where you talk about brain differences between conservatives and progressives. You talk about uh structures or brain areas like the amygdala, the anterior cingulate cortex, the prefrontal cortex, and I, I mean, to be very honest, uh since I haven't done lots of interviews on the um, the subdivisions of the prefrontal cortex, I, I can no longer remember whether the most relevant subarea, let's say, or subregion is the ventral medial or the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. That's something that I read, uh, many years, that I read about many years ago, but, uh, I mean, what would you say are some of the most robust findings when it comes to that?

24:58 Keegan Tatum: There are 4 key areas. So you've got the amygdala, which is, I'm going to use perhaps outdated terms, but, you know, connect with with the viewers, right? So you're the lowermost like primitive reptile part of our brain, right? The amygdala is what lights up when we have fear. And the amygdala is larger and more active in the brains of conservatives, particularly people on the far right. In fact, if you removed all the far right people, um, like the center right kind of normie conservatives, um, you have them in other countries. In America, we don't really have these people anymore, or they're Democrats actually, I should say, but, um, if you remove the far right, like the center-right conservatives wouldn't look that much different. It's, it's these right-wing authoritarians that have like gigantic amygdala energy. Um, AND yes, the studies do show that a larger and more active amygdala does mean you are experiencing more fear. The amygdala is also, um, one of the players in disgust. So disgust is very important for our survival, you know, you think about when we're hunter-gatherers, it's probably good to know not to eat the rotting carcass. It's probably a pretty good idea, you know what I'm saying? But it can be overactive, and the studies unfortunately show that. Uh, UNSURPRISINGLY, a big factor in anti-gay bigotry and anti-trans bigotry is an oversensitivity to disgust.

26:25 Ricardo Lopes: So, uh, just to be clear, the amygdala processes disgust and fear. Yes,

26:33 Keegan Tatum: the fear is the main one you really wanna think about. Um, YEAH, what's interesting is that a racist, like their amygdala lights up when they see a, a black person's face. Like it's that and and it's, it is so instant. It's, it's, it's very much instinct and reaction and one of the fascinating things about political psychology is I really get why conservatives are called reactionaries. And hopefully by the end of this, you'll really get, they're really reactionary, you know what I'm saying? Whoever came up with that, uh, galaxy brain IQ, um, shall we move on to the next, the next two sections? So, um, so now we move to, to the more like, I'm just gonna call it the middle brains, right? It's not the most advanced thinking structure, we'll get there. But you've got the insular cortex. Insular cortex, there's a study done, really, really interesting study where They looked at activity in the insular cortex and the amygdala, and it predicted your political views 83% with 83% accuracy. In political science for decades, the number one predictor of your political views are what are mommy and daddy's political views. Like 2/3 of the time you adopt the political views of your parents. The uh brain activity study, 83% predictive.

27:49 Ricardo Lopes: I mean 83% is huge in social science. Yeah,

27:55 Keegan Tatum: yeah, yeah, it's like, whoa, dude. So, um, insular cortex, um, what does it do? So the functions of the insular cortex include compassion, empathy. Yeah, I'm pausing for dramatic effect. Uh, TASTE, perception, uh, motor control, self-awareness, and I don't just mean emotional self-awareness, I also mean awareness of your own body state and your own body cues. So, for example, I'm reacting in a fearful way. Um, uh, AND if I have a very active and well developed interior cortex, one can, uh, reasonably assume that I will therefore be better at, at being aware, oh, I'm having a fear response, I'm having an anxiety response, and then being able to process it a little bit better, at least ideally. Um, THE insular cortex also deals with cognitive functioning, interpersonal experience, and awareness of homeostatic emotions such as hunger, pain, and fatigue. Um, IT, it, there's also, so conservatives have been found to be, uh, more intolerant of uncertainty, and that is related to insular cort, uh, insular cortex function, and this region is also vital for theory of mind. Do, do people know what theory of mind is? It's like the ability to like,

29:04 Ricardo Lopes: I, I mean, I mean, on my show we've explored that topic lots of times, but yeah, go, go ahead, go ahead. Give us a summary.

29:12 Keegan Tatum: It's like, uh, it's like empathy. Squared. It's like the, the ability to like, really understand a different person's like perspective, thoughts, goals, feelings, desires, intentions. Yeah, it's really getting a different person, and one of the things that fascinates me is how often conservatives project the way that they think and feel onto other people, and I think it's because literally, Uh, 11 thing is that conservatives typically grow up and live in more insular environments. Um, I shouldn't use the word insular because we're talking about the insular cortex. Oh, well, so, um, they live in more insular environments of only people like them, so they, they, they simply just don't experience as many different perspectives as people on the left. This is part of the reason why rural people are more conservative. Because they just don't come across as many people that are different and social contact with different kinds of people, trans people, gay people, uh, immigrants, uh, anyone with a different skin tone. Oh my God, uh, women, feminists, atheists, you know, coming in contact with these groups of people is a powerful antidote to prejudice, racism, bigotry of all kinds. Um. So that's part of the reason why I think conservatives project uh more frequently, we all do it, but they project more frequently, you know, they, they seem to think that, oh, you liberals, this is a huge talking point in the United States, liberals just want control. They just, that that that's what they want universal healthcare for. They just want to control your healthcare. It's like, dude, you're so projecting here, bro. And part of it is because they, they, they have a reduced theory of mind. Um, AND reduced empathy and, and so they're, they just on on average, do not understand how a different person functions differently, right? Cause it's easy to assume, oh, well, they think the equal and opposite, right? Conservatives might think I'm on team white people or team men, therefore, those, those progressives are on team, you know, brown people and trans people, right? But it's, it's actually a completely different way of thinking where people on the right think in terms of teams and people on the left don't think in terms of teams. So, that's the insular cortex. You wanna move on?

31:17 Ricardo Lopes: Yeah, I mean, I was just going to ask you, uh, and please correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't it the case that also one big psychological difference between, or I guess that we can say it's two different psychological differences, but between conservatives and progressives is that conservatives have much more of a black and white. Kind of thinking and they have more difficulty processing ambiguity. So for example, when it comes to when it comes to social markers, like for example, oh we're if we're talking about gender, oh there's men and there's women, oh trans women, no, no, no, we can't have that. That's too ambiguous for me. It has to be delineated. Between, there can't be any ambiguity there. It has to be delineated between uh you're either a man or you're a woman. There's no, I, I don't want to hear about that. I mean women with uh dicks and men with vagina. I mean, I don't want to hear about any of that. I, I mean, isn't that also part of uh the conservative way of thinking?

32:30 Keegan Tatum: 100%, yes, um, and you can also see the connection between intolerance for ambiguity and being attracted to religion, which provides you answers. Even though they don't have much evidence, but, you know, stories, man, people, people love stories, um, and you're absolutely right. I don't even think I need to add anything, nailed it.

32:50 Ricardo Lopes: Yeah, so, so, and do you think when it comes to how they deal or react to trans people, do you think that that's the main psychological mechanism playing out, or that there are other Other aspects of it, like, for example, uh, when it comes to the amygdala being activated, do they also feel more, for example, disgust or fear toward, uh, queer people even in general.

33:24 Keegan Tatum: So, uh, also there's 3 elements here we're, we're going on. So there's, there's the intolerance for ambiguity and that's absolutely, actually, I've just thought of 1/4. So it's the intolerance of ambiguity part, right? Uh, JUST, just not liking. I have to think about, I just want things to be easy because on average, frankly, conservatives are more mentally lazy. Uh, PREJUDICE, uh, is a more mentally lazy way of thinking, and, uh, so is hierarchy and wanting things to be more black and white as opposed to more nuanced is part of lazy-mindedness. So there's this intolerance of ambiguity is one. Fear of change is another thing, um, just, just cognitive rigidity, not wanting to change your mind. Things are the way that, that, that I've been told, and I don't wanna change. That's, that's element number 2. Element number 3 is, uh, disgust. Now, A lot of people have been trained by religion, for example, or their media to react emotionally in certain ways. It's not reasonable to see some, you know, family of brown people coming from Mexico and to be afraid of that. Like, there's just no reason, but they've been trained to react with fear, and that's the way that a lot of people have been trained to react to trans people and gay people, to react with disgust. However, there is a caveat which is. There's a lot of conservatives that are actually uh gay or bi or into translating and uh

34:51 Ricardo Lopes: we can we can, we can see, we can see that through Pornhub data and stuff like that.

34:57 Keegan Tatum: Yeah, don't look up I think it's lawsuit.org map of uh trans uh adult searches. Don't, don't look that up. You won't want to look up the map of the United States and you definitely won't want to look at what states voted most heavily for Donald Trump. You don't want to look at, you don't want to look at the list of cities where the top ones are all in red states. You don't want to look at that. You keep that hidden. And then there was a 4th 1, but I forgot what it was.

35:24 Ricardo Lopes: 0000, OK, so, uh, OK, so, um, um, I will give you some time to try to recall it, but I mean, is cognitive rigidity something that correlates with cognitive ability? I mean, is it that people who score, for example, lower on IQ, uh, also tend to be more cognitively rigid?

35:50 Keegan Tatum: I, I'll tell you this, the, the open-mindedness, which is obviously very similar to cognitive rigidity, uh, or I guess the opposite, right, um, open-mindedness continually is, uh, correlates with, with higher intelligence. So yeah, and what we also see is that conservatives score higher in cognitive rigidity and lower in cognitive abilities on average, particularly people who are socially conservative, people who are more prejudiced, people who are more, uh, you know. White supremacists, sexists, what have you, those are the people especially that, that rate low in, uh, in, in intelligence measures and, and emotional intelligence measures as well, which I suppose could be the, the fourth element of, of transphobia is just a complete lack of emotional intelligence. Um, IT'S also incredibly selfish. You, you really think about. You know, these transphobes, they want to take away people's rights and people's healthcare and people's freedom of expression because They're so easily triggered. That they value. Not having an emotional reaction that they should be able to control over the rights and health care of other people. It's, it's a level of selfishness that's really Baffling to me.

37:00 Ricardo Lopes: You, you know, it's funny because the conservatives and right wingers and particularly in the US are always or spent years, even a full decade or more, talking about how people on the left and they use terms, they used to have a term like social justice warriors, now it's the wokes. Oh my God, such snowflakes, they get triggered triggered by everything. But you get triggered

37:30 Keegan Tatum: by all this injustice and people being hurt. Meanwhile, a trans person exists.

37:36 Ricardo Lopes: No, yeah, yeah, that's what I was going to say because a while ago on Facebook, um, I tried to come up with a complete list of things that triggers right wingers, and I stopped at 100 and I could have continued, so. You know,

37:57 Keegan Tatum: so doesn't surprise me, man. So doesn't surprise me. And, and, and what's the word we're looking for? Projection.

38:03 Ricardo Lopes: Yeah, yeah, it's like that expression, every accusation is a confession, right, or something like that.

38:13 Keegan Tatum: Especially relevant for people on the right, particularly the far right.

38:16 Ricardo Lopes: Yeah, so, I mean, what do you make of, did you

38:19 Keegan Tatum: want to go to the other, the other differences? Oh,

38:22 Ricardo Lopes: oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, sure, sure.

38:25 Keegan Tatum: So again, uh, we're, we're, we're still in the, in the more middle mammalian kind of brain. I'm sorry to use if, if there's a neuroscience person that's pulling their hair out going, oh my God, we haven't used these terms since whatever time period, just people connect with with these words, all right? Um, SO there's the anterior cingulate cortex, which, uh, has repeatedly been found to be, um, larger and more active in the brains of people on the left. PLAYS a wide role uh of autonomic functions. We're talking regulating blood pressure, we're talking about regulating heart rate, we're talking about rational cognitive functions such as reward anticipation, decision making, empathy and emotion. And here's something that really interested me. This what I did was I looked up a political science or excuse me, a political psychology paper on this. And then I looked up a neurology paper to to really grasp more about what the anterior cingulate cortex is all about, and I found this fascinating, OK? You'll feel, uh, think about conservative men as I say this. Avoidance of painful emotions is often the motivating force in negative behaviors, such as substance abuse, binge eating, and suicide. These actions are taken as part of a maladaptive approach to control, avoid, or regulate painful emotions. And suppressing emotions caused more activity in the amygdala. The ACC is also relevant for emotional intelligence and theory of mind.

39:49 Ricardo Lopes: Uh, IN what ways?

39:51 Keegan Tatum: Um, IT just plays a role in theory of mind and, and emotional intelligence. There, you know, one, our brain is not segmented in a way where it's like this part does the one thing, you know, there are multiple parts that deal with theory of mind. So the prefrontal cortex, which is right here, this is the most, this is, this is the advanced part right here. This is what makes humans so special, all right? That this is what makes the human brain the most complex thing in the universe. To our knowledge. Um, THE prefrontal cortex is, uh, did I emphasize it's the most advanced thinking structure in the brain? Did I do that enough? Um, IT, it is also, uh, larger and more active in the brains of progressives, and one consequence of this is, I remember I made a video on this where People on the OK, there's an experiment, right? And Two groups of people. Uh, ONE, so somebody from 222 people from two different groups of people, they do the same bad thing, OK? They, they, they do the same crime. People on the right. WILL be more punishing towards the person that's not in their group. Then they will be to the person who is in their group for the same offense. And the further left you go, the more egalitarian the response is, and prefrontal cortex activity was the main correlate in this. So the, so the, so the more your prefrontal cortex activity, the less biased you were towards your own group and against the other group. And this is not just Democrats, Republicans. Socialists, conservatives, this is like, you root for a different sports team than we do, right? You root for Milan and I root for uh for for uh uh uh Juventus, you know, whatever it is. Yeah. That's the only thing I know about Italian soccer, so forgive me if I just messed that up.

41:48 Ricardo Lopes: Yeah, I, I mean, maybe Italian people will get offended. I mean, I mean, even I feel a tiny bit offended because I follow the Italian the Italian league, but anyway.

41:59 Keegan Tatum: Oh, listen, I feel it towards San Francisco Giants fans, OK, as a baseball fan who does not root for, I, I totally punish them more, all right, for the same offense.

42:08 Ricardo Lopes: Yeah, yeah, so look, I wanted to ask you, what do you make of average differences between men and women when it comes to their political preferences? Is it really that women tend to be on average more progressive than men? And if so, uh, where does that come from? I mean, is it really more about, uh, nature or nurture, er, and What, how do you, what do you make of, uh, data, I think I read about this data back in like two years ago, 2024 or something, uh, about how political scientists have been noticing that over in recent years in countries like the US, Germany, South Korea, other European countries, uh, there seems to, there seems to be a tendency where Women are moving farther to the left. Younger women particularly, and young men are moving farther to the right. I mean, do you know, I know that these are several different questions, but do you know what might explain this phenomenon?

43:29 Keegan Tatum: Yes, so. Um, ARE women naturally more progressive? It's very easy to fall into the, to the, I guess, evolutionary psychology thinking of like, well, women carry the babies in their bodies, so therefore, they're going to be more connected to other people, and the men killed the animals, so they need to have less empathy, and by carrying the baby in your body, you will have more compassion. Like, it's very easy to fall into that kind of thinking, um, but of course, uh, back in hunter-gatherer times, like, We didn't have the nuclear family, so it was like, yeah, as we see in society today, right, like teachers, uh, daycare workers, like they do a disproportionate amount of the childcare, um, and I'm sure that, um, and I'm, I have no doubt that it was like that during hunter-gatherer times cause it was like that, you know, during medieval times and so on. That's, that's its own thing. So the, so the point is, it's easy to fall in that thinking, but I don't think that's the right way of thinking about it. Women are becoming more feminist, especially, and becoming more left, um, younger women, that is. And, uh, I don't agree with young men are becoming more right. What we're seeing with young men is men are becoming more and more pushed to the extremes than like any other group, like young men in particular, right? Like, there are more young men in the United States who are progressive Bernie voters than there were old men. There are also uh uh uh way fewer like centrists, center right, center left young men. There are if you're on the right and you're a man, and you're under the age of like 30 or 35, you're probably an extreme right winger. Then the level of like, Holocaust denialism amongst Republicans under the age of 30 is staggering. It's, it's, I I I can't remember the statistic. I know it was a majority. I think it was over 60%, but I, I don't think it was over like 80%, but it was a lot are Holocaust deniers. So, and, and a lot of that is the algorithm, a lot of that is, is sexual frustration. Um, IT'S not a sexual frustration is a huge thing that pushes men to the right. One of Hitler's greatest groups of support was sexually frustrated young men. Yeah. So, why is this happening? Well, beyond things like the algorithm. And sexual frustration. For men, there's also this. What do I do now? Like, now I'm not just the provider. Society used to tell me that if I had a job and I provided for my family, that's what it is to be a man. I think there's a lot of men that don't know what being a man is anymore, and they're being You know, reasonably, it's like, hey, how about some emotional intelligence? How about some emotional support, like, take on more of the roles that women had the entire burden of for so long. But also, society and our culture and parents don't treat and train boys to be like that. Um, THERE'S an interesting thing called precarious manhood theory that I'm, I've really been reading a lot on recently, and it's the idea that manhood is, is hard to win and easy to lose, and it's something that's social, it's not biological, it's not simply a puberty or body thing. It's also, uh, it's, it's a very social thing in a way that womanhood is, is seen by culture, not by me, but by culture as being more biological. Oh, when And let's, let's get real, like, a lot of cultures are horribly patriarchal and see womanhood as like, through the male gaze and through like, can you, can you reproduce? Um, BUT, but manhood is something that must constantly be demonstrated publicly. This is why men have to freaking posture so much, they're so annoying about it. Um, SO I think a lot of it is just, you know, the parents of the older generation just haven't trained their boys. To a lot of them. My mom trained me just fine. She parented me just fine to have, you know, emotional intelligence, but a lot of these parents just don't. Instill into into young boys that that they need to be uh more than just stoic, unemotional people who are punished for being feminine. As for why women are young women are so um so much more, more feminist and more left, uh, I mean, part of it is just the internet gives you access to so much more information, and if unless you are in the right wing hate algorithm. You could just look up like whatever information you want. Oh, does, does the minimum wage actually increase unemployment as Fox News keeps saying, as CNN keeps saying as well. Uh, OH, you can just look it up. Oh, no, actually, no. Right? And, and young people are just, our instinct is, well, I'll just look it up, at least a lot of us, a lot more than the older generations. I don't wanna be black and white here, I wanna be nuanced. Um, PART of it is the younger women are, uh, the most educated group of people in the history of humanity and education. As much as I'd love to tell you that it's just knowing more about how the world works, uh, really the number one reason why a college education makes you, um, Among, uh, you know, more progressive, yes, but less right-wing authoritarian, less fascist, less like right-wing conservative, is simply because you're coming into contact with all sorts of different kinds of people and women have been just beating men in the college education game, at least in the United States for over a decade now. Um, AND the, and I think the number one reason is because women are socialized to be more emotionally intelligent. As much as they're, I, I've done multiple videos. Talking about how there are dozens of studies that show that cognitive abilities, AKA intelligence. Are negatively correlate with right wing and prejudiced views. Yes, intelligence, cognitive abilities, the ability to reason, these are very important when it comes to politics, but actually I think the data is beginning to show more and more that it's actually emotional intelligence that is the most important intelligence for your political views, for informing your political views, and, and yes, it's empathy, yes, it's compassion, but it's also self-awareness. It's also being able to recognize. Wow, I'm actually being manipulated by Fox News into fearing something that I don't need to fear. It's recognizing that you are afraid. It's recognizing that you do have anxiety, and it's recognizing the sources of it. And it's, it's, so it's not just understanding other people, but a lot of it is understanding yourself. Why do I actually feel what I feel? Am I feeling shame and afraid for the future? Because, uh, my, my, my dad's job was shipped overseas, and I live in a town where there are very few opportunities, and, uh, the education that I would need to have a middle class life is gonna put me tens of thousands or maybe $100,000 or $200,000 in debt, um, and, and I feel like I have no power, and there's the, the shame of all that. Or is it because those immigrants are coming across the border? And emotional intelligence is what will tell you, uh, the correct answer out of those two. So, it's really, uh, it's not a natural thing, it's that women are socialized from such a young age. To pay more attention to other people, to, to recognize their other people's emotions more, and to care more. Men are, a lot of boys are, are punished on an emotional level, and I'm not just talking about, you know, they're not smacked necessarily, but they're punished on an emotional level. They're made to feel less than, they're, they're made to feel emasculated for showing that they care, because that's feminine, bro, that's gay. And so it trains it out of men.

51:33 Ricardo Lopes: OK, so I, I mean, let me be a little bit provocative here, and I, I, if I say something that, yeah, if I say something you don't agree with, please let me know, and I definitely someday have to try to find an economist, particularly who, I mean, there, there has to be someone out there working on this topic for sure. It's just that I haven't come across them yet, but I mean, when I think about, because you were mentioning, for example, uh, traditional gender roles and the sort of heavy cultural legacy that we have of traditional gender roles and how, how that affects them, than young men in terms of, uh, them in our current economic and political circumstances, not being able to being the sole providers in a household or something like that. Uh, I mean, I, I think that we should also, there's also a very heavy, a very big economic element here to consider because when it comes to, for example, the rise of the manosphere. I mean, for me, at least, it's not a coincidence at all, uh, the timing where uh the the manosphere became a thing because we had the 2008, 2009 economic crisis and then Suddenly, I mean, the labor market was in turmoil and many people who, I mean some of them who got their college degrees, some of them who didn't get their college degrees suddenly had much worse. Professional prospects out there, and I mean that affected both men and women and of course women have dealt with it a little bit better than men because they are outperforming men in terms of academic achievements and all of that. I mean, we could also talk a little bit about that, but focusing on the economics, I think it's Pretty obvious that in an economic context where people start lacking those opportunities where just previously they had them, their parents had them, maybe even their grandparents had them, I mean they wouldn't even have to attend college or university to have, uh, I mean, fairly. A good job in terms of the payment

54:16 Keegan Tatum: and a union manufacturing job with high school.

54:19 Ricardo Lopes: Yeah, sure, and you would be able to support your entire family in the 50s, 60s, even, I mean, early 70s and so on. And I mean that happened and then A little bit afterwards it was when you saw the rise of all of these manosphere figures. I mean, starting with the pickup artists and then the red pill, the black pill, the incels, the muktau, and all of that, and I, and I think it is not a coincidence at all. I mean, it's basically some people, some opportunists, maybe. Some of them sociopaths even who took advantage of there being a huge swath of men with no or very little future prospects to then make them buy into these misogynist women hating narrative and blaming everything. On left wingers, feminists, and so on. And I mean, I, I, one of the reasons why I think that the economics here is very important is because something like that also happened in Japan in the late 80s, early 90s where basically up until their economic crisis. Everyone who went to college to attend or to attend any or to take any any kind of degree, basically, they would have immediate access once they finished university to a stable job in public companies, state owned companies that would be basically for life and they would be able to. Basically support their families, get married, have children and all of that. And it was in the late 80s, early 90s that actually what now is still a phenomenon, there was a break or a break in terms of marriage rates, in terms of people becoming more and more sexless in The fertility rates started to drop. So I mean, what do you think about all of that? I think that the economics here matters a lot when it comes to explaining these, uh, let's say, intergender phenomena, I

56:59 Keegan Tatum: guess. Yes, we need to talk about power, we need to talk about shame, uh, but first, there was a wonderful quote that I think about weekly. Which is those who fear for their future look to the past. People who fear for their future, look to the past, love that quote, makes them more conservative. Uh, FEAR of a dangerous world also makes you more right wing. But, so when you talk about powerlessness, right? So if you are Uh, you know, you, you can't get the education you need necessarily, right, in order to have a middle-class job, um, uh, because of student debt or, or you just didn't, you're just not good at school. Some people just aren't very good at school, right? And it's so much of, of economics is power, right? You have the power to own a home, you have the power to buy a car, you have the power to go on a vacation. These are all freedoms, I suppose, as well, but When you feel powerless in the economy. When you feel less freedom in the economy. Some people are going to try to compensate. By trying to have power over other people. So, hey, listen, you don't have that good paying job. Well, you know, back in the back in, you know, decades ago, at least you would have had power over a woman. I think a lot of it is that. I think a lot of it is, and, and of course there's a white supremacist um angle to this as well. The feeling of powerlessness is very, very common with populists on both the left and the right, just as shame is very, very common. The shame of, oh, I'm not gonna have as good of a life as my parents, and because we live in a capitalist culture, especially here in America, where You know, if you don't have a middle class life, it's cause you suck and you didn't deserve it, and you didn't work hard enough and you weren't good enough, and you have a character flaw, and you suck as a person, uh, you know, lie down and rot, um. And people on the right, because they don't process negative emotions as well as frequently, particularly men. Remember, if you're a man on the right, you are not processing your emotions, you are not processing your pain, you are stuffing it away, you're suppressing, you're bottling it up, and so the shame and powerlessness that you feel. Mhm. It's gonna come out in some very bad ways, right? Whereas people on the left use it as a unifying force. Uh, BY acknowledging. These emotions To create a community that will fight against the powerful, whereas people on the right internalize it, it hurts them, and then they lash out in the form of prejudice. Um, AND this is a, this is a huge source not only of, of anti-feminism but also anti-immigrant views. Not having power over women, I think that's huge. People, young men today, they look at the past and they, and they think, well, you know, I might not have a good job, but at least I could have had power over a woman. And you combine that with sexual frustration and They're stewing in a really bad soup.

1:00:04 Ricardo Lopes: So I mean, I, I want to ask you this, uh, uh, I mean when I first invited you to, to do this interview, it was back in November or December if I remember correctly,

1:00:15 Keegan Tatum: it was back in 2017 as well, wasn't it? It was a while ago.

1:00:19 Ricardo Lopes: Yeah, I mean, but it was definitely before the Epstein files got released, or at least part of the Epstein files got released, and I mean I wanted to ask you about that because I find it really fascinating how for many, many, many, many years. We've listened to right-wing people, particularly people who are also into conspiracy theories, always coming up with these wild conspiracy theories about how there was supposed. A cabal of rich people, of billionaires and international cabal of people doing this or that. I mean, putting 5G chips in vaccines and all of that kind of thing. I mean Pizza gate and all of that, and then, and then suddenly, you, you actually have evidence of such a cabal of. Uh, PDF files, right, and, and, and they decide that, oh no, no, no, I'm going to defend Trump and defend all these people. I mean, what explains that kind of behavior?

1:01:38 Keegan Tatum: There are a few things that immediately come to mind. So the first one is that They've built up so many walls of like, they're just out to attack Trump. It's so much easier for these right-wing authoritarians to deny reality. For them on an ego level than it is to accept that they were wrong, to accept that they were conned, to accept that they were tricked. I think their ego is just too fragile to take it. Unfortunately, this is the history of these far right people, OK. Far right people were still on the Iraq has weapons of mass destruction and that's why George W. Bush invaded them. They were on that train for years after it was proved it was debunked. Same with, you know, Nixon did nothing wrong. Um, THESE people just find it easier to deny facts. And to cling on to their story, I really believe strongly that a lot of humans prefer stories over science, narrative over facts, and they have a narrative, and it's easier to stick with that narrative. I think there's also a bit of a sunk cost fallacy, you know, they've already put so much of their identity into Trump, they can't back down now, and there's also this. I suppose a bit of an inferiority complex, if you really listen to, and I don't know if this is true internationally, but certainly here in the United States. There's a lot of like conservatives feeling inferior, conservatives feeling inferior on a moral level because they know deep down that people on the left care more, and let's get real, we all know deep down that caring more about other people makes you a better person. Um, SO I think there's a bit of a moral inferiority complex and conservatives complain all the time about being condescended to. And so by these damn liberals, and so I think they just can't take the idea that those damn liberals were correct, and I, I just, I just don't think they can handle that on an emotional level. Um, THE other thing is, I don't think conservatives actually care. About child abuse. In the United States, conservatives don't. I think a lot of them just don't, um. You know, that's the kind of hierarchy, they, they like having power over their kids. Just think about how much they advocate for children not having freedom, whether that's Trans kids not having freedom over their own healthcare decisions, um, you know, contraception, um, even not having debt for school lunches. Can you believe how backwards of a society we are that the, that the Republican Party votes repeatedly. To keep debt for school lunches, it's like, it's so appalling. I think that when they were complaining about, oh, the Democrats are part of this cabal of child abusers, I think it's really just a justification for their real belief, which is Democrats bad, their side bad, I don't like them. Here's my excuse, here's my justification, here's my reasoning, and Uh, I think that a lot of conservative hypocrisy. Is in their talking points, but not their actual beliefs. They never say their actual beliefs because their actual beliefs are horrible, and a lot of them are frankly self-blind to what they actually believe, you know, uh it's it's easier to believe on an ego level. That you're anti-abortion because you're such a noble defender of child of of of the unborn of children. Uh, MEANWHILE, you're also voting to, uh, defund children's healthcare, uh, to defund food stamps which disproportionately go to families and with children and children themselves. And of course there's the school lunches that I mentioned, you know, like there's so many examples, like, it's, I,

1:05:19 Ricardo Lopes: I, I mean just the other day I saw a meme, it was very funny, it was like a picture of a newborn. And the text was like, this is the precise stage of development where pro-lifers no longer care about your well-being.

1:05:42 Keegan Tatum: Yep, yep. And so, we know, we see the hypocrisy in them not actually being pro-life, but it's because their actual position. It is a lot deeper and it's, it's submission to their authorities. It's in-group loyalty and it's uh purity slash sanctity and, and really all of their beliefs go back to that. And so if you, if you, if you look at what they actually believe, there's actually not a lot of hypocrisy, because that's what we're getting on, right, is, is how could they be such hypocrites, um. So yeah, I, I think it's, I think it's that.

1:06:16 Ricardo Lopes: Yeah, and it's also because we talked earlier about trans people, it's also a very funny. I mean, uh, I'm, I'm being sort of sarcastic here, right? But it's, it's very funny how Uh, they spent, and, and they're still, uh, I mean that's still an ongoing narrative that they're still saying that or accusing queer people. I mean, nowadays it's mostly trans people, but it used to be also gay people, for example, of being child groomers, but then you have actual. Evidence of people from your side of the political spectrum being child groomers and suddenly you don't care about that and prefer to stick to your BS narrative about a queer and LGBTQ plus people being child groomers.

1:07:14 Keegan Tatum: But you notice like, I'm not sure, and, and I don't know how unique this is to America, but a lot of American conservatives don't have like true beliefs. Like, a lot of it is just excuses. It's they don't like gay and trans people, and, and somebody gave them an excuse, they gave them a talking point to latch onto, and they did it because that's a lot easier than just saying, well, I don't like them cause they're gay, because in America there's this weird thing where like, we all know that if you're a bigot, you're a worse person. So, we don't, so like a lot of bigots don't want to admit that they're bigots, mostly to themselves. They don't wanna see themselves, people don't wanna see themselves as bad people, they wanna see themselves as good people. And so, if you can latch onto an excuse that justifies the feelings you already had. A lot of people are gonna take that convenient excuse.

1:08:13 Ricardo Lopes: Yeah, it's like when they make, for example, a racist remark and someone points the finger at them and says, You're a racist, and then they, they're like, Oh my God, you called me a racist. I'm so offended. Yeah, what about the black person you attacked earlier? I mean, Which one is, is worse, is like, uh, people being victims of racism or you being called a racist when you're actually a racist?

1:08:45 Keegan Tatum: Cause they're reactionary and they're just thinking about their own selfish emotional reaction. But this also gets back to like, do they actually believe in anything? Like, they, they seem to think a lot of like, Oh, you're a racist, like, oh, they're just name calling. But they said that really seems to be their reaction. I actually see this behavior in narcissists, like when you call them out on their shit. They seem to just think it's just name-calling meant to insult them, and they don't understand, like, no, this is a reflection of This part of your character and this part of your character is bad. Um, AND then this comes to emotional intelligence, because being able to process these kinds of negative feelings and to be able to reasonably respond to them and to grow from them are all part of emotional intelligence, and again, emotional intelligence is a top predictor of your political views.

1:09:36 Ricardo Lopes: Yeah, so, uh, I mean we have around 10 more minutes, so let me just ask you about one last topic then. I mean, there's. Uh, ALSO this sort of conspiracy theory going around. I mean, uh, mostly in the US, but unfortunately there are also people here who perhaps, um, tune in too much into, uh, conservative podcasts, Americans, American conservative podcasts, and then the

1:10:10 Keegan Tatum: Portuguese people are copying our American stupidity.

1:10:13 Ricardo Lopes: Uh YES, yes, we're

1:10:15 Keegan Tatum: export this so it's one of our biggest exports is dumb. And,

1:10:21 Ricardo Lopes: yeah, but, yeah, but unfortunately that's definitely the case, even when it doesn't apply at all to our socio-cultural context. But anyway, uh I mean there's this sort of narrative conspiracy theory that we've been hearing a lot in recent years about how, oh my God, universal. Universities, academia has been taken over by the wokes, by left-wing radicals, by the radical left, and I mean just recently I released an interview with Michael Mann, one of the authors of Science Under Siege, because he talks about what are the actual threats, real threats to science, like, uh, for example, the plutocrats and right wingers. Um, I mean, removing, uh, university, um, I, I mean lowering investment in universities and all of that, uh, and then I, I said, so look, there's this, uh, I guess alternative theory coming from the right about the walks and all of that, and he told me about how that's just complete nonsense, but I mean, if there's More, uh, liberals or progressives in university, uh, yes, why is that the case then?

1:11:50 Keegan Tatum: So there, there's like I have so much to say on this. OK, so, so first off, conservatives just aren't as interested in studying people. They're just not as interested in people. You can see it in their political views. I just don't think this is particularly. Controversial.

1:12:07 Ricardo Lopes: I mean, I mean they're not even, they're not even that interested in intellectual stuff or at least not as, not at the level of progressives, I mean, because um, I, I was, I, I mean, go ahead, I, I have an idea in mind, but suddenly it slipped my mind, so maybe I will remember it later.

1:12:27 Keegan Tatum: Well, thank God you got somebody else on here to take up the space of talking, you know. Um, SO, so conservatives are, are, in the words of George Carlin, my, one of my most influential people ever, uh, conservatives are interested in stuff, in property, in owning things, and people on the left are interested in people. And I think that that comes through in what we study. If you're in academia, you had to make it beyond just the undergraduate level, you had to really know your shit. And if you're going through that point, you're probably not a right winger. If you're willing to go that far in education on the right, you're more likely to go into business, for example, or, or something more applied. Um, SO, that's one thing. The second thing is, isn't it so illogical? It's like, OK, so the people that study this stuff for a living, the people that do the research, the people that know more about a topic. THAN anyone else that if all of these experts Generally speaking, agree on a cluster of ideas and conclusions. They're probably right. If you had 5 doctors, OK, and they all came back with the same diagnosis, you dumb conservative, you would believe them. Right? If you had 5 plumbers coming to your house and going, oh yeah, this is the problem with your pipes, you would believe them, but because they start from like the, the, the fragile ego position of, I can't handle being wrong, they have to do these mental gymnastics, there's some conspiracy. OK. If there's a conspiracy that and all these studies are just made up, then why is it that these right-wing think tanks don't glob onto anyone who is um conservative, who otherwise would be in academia, but, you know, they're kept out by this conspiracy. Why don't they just get those people and why don't they just make up a ton of their own studies? Yep. Why don't they debunk all of the all of the progressive studies? OK, they can't because that's where the facts are. This is like denying like, oh yeah, all those mathematicians, Ricardo, do you know that all these math liberal mathematicians, they all think 2 + 2 equals 4. Can you believe that fucking woke, you know, it's like it's so, it's so a lot, it's so, it's so Dunning Kruger effect, it's so overestimating your own abilities when you're incompetent and short, um, and of course another reason, and, and I'll just go right back to it, which is another reason why academia is more left leaning is because when you come into contact with different groups of people from different countries, different, uh, ethnicities, races, genders. Backgrounds, religions, whatever, countries of origin, you're less likely to be bigoted, and bigotry is foundational to right-wing thinking, and I, and I, and I know. That not everyone on the right is necessarily racist or sexist, or homophobic or transphobic. Um, BUT you know what the kind of bigotry you're missing? Is anti-poor bigotry. This is a bigotry that gets no discussion whatsoever, but if you are a conservative, You are a bigot towards at least one of those groups, poor people, women. Different races or or ethnicities or or LGBT people. You, you are a bigot in one of those respects. And, and being around different kinds of people just totally reduces your bigotry. This is called social contact theory. It is one of the most studied things, maybe the most studied thing in social psychology, of which political psychology is like one branch of social psychology.

1:16:13 Ricardo Lopes: No, I remember that what I was going to say. I mean, I find it very funny how there's these, and this, it's just a select group of people who like to expose their grievances online and in public spaces. I mean this sort of Um, underperforming academics who have these sort of racist, misogynist, transphobic ideas, and then they decide to band together and go on podcasts and on social media and even writing entire books about how, oh my God, they were the victims of the woke mob, they were the victims. They were oppressed by the progressives, by the liberals, by the radical left, by the wokes when they were in academia and they had to leave or they were fired because they couldn't just express their high level ideas or they couldn't just publish their BS in peer reviewed papers because no one took it seriously and then Oh, and then there are also these college dropouts who attended college, and then, oh my God, they were exposed to. Ideas that were different from the ones they got, they got from their parents, from their conservative communities. Oh my God, the drama, the horror, what's happening here?

1:17:51 Keegan Tatum: The. The, the, the outrage from that Oklahoma student who got the F on the paper, and it's like if you actually read it, it's like horribly written, it's like,

1:18:01 Ricardo Lopes: I mean, I mean, yeah, I was going to say that there are probably uh children in elementary school that would have written a a more coherent papers, you know, that was just complete uh crap, to be honest. Yeah, but, but, but I mean, but I mean there's this, it, it's just that what I see is that many of those people, first of all, are not willing to be open to new ideas. Second of all, second of all, they accuse. Wokes, radical leftists, liberals, whatever they call them, of not being willing to discuss certain ideas, but it's them who are not willing to discuss ideas different from their own ideas. And then when it comes to particularly Um, former academics who have now gone a grievance trip, let's say on social media podcasts and so on, uh,

1:19:11 Keegan Tatum: it's Jordan Peterson syndrome,

1:19:13 Ricardo Lopes: yeah, it's because. I mean, if you look at even the, even their own version of the story. It's, it's pretty obvious that it was them who were, were on the wrong because they were just bad academics and they're just bad at their job. I mean, I mean they were unprofessional, so why shouldn't they have been fired even more so when some of them. Were admonished by their own, uh, I, I, I don't know, their own administrators or someone like that about how they were constantly going on social media and making racist, misogynist, transphobic posts, and then they just decided to go on with it. I mean, come on,

1:20:11 Keegan Tatum: the right is all about personal responsibility.

1:20:17 Ricardo Lopes: I, I mean, I mean, look, we, I,

1:20:20 Keegan Tatum: we end it right there.

1:20:21 Ricardo Lopes: Uh, NO, I mean, I guess that's a great point went on also because I, I'm looking at the time and I know that you have to go, so maybe someday we, we can, uh, do a follow up to this because I could go on for another 3 hours, I guess. But, but, but look, I'm going to, as I said at the beginning, I'm going to leave, uh, a link, links to your TikTok. I'm going to add you as a collaborator on YouTube and all of that, so. Uh, I mean, people that are watching or, or that will be watching or listening to us, please go and check Keegan's, uh, YouTube channel and TikTok because they are really great and thank you so much for doing this,

1:21:04 Keegan Tatum: man. Hey, thanks for having me on, Ricardo. I hope you have a good rest of your evening over on the other side of the world. By the way, can I ask where, where, where in Portugal do you live? You know what, we'll do this after this. We'll, we'll have a little chat after the recording stops.

1:21:18 Ricardo Lopes: Hi guys, thank you for watching this interview until the end. If you liked it, please share it, leave a like and hit the subscription button. The show is brought to you by Enlights, Learning and Development done differently. Check their website at lights.com and also please consider supporting the show on Patreon or PayPal. I would also like to give a huge thank you to my main patrons and PayPal supporters, Perergo Larsson, Jerry Mulleran, Frederick Sundo, Bernard Seaz Olaf, Alex, Adam Cassel, Matthew Whittingberrd, Arnaud Wolf, Tim Hollis, Eric Elena, John Connors, Philip Forrest Connolly. Then Dmitri Robert Windegerru Inai Zu Mark Nevs, Colin Holbrookfield, Governor, Michel Stormir, Samuel Andre, Francis Forti Agnun, Svergoo, and Hal Herzognon, Michel Jonathan Labrarinth, John Yardston, and Samuel Cerri, Hines, Mark Smith, John Ware, Tom Hammel, Sardusran, David Sloane Wilson, Yasilla Dezara Romain Roach, Diego Londono Correa. Yannik Punter DaRosmani, Charlotte Blis, Nicole Barbaro, Adam Hunt, Pavlostazevski, Alec Baka Madison, Gary G. Alman, Semov, Zal Adrian Yei Poltontin, John Barboza, Julian Price, Edward Hall, Edin Bronner, Douglas Fry, Franco Bartolotti, Gabriel P Scortez or Suliliski, Scott Zachary Fish, Tim Duffyanny Smith, and Wisman. Daniel Friedman, William Buckner, Paul Georg Jarno, Luke Lovai, Georgius Theophannus, Chris Williamson, Peter Wolozin, David Williams, Dio Costa, Anton Ericsson, Charles Murray, Alex Shaw, Marie Martinez, Coralli Chevalier, Bangalore atheists, Larry D. Lee Jr. Old Eringbon. Esterri, Michael Bailey, then Spurber, Robert Grassy, Zigoren, Jeff McMahon, Jake Zul, Barnabas Raddix, Mark Kempel, Thomas Dovner, Luke Neeson, Chris Story, Kimberly Johnson, Benjamin Galbert, Jessica Nowicki, Linda Brendan, Nicholas Carlson, Ismael Bensleyman. George Ekoriati, Valentine Steinmann, Per Crawley, Kate Van Goler, Alexander Obert, Liam Dunaway, BR, Massoud Ali Mohammadi, Perpendicular, Jannes Hetner, Ursula Guinov, Gregory Hastings, David Pinsov, Sean Nelson, Mike Levin, and Jos Necht. A special thanks to my producers Iar Webb, Jim Frank Lucas Stink, Tom Vanneden, Bernardine Curtis Dixon, Benedict Mueller, Thomas Trumbull, Catherine and Patrick Tobin, John Carlomon Negro, Al Nick Cortiz and Nick Golden, and to my executive producers, Matthew Lavender, Sergio Quadrian, Bogdan Kanis, and Rosie. Thank you for all.