[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign.
[00:00:07] Speaker B: We'll wrap there and get right into our. Think fast.
This time I want to talk about something that was very controversial, especially in the political right.
This is the idea of platforming. Platforming is giving somebody a microphone and letting them talk. And the idea of platforming people who are objectionable. This really has been a debate over the last few years, but it sparked especially a few days ago with Tucker Carlson, one of the biggest media voices in the world, interviewing a young guy named Nick Fuentes. Nick Fuentes is.
I don't know how you even describe him.
He'd say white nationalist, but his name's Fuentes. So I don't know if it's that. I mean, like there's the racial element, there's, you know, strong right wing politics sometimes. But he's all over the map. He's very hard to nail down, but very offensive.
[00:00:54] Speaker C: I says very inflammatory things.
[00:00:56] Speaker B: Inflammatory kind of guy. Yeah. And so it was Tucker Carlson, why are you talking to this guy? A few big podcasts have had him on recently. Like why let him have a microphone? And that question of platforming. Well, that question of platforming also comes into the churches of Christ too, and in Christian circles.
Why are you talking to so and so? Why do you have so and so on your podcast? So I wanted to get you guys thoughts on that, of talking to publicly, giving a voice to or a microphone, an amplification system to people that might be objectionable like that, whether politically, religiously, whatever the case may be.
[00:01:33] Speaker C: I'm very curious to hear y' all's yalls thoughts on this.
Obviously, Andrew Tate is another one that comes to mind of somebody who, I don't think. I don't know if Tucker had him on or not, but he was making the podcast rounds six, eight months ago or so, kind of on everybody's podcast. But yeah, I think your application to the church is interesting here. So two things come to mind for me. The first is generally I am a marketplace of ideas, you know, kind of free marketplace of ideas. Like let. If people want to share things, even if they're stupid, like they need to, you know.
[00:02:04] Speaker B: Sure.
[00:02:04] Speaker C: Like free speech and everything. Right. But the question obviously of like, should that person be, like you said, given a mic and have their. Have their voice amplified?
Um, I think of Rogan and how Rogan kind of just will have anybody on his podcast, but he will kind of dissect them, you know, kind of dissect what they have to say. And he won't just base. It's not for them. It's not like a free here, talk about what you know, your book or talk about your thing for the next three hours. No, Rogan's like kind of asking them questions and kind of pushing back a little bit on things here and there. And like, you know, well, let me go deeper on that or kind of cross examine to me, if you're, you know, as far as platforming somebody who is, quote unquote objection or somebody who you might disagree with. I think overall I am a fan of, again, kind of the free marketplace of ideas of letting you know, of letting somebody come on your podcast who you know you're going to disagree with. Because I think another problem you can run into is an echo chamber. You only have people you talk to who you fully agree with. Any pushback is going to be very, very minor. And so no new ideas circulate. And there's the argument of like, well, this person's ideas are terrible, so should they be circulating?
I get that. But at the same time, again, I think the horrible ideas should speak for themselves. Like, I think those horrible ideas should be able to get out and for people to hear, like, oh, terrible idea, let's not go with that, you know what I mean, versus suppressing the, you know, the bad ideas or whatever it is so, you know, you apply it to the church.
I don't think we should shut down questioning. I don't think we should shut down, you know, and this is, I guess, the point I'm getting out of, like the podcast example. If you have somebody you know on your podcast who you think says something that's false and incorrect, that's where you should really push back on that and cross examine and say, well, I don't think you're correct and here's why. Go to the Bible. And again, like, I would think, imagine like if we had a Calvinist on our podcast, something as a guest, and we were talking about Calvinism. I think I'm in favor of the discussion. I'm in favor of us talking to that individual about Calvinism. What I wouldn't be okay with is if we just all kind of shook hands afterwards. Well, we're basically all on the same team and you know, like, you kind of have to make it clear that's not the case. But again, Rogan style, you push back, you say, well, I don't think you're correct and here's why. But the discussion was out there, right? The ideas were out there and you can let the public decide which. Which one. Because obviously we would believe that the Bible for more firmly supports our position. Again, just to use the example of Calvinism, we believe that the Bible would, you know, speak against Calvinism, man, let the Bible speak for itself. So I'm kind of saying a lot here, but I guess my point is, like, I think if the. If it comes down to just completely suppress all the bad ideas so that no bad ideas get out there, I would rather let the bad ideas get out there and let the public decide or, you know, understand, oh, wow, that's really bad idea. You know, whether it's Fuentes or whether it's somebody in the Church of Christ who, you know, has a really bad take on something like, I think that needs to speak for itself, Joe.
[00:04:53] Speaker A: That's the struggle is what is our duty as the platformers to our listeners.
You look at somebody like Andrew Tate, there's a lot of young guys that listen to him that don't have the internal mechanism to go, man, that's garbage.
Like, that's really stupid. They take a lot of this and go, well, that seems like. Seems legit to me because they have no foundation upon which to build. And that's the scary thing is. I'm with you, Will. I mean, I don't have a problem with it, by and large, but I think that's the question you have to answer is how much do we owe our listeners to kind of protect them from some of these things versus, I mean, if somebody wanted to come on this podcast and start spewing Nazi stuff or spewing, you know, to the exact opposite, which actually is kind of the horseshoe thing, as you get closer on the extreme liberal end of things, and, you know, you get into all sorts of craziness.
Okay, if somebody came on like that, I like to think I'm with you. I'd like to think that our listeners would be able to be like, that's garbage. And for sure we would push back. And I think that can be very, very helpful. On the other hand, you know, what if.
Do we have to protect those who listen to it and go, wow, what a great idea.
If they. The way I look at it is if they're gonna do that based off of just hearing somebody talk about it without doing any research, they. We probably didn't have them in the first place. On the other hand, you could also get out some fairly inflammatory things, especially from Nick Fuentes, guys like that, some fairly inflammatory things to people that may not have the internal mechanism to know right from wrong or to know the difference. And so they take and run with it is that my duty. Am I wrong for having somebody listen and then get swayed by somebody head on? I don't know. I don't know if I'd be implicated as the platformer. So it's a. I know I'm not adding much to it, but I think that's kind of the rub there. That's the point of the story.
[00:06:33] Speaker C: Well, to me, though, that there's several examples that I could use for this about certain episode topics that we've had before that basically people have told us, like, you know, you're probably right, but man, that's really gonna, you know, harm the listeners. Like, okay, well, are we right or not? But the other example, Joe, we've been corrected before. You know, preaching, you know, hey, maybe, you know, if you're going to use a Francis chan quote or C.S. lewis quote, hey, those. Those guys aren't. Aren't New Testament Christians, so don't use their name. Somebody might go look up their stuff.
I kind of roll my eyes at that because it's like you, you know, it's not my responsibility to make sure that you can decipher. You know what. You know what I mean? Like, I'm using a quote or I'm using an illustration. So that's kind of where my mind went with that. And I know you're not necessarily.
[00:07:16] Speaker A: Well, I think it's various degrees, but like, various levels of that. Right? Like, there's the I. Qu. Francis Chan versus We had Francis Chan come speak at the church. Like, whoa, you know, two different things type of thing. One is I absolutely platformed him. And if he says something. But the, you know, who knows? I don't know where I fall on that. I think I'm more on, like, as crazy as it sounds as I'm kind of stealing the other side, I'm more on your side of it, which is, by and large, I'm perfectly fine with that. If we had a Baptist guy on our podcast or whatever, I wouldn't have as much a problem because, you know, we'd push back on certain things. But he also may have some really good ideas in areas that have nothing to do with salvation, areas that have nothing to do with instruments and worship or something. If we got into those, yeah, we'd stand up for what we believe. I don't have a problem platforming that guy. Okay, well, if we platform a Nazi, you know, a literal Nazi or platform somebody who is a critical race or a critical theory proponent, you know, I don't know, do I really want that person to get out there versus somebody who's a lot closer aligned to us, who just happens to believe a little bit differently on certain things.
I don't know, I'm, I think I'd still do it and still push back. That is the key that Rogan gets so right is he's willing to push back and say, absolutely not. You have to have that if you're going to platform certain people. But Jack, I don't know, me and Will are going back and forth. I'm really curious your thoughts on this.
[00:08:33] Speaker B: The, the overarching thing in all of this is like, who it's okay to talk to. And even like there are people that you think it's okay to talk to, even though you disagree with them, but there are people that I would just would not talk to. We're not going to have an LG advocate on this podcast drag or something, right? Yeah. And so, well, people would say, well then Fuentes should fit into something like that with, with his abhorrent things that he said and things like that. Well, principle number one, the left, the godless people, people with no morals whatever, they don't get to set the discourse for anything of who's allowed. I mean, the kind of people they allow a microphone are insane. So I don't care about their judgments. That doesn't mean there's no judgment at all. Like there's, there's internal judgments you have to exercise and there's certain people you just shouldn't talk to.
And there's this whole concept of no enemies on the right and not, you know, like, if they're a teammate against the progressive left, then it's okay to talk to them in the political sense. And some people have that sense in Christianity of like, man, if they're on this, if they're generally on the same side as me, I'll talk to them.
And I don't know, I think of like Caleb Robertson has those long form conversations and he's talked to some real, at least one really progressive guy. And so I asked him about that. I was like, not that I have a problem with you doing it, but what's kind of your view on that? He's like, look, everybody knows I disagree with the guy. I don't have a problem telling him to his face. I disagree with him and the reasons why I disagree with him. And now that that's out there, I can ask him about his views on things, ask him about other things, talking in different directions. I'm not gonna let him get on and explain to People why you should have a woman preacher or whatever. That's not the point of that conversation.
And I think that makes sense. And so, you know, within the bounds, there should be people to your right and to your left in both senses that you can talk to, but there should be a boundary on both of those where you're like, all right, that's enough. And so that's the difficulty is where is the boundary? Right, right. And does Nick Fuentes fit in that? Because the other side of this conversation we haven't really touched is one of the worst things you can do is make somebody untouchable, because that makes people curious about them, especially young men or whatever. Like, oh, well, why don't you.
[00:10:48] Speaker C: Why is he blacklisted?
[00:10:49] Speaker B: Yeah. And they'll go. And as with Andrew Tate and with Nick Fuentes, they say some things that other people are too scared to say that are right.
And as I told you guys before we got on, like, it's a spit out the bone situation where there's this much meat, and most of it is you got to spit out. But if a young person hears that meat and they go, I can't get that meat anywhere else, I'm going to him, they're going to swallow some bones. And so, like, talking to them so that you can expose them and say, look, I agree with them on the things they get right, but also, I'm gonna push back on the big red flags there. I think that's a healthy thing to do. As long as, as you say, kind of the Rogan style, not just bringing them on, like, all right, everything you say, I'm good with that.
That's kind of the problem. And so, I don't know. Public disagreement is a very good thing.
[00:11:32] Speaker C: Right.
[00:11:33] Speaker B: And, you know, there's a place for public condemnation of, as I said, some people you just don't need to talk to, but those are the people that don't say anything.
[00:11:41] Speaker A: Right.
[00:11:42] Speaker B: You know, and somebody who says a little bit, right, okay. That's where you can have those disagreeable conversations kind of thing. So it's a really challenging thing of who you should and shouldn't talk to. Nick Fuente is obviously not going to be a guest on Think Deeper podcast anytime soon. So you don't. You don't have to worry about that.
But I don't know, it's. It's a very interesting thing. And within Christianity, to bring it back to that, to finish more conversation is very good. We talked to Marco Arroyo about that. You know, like, getting each other talking, not canceling people over one disagreement, that's a very healthy thing and I think that's something for us to pursue within reason.
So that's, that's kind of my thoughts. You guys got anything else before we wrap?
[00:12:22] Speaker A: If everybody's cancelable, if everybody's canceled, then.
[00:12:25] Speaker B: Oh, no, he's gonna do the line.
[00:12:27] Speaker A: Nobody's canceled. No, that's, that's where we, you know, we got to consider that is if you won't talk to anybody across the aisle, you know, or in that circle, outside of your small little circle.
That's where we have the echo chamber. It's the echo chamber and you are. I think that's why the church is in dire straits in some ways, is we won't talk to anybody else. It's kind of the echo chamber and we got to be thinking about that. So. Sorry. You wrapped it really well. I shouldn't have said anything, but. No, it's.
[00:12:56] Speaker B: Yeah, way to go. No, you're good.
Alright, that's gonna wrap us for this week. As always, this is the Think Fast. If you're catching this, tune in for the episode on Monday, which is about the SNAP EBT defunding and where that's going and charity and the church's duty. If you've got the whole episode, thanks for listening. Join us on the deep
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I need to look at the calendar, one side of Thanksgiving or the other.
So very, very big episode approaching for us. We want to thank everybody who's been along for the ride, especially those who tell us, yeah, I got on, you know, and I've gone back and listened to all of them. That's a lot of hours worth of talking, so that's always really neat to hear. So keep an eye out for that. We'll be back with the next one and we'll talk to you.
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