Decoding The Gurus patreon

Amanda Montell Interview Early Release

🕑 Added 2021-06-21 03:11:37 +0000 UTC

Comments

Christopher Kavanagh

Ah dear! Send us DM with email address and we will send personal link.

DavidtheG

For some reason, that link doesn’t work for me. I’ve tried both clicking it and copying and pasting into the podcast app.

Emma

Loved this episode. As soon as it finished i immediately purchased 'cultish' from audible!

Christopher Kavanagh

Good points!!!

Paul Bowman

Great ep. Just on the language/metaphor thing. It may seem pedantic, but Brett's "like playing Russian Roulette with a loaded gun", really gets my goat. You can't play Russian Roulette with an UNloaded gun. By definition, if you're playing Russian Roulette, the gun is loaded. Adding "...with a LOADED GUN" on the end of the sentence is a logical redundancy (if not even fallacious, in the implication that there's any other way). The only reason for adding it, is as an emotional intensifier. Which is symptomatic of the whole discursive style. Brett and Heather present their dialogue as being in a scientific, rationalist mode, and then proceed to use every emotional manipulation trick in the book. But with judicious use of certain stock phrases and weasel words, still manage to convince their audience that they're still in the presented mode. It's irritating.

Carolyn Reeves

Totally. They make my skin crawl when used to dodge scrutiny or influence people through the power of suggestion.

Christopher Kavanagh

I agree with you and Amanda that good metaphors are often extremely useful but it’s just notable how often the gurus we look at rely on them and end up often fixating on them. Bret didn’t chose a Russian Roulette metaphor for vaccines by random and Jordan Peterson’s entire philosophy practically hinges on indulgent metaphors.

Carolyn Reeves

Thanks for this! I found the conversation around metaphor intriguing. Metaphor (and any language tool that emphasizes a concept or meaning via extrapolation/ contextual reframing) helps me a lot in terms of general grokking- and I’ve (anecdotally) heard that this is the case for certain neurotypes. I’ll sometimes use metaphor to help two people understand each other when doing mediation work. So, I think it’s powerful- not just as a literary device, but as a communication and comprehension tool. But, as you discussed with Amanda, metaphors can certainly be used irresponsibly. The vagueness, the blurred edges, the lack of precision and room for interpretation makes metaphor a useful tool for those bad gurus. I can’t see myself disavowing metaphor, but I will be extra vigilant of ethical integrity around those porous borders of meaning. Thanks for bringing my attention to the importance of… using metaphors responsibly? Gotta weed out those sprouts of guru tendency 🌱😆