[Shaun]
Hello everyone.
Now then, what would you say if I told you,
that I knew of a very generous Nigerian prince,
who needed your help, to move his vast riches out of his country?
Or what if I told you, I could sell you a magic brain pill, that will make you smarter?
Or, how about this one:
What if I told you, that I could teach you an entire college course, in just five minutes?
[Dennis Prager]
How would you like to learn a lot,
in a short amount of time?
A major infusion of knowledge in, say, five minutes?
And what if those five minutes distilled the best ideas,
from some of the best minds in the world?
Just as a shot of espresso boosts your energy,
shot of Prager University boosts your brain.
Because not only will you have more knowledge,
you will have more wisdom.
You think I'm exaggerating?
There's an easy way to find out!
Just watch a course.
[Shaun] That is Dennis Prager there,
in a video titled "Welcome: Prager University".
That's right - Prager University, is an online... "university".
Now, I know it looks like just a YouTube channel, and not a university.
But it is, it is a university.
And I know the, quote, "courses" look like YouTube videos, but they're not.
They're real university courses, taught by some of the, quote "best minds in the world."
You can tell this, because they come with study guides.
For example, here's the study guide
for the video "Feminism 2.0",
which has sections to be filled in, during and after watching the video, discussion and review questions;
and a quiz with questions, like:
"It is easy for feminists to forget that men:
a. Gave women the right to vote.
b. Gave up their monopoly on political power.
c. Invented birth control.
and d. All of the above."
Their answer, of course, being "all of the above".
Now, the horrible reality suggested by these study guides, is that there is someone, somewhere in the world,
homeschooling their children, using these videos,
and like, quizzing them on them afterwards.
Which, you know, doesn't even bear thinking about really, does it.
So, okay, Prager University is not a university.
It's not an academic institution of any kind, actually.
It is a YouTube channel, created by conservative talk-show host Dennis Prager,
and funded by the billionaire businessmen, the Wilks brothers -
Who got rich by creating a hydraulic fracking company, called Frac Tech. Seriously.
So when you see PragerU videos, with titles like
"Why You Should Love Fossil Fuel"... well, that's why.
Now, the Wilks brothers also donate huge amounts of money to conservative politicians.
Such as, when they gave fifteen million dollars to a super PAC, backing Ted Cruz in 2015.
So, when you see PragerU videos with titles like
"Money in Politics: What's the Problem?"
Well, that's why.
Now, I feel like I've came out a little harshly here.
It would be unfair at this point,
to just dismiss the whole channel
as a biased, conservative fantasy project,
funded by two oil billionaires.
So, let's back up a bit.
Why am I talking about PragerU today?
Well, you - like me - may have noticed PragerU's videos, being promoted all over YouTube
including sometimes on videos of mine, and my lefty pals.
Now, that's because PragerU has an enormous annual budget,
and spends a large proportion of that on advertising itself.
Anyway, I had mostly ignored these advertisements, until fairly recently,
when via a series of tragic misclicks, I ended up on this video:
"Who Needs Feminism?", featuring speaker Andrew Clavin,
which begins with Andrew Clavin,
stating "I am an anti-feminist."
And let me show you what I saw after that.
[Andrew Clavin] Feminism denigrates masculinity in men, by relentlessly calling us toxic for our flaws,
rather than appreciating our natural qualities,
of energy, risk-taking and leadership.
But it also denigrates femininity in women,
working to replace most women's commitment to relationship and child-rearing,
with male obsessions, such as career status and strength.
What's the result?
Take a look at the quintessential feminist icon,
Rosie The Riveter, flexing her muscle.
The truth is, any man of the same size and fitness,
can make a bigger, stronger muscle than Rosie can."
[Shaun]
Now, I feel, like I could write a whole dissertation,
on the problems with these two paragraphs here.
But I'll just read through them now quickly,
and try to give you the short version.
So, here we go.
"Feminism denigrates masculinity in men."
Now, hold on. Here's the first problem.
No, it doesn't. "Feminism" doesn't do anything independently.
It's not a monster, that lives in a cave somewhere, plotting against men.
You know, one person calling themselves a feminist might do that,
but other people calling themselves feminists will not.
Feminism is an idea, with different interpretations.
It has no individual agency of its own.
And there's no "supreme leader" of feminism,
who sets the Official Feminism Agenda™.
Anyway... sorry. Short version, right?
"Feminism denigrates masculinity in men,
by relentlessly calling us "toxic" for our flaws,
rather than appreciating our natural qualities,
of energy, risk-taking and leadership."
So, you know: "Woe is me! People are saying men are bad, instead of saying they're good." How unfair.
"But it also denigrates femininity in women,
working to replace most women's commitment to relationship and child-rearing
with male obsessions, such as career status and strength."
Now, again: feminism doesn't actually do either of those things.
What most feminists would probably take issue with, in these two sentences,
is Andrew Clavin claiming [that] abstract concepts,
like energy, are a natural quality of just one sex.
Which doesn't really make any sense,
but whatever. Let's get to the fun bit here.
Now then, what's all this about?
"What's the result?"
Of what, feminism?
Feminism's denigration of the sexes, I guess.
So okay, the result of that is... Rosie the Riveter, flexing her muscle there.
But the truth is... the truth is, men have bigger muscles than the cartoon lady,
and could beat her at an arm wrestling competition,
should one happen to break out, I suppose.
So the consequence of this malicious,
sentient form of feminism,
is that women today can be misled by
World War II-era, inspirational work posters;
into falsely believing, that they could beat men in an arm wrestling competition.
Is that right, there? Have I got that?
So anyway, since PragerU brought it up,
let's talk about Rosie the Riveter.
Now, Rosie the Riveter was a World War II cultural icon.
Not designed, you might be surprised to hear,
to convey women's muscular superiority to men.
But as one of many government morale-boosting campaigns, aimed at encouraging women in the workforce,
particularly, women working in what were traditionally considered male roles.
Now, "why" you might ask, "did the government want to encourage women to join the workforce?
Was it as part of some evil feminist campaign,
to attack masculinity and erode femininity?"
Well, no. You see, during World War II there was a labor shortage, because a lot of the men had been conscripted into the Armed Forces.
And so increasingly, job openings in factories and the likes, were filled by women.
Women were encouraged to join the work force, to aid the war efforts.
That's why that was happening. You know,
"we can do it", as in "win the War"!
Not like, "overthrow men with our superior biceps", or something.
And I would have liked to see Andrew Clavin,
try to defend his ideas during World War II.
"You know, women shouldn't be working in factories. That's a male job!
They should be home, looking after the kids, and being all feminine."
And it's like... stop whining, Andrew! We've gotta beat the Nazis here. There's no time for all your gender rubbish.
So anyway. I was sufficiently blown away by this particular video, that I decided to watch a few more.
And here's my first impression of the channel.
Eh... PragerU's boast, of "only needing five minutes to convey its ideas to you",
is actually being a little too generous there.
I can tell you basically everything PragerU has to offer,
in a fraction of that time. So here goes.
Firstly, feminism and other social justice causes are completely unnecessary,
right up until the point, at which we all agree they did something necessary,
in which case - the credit should go instead
to Christian white men, for allowing it to happen.
Secondly, capitalism is great,
and has absolutely no downsides.
(Except for all the downsides, which are actually
the result of us not doing capitalism hard enough).
Thirdly... no, that's about it, really.
What did that take? 30 seconds?
Now, to be fair: a few videos do fall outside those parameters there,
but those two things are their bread and butter:
Christian white men and capitalism are always good,
anyone who questions either of those things, is always bad.
And what I'm gonna do now, is take a look at how PragerU expresses those ideas,
and see, how fairly they represent any counter arguments.
And, not to give the game away here, but I did title my video "How PragerU Lies to You".
So okay, first up is: how PragerU lies to you about feminism.
And we'll stick with Andrew Clavin's video
"Who Needs Feminism?" here for a little while.
And let's read a little of the script.
"Now, perhaps you'll protest: isn't feminism simply the idea that women have the same human rights as men?
No, it isn't.
That philosophy is called "classical liberalism",
which holds that we are all equally endowed by God
with the inalienable rights to life,
liberty and the pursuit of happiness."
Now, this is just basic misrepresentation.
Clavin anticipates the fact, that he'll be called out on his biased definition of feminism.
And his answer to a hypothetical person,
presenting an alternative interpretation, is:
"No. No, you're wrong. I'm right, only my definition is right. Not yours."
So there... which is not exactly
advanced debate tactics, is it?
Clavin's only offered evidence, to feminism not being about equality of the sexes,
is that he claims, that philosophy is called classical liberalism.
Which is silly all on its own.
But implicit here, is that a single idea,
cannot be shared between two political philosophies. Which is ridiculous, obviously.
Feminism could be about equality, and also,
classical liberalism could be about equality.
Because equality is not an idea, that is singular
to any one particular political movement.
Later in his video, Clavin states:
"feminism has developed the historical mythology,
that men have oppressed women, and now must
be suppressed in their turn to even things out."
Um, more misrepresentation here.
I'd just like to point out, that not once in this video
does Andrew Clavin quote a feminist,
or cite any particular feminist theory or literature.
And this should be a red flag.
Speaking personally here: I have never met any feminist, who claims,
"feminism is about suppressing men to even things out".
Mainly, I've met feminists, who say feminism is about equality.
But apparently, they were all secretly classical liberalists, or something.
Andrew Clavin here, is arguing against a strawman version of feminism,
that only exists within the confines of his own imagination.
He doesn't name who he's talking about - either because they don't exist, and he's just making it up,
or because he's scared he'll get a response from an actual, real person, with realistic ideas.
And they're a lot harder to argue with, than cartoon characters.
Speaking of arguing with cartoon characters:
in their video, "Who Killed the Liberal Arts?"
(which is one of many PragerU videos,
complaining about modern university campuses),
we can see the following.
There's some little cartoon professors there, saying:
"We repudiate the great humanist tradition,
on which much of Western civilization,
and the Western university, has been built".
What a foolishly self-defeating quote there,
from Anonymous Cartoon Professor #2.
And later in the video, the Cartoon Professor
really gives the game away, when they say:
"I seek only to confirm my own worldview."
It's quite a candid confession there.
And it's handy, these cartoon professors
are so forward with their hypocrisies, isn't it?
You know, given we've only got five minutes to argue against them.
Uh, returning to feminism here, I'd like to use two PragerU videos now,
to highlight a favorite little conservative contradiction of mine.
And we're gonna look first at a video about the employment system, and then a video about the education system.
And pay particular attention, to how gendered differences are described and accounted for.
So, first up is the video "There Is No Gender Wage Gap",
narrated by Christina Hoff Sommers.
Which comes to the conclusion,
that there IS a gender wage gap.
Let's take a look.
[Christina Hoff Sommers] Even a study by the
American Association of University Women,
a feminist organization, shows that the actual wage gap
shrinks to only 6.6 cents, when you factor in
different choices men and women make.
And the key word here is "choice".
The small wage gap that does exist, has nothing to do with paying women less, let alone with sexism!
It has to do with differences in individual career choices, that men and women make.
[Shaun] So okay, there is a gender wage gap, despite the title of the video.
But it's okay, because the gap is accounted for,
by the different choices that men and women make.
Men and women are just fundamentally different, and choose different careers,
and the result of the some of those individual choices, is that men get paid more.
Changing the system to enforce equality here, is entirely unnecessary.
The system itself is neutral, and the discrepancy
in outcomes is only down to individual choice.
Right, so on to video two, titled "War on Boys",
also narrated by Christina Hoff Sommers.
And let's take a look at that.
[Christina Hoff Sommers]
Being a normal boy is a serious liability in today's classroom.
Compared with girls, boys earn lower grades. They win fewer honors. They're far less likely to go to college.
Boys are languishing academically,
while girls are prospering!
In an ever more knowledge-based economy,
his is not a recipe for a successful society.
We need to start thinking about how we can make
our grade school classrooms more boy friendly.
We need to reverse the boy-averse trends.
Male underachievement is everyone's concern.
Now, I'm not sure I need to go through
the second half of this argument here.
I assume most of you have probably got it already.
But, for the one of you who missed it, here's the contradiction:
When women are lagging behind men,
for example, in the wages they get paid,
this is no problem whatsoever, it's just a natural result of men and women's biological differences.
But when men are lagging behind women,
such as receiving lower grades in school,
well, that's everyone's concern.
And we need to institute system-wide reforms, in order to reverse the trend.
And I like how biology is used here: it's presented as both the reason to preserve a system, when men are ahead,
and also as the reverse, to reform a system, when men are behind.
The message seems to be, that any societal system should cater to male biological traits,
or at least, conservatives' estimation
of what male biological traits are.
And we can have some fun here, by reversing the arguments in favor of girls.
And maybe come up with some of our own,
flimsy, evolutionary psychology too.
So okay: girls do better in schools, but that's fine.
Whatever gap there is between boys and girls, is entirely accounted for by the different choices they make.
Girls are good listeners, good communicators.
They're better at multitasking.
This is just natural!
If boys choose to spend their time playing outside, instead of studying,
then they're free to do that, but it would be unfair to expect equal grades for it.
Anyway, let's move on now, and examine
PragerU's presentation of capitalism,
which is a frequent topic, in videos like:
"If You Hate Poverty, You Should Love Capitalism",
"Why You Love Capitalism",
"Is Capitalism Moral?",
"Why Capitalism Works", and so on.
Now, in these videos and others, PragerU presents a...
Well, literally cartoonishly simple version of capitalism.
Let's take a look at the video "Why Capitalism Works",
which seeks to explain the basics, of how businesses operate under capitalism.
Now, they use the example of a flower shop.
A newly opened flower shop can be run in different ways, you see.
A selfish shop owner will put their needs, before that of the customer, and thus will not make any profits.
Only businesses that satisfy their customers will succeed.
Under capitalism, a business prospers, only
if customers voluntarily trade for its output.
Now, the majority of the time, this is how PragerU talks about capitalism.
It's little cartoon people, bumbling around,
making cute, mutually beneficial transactions.
You know, "I have a quantity of money, a store has a product I desire, we trade those things, and both profit". Hurrah.
So, what do we think about this?
Well, first off I'd like to highlight, that they chose a flower store for their example,
rather than, say... a weapons developer,
or a predatory loan lender.
Or a fracking company, say.
But since they picked a flower store, let's talk about that.
So, some flower stores are good and successful,
and some flower stores are selfish and unsuccessful.
They each make a series of mutually beneficial trades with customers,
and naturally, the successful stores
do better than the unsuccessful ones,
and... what, "The End"? You know,
we restart the simulation tomorrow?
Uh- no, in actual reality, things continue happening after that.
So let's carry on with the example.
The successful flower store, after all their transactions, has built up some wealth.
And if they build up enough wealth,
they can start to influence the market,
outside of those simple, customer-level transactions.
Let's say, they purchase the unsuccessful flower store and several others, and unite them all under the same brand.
So, now you've got Flower Corp.
Now, Flower Corp. being a big business,
will be sought after for big contracts.
There will be competition to be the supplier of... seeds, say, to Flower Corp.
Flower Corp. will be able to use its large market share,
as leverage to make beneficial deals with its suppliers.
Which will then mean, they can cut costs on the consumer end,
perhaps lower, than it's possible for any startup business to compete with.
This is one reason why big box stores kill off small,
local businesses as well as, you know, convenience.
They can afford to sell for less, because they buy for less, because they buy in bulk.
So, Flower Corp. starts pricing flower start-ups out of the market,
and, just to be sure, maybe they open a Flower Corp. store
nearby any new flower businesses, to divide their sales.
Now, let's see, how far this metaphor can be stretched here.
Let's say Flower Corp. starts lobbying politicians,
to relax flower industry regulations,
and cut flower industry taxes - and pretty soon,
half the Senators are in the pockets of Big Flower.
Let's say Flower Corp. becomes so powerful,
that they're able to insert their executives
into the staff of many of the country's most powerful politicians.
Let's imagine their CEO becomes Vice President, even.
And starts pushing for a war with the Netherlands,
in order to install a puppet government,
that will give their country cheap deals
on all those fancy tulips they've got.
Let's say a whole speculative flower market opens up,
massively inflating the price of flowers,
until they cost more than a house.
And a quick editorial note here:
This one has actually happened in reality.
And let's say, that Flower Corp. becomes so large,
that it becomes "too big to fail".
So that when the flower bubble finally bursts, the government will step in, and bail them out with public money.
The government is staffed with their executives,
and funded by their lobbyists, after all.
And finally, let's say that public opinion starts turning
against Flower Corp., and its various shady dealings.
And more generally, against the flawed system,
that allowed Flower Corp. to cause so much damage.
So, Flower Corp. decides to fund a YouTube channel,
hosting videos, that explain how they're actually great, and can do no wrong!
And... there we are, there. We've caught back up to the present day.
So, that's the saga of Flower Corp. there.
Now, in reality, all of those actions were carried out by the defense, oil and financial industries, not the flower industry.
"But how does PragerU", you might be wondering,
"account for all of those terrible happenings?"
They were all a result of capitalist institutions,
acting in their own self-interest,
trying to increase their own profits, which is
supposed to be beneficial for everyone, right?
So let's introduce the conservative cop-out answer,
for explaining away all the problems of capitalism.
[Jay Cost]
Crony capitalism. What is it? Why is it so bad?
To answer these questions, let's think
about good old-fashioned capitalism.
It is premised on the free exchange of goods or services, between independent agents.
Capitalism is moral, because it is premised on a voluntary exchange between independent parties.
Who agree to the deal, only because it creates value for everybody.
Crony capitalism is immoral, because one of the parties - the government - has been bought off.
[Shaun] Now, here I'd just like to remind you,
of this video I showed earlier.
"Money in Politics: What's the Problem?"
Well here you go, PragerU, you've discovered it.
So, crony capitalism then.
This is a concept PragerU talks about a few times,
and always in a particularly biased way.
As you'll see, the government is always to blame.
So, crony capitalism is unfair and immoral,
because the government has been bought off.
"But, by who though?" you might be wondering.
Well, privates interests!
Should they share any of the blame?
Well, let's watch a brief clip from their video
"The Speech Every 2015 College Grad Needs To Hear".
[George Will]
Washington has produced a bubble in higher education,
just the way it produced the bubble in housing!
Some government planners decided,
that too few people owned homes.
So the planners decided to force
an increase in home ownership.
They lowered lending standards,
for people seeking a mortgage.
This produced a glut of sub-prime loans,
and sub-prime borrowers - and then a crash.
[Shaun] So, that was the housing market crash, according to PragerU there.
And let's just read through that one more time.
"Washington has produced a bubble in higher education,
just the way it produced the bubble in housing.
Some government planners decided,
that too few people owned homes.
So the planners decided to force
an increase in home ownership."
Now, absent here is any mention of lobbying, naturally.
Just silly government officials,
doing silly nonsense things, for no reason.
"They lowered lending standards
for people seeking a mortgage."
And side note: we call that "deregulation".
Which we're not allowed to say is a bad thing.
So we have to call it something else,
like "lowered lending standards", instead.
"This produced a glut of sub-prime loans,
and sub-prime borrowers. And then a crash."
So: "this produced a glut of subprime loans".
From who though? Did they spring forth from the Earth?
No, it was private institutions.
Who were, again, being presented as blameless here.
Only the government is at fault, for not preventing
the ill effects of the greed of the private sector.
Greed which is excusable, because working
in your own self-interest is always good.
Unless you're a politician, approached by a lobbyist
with a suitcase full of money, of course.
In which case, you're expected to ignore your own
self-interest, and only consider the public good.
This is a racket!
Capitalism is always perfect, except for when it isn't;
in which case, it was the government's fault for not stopping it.
And PragerU's solution to this problem, is equally nonsensical.
You see: according to them, the private sector
only lobbies and influences the government
into doing bad things, because the government is so big and powerful.
If we limit the government, then they won't want to control it as much, apparently.
Which is a bit like saying: "If we just let the foxes into the henhouse, think of the money we'll save on fencing".
Now, I'm gonna close out soon,
but I can't go without giving a special mention
to PragerU's use of graphs, to illustrate their points.
We've already seen this one, from the video "Why Capitalism Works",
uh, which is almost nonsense, if you look at it for more than 5 seconds.
Here's another good one, from their video
"Make Men Masculine Again",
showing the 'masculine' turning into the 'feminine', over...
Time? Distance? Temperature? Who knows!
Uh, this one's from their video
"Blacks In Power Don't Empower Blacks".
(Ugh...)
Which apparently, shows labor participation rates, but... doesn't.
You know, these are just two orange rectangles. There's no values on them.
This one is from their video "Why Is Modern Art So Bad?"
showing the "decline of artistic standards".
Now, the vertical axis is at least labeled here, with "standards".
Which are measurable, apparently.
And they peaked just after 1850,
and then declined until about 1970 there,
until there were no more standards.
There are no artistic standards anymore, whatsoever.
There's this one, from their video
"Hoover and the Great Depression",
which shows industry, with the economy lurking in the background there.
And this one has two labels:
wage rates, which are going down,
as layoffs are going up, and getting dangerously close to that dark cloud there.
I don't know, what that's meant to signify, but it can't be good.
Earlier in that video, we see this graph:
"Prices for industrial goods",
which started out in 1929, at nearly three dollar signs there,
then prices fell to just two dollar signs throughout 1930,
holding steady just long enough, to underline the words "economy-wide deflation", which is handy.
After that, there's more bad news, I'm afraid,
with the prices falling yet again,
threatening to reach just one dollar sign - which,
as we know, is the lowest possible price.
Now... anyone can make rubbish like this.
I mean, look, here's one I made for instance:
What does this show?? Happiness increasing,
as number of feminists increases, I guess.
Now, does this prove anything, this graph?
And, I'd just like to reiterate to any fans of PragerU, who might be watching now:
This is made up. Remember, I made this!
Don't go around citing this.
Now, you might say: "Shaun, picking on PragerU's graphs is unfair.
They're not supposed to be real, academic graphs.
They're just little visual aids, to compliment,
what the speaker is talking about.
They're not peer-reviewed, or anything."
And I would say to that: Exactly!
They're NOT real academic graphs.
Because this isn't a real, academic institution.
It's a YouTube channel.
It can call itself whatever it likes - but a university, it is not.
Thanks a lot for watching, everyone.
I might come back to PragerU at some point.
A few of their videos seem possibly worthy of a more in-depth look.
So, we'll see about that. Let me know in the comments.
Just kidding, I never read the comments. I'm not a masochist.
I do read my Curious Cat questions, though,
if you'd like to ask me a question on there.
Now, before I go, I should mention here a couple of things, that PragerU got right.
Their video "Was The Civil War About Slavery?" is actually not bad.
They do not come to the conclusion,
that you would expect them to come to.
Also, PragerU get points from me, for arguing against bailing out failing financial institutions,
which I saw them do in a couple of videos.
A lot of the time conservatives will go on,
about the brilliant competition of the free market,
and then defend propping up failing banks with public money, or something.
It's highly hypocritical there.
So, credit to PragerU for avoiding doing that.
Thanks as always to all my Patreon backers,
for supporting me in making videos like this.
A link to my Patreon page is below,
if you'd like to check that out.
Right. Thanks folks, I'll see you next time.
