How fortunate you must be to find a boundless source of baseless assertions that so very conveniently happen to support all your bigotry... /s Every accusation is an admission... "The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt.” - Bertrand Russell Brandolini's law - "The amount of energy needed to refute BS is an order of magnitude bigger than that needed to produce it.”
@@IRGeamer The arguments which challenge your WOKE ideology are increasingly becoming more refined , articulate , robust. WOKE’S destruction & failure is imminent. Your irritation is understandable. Continue coping .
@@IRGeamer I was in disbelief until I read the book "On the Origin of Species", then I realized it has nothing to do with belief at all. You discover that Darwin's was a discovery and that he gets the credit for discovering evolution, because he did all the hard work and documentation of it in a format the everyone can read. Many, many people long before Darwin had proposed the idea, but Darwin did all the hard work. It's just like Galileo gets the credit for discovering that Psalms 104 vs 5 could not possibly be correct, because he did the hard work of it and made it available to everyone. The sun doesn't rise, and it certainly doesn't go around the earth. The church made him recant his discovery, or they would have executed him. Had Darwin discovered what he did 300 years before, the same thing would have happened to him as a result of religious authority.
@@elingrome5853 It's not pedantry if it's on point and at scale; it's merely setting the record straight. John is brilliant and wonderful, and doesn't need the hyperbole to be appreciated.
Richard, why make this interview so short? Please continue your discussion with John again, soon. Fabulous juxtaposing of the evolution of biology and linguistics!
It's always fascinating to reflext on language(s). 10:12 I'm not sure though if there is really such a difference between recursion and attribute: "The man who died yesterday was a famous writer." - "who died" has the same function of added information as the adjective "deceased". The sentence could be: "The deceased man was..."
@@cioccolateriaveneziana In a generative analysis, "the deceased man" would be an example of recursion. No shade on McWhorter, but I find that using clausal embedding ("the man who X that Y that Z, etc.") as the go-to example for recursion almost always gives people the wrong idea. Take the following statement: "My sister is a smart scientist". Assign a number to each word in ascending order, 1-2-3-4-5-6. You can get local permutations, like 3-1-2-4-5-6 gets you the interrogative "Is my sister a smart scientist?". But some permutations can't happen because the component parts have fused together, "merged" as it were. "My sister" is stuck together. So is "a smart scientist". And so you could reinterpret the sentence at a higher level of analysis, as 1-2-3, where 1 is "my sister", 2 is "is" and 3 is "a smart scientist". What Chomsky postulated in his minimalist program is that all languages have this merge function. And recursion is a property of merge. I can merge "my" and "sister" to get "my sister", which will then function as its own discrete unit, but then I can use merge again with an adjective, merging "my sister" with "big" to get "my big sister", which will then function as its own discrete unit, etc. So in your example "the deceased man", you've already used merge twice. "The man", then "the deceased man". That's what Chomsky means by recursion. Clausal embedding is one example of recursion, but it's not the only one. And because they always use clausal embedding as the go-to example, this creates the misleading impression that a language without clausal embedding (like Piraha) is a language without recursion, which just isn't true (Piraha has merge, and therefore recursion). In a language without merge, you could imagine generalized linear rules. Say, maybe the way you form the negation of our example sentence ("my sister is not a smart scientist") would be by linearly reversing all the component parts: 6-5-4-3-2-1, i.e. "scientist smart a is sister my". No known language does this. For generativists like Chomsky, this proves that language processing is necessarily hierarchical, not linear. FWIW that's also why he doesn't think LLMs tell us anything about language. Because an LLM could easily produce a linear language where 6-5-4-3-2-1 was the negation of 1-2-3-4-5-6. And if it can produce languages that humans can't, then it's really not telling us anything about human language at all. So he argues anyway.
@@bofbob1 Thank you for the explanation! So my intuition was right, recursion doesn't require clauses. The clauses are a formal mean to express something that can also be expressed in other syntactic ways (like a clause with the function of an attribute, or an adjective with the same function).
It’s nice to hear people talking about racism in a thoughtful and informative way and contrasts sharply to the ideological screaming of most other forms of this type of conversation. One of the biggest problems of wokeness is the shutting down of conversations and ostracism of people who have dissenting opinions that diverge from the woke dogma.
Most content on the internet and tv about woke and racism is highly sensational, impulsive, prejudiced, annoying, boring, irrational, agressive, polarised, superficial etc. And unfortunately, there aren't many Richard Dawkinses around there. And even worse: the most nuanced and honest people on this planet, like Richard Dawkins, will even be disliked by those oversensitive irrational woke and racism debaters and other figures. It's a strange world.
@@bastiaanvanbeek I'm afraid you're right. The WORST part is that the lunatics on the Right and Left seem to feed each other. They constantly provide the most extreme examples for each other to use to 'prove' just how bad the other side is! And the rest of us get drowned out in all the circus noise.
I have a video on my channel regarding VEGANISM, in case you are interested to watch it. Incidentally, the plural of "person" is "PERSONS", not "people".
I think there is a self-congratulatory aspect to not judging historical people by the times and place they lived in. I think there are people who believe that they would've had no prejudices even if they were born 500 years ago. They are over impressed by themselves.
There's also a sense that the people who tear down statues naively believe that only perfect beings deserve statues, which in turn suggests a troubling belief in the possibility of perfect beings, along with an equally troubling penchant for hero worship. Sorry mate, this Churchill statue is here because he helped win an important war, not because we think he was some kind of enlightened guru.
@@gerardlewis209Churchill deserves a statue for this observation alone: ""Individual Muslims may show splendid qualities, but the influence of the religion paralyses the social development of those who follow it. No stronger retrograde force exists in the world. Far from being moribund, Mohammedanism is a militant and proselytizing faith."
I clicked on a video promising to talk about woke racism, instead I got a conversation about language for 40 minutes. And I don't regret a second of it.
I can emphatically recommend both his lectures and books on linguistics and also his more contemporary content about social issues. He's Glenn Loury's conversation partner every 2 weeks on The Glenn Show.
What an enjoyable conversation to listen to. It’s such a pleasure to hear people having a conversation with an exchange of ideas. So many podcasts are just people talking at each other that is a real gem when you find people actually engaging with each other.
As a kayaker the idea of island hopping and coastal exploration makes total sense to me. If one has nouns, hand signals are very useful at sea because sound doesn't carry well. So a proto language might have been quite gestural.
@@theflamingone8729 I believe a couple of the North American tribes used sign language during hunting, as do modern soldiers and police in certain circumstances. We are a very adaptable species.
@@joyatodd I think anyone who needs to communicate quietly has a form of sign language, those were good examples and applications you mentioned. The languages the Indigenous use here even cover kinship and lineage, whether maternal or paternal side. I think as with anything, need drives development of language.
Brilliantly articulate, thoughtful and well reasoned. It is a genuine relief to see that intelligent, rational people still exist in academia and are pushing back against the steamroller tactics of the far left.
It's always great to listen to Mr. Richard Dawkins, thank you very much sir, for what you have done for reason and critical thinking. Great interview, John McWhorter, he is brilliant.
I must admit that when I read "Woke" and "Racism" in the title of this video I was a bit turned off and wanted to skip it, since those topics are so boring and annoying. But I enjoyed just watching McWhorter and Dawkins in conversation as for the intellectual and academic side.
It's only boring to the woke racists, because the truth of the fact that woke is racist both ways. They are racist to the ppl they are self appointed guardians of, as if they are disabled, however they still don't do anything for them apart from virtue signal their own morality. Also racist to their own history they see themselves as not part of, simply for claiming to be said guardians. Again doing nothing about it though apart from virtue signal, not moving away and continuing to benefit from said racist society.
So good to hear two of my greatest heroes in conversation! I remember listening to John McWhorter's lectures on human language as an audio book many years ago, I recommended it to pretty much every person I met for several years. I still think he's one of the best lecturers I've heard, and one of the greatest intellectuals of today. I also must say that he really doesn't look like he's born in -65! Good genes on that guy.
Check out all of the Lexicon Valley podcasts that John used to do. I used to binge-listen to them a few years back. Such a likeable, rational guy. Time to re-listen, I think.
I love the idea that a foreign dialect becomes a different language once you stop getting beaten up for imitating it. Incidentally, the hybrid zone to which you refer is probably Chorthippus parallelus/erythropus in the Pyrenees, though there are of course examples of orthopteran zones in the US too (e.g. Gryllus pennsylvanicus/firmus in the Appalachians)
I wish I could give a thousand likes. One of the best conversations I’ve heard in a very long time. On the subject of where a word like rock came from, it just makes my mind wander. I thought of a grave stone that hominids called by the name of the person buried there, or even a rock or object above the grave. Years later someone with no knowledge of the person hears that name and generalizes it to the object in general. Maybe an object named after the name of a person who had characteristics that object represented to them. We’ll never really know.
Great conversation. It sparked so many related topics. I have always had great respect for Richard and his endorsement of John McWhorter was clearly justified. Two intellectuals traversing an extremely interesting topic. Fantastic video!! Thank you
The audio version of this went out as a repeat of the previous episode with Ayaan Hirsi Ali. I wasn't sure where to inform you about this so I'm making this comment here. I observed the problem in the pocket casts app.
Richard was one of the few well known British academics to speak out against woke racism (in his UnHerd interview with Freddie Sayers last year). It came late, but still very much appreciated. Thank you!
I’m an 8th black but I still call myself white bc it wld be ridiculous to call myself black when I don’t appear to be so. However, my brothers are mixed and yet each of the 3 call themselves something, white, brown and black which shows this generation thinks of race very different from our parents and this isn’t a bad thing
Great conversation. Richard, for all his wisdom and really profound questions, is not a natural interviewer - but once you get past all the awkward pauses, the exchanges are delightful. Of course, John is one of the most captivating speakers of his generation - and brings both wit and entertainment to even the most serious topics.
FYI @ 37 mins... Elite: This word comes from the Old French "elit," which means "chosen" or "selected." This, in turn, comes from the Latin "electus," the past participle of "eligere," meaning "to choose." Elect: This word directly derives from the Latin "electus," also the past participle of "eligere
In deed and elite tends to be used as with or in a pejorative sense by those that do not and never can or will attract that epithet, which the Elsies or Lower Classes use as a cognate of it-doesn't like it. or bad, but they have not your leaning or wits to grasp that at bottom it simply means the best, but it cannot be all chiefs and no bloody Indians or vice versa; one must get one's servants from somewhere
The ending of this very interesting conversation will stick with me. Refusing to acknowledge and learn from the past is a very dangerous state of being. We should rather acknowledge the past and learn from it. Disagreeing with someone doesn't mean they should be erased from history - that's a tremendous mistake and an insult to those that fought for the progress we enjoy today, despite whatever flaws are also present.
It's a relief and refreshing and inspiring and positively a delight to hear two eloquent people take about reason data facts evidence and above all, logic. Thank you
What an awesome conversation. So great to see both pushing on each other's ideas, and thoroughly enjoying it! These two could talked for another two hours. Wonderful!
So interesting. I write and speak 3 languages, fluently and without problems. I speak a fourth which is not written but only spoken. What I have realized is that a language is not only a language but a window into a different culture and that is something more magical than the language itself.
John’s expression of how we can logically view race differently was eye opening for me, even at my advanced (63yo) age. I think he has forever changed me, and I value those rare moments. I also quite enjoyed his comparison of all types of illogical thinking to myth-based religions. However, I currently disagree with him that there is something wrong with later generations “canceling” (my word, not his) even those who were progressive in earlier generations. I think the old adage that “life is for the living” (i.e., not for the dead) has great merit, and that those who are living-and, by implication, especially younger adults-should be able to construct the world/societies that bring joy to their lives, which quite reasonably can include eliminating remnants of history that they find offensive/repulsive. Personally, I am a progressive, yet I revere and honor Abraham Lincoln. But I also have no problem with those who do not, or even those who might find my reverence for him offensive/repulsive. “Provided no one is harmed against their will, consenting adults of any number should be free to do for, to, and with themselves and each other whatever they choose.” That should be guiding principle of every free society, and cancelling historical figures does not seem to violate it.
As a Dane I can say that if I move to Sweden and speak Swedish they will love me for it (they love it even when I’m just visiting) because they have a hard time understanding Danish. The same goes for Norway but they don’t struggle as much understanding Danish. And some Norwegian dialects are so similar to Danish that we understand each other better than if I were to speak bokmål. Only if you were actually making fun of the language or dialects would it seem weird or you would offend people (but they’d probably just dismiss you as stupid).
Just a heads up, those are side address mics, so they should be set up to talk into the side of the mic, not the top. That’s why the audio sounds a bit thin.
I nearly marked this video "not interested" and considered telling UA-cam to not recommend the channel. But I looked around some first, then listened to the video and I'm glad I didn't "cancel" it. Basically, I "cancel" any video that talks about "woke", and I check to see if the channel that put it on seems to traffic in that stuff. I'm a liberal in the US and among other liberals that I know, the word "woke" is almost never used. Instead, the emphasis is on treating people decently even if they differ from us. If somebody DOES talk about "woke" it will be the right wingers or religious bigots who are framing strawman cases to show how liberals are stupid, dangerous or both! For me, removing videos about "woke" and channels that want to talk about it is a fairly quick and accurate way to remove content I don't want to waste my time on! In this case, I would have made a big mistake. Thanks for speaking with Mr. McWhorter and for a having a very interesting discussion!
I agree, labels are thrown around too easily and can be very polarizing. The left does it too with 'far right' or right wing to refer to people such as John. We are expected to start an article with lots of preconceived ideas. I even see articles in the media that remind you at the start that so and so once posted a video on the far right platform....As you have done, we need to forget the labels and examine what people say. In his book, Woke Racism, he explains why he chose that title. He wouldn't usually attack people with labels. For me, he is a voice of reason. His argument that the current ethos about white patriarchy all being rabidly racist and non whites are all victims is racist in itself and not helpful regarding the great good, is very compelling. I thought the book The New Puritans was also very good, a book that talks about many topics in John's book.
You seem to have missed entirely how Dawkins and McWhorter here coincide on how wokery is precisely when liberals are at their most stupid and dangerous...
@@twntwrs It really depends on what you call a liberal. What was considered a classical liberal until not that long ago would be considered a moderate or even center right these days. The word "liberal" has become synonymous with "leftist" which isn't really the case. In fact "woke" ideology is very illiberal. For a while there were a few classical liberals who were trying to get people to stop calling the far left liberals but to no avail. So to say that wokery is some sort of offshoot of liberalism is playing into this misunderstanding of liberalism. Google "Liberalism" and tell me how the far left has anything to do with that.
What a wonderful talk and discussion. Thank you very much sharing this. It’s great to see and hear that we can overcome hysteria regarding social interaction if we really want. Thanks again with greetings from a highly delighted German.
My Dad used to hate being labeled. He was technically a french canadian metis. He was raised in a french, catholic community and had recent predecessors of first nations. He preferred that if you must label him, call him a Canadian with french roots and that was the end of it. Sadly, he rarely admitted to that metis part because he didn't want to associate with the way first nations people were perceived, not so much of the heritage itself. If anything, he was a little proud of what he had accomplished in life, despite hardships. I ended up inheriting that distaste towards labeling people just to make them distinct from one another.
I think language developed in parallel with the invention of more complex tools. There was a dire need to teach 'technical' skills to future generations. Language is vital as it enables tasks to be parsed into actionable units.
Great. Very thought-provoking. You know what, I'm going to become a patreon. The NYT et al are becoming so bad that I'm going to put my 2 cents with people who make sense. By the way, do you think that you could come up with a crossword?
In Amharic, recursion makes verbs behave like adjectives. For instance, "the bar where we watch football" would literally be something like "the football that-we-watch-in-it bar"
The most universal language, is pointing at things, and very basic movement, towards oneself, at mouth, other body parts, or someone else. Along with facial expressions, would've been amazing to have a universal language in a way, same time not, since we lose our individuality and history because of it
Finally! I've found out what I am! A languist! I've always been facinated with languages and have always felt like John describes when hearing a new language: Hey! I want to play with that!
I love John McWhorter, I've bought and listened to his lecture series and books. I honestly don't know how you can be such a superlatively learned linguist and not see the propositional logic underpinning, virtually, all human languages.
These scholars seem puzzled by how language could spontaneously generate - but it happened only a few decades ago, when the Sandinista government of Nicaragua brought together previously isolated deaf children: “Previously, most deaf children were completely isolated. Suddenly, for the first time, there was a community of deaf kids all trying to communicate with each other as hundreds were brought together in a few schools in Managua, the capital. It was here that the new language - Nicaraguan Sign Language (NSL), or Idioma de Señas de Nicaragua (ISN) - would emerge. Today, Nicaraguan Sign Language has its own complex grammar and a broad vocabulary. And it has helped fill in some gaps in our knowledge about how languages evolve, how they work, and the role a community plays in all of that - especially when it comes to the youngest learners. But in the mid-1980s, linguists were just learning of NSL’s existence.
That’s not what they mean by spontaneously generate. Disparate communities invent languages all the time. They mean the first language, ie the progenitor that instantiated the idea of language for the first time.
I've read Daniel Everett's book, Don't Sleep, There are Snakes, & I highly recommend it. He went to an Amazon tribe as a missionary, to translate the Bible into their language, but when he found they had no word for "lying" & other negative concepts that are central to Christianity, instead of converting them, he became an Atheist.
I wonder if this man could answer why so many Americans struggle with the “the man, who I saw yesterdy….” and instead say “the man, who I saw him yesterday”. I hear it on almost every podcast or clip where such a construction is needed. An example of the mistake would be “Yesterday I was given an orange, which I didn’t even like it”.
His book Woke Racism was excellent, although I'd be labeled racist for supporting it. Two other good books I recently read on racism and slavery which can add something to the currently debate: Reconstruction by WEB Dubois, White Cargo, and another, White Trash by Nancy Isenberg.
To those running this podcast. Those mics look like the at2020 or very similar. They are side address microphone however you have them setup as end address. I could be wrong as I can't zoom in enough to confirm the mics. Just confirm them and maybe it'll mean much better sound. The sound wasn't bad as it is because they are condensers that'll give you a fair bit more forgiveness off axis. But this will help you with sound.
Great conversation, but the audio quality was pretty bad considering decent mics are being used and they are both in the same room, not over the internet.
Thank you, Prof Dawkins, for The Selfish Gene, which, along with Carl Sagan's Cosmos, gave me the universe at age 21. Now, at age 50, you've given me John McWhorter!
Dawkins' definition of language v dialect is amazing and really deserves attention. However, he's off about English being Norman French just in terms of word counts. Word frequency matters much, much more. Which words do we lean on all the time for day to day talking? The Germanic ones. We use words like "cerebellum" and "visionary" many orders of magnitude less than we use words like "give," "have," or "the." Here's another example: Each word I'm speaking now comes from Frisian Dutch. (Same for the sentence above that starts with "Which words.") Churchill's entire "We shall fight" speech (with the exception of one word) comes from Frisian Dutch. Try writing a speech with only Norman French words. Can't be done. In terms of word use, English is absolutely a Germanic tongue.
Did you use Churchill's speech as an example because you saw it on the Stephen Fry fry Language talk, or is it a known thing that both you and Stephen Fry came across independently?
How fortunate we are to listen in on this. Gratitude.
How fortunate you must be to find a boundless source of baseless assertions that so very conveniently happen to support all your bigotry... /s
Every accusation is an admission...
"The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt.”
- Bertrand Russell
Brandolini's law - "The amount of energy needed to refute BS is an order of magnitude bigger than that needed to produce it.”
@@IRGeamer - how unfortunate that you seem eager to lash out. get some rest/water and go hug something.
@@IRGeamerI’d genuinely like to debate your thoughts - maybe we could educate one another.
@@IRGeamer
The arguments which challenge your WOKE ideology are increasingly becoming more refined , articulate , robust.
WOKE’S destruction & failure is imminent.
Your irritation is understandable.
Continue coping .
@@IRGeamer I was in disbelief until I read the book "On the Origin of Species", then I realized it has nothing to do with belief at all. You discover that Darwin's was a discovery and that he gets the credit for discovering evolution, because he did all the hard work and documentation of it in a format the everyone can read. Many, many people long before Darwin had proposed the idea, but Darwin did all the hard work. It's just like Galileo gets the credit for discovering that Psalms 104 vs 5 could not possibly be correct, because he did the hard work of it and made it available to everyone. The sun doesn't rise, and it certainly doesn't go around the earth. The church made him recant his discovery, or they would have executed him. Had Darwin discovered what he did 300 years before, the same thing would have happened to him as a result of religious authority.
John McWhorter is one of the great minds of our time. Holy shit, this was amazing!
Actually he is not! That claim is way too big.
I love listening to John McWhorter.
@@dezurniprovokator373 ok mr pedant ;) but I agree, even John would say thats a little over hyped :)
@@elingrome5853 It's not pedantry if it's on point and at scale; it's merely setting the record straight. John is brilliant and wonderful, and doesn't need the hyperbole to be appreciated.
Not really, he is just using basic logic, that we all should be using.
Richard, why make this interview so short? Please continue your discussion with John again, soon. Fabulous juxtaposing of the evolution of biology and linguistics!
Dude is very old and quite Ill 😉
@@elingrome5853 Thank you. I actually didn't know he was ill. Hurts to hear that.
This was so good. Two public intellectuals for whom l still have the time and patience.
The discussion around linguistics was so fascinating. McWhorter never disappoints.
I love it when he discusses linguistics.
Indo-European and Afro Asiatic languages have a common root???
Sanskrit, Avestan, Greek, Latin etc. related to Hebrew?
Can that be possible 🤔
It's always fascinating to reflext on language(s). 10:12 I'm not sure though if there is really such a difference between recursion and attribute: "The man who died yesterday was a famous writer." - "who died" has the same function of added information as the adjective "deceased". The sentence could be: "The deceased man was..."
@@cioccolateriaveneziana In a generative analysis, "the deceased man" would be an example of recursion. No shade on McWhorter, but I find that using clausal embedding ("the man who X that Y that Z, etc.") as the go-to example for recursion almost always gives people the wrong idea.
Take the following statement: "My sister is a smart scientist". Assign a number to each word in ascending order, 1-2-3-4-5-6. You can get local permutations, like 3-1-2-4-5-6 gets you the interrogative "Is my sister a smart scientist?". But some permutations can't happen because the component parts have fused together, "merged" as it were. "My sister" is stuck together. So is "a smart scientist". And so you could reinterpret the sentence at a higher level of analysis, as 1-2-3, where 1 is "my sister", 2 is "is" and 3 is "a smart scientist". What Chomsky postulated in his minimalist program is that all languages have this merge function. And recursion is a property of merge. I can merge "my" and "sister" to get "my sister", which will then function as its own discrete unit, but then I can use merge again with an adjective, merging "my sister" with "big" to get "my big sister", which will then function as its own discrete unit, etc. So in your example "the deceased man", you've already used merge twice. "The man", then "the deceased man".
That's what Chomsky means by recursion. Clausal embedding is one example of recursion, but it's not the only one. And because they always use clausal embedding as the go-to example, this creates the misleading impression that a language without clausal embedding (like Piraha) is a language without recursion, which just isn't true (Piraha has merge, and therefore recursion). In a language without merge, you could imagine generalized linear rules. Say, maybe the way you form the negation of our example sentence ("my sister is not a smart scientist") would be by linearly reversing all the component parts: 6-5-4-3-2-1, i.e. "scientist smart a is sister my". No known language does this. For generativists like Chomsky, this proves that language processing is necessarily hierarchical, not linear. FWIW that's also why he doesn't think LLMs tell us anything about language. Because an LLM could easily produce a linear language where 6-5-4-3-2-1 was the negation of 1-2-3-4-5-6. And if it can produce languages that humans can't, then it's really not telling us anything about human language at all. So he argues anyway.
@@bofbob1 Thank you for the explanation! So my intuition was right, recursion doesn't require clauses. The clauses are a formal mean to express something that can also be expressed in other syntactic ways (like a clause with the function of an attribute, or an adjective with the same function).
It’s nice to hear people talking about racism in a thoughtful and informative way and contrasts sharply to the ideological screaming of most other forms of this type of conversation. One of the biggest problems of wokeness is the shutting down of conversations and ostracism of people who have dissenting opinions that diverge from the woke dogma.
+
Absolutely! Couldn't have said it better myself.
Most content on the internet and tv about woke and racism is highly sensational, impulsive, prejudiced, annoying, boring, irrational, agressive, polarised, superficial etc. And unfortunately, there aren't many Richard Dawkinses around there. And even worse: the most nuanced and honest people on this planet, like Richard Dawkins, will even be disliked by those oversensitive irrational woke and racism debaters and other figures. It's a strange world.
@@bastiaanvanbeek I'm afraid you're right. The WORST part is that the lunatics on the Right and Left seem to feed each other. They constantly provide the most extreme examples for each other to use to 'prove' just how bad the other side is! And the rest of us get drowned out in all the circus noise.
The so called woke dogma needed to be expressed loudly and aggressively so those old school racist idiots could hear loud and clear 😮
Ahh two of my favourite people!! Great chemistry between them.
Love McWhorter, like Dawkins, but I always learn something when I listen to either of these two.
I have a video on my channel regarding VEGANISM, in case you are interested to watch it.
Incidentally, the plural of "person" is "PERSONS", not "people".
Wow, McWhorter and Dawkins! Absolutely brilliant, what a treasure!!!
What a enlightening conversation. This could be a monthly talk and I would watch it.
I think there is a self-congratulatory aspect to not judging historical people by the times and place they lived in. I think there are people who believe that they would've had no prejudices even if they were born 500 years ago. They are over impressed by themselves.
Well said!
There's also a sense that the people who tear down statues naively believe that only perfect beings deserve statues, which in turn suggests a troubling belief in the possibility of perfect beings, along with an equally troubling penchant for hero worship. Sorry mate, this Churchill statue is here because he helped win an important war, not because we think he was some kind of enlightened guru.
@@gerardlewis209Churchill deserves a statue for this observation alone: ""Individual Muslims may show splendid qualities, but the influence of the religion paralyses the social development of those who follow it. No stronger retrograde force exists in the world. Far from being moribund, Mohammedanism is a militant and proselytizing faith."
Absolutely! 👍
It's a performance
I clicked on a video promising to talk about woke racism, instead I got a conversation about language for 40 minutes. And I don't regret a second of it.
McWorter is amazing! So glad you had him on!
The language discussion was fascinating ❤
Another fascinating interview. I've never heard of John McWhorter before but I am now a fan. I'm looking forward to checking out his work.
I can emphatically recommend both his lectures and books on linguistics and also his more contemporary content about social issues. He's Glenn Loury's conversation partner every 2 weeks on The Glenn Show.
His podcast Lexicon Valley is fantastic.
You might want to check out his fortnightly conversations with Glenn Loury on The Glenn Show.
Always entertaining.
What an enjoyable conversation to listen to. It’s such a pleasure to hear people having a conversation with an exchange of ideas. So many podcasts are just people talking at each other that is a real gem when you find people actually engaging with each other.
I think that people can tell whether an attempt to speak their language is a sincere attempt to communicate, then they can meet in the middle.
This was fascinating !!!!! Thank you so much. The two of you all in one ,well can't get any better than that.
As a kayaker the idea of island hopping and coastal exploration makes total sense to me. If one has nouns, hand signals are very useful at sea because sound doesn't carry well. So a proto language might have been quite gestural.
Indigenous Australians use sign languages.
@@theflamingone8729 I believe a couple of the North American tribes used sign language during hunting, as do modern soldiers and police in certain circumstances. We are a very adaptable species.
@@joyatodd I think anyone who needs to communicate quietly has a form of sign language, those were good examples and applications you mentioned.
The languages the Indigenous use here even cover kinship and lineage, whether maternal or paternal side.
I think as with anything, need drives development of language.
Exactly! like imagine escaping a remote island with someone who doesn't speak your language but understands the goal is to escape. 😅
@@DC-zi6se great analogy, every situation that requires a solution could be viewed as escaping a remote island.
I wasn't aware of who John McWhorter was. Boy, what a fantastic mind! Thank you very much indeed Richard 🍰
I could have listened to you both for hours 😊
John McWhorter is a thinker, scientist and humanist to his core.
Indeed, but what about mantle and his crust?
I like John, haven't seen him long time. This man thinks clearly.
Lol. You really reached high in your compliment. The art of speaking clearly. 😉🫣
On regularly with Glenn Loury
Brilliantly articulate, thoughtful and well reasoned. It is a genuine relief to see that intelligent, rational people still exist in academia and are pushing back against the steamroller tactics of the far left.
I see JohnMcWhorter and Richard Dawkins, I click. 👍
Two of my favorite intellectuals.
I love listening to John McWhorter and Glenn Louwry hash out culture, but getting an insight into his linguistic interests is a real treat.
I want that tie, and I don’t even own a suit.
👍
yeah it is lit!
Looks trippy
Great breath of fresh air. I genuinely believe that we lack the language to even talk about "race" in a meaningful way.
*Ca*n one believe falsely or *not* genuinely?
There is no such thing as " race" which rather holes " racism" below the waterline
Listening to these two Gents gives me a small but significant sense of relief & hope, at least for a short while, & perhaps longer. Appreciated.
It's always great to listen to Mr. Richard Dawkins, thank you very much sir, for what you have done for reason and critical thinking. Great interview, John McWhorter, he is brilliant.
Thank you so much for a brilliant conversation ❤
Well done. I'm a Christian, but also an Independent Thinker. Wonderful insight. Thank you to the both of you.😊
What leads you to suppose that you could possibly be able to be able to be a christian?
I must admit that when I read "Woke" and "Racism" in the title of this video I was a bit turned off and wanted to skip it, since those topics are so boring and annoying. But I enjoyed just watching McWhorter and Dawkins in conversation as for the intellectual and academic side.
Golly gee wiz thanks for being so enlightened
@@jeremyeblack4987was your response neccessary? What was the point of it?
@@georgekitchen7046 Honestly, at the time it seemed relevant, but now I'm not sure why.
@@jeremyeblack4987 haha
It's only boring to the woke racists, because the truth of the fact that woke is racist both ways.
They are racist to the ppl they are self appointed guardians of, as if they are disabled, however they still don't do anything for them apart from virtue signal their own morality.
Also racist to their own history they see themselves as not part of, simply for claiming to be said guardians. Again doing nothing about it though apart from virtue signal, not moving away and continuing to benefit from said racist society.
its absolutely adorable to see how excited these two are to talk to eachother and about these subjects
So good to hear two of my greatest heroes in conversation! I remember listening to John McWhorter's lectures on human language as an audio book many years ago, I recommended it to pretty much every person I met for several years. I still think he's one of the best lecturers I've heard, and one of the greatest intellectuals of today. I also must say that he really doesn't look like he's born in -65! Good genes on that guy.
Check out all of the Lexicon Valley podcasts that John used to do. I used to binge-listen to them a few years back. Such a likeable, rational guy.
Time to re-listen, I think.
I love the idea that a foreign dialect becomes a different language once you stop getting beaten up for imitating it. Incidentally, the hybrid zone to which you refer is probably Chorthippus parallelus/erythropus in the Pyrenees, though there are of course examples of orthopteran zones in the US too (e.g. Gryllus pennsylvanicus/firmus in the Appalachians)
I wish I could give a thousand likes. One of the best conversations I’ve heard in a very long time.
On the subject of where a word like rock came from, it just makes my mind wander. I thought of a grave stone that hominids called by the name of the person buried there, or even a rock or object above the grave. Years later someone with no knowledge of the person hears that name and generalizes it to the object in general. Maybe an object named after the name of a person who had characteristics that object represented to them. We’ll never really know.
Great conversation.
It sparked so many related topics. I have always had great respect for Richard and his endorsement of John McWhorter was clearly justified.
Two intellectuals traversing an extremely interesting topic.
Fantastic video!!
Thank you
Long time fan of both men. Thank you so much for taking the time to visit, John.. We all know you dont care for traveling)
Ahh, so that's why he's going on tour then, just to get over his dislike of travelling...
The audio version of this went out as a repeat of the previous episode with Ayaan Hirsi Ali. I wasn't sure where to inform you about this so I'm making this comment here. I observed the problem in the pocket casts app.
John is a fantastic lecturer. Absolutely brilliant. I highly recommend his "Story of human language" lecture-series on audible.
Richard was one of the few well known British academics to speak out against woke racism (in his UnHerd interview with Freddie Sayers last year). It came late, but still very much appreciated. Thank you!
Very enlightening indeed. What a pleasure to watch two such clever guys.
I’m an 8th black but I still call myself white bc it wld be ridiculous to call myself black when I don’t appear to be so. However, my brothers are mixed and yet each of the 3 call themselves something, white, brown and black which shows this generation thinks of race very different from our parents and this isn’t a bad thing
Great conversation.
Richard, for all his wisdom and really profound questions, is not a natural interviewer - but once you get past all the awkward pauses, the exchanges are delightful.
Of course, John is one of the most captivating speakers of his generation - and brings both wit and entertainment to even the most serious topics.
I didn't realise John McWhorter had done so muxh work on this subject, I only knew him from the Glenn Show. Good to hear this.
FYI @ 37 mins...
Elite: This word comes from the Old French "elit," which means "chosen" or "selected." This, in turn, comes from the Latin "electus," the past participle of "eligere," meaning "to choose."
Elect: This word directly derives from the Latin "electus," also the past participle of "eligere
And gere in eligere means to manage
In deed and elite tends to be used as with or in a pejorative sense by those that do not and never can or will attract that epithet, which the Elsies or Lower Classes use as a cognate of it-doesn't like it. or bad, but they have not your leaning or wits to grasp that at bottom it simply means the best, but it cannot be all chiefs and no bloody Indians or vice versa; one must get one's servants from somewhere
The ending of this very interesting conversation will stick with me. Refusing to acknowledge and learn from the past is a very dangerous state of being. We should rather acknowledge the past and learn from it. Disagreeing with someone doesn't mean they should be erased from history - that's a tremendous mistake and an insult to those that fought for the progress we enjoy today, despite whatever flaws are also present.
It's a relief and refreshing and inspiring and positively a delight to hear two eloquent people take about reason data facts evidence and above all, logic.
Thank you
Eloquent, coherent and a message that is sorely needed in our contemporary society going forward. Bravo!
Great link up between these two - two shared domains and they have something insightful to offer in both.
I clicked on this video because of the "Woke" in the title, but the conversation was enlightening much beyond that stuff.
What an awesome conversation. So great to see both pushing on each other's ideas, and thoroughly enjoying it! These two could talked for another two hours. Wonderful!
No two chaps are ever so happy as when they agree about what they cannot abide
What a fabulous, thought provoking discussion. Thank you 🙏🏻
So interesting. I write and speak 3 languages, fluently and without problems. I speak a fourth which is not written but only spoken. What I have realized is that a language is not only a language but a window into a different culture and that is something more magical than the language itself.
John’s expression of how we can logically view race differently was eye opening for me, even at my advanced (63yo) age. I think he has forever changed me, and I value those rare moments. I also quite enjoyed his comparison of all types of illogical thinking to myth-based religions.
However, I currently disagree with him that there is something wrong with later generations “canceling” (my word, not his) even those who were progressive in earlier generations. I think the old adage that “life is for the living” (i.e., not for the dead) has great merit, and that those who are living-and, by implication, especially younger adults-should be able to construct the world/societies that bring joy to their lives, which quite reasonably can include eliminating remnants of history that they find offensive/repulsive.
Personally, I am a progressive, yet I revere and honor Abraham Lincoln. But I also have no problem with those who do not, or even those who might find my reverence for him offensive/repulsive.
“Provided no one is harmed against their will, consenting adults of any number should be free to do for, to, and with themselves and each other whatever they choose.” That should be guiding principle of every free society, and cancelling historical figures does not seem to violate it.
As a Dane I can say that if I move to Sweden and speak Swedish they will love me for it (they love it even when I’m just visiting) because they have a hard time understanding Danish. The same goes for Norway but they don’t struggle as much understanding Danish. And some Norwegian dialects are so similar to Danish that we understand each other better than if I were to speak bokmål. Only if you were actually making fun of the language or dialects would it seem weird or you would offend people (but they’d probably just dismiss you as stupid).
Top tier conversation, top tier tie.
Just a heads up, those are side address mics, so they should be set up to talk into the side of the mic, not the top. That’s why the audio sounds a bit thin.
Great discussion on language - nearly missed this because of the video's title!
I nearly marked this video "not interested" and considered telling UA-cam to not recommend the channel. But I looked around some first, then listened to the video and I'm glad I didn't "cancel" it.
Basically, I "cancel" any video that talks about "woke", and I check to see if the channel that put it on seems to traffic in that stuff. I'm a liberal in the US and among other liberals that I know, the word "woke" is almost never used. Instead, the emphasis is on treating people decently even if they differ from us. If somebody DOES talk about "woke" it will be the right wingers or religious bigots who are framing strawman cases to show how liberals are stupid, dangerous or both! For me, removing videos about "woke" and channels that want to talk about it is a fairly quick and accurate way to remove content I don't want to waste my time on!
In this case, I would have made a big mistake. Thanks for speaking with Mr. McWhorter and for a having a very interesting discussion!
I agree, labels are thrown around too easily and can be very polarizing. The left does it too with 'far right' or right wing to refer to people such as John. We are expected to start an article with lots of preconceived ideas. I even see articles in the media that remind you at the start that so and so once posted a video on the far right platform....As you have done, we need to forget the labels and examine what people say. In his book, Woke Racism, he explains why he chose that title. He wouldn't usually attack people with labels. For me, he is a voice of reason. His argument that the current ethos about white patriarchy all being rabidly racist and non whites are all victims is racist in itself and not helpful regarding the great good, is very compelling. I thought the book The New Puritans was also very good, a book that talks about many topics in John's book.
You seem to have missed entirely how Dawkins and McWhorter here coincide on how wokery is precisely when liberals are at their most stupid and dangerous...
lmao imagine being a liberal and a man
@@twntwrs It really depends on what you call a liberal. What was considered a classical liberal until not that long ago would be considered a moderate or even center right these days. The word "liberal" has become synonymous with "leftist" which isn't really the case. In fact "woke" ideology is very illiberal. For a while there were a few classical liberals who were trying to get people to stop calling the far left liberals but to no avail. So to say that wokery is some sort of offshoot of liberalism is playing into this misunderstanding of liberalism. Google "Liberalism" and tell me how the far left has anything to do with that.
Never heard such an interesting conversation about linguistics before. Wasn’t interested in the subject so far… Thank you 🙏
If this were a three-hour discussion, I would have listened to all of it.
Great conversation. Two of my idols together, what a pleasure. Enlightenment reborn.
Language is the physical result of mental imaging, thought and reason based on perception of the environment...
Or Lung witchery for short...😅
What a wonderful talk and discussion. Thank you very much sharing this. It’s great to see and hear that we can overcome hysteria regarding social interaction if we really want.
Thanks again with greetings from a highly delighted German.
My Dad used to hate being labeled. He was technically a french canadian metis. He was raised in a french, catholic community and had recent predecessors of first nations. He preferred that if you must label him, call him a Canadian with french roots and that was the end of it. Sadly, he rarely admitted to that metis part because he didn't want to associate with the way first nations people were perceived, not so much of the heritage itself. If anything, he was a little proud of what he had accomplished in life, despite hardships.
I ended up inheriting that distaste towards labeling people just to make them distinct from one another.
I think language developed in parallel with the invention of more complex tools. There was a dire need to teach 'technical' skills to future generations. Language is vital as it enables tasks to be parsed into actionable units.
Always so stimulating to hear from you Dr. Dawkins. Thank-you
Great. Very thought-provoking. You know what, I'm going to become a patreon. The NYT et al are becoming so bad that I'm going to put my 2 cents with people who make sense. By the way, do you think that you could come up with a crossword?
Two of my favourite people in a conversation!
In Amharic, recursion makes verbs behave like adjectives. For instance, "the bar where we watch football" would literally be something like "the football that-we-watch-in-it bar"
Interesting! I wonder if it's like that in all Semitic languages.
Thank you for making this podcast. More John McWhorter, please.
The most universal language, is pointing at things, and very basic movement, towards oneself, at mouth, other body parts, or someone else.
Along with facial expressions, would've been amazing to have a universal language in a way, same time not, since we lose our individuality and history because of it
All the best for your upcoming journeys Mr Dawkins... I am booked in for event in Oxford.
Finally! I've found out what I am! A languist! I've always been facinated with languages and have always felt like John describes when hearing a new language: Hey! I want to play with that!
I love John McWhorter, I've bought and listened to his lecture series and books. I honestly don't know how you can be such a superlatively learned linguist and not see the propositional logic underpinning, virtually, all human languages.
These scholars seem puzzled by how language could spontaneously generate - but it happened only a few decades ago, when the Sandinista government of Nicaragua brought together previously isolated deaf children:
“Previously, most deaf children were completely isolated. Suddenly, for the first time, there was a community of deaf kids all trying to communicate with each other as hundreds were brought together in a few schools in Managua, the capital. It was here that the new language - Nicaraguan Sign Language (NSL), or Idioma de Señas de Nicaragua (ISN) - would emerge.
Today, Nicaraguan Sign Language has its own complex grammar and a broad vocabulary. And it has helped fill in some gaps in our knowledge about how languages evolve, how they work, and the role a community plays in all of that - especially when it comes to the youngest learners. But in the mid-1980s, linguists were just learning of NSL’s existence.
That’s not what they mean by spontaneously generate. Disparate communities invent languages all the time. They mean the first language, ie the progenitor that instantiated the idea of language for the first time.
Great pleasure to listen to those two brilliant scholars
I've read Daniel Everett's book, Don't Sleep, There are Snakes, & I highly recommend it. He went to an Amazon tribe as a missionary, to translate the Bible into their language, but when he found they had no word for "lying" & other negative concepts that are central to Christianity, instead of converting them, he became an Atheist.
Utterly fascinating. Thank you.
I wonder if this man could answer why so many Americans struggle with the “the man, who I saw yesterdy….” and instead say “the man, who I saw him yesterday”. I hear it on almost every podcast or clip where such a construction is needed. An example of the mistake would be “Yesterday I was given an orange, which I didn’t even like it”.
His book Woke Racism was excellent, although I'd be labeled racist for supporting it. Two other good books I recently read on racism and slavery which can add something to the currently debate: Reconstruction by WEB Dubois, White Cargo, and another, White Trash by Nancy Isenberg.
This was a fascinating talk. Thank you both for such an engaging and thought stimulating discussion!
What an incredible conversation! I wish everyone could see this
Two of my favorite thinkers! A real treat. Thank you
To those running this podcast. Those mics look like the at2020 or very similar. They are side address microphone however you have them setup as end address. I could be wrong as I can't zoom in enough to confirm the mics. Just confirm them and maybe it'll mean much better sound. The sound wasn't bad as it is because they are condensers that'll give you a fair bit more forgiveness off axis. But this will help you with sound.
Great conversation, but the audio quality was pretty bad considering decent mics are being used and they are both in the same room, not over the internet.
Dawkins podcast has it's own vibe. I like it.
It has a little bit of Lawrence Krauss and Alex O'Connor to it, but still it has indeed its own vibe.
McWhorter is an algorithm. Making sense is so rare. Gratitude.
Thank you, Prof Dawkins, for The Selfish Gene, which, along with Carl Sagan's Cosmos, gave me the universe at age 21. Now, at age 50, you've given me John McWhorter!
"Only once. Oh, but only those two times.." There's your modern scientist, ladies and gentlemen
John is a legend. Great conversations with him and Glenn Loury.
This was brilliant - thanks to both of you!
2 great thinkers, what a delight to listen to
Great job. First time I've seen McWhorter. I really like his style of speech and ideas.
As long as there are individuals like McWhorter and they are speaking their minds fearlessly we should be doing fine as rational societies.
So interesting that you find both obviously “miraculous” events 8:00 - singular beginnings of eukaryotes and language as analogous.
Dawkins' definition of language v dialect is amazing and really deserves attention. However, he's off about English being Norman French just in terms of word counts. Word frequency matters much, much more. Which words do we lean on all the time for day to day talking? The Germanic ones. We use words like "cerebellum" and "visionary" many orders of magnitude less than we use words like "give," "have," or "the."
Here's another example: Each word I'm speaking now comes from Frisian Dutch. (Same for the sentence above that starts with "Which words.") Churchill's entire "We shall fight" speech (with the exception of one word) comes from Frisian Dutch. Try writing a speech with only Norman French words. Can't be done. In terms of word use, English is absolutely a Germanic tongue.
Did you use Churchill's speech as an example because you saw it on the Stephen Fry fry Language talk, or is it a known thing that both you and Stephen Fry came across independently?
@@Yossarianhoenikker Both independently. I learned it in the 1970s.