Ep199 - The Podcast Where Political Correctness is Euthanized

A lot of people have tried to kill political correctness. Mostly, they do this by just saying racist, sexist, offensive generalizations. That's not really killing it. That's just ignoring it. To actually kill it, you have to find political correctnesses vulnerabilities and attack those. That's what this episode of The Bryan Callen show does with the help of probably two of the only men on the planet who could do it, Richard Nisbett and Joe Henrich. Though, by the end of this episode, you'll be able to do it too. To be fair though, kill is such an aggressive, violent word and Richard and Joe are both intelligent, sophisticated individuals. So, while Hunter tries to kill it, Professors Nisbett and Henrich gently euthanize it. Political correctness was a well-intentioned idea but it's well past its prime. And that gets to the heart of the true nature of culture. Culture is simply a tool that people develop to survive and thrive in different environments but it is not who we are. Humans are infinitely adaptable and when we move from place to place we change clothing, diet, building styles and as we have moved into the modern world cultures have been quick to embrace technologies like cellphones and cars that give people greater control over their lives. However, when it comes to belief, we have all been guilty of confusing tools with innate qualities of both ourselves and others. The result has been that humanity has gone back and forth between trying to destroy people who have certain ideas and being so appalled by that that we've decided to simply not have an opinion on cultures. In the wake of the Holocaust, it's understandable that political correctness developed. If noticing cultural differences and thinking that they matter a lot leads to genocide, then let's just pretend that culture doesn't matter. Of course, culture does matter. And it turns out it matters a heck of a lot. Actually, the ability to acquire culture is what allows us to adapt to literally any envi