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That Oxford Union Speech Decoded (Patreon)

Published:
2023-01-20 15:07:41
Imported:
2026-06
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Hi everyone,

A weekend treat.

A decoding of an intense bit of rhetoric that has been bopping around the internet recently.

I do have one request for you lovely Patrons though... should we release this on the main feed? 

You know Matt and I are peaceful souls and we know Konstantin probably won't be happy if we release this to the general public but what do you all think? Good enough to go out, or do we keep it in the walled garden?

Let me know what you think and any other feedback!

Comments

Nathan

I would say keep the peace. He and his cohost podcaster put out this big REACT response video rant after David Pakman made some mild commentary during one of his live streams after appearing on their show. If that’s not enough, I’d say keep some of the special content for those willing to pay :) Thank you both!

James Link

I’d vote to release it - would be interested in hearing his response to your decoding.

Emma

Oh gosh this is annoying! I think I might be woke (vegan environmental scientist). Most of my friends definitely are! But sometimes I question some of the woke extremes. Maybe because they can sometimes use emotional reasoning which rubs me a bit the wrong way as a sciency person. But then I worry this sort of thing actually pushes me further left just because the anti -woke are so frustrating! So this talk is having the exact opposite effect then his stated intent to reach us less extreme borderline wokeists. I think you should release this to the world. This terrible argument deserves public debunking!

Emma

P.s. just one view but I personally pay extra to be a patreon because I believe in supporting content I like. Having extra content not available to the public is not a motivator for me.

Neil Hornsby

To answer your first question, it's certainly good enough to go out. In addition, it's length and subject matter make it ideal as a free episode to help draw in additional Patreon subscribers. [As an aside, I get the impression from your current paywall split (among other things), maximizing Patreon revenue is not foremost among your current strategic goals but maybe I'm misreading things.] I'm not sure why you would concern yourselves with Konstantin's response - there's nothing personal and it contains perfectly valid criticism of the techniques involved - but then, I don't inhabit your world. Fundamentally it comes down to looking at your vision for the podcast and determining if posting the episode to the wider world is in alignment with that or otherwise. Congratulations on your success so far - your approach has been refreshing and I've personally learnt a lot from listening to you both.

Alex Anderson

Definitely release it. I like Triggernometry and especially the live episodes despite disagreeing with some of what they say (same as DtG) and it wouldn’t hurt Konstantin to hear quality criticism / knock him a down a peg or two

Jenny

I support releasing it (and god I hate this guy)

Tom McCool

Of course you should release and maybe punch up your criticism of his dumbfoolery. Seems like a plan to me.

Colin Fardey

Release. Although?This is starting to feel a bit like one of those Elon polls on twitter . A bit anyway .

Tim Tripp

So is this now the 'I'm Okay, You're Okay' podcast?

Jason Etheridge

Definitely release! You're making some very fair criticism of his heavy use of rhetoric drawn from right wing talking points. He knows his audience, and I suspect he employed that style very deliberately. Formal debates are a terrible format (in my opinion) for having any kind of intelligent exchange on any topic, but are rather just an excuse to practise persuasive public speaking, which KK embraces. His line of argument is particularly heavy on the persuasive elements, and devoid of making any substantive points, and you can and should point that out on the show. The right and far-right have presumably lapped it up, and a counterpoint would be welcome.

Chris (The Rewired Soul)

Issssss there a version of this I can listen to at 2x speed like on youtube coming soon? ❤

Chris Spanos

I would definitely release come out especially as Konstantin is busy taking victory laps and titling the speech “Comedian leaves Oxford Union SPEECHLESS”. He seems genuinely proud of this effort and is always claiming to destroy reporters through facts and logic, so I think its fair to decode this tripe in public. I’ll grab the popcorn…

Jenny

I think you should release as a reaction to his refusing to accept points of order. This can be the point of order rebuttal that he was too scared to debate

Kit McLean

I think it’s a great episode and really does focus attention on rhetoric as a technique of dressing up a turd. So definitely in favour of releasing. I enjoyed his lib digs and thought it entirely appropriate for the forum and form of presentation, I wouldn’t expect to see right leaning digs in this so think it’s probably not relevant to bring up. I realise it’s in the context of him outside of this talk saying he’s centrist, but if the focus is on this speech, given the side of the argument he’s on, it seems normal. In terms of content, the speech seems incredibly lazy. There’s no effort to prove a point with evidence. There’s some hand wavey %ages mentioned, so it sounds evidenced-ish, but they’re used to set up ridiculous premises, not as evidence. It also sounded like a anti-climatic change action speech bookended by 45 seconds of the actual topic about wokeness, which is just weird. Finally, I don’t spend a lot of time on YouTube, but interested in the 20 month old foetus videos he speaks of, either going to be some new horror genre, or elephant content. I’m here for either.

Greg Binder

I am woke adjacent and get accused of being woke all the time. Towards the end he indicates that the unwoke are the producers, the guys doing stuff, making things etc. He didn’t identify these makers of things, but we know who they are: Shapiro, Ngo, Peterson, Crowder, Owens, Jones, Rogan. To the question you posed, how much grief do you want? I am leaning on go for it as there are a large amount of people who are neither woke nor anti-woke who want us to get on with real issues.

Loki

Where do I find you guys critiquing the Sam Harris video in introspection referenced in this episode?

Kai

release it

Artemis Green

Matt, re: putin - have a think about putin's comments about Western degeneracy - gays, Satanists, 'people of many genders', etc. I agree with the basic point that internal division in western countries can be exploited by those who have a strategic interest in doing so. But the implication in the speech is that this division arises from woke-ism, and this is wrong. Firstly, these are fault lines that have existed for a long time - if you look at putin's rhetoric, it's just as applicable to a socially progressive/socially conservative distinction as it is to woke/anti-woke arguments. Secondly, it seems to me that the intellectual division that Konstantin is refereferencing is as much attributable to hard right figures as it is to 'woke' ones. Also, the claims I have read re: alleged russian interference in US elections* suggest that russia's main game was alt-right propaganda (Hillary Clinton is the leader of a paedophile ring etc). If woke-ism was the real threat to our strategic interests, wouldn't it be in russia's interests to promote 'woke' propaganda over alt-right propaganda? *Admittedly not an expert on this topic.

Artemis Green

On the actual question raised by Chris, this episode is excellent and I am really enjoying it. Liked you taking the time to sketch out your own political positions and the context about the Oxford Union was helpful and not something I knew before.

Liam Kofi Bright

Do you still hold fast your integrity? Curse God and post.

Professor Matt

Thanks everyone! As soon as this coffee kicks in immagonna finalise and release

Conal dunn

Glad to see you’ve decided not to stay on kissin terms with Konstantinos

brianshmrian

I agree with everybody else. Release it! Side note (re: Russian outhouses), I've often thought that people who use outdoor toilets would find indoor toilets disgusting. Does anybody have any survey data on this?

Empty_Cognizance

Just about to listen to this... I mean, you have the intro and everything in there already, might as well release it 😉

elcid

Konstantin is Douglas Murray on helium. Oh, by the way, release (post release!).

Artemis Green

Matt, I'm up to the 'everyone does rhetoric' part and I feel like my dad is giving me the responsible use of drugs talk

Kai

well done! I rewarded your bravery by upgrading my membership to revolutionary genius ;)

Curtis Kofoed

Release it. Kisin is the laziest, sloppiest thinker. I cannot stand him and would welcome wider criticism of his brain dead schtick

Bob Gower

Loved this - thanks and so glad you released it to a wider audience. btw I'd love to hear your thoughts on is the claim he begins with — about the glories of the enlightenment and western civilization. It sounds to me like how I imagine the church might have argued against the reformation and the enlightenment "we built this world and you're lucky to have it."

Rod Hodges

I vote for release. I think Konstantin is getting worse. He recently has an ad that mentions Jordan Peterson,Douglas Murray and other gurus as a great bunch of people who appear on his show. He’s getting really arrogant and smug and needs a counter balance

SHOUNAK SARKAR

Very good mini episode Chris and Matt! Oh god where do I start? Of all the anti-woke, hard right populists you have decoded, Kisin may just be one of the dumbest and most insufferable. Good job debunking the stupid "poor people don't care about climate change" line, which I found particularly offensive in its blatant falsity, As someone of Indian descent and having lived in Kolkata for the first 13 years of life, I can tell you from first person experience that even in India, people do care a LOT about climate change. Just in July 2022, India began banning single-use plastics including cups and straws because of its polluting effects and "environmental impacts." Also, as right wing as PM Narendra Modi is, far from being a climate skeptic, he actually brings up the issue as one of major importance alongside economic development of India. Just a few months ago, Modi stated clearly that "World must unite to address climate change crisis." He has also pledged net zero by 2070. ---- Then you have next door Bangladesh which is already facing waterlogging issues due to being a low lying country. It faces danger from two fronts; 1) from sea level rise but also 2) from melting glaciers which means that the Himalayan rivers which flow through the country (including both Ganga & Brahmaputra rivers) are bringing more floodwaters every monsoon, inundating farmland and destroying crops & homes. An issue which was covered excellently in Simon Reeves' BBC documentary. The amount of bold faced lying, ignorance of facts and rhetorical tricks / flourishes that Kisin employs is mindblowing. God I hate that little, slimy, smug, dishonest dweeb with a passion! Only in the moronic anti-woke sphere can a third rate intellect like this get so popular.

Paul Bowman

KK starts with a string of apophasis ("I'm not going to mention X" - you just mentioned X) which Matt may take to be fair use of rhetoric, but always grates for me - the basic dishonesty of that particular rhetorical device already makes me distrust the speaker. Then there's the whole posturing about the anti-climate action camp being on the side of the global poor unlike the metropolitan elite (*cough*) woke-ists, who claim to be socialist but really despise ordinary workers and the poor. A posture that isn't going to convince anyone apart from the public school bullyboy Bullingdon Club types the Oxford Union attracts (a particularly loathsome segment of humanity). Like you intimate, the really depressing part here is that the right-wing audience for this tripe thinks its reasoning rather than rhetoric and apparently can't tell the difference. Which makes discussion on the grounds of reason impossible. It reminds me of Wolfgang Pauli's ascerbic dunk on a colleagues paper that it was "not even wrong". It's easy for the Big Oil shills (which is what these ideological hangers-on actually are - work? lol. as if) to claim that the left can't refute the logic of their arguments because there's neither logic nor argument in what they are saying.

NIALL DAVISON

I mean, WTF? Just fucking do it! #WTF #justfuckingdoit #GIN #DISC #gotyourback

Kat

I tried listening to some of the other debaters, but they all had different definitions of "woke" so they just talking past each other anyway. I found the whole debate stupid, and if "woke culture" were really shutting down debate they should have shut that one down.

Giant If

"Woke" has a lot in common with "cancel culture" -- two people can agree to condemn either one, only to discover that their views are actually directedly opposed because they never defined what they meant by either term in the first place. Add to that the fact that almost nobody calls themselves woke or declares that they're partaking in cancel culture, and you have two nebulous bogeyman with about as much connection to reality as Satan had in his own moral panic proceeding theirs. For that reason, I think Matt should never expressed disagreement with "wokeness" without-- again-- defining what on earth he thinks it means. He gave (I think) two examples, but examples are not a definition. According to the folks commonly recognized anti-woke brigade, a podcast like Decoding the Gurus would be the absolute pinnacle of wokeness, which really speaks to how useless the term is.

Philip Collins

Loved this decoding except I can't remember anyone drawing attention to Konstantin's very odd choice of climate change as an example of "woke". "woke" as a pejorative was adapted by racists. Racial discrimination is at the start and the heart of woke. Climate change is a scientific issue. Shoehorning it into "woke" should be challenged and discredited.