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Joe Rogan Experience #2497 - Gad Saad

Dr. Gad Saad is a scholar at the Declaration of Independence Center for the Study of American Freedom at the University of Mississippi and host of “The Saad Truth.” His new book, “Suicidal Empathy: Dying to Be Kind,” is available now. https://www.harpercollins.com/products/suicidal-empathy-gad-saad https://www.youtube.com/@GadSaad https://www.gadsaad.com Perplexity: Download the app or ask Perplexity anything at https://pplx.ai/rogan. Uber Eats makes last-minute gifting easy. https://www.ubereats.com/

Joe RoganhostDr. Gad Saadguest
May 13, 20262h 36mWatch on YouTube ↗

EVERY SPOKEN WORD

  1. 0:00 – 0:02

    Intro

    1. JR

      [upbeat music]

  2. 0:02 – 1:50

    New book reveal: defining “Suicidal Empathy” with real-world examples

    1. JR

      Joe Rogan Podcast, check it out. The Joe Rogan Experience. Train by day, Joe Rogan Podcast by night, all day. [upbeat music] Good to see you, sir.

    2. GS

      Oh, so good to see you.

    3. JR

      What's happening? How you been?

    4. GS

      Doing great. Uh, got big news.

    5. JR

      Big?

    6. GS

      I'll, I'll talk... Big, very big.

    7. JR

      Big. Really big?

    8. GS

      Before I start with any-

    9. JR

      Okay

    10. GS

      ... drops.

    11. JR

      The book. Suicidal Empathy.

    12. GS

      Suicidal Empathy.

    13. JR

      A quote that we use all the time.

    14. GS

      That's right.

    15. JR

      Yeah. It is, uh, it is a good quote, and it is a very accurate quote for the times. I like this, where they're carrying a sign, "Free the wolves."

    16. GS

      [laughs]

    17. JR

      The lamb is carrying-

    18. GS

      Well, I wanted the, the cover to be as evocative as the, the concept, right?

    19. JR

      Dying to Be Kind. [laughs]

    20. GS

      There you go. And there are-- Just in the last two days, there have been so many new cases of suicidal empathy that I regret that I couldn't include them in the book, but-

    21. JR

      Like which ones?

    22. GS

      So did you hear about the one where the, the guy who tried to assassinate President Trump-

    23. JR

      Oh, yeah

    24. GS

      ... the judge then went and said, "I am so sorry that, you know, you're not being treated nicely. You have a, a, a room without a window." This is just, it's mean.

    25. JR

      Oh, see, I don't think that that's suicidal empathy at all. I think that's signaling. I, I think that's signaling that he wishes that that man was successful, and that he supports his endeavor.

    26. GS

      Fair enough. The second example, uh, actually today, uh, Dave Rubin shared it with me. Uh, it was the one where a felon of color who had just been released ended up pushing-

    27. JR

      Someone. Yeah

    28. GS

      ... uh, right? And, and the, the previous person that he had been entangled with didn't want to, whatever, press charges because she didn't want another Black man to be in prison.

    29. JR

      Oh, boy.

    30. GS

      So, uh-

  3. 1:50 – 3:24

    Major life update: moving from Montreal to Ole Miss and pursuing a green card

    1. GS

      ... so we can-- So I hope we-- to get into the book in a second, but the other big news is that this past year I've been a visiting scholar at Ole Miss, uh, University of Mississippi. I had taken a two-year leave from my school at, at, in Montreal. Starting this f- uh, summer, we are moving permanently to Oxford. So the Lebanese Jews Canadians are going down to Oxford, Mississippi, and we're very excited.

    2. JR

      Wow.

    3. GS

      Yeah, yeah.

    4. JR

      Um, so you're gonna be there for two years?

    5. GS

      Uh, it's-

    6. JR

      So how does that work? Do you get a green-

    7. GS

      Three years

    8. JR

      ... three years

    9. GS

      ... uh-

    10. JR

      Do you get a green card or a visa? How does that-

    11. GS

      Yeah, so the, the previous two years that I did, it was a leave of absence.

    12. JR

      Mm-hmm.

    13. GS

      So I did, I, I only had to get a TN visa. But now that we're moving, uh, we-- I applied for an EB-1A visa, which gets you a green card. It's one-- They're called extraordinary visas.

    14. JR

      Mm.

    15. GS

      You have to pass certain criteria to them. It's-

    16. JR

      You are extraordinary, aren't you?

    17. GS

      And rather easy on the eyes. [laughs]

    18. JR

      [laughs]

    19. GS

      Uh, and so, uh, and so that went through, uh, thank God. And so, yeah, so we're very excited.

    20. JR

      Congratulations.

    21. GS

      Yeah, yeah. So, and hopefully this will be a fast track to... My inner spirit is American, but maybe we can legalize it and turn, turn the Saads into Americans.

    22. JR

      Wow.

    23. GS

      Inshallah.

    24. JR

      You're gonna join, you're gonna join the team.

    25. GS

      I'm-- I-- If, if you'll have me.

    26. JR

      Ah, we'll have you.

    27. GS

      [laughs]

    28. JR

      Come on. Welcome aboard.

    29. GS

      Yeah, yeah, yeah.

    30. JR

      We need more people that are thinking straight.

  4. 3:24 – 6:14

    From “The Parasitic Mind” to emotional hijacking: the wood cricket metaphor

    1. GS

      So I th- I thought maybe I'd give you, 'cause I, I know that you know The Parasitic Mind really well.

    2. JR

      Yes.

    3. GS

      And so I wanted to kind of contextualize this book in relation to that book.

    4. JR

      Mm-hmm.

    5. GS

      So we are a thinking and a feeling animal, right? Both our cognitive system is important and our affective system is important. For example, uh, advertisers recognize that. If I'm trying to sell you a mutual fund, I need to engage your cognitive system. "Here are the seven reasons why you should buy my mutual fund." If I'm trying to sell you perfume, I don't tell you, "This is what Harvard physiologists think about the science of olfaction," right? I need to engage your affective system. So in that case, I will show you a pretty girl on a horse with beautiful hair, and the, the brand name will be Mystère, right? I'm just engaging-

    6. JR

      Right

    7. GS

      ... your emotional system. Well, The Parasitic Mind was the story of what I need to do to hijack your cognitive system, your, your, your ability to think rationally. And hence, there were all these parasitic ideas that destroyed your capacity to think.

    8. JR

      Mm-hmm.

    9. GS

      But for me to completely zombify you and hijack you, I also need to zombify your affective system. That's where suicidal empathy comes in. So if I can hijack both your cognitive and emotional systems, you become a wood cricket, which we could talk about what that reference is, if you want.

    10. JR

      What's a wood cricket?

    11. GS

      So the wood cricket is a, an, a insect that abhors water. It wants nothing to do with water. But when it is parasitized by a neuroparasite called the brain wo- uh, hairworm-

    12. JR

      Oh, I've seen this

    13. GS

      ... right?

    14. JR

      Yeah, yeah.

    15. GS

      The hairworm needs the wood cricket to happily and merrily commit suicide by jumping into the water, because that's the only way that the hairworm can complete its reproductive cycle. So once the hairworm hijacks the, the wood cricket's ability to think and to invoke its survival instinct, it erases its survival instinct, then it is owned by the hairworm. And so I use that principle to explain suicidal empathy.

    16. JR

      Yeah, we've actually shown videos of that. It's very strange.

    17. GS

      It's amazing.

    18. JR

      The cricket really commits suicide. It jumps in the water, drowns, and the worm wiggles out of its body.

    19. GS

      Exactly.

    20. JR

      And that's how it's born.

    21. GS

      Exactly. And, and-

    22. JR

      So many, there's so many cases of that in nature.

    23. GS

      I- I- indeed.

    24. JR

      Yeah.

    25. GS

      A- a- and so the way that I originally had the epiphany to use the parasithological frameworkSo parasitology is this, this, it's just the study of host-parasite interactions. So a tapeworm is a parasite, but that parasitize my intestinal tract. But a subfield of parasitology is neuroparasitology. Those are the parasites that need to go into your brain, altering your circuitry to suit their interests.

    26. JR

      Including ideas.

    27. GS

      Including-- And that's how I came up with the-

    28. JR

      Yeah

  5. 6:14 – 9:33

    Empathy’s “golden mean”: when compassion becomes self-destructive policy

    1. GS

      ... parasitic ideas in The Parasitic Mind. But i-i- in order to fully tell the story, I then had to say, "But, but a lot of the, the, the mechanisms by which people seem to be completely hijacked in terms of their ability to think critically is really coming from an affective place." And so how can I explain that? And so what I argue in the book, and then we, we can drill down to endless examples if you want, I'm not saying that empathy is a bad thing. 'Cause even though the book is just dropping, there's already been maybe 10 articles that have been hit pieces against the book, which of course people-- it means people haven't read it yet, where they say, you know, "Here comes the, the dark Jew who's trying to promulgate the idea that empathy is a bad thing. He's a neo-con, right-wing guy, an Elon guy, a Donald Trump, Trump, Donald Trump guy." I'm, I'm not saying that empathy is bad. Empathy is actually a very important virtue to have. In order for you and I to have a meaningful conversation, I need to put myself in your mind, and vice versa. That's called cognitive empathy, right? Uh, theory of mind is something that typically autistic children fail on very early in life. That's how you diagnose them as being, uh, autistic. So there's nothing wrong with well-modulated empathy. The problem with empathy, like most things in life, is if there's too little or too much of it. Aristotle explained this to us thousands of years ago via his golden mean. If, if a soldier is not courageous enough, if he's cowardly, it's not good. If he's too courageous, he becomes a reckless martyr. That's not good. There's a sweet po- spot in the middle. I argue empathy follows exactly that rule. Too little of it, you're a psychopath. Too much of it, if it's hyperactive, if it is invoked in the wrong situations toward the wrong targets, you end up with suicidal empathy.

    2. JR

      Yeah, I don't even necessarily know if it's empathy at that point. It, it co- completely becomes illogical and ideological. You just subscribe to whatever the ideology says, and you ignore the reality. Like this man that pushed that guy in front of the train.

    3. GS

      Right.

    4. JR

      Like, this is a violent criminal, and he had been arrested numerous times, I think more than a dozen.

    5. GS

      Right.

    6. JR

      And it was very clear there was something very wrong with this person. He probably shouldn't be just running free, victimizing people. There was another one where, um, someone pushed this old guy down a flight of stairs into the subway and killed him.

    7. GS

      Yeah.

    8. JR

      Same situation, same kind of person, person that had been in and out of jail. You know, every one of these people starts off as a child. Every one of these people starts off as a baby, and I can only imagine what kind of household they developed in. I can only imagine what kind of abuse they suffered. I can only imagine what happened to them, and that's horrible. But once they reach adulthood, and they start victimizing other people, we've gotta s- do something as a society.

    9. GS

      Exactly.

    10. JR

      Now, I don't know what the tools are to rehabilitate a person like that, but I know that they're not being employed. Uh, there's not a whole lot of evidence of there's any successful program where they're taking a person like that and doing something with them that completely changes their personality and the way they interact with humans and releases them out in the world-

    11. GS

      Right

    12. JR

      ... and they become a much better person than they used to be. Like-

  6. 9:33 – 11:12

    “Blank slate felons” and the limits of social constructivism

    1. GS

      So I call them, in the book, I call them blank slate felons, because if you remember the term blank slate-

    2. JR

      Mm-hmm

    3. GS

      ... it-- So in The Parasitic Mind, I talk about social constructivism. Everything is a social construction. It's the tabula r- rasa premise. We're born with empty minds, with, with no individual differences in our potentiality, and it's only our unique life trajectories and our unique patterns of social- socialization that end up making us who we become, which in a small sense, that's true. My life experience and yours is an indelible part of who we are as individuals, but there are individual differences, that people are born with different proclivities eventually of c- committing crimes or of being NBA players or of being the next Einstein. It's a very hopeful message, though, to start with the blank slate premise.

    4. JR

      Yeah, it's just not accurate.

    5. GS

      Exactly, because it-- If you, you and I are both parents, I would love to s- subscribe to the idea that if only I knew the exact schedule of reinforcement of my how to ensure that my child becomes the next Lionel Messi or the next Albert Einstein, he too can become that.

    6. JR

      Right.

    7. GS

      That's a lot more hopeful than thinking, "You know what? I don't think my son has the morphological features that are ever gonna make sh- make him to be the next NBA star. He's too short. He doesn't have the right athletic tools." And so it's, it's easy to understand why people can be parasitized by these ideas. This, this person of color was born into a white supremacist society, so he's already been victimized by society, and for you to now punish him by having him, you know, in the penal system,

  7. 11:12 – 13:10

    Victims defending perpetrators: rape cases and the moral inversion problem

    1. GS

      you're doubly punishing him. So shouldn't you give him a second chance? And by second chance, we mean 186 chance. That's part of suicidal empathy. But suicidal empathy doesn't even apply to only that. The victims of rape are themself, are suicidally empathetic towards their rapist. Can I share some of those incredible stories?

    2. JR

      Sure.

    3. GS

      Uh, so I start off in the book with an example from a Norwegian man who had been sodomized by a Somali migrant. Uh, because the Norwegians are very kind and empathetic, w- they don't believe in long sentences, he served maybe, I don't know, three years or four, like a pretty short sentence for a rape of another man. When he was being released, he was going to be deported. The victim of that rape had this huge existential... angst and guilt, because now that, you know, Ahmad was going to be released back to Mogadishu, he wouldn't end up being able to maximally flourish that, like he should be. Well, our emotional system did not evolve to be empathetic toward our rapists. That would be an example of someone who's being suicidally empathetic. Another great example, uh-

    4. JR

      What happened in that case?

    5. GS

      Uh, what, in, in terms of whether he was deported or not?

    6. JR

      Yeah.

    7. GS

      I think, I don't wanna misspeak, but I think he was deported to the screams and lamentations of the-

    8. JR

      Of his victim

    9. GS

      ... of the, his victim. Uh-

    10. JR

      Oh

    11. GS

      ... there is a woman who was raped in Germany, and when the authorities were trying to find out more about who the perpetrators were, she lied to them and said that they were, uh, speaking in German even though they were speaking in Arabic and Farsi, because if she had truly said what their language was, then those communities would have been marginalized.

    12. JR

      Ugh.

    13. GS

      So, and so, you know, there's just an endless number of, like a litany of these examples, and therefore suicidal empathy is, is really pervasive once you rec- recognize the mechanisms.

  8. 13:10 – 17:47

    Cultural relativism to open borders: how “parasitic ideas” enable suicidal empathy

    1. JR

      But when you s- look at the root of that, how did, how is it so common? Like, what, what happens?

    2. GS

      So I think... That, that's a great question. I think, again, it goes back to the one-two punch of parasitic mind and suicidal empathy. In order for the fertile grounds to be r- available for suicidal empathy to barge in, I first have to have certain ideas that are implanted in your brain. So let me give... That sounds very abstract, so let me give you a concrete example. Cultural relativism is a parasitic idea that I discuss in The Parasitic Mind. It basically says, "Who are you to judge the beliefs and the practices of another culture? Shut up, racist." Right? So there are honor killings. Shut up. There are, uh, child brides. Shut up. There are j- female genital mutilations. Shut up. Don't judge other cultures. Well, if you internalize that parasitic idea that it is not appropriate to ever judge the cultural practices of another culture, then that renders you impotent when you're making judgments about who should be let into your country, about whether you want an increase of people who hold those views or not. That, therefore, that leads to the suicidally empathetic position that all immigrants are equally likely to assimilate within the American ethos or the Western ethos. So we started off with internalizing a parasitic idea called cultural relativism, and that lays the foundation for then the suicidal empathy of open borders.

    3. JR

      Well, there's no pressure at all to assimilate. You're more than welcome w- that's one of the weird things.

    4. GS

      Yeah.

    5. JR

      More than welcome to establish a Somali community in Minnesota, where no one speaks English.

    6. GS

      Exactly.

    7. JR

      You know? It's, it's very odd. It's very odd that people wanna come here, but when they come here, they wanna essentially turn it into a smaller version, at least their neighborhood, of where they came from.

    8. GS

      Right. And a lot... I mean, if it were only that you don't speak English, I mean, to me that's bad enough in that you're not going to be part of the fabric of the greater society, but fair enough, that's not an existential threat. But if you're then going to be advocating for many of the cultural beliefs that are perfectly antithetical to the host society, then we have a problem.

    9. JR

      Yeah, and a lot of the cultural beliefs that are illogical, they have to be based on something else, and generally that's religion.

    10. GS

      Indeed.

    11. JR

      Yeah.

    12. GS

      Uh, and you and I have talked, you know, very often about, you know, Islam and so on. S- some people, I th- I mean, I, I wonder what you think about this. Do, do you think more Americans are willing to have a honest and open conversation about this issue, or are most still sort of the proverbial ostrich, and they think it's gauche to talk about religion?

    13. JR

      Well, I, I think it's really divided in party lines.

    14. GS

      Yeah.

    15. JR

      You know, people on the right are more than willing to talk about it. There's very few people on the right who are empathetic about some of the differences that these religions have and hold, and some of the rules that they would like to apply, like Sharia law. Whereas, there's a lot of people on the left that are terrified of being called racist, terrified of being called Islamophobic or, you know, fill-in-whatever phobia, transphobic, whatever it is.

    16. GS

      Yeah.

    17. JR

      They're just terrified. They're terrified of being labeled. And it's interesting, because that side of the political spectrum, the, the people on the left, are the quickest to pull the trigger and accuse someone of being something.

    18. GS

      Yeah.

    19. JR

      Being racist, sexist, homophobic, whatever it is. They're, they're the quickest and the most vicious when it comes to attacking people based on them not, not going along with whatever narrative-

    20. GS

      Yeah

    21. JR

      ... that's been established. Which is interesting, because they're the ones that also like to call people fascists.

    22. GS

      Yeah.

    23. JR

      But that is a form of fascism.

    24. GS

      Right.

    25. JR

      It's not like... If you look at fascism, it's es- it's essentially, most people think of it as right-wing authoritarianism, but it is also, if you look at the definition of it, it's also a complete adherence to whatever narrative is being promoted.

    26. GS

      Yeah.

    27. JR

      And you don't think about that when it's left-wing, like left-wing progressive... Like, left-wing progressive fascism sounds like an oxymoron.

    28. GS

      Yeah.

    29. JR

      But it's, it's a mindset, and it's... The, the problem is you're hiding this mindset in an ideology that you think is righteous, and this is... You could say the same thing about religion, because this is also what people do with religion, because it is the right thing. It's the right thing to do, so throw the gay off the roof. [laughs] Like-

    30. GS

      Yeah

  9. 17:47 – 23:30

    Queers for Palestine and “cultural theory of mind”: kindness misread as weakness

    1. JR

      ... it's like, it's, it's really kind of fascinating. Like, when you, when you see, like, Queers for Palestine, you're like, "Hold on." [laughs]

    2. GS

      [laughs]

    3. JR

      Like, like, like, like it is a wonderful thing to empathize for the Palestinian people and to think that they shouldn't be bombed into oblivion, and I'm with you 100%, but-When you start supporting Hamas and saying, "We're queers for Hamas," like, and I've seen that. I've seen trans people for Hamas, and it's like, "Good Lord, what are you saying?"

    4. GS

      So I've got a whole verbatim transcript between a street interviewer, you know these guys that just take someone off the street-

    5. JR

      Yes

    6. GS

      ... and they tape it?

    7. JR

      Yes.

    8. GS

      I think his name-

    9. JR

      Yeah. So we were t- we just had a little technical glitch. So you were talking about one of those guys that interviews people-

    10. GS

      Right

    11. JR

      ... on the street.

    12. GS

      So he, he goes and intercepts this, uh, woman who's at a, I guess like a, you know, Free, Free Palestine, uh, you know, rally.

    13. JR

      Mm-hmm.

    14. GS

      And he says, "Oh, you're, you're for Palestine?" She goes, "Yes." He goes, "Well, what do you think about their positions on, uh, you know, queer people?" She goes, "Well, I'm queer." He goes, "Oh, you're queer? So what do, what do you think about what they would do to you?" She goes, "Well, they would kill me." He goes, "But then you still support them?" She goes, "Yes." He goes, "But it doesn't bother you that you're supporting a group that would kill you for the way that you are?" She goes, "No. The, the fact that they would kill me doesn't mean that they don't deserve my support." Well, that's the wood cricket, right? I mean, there is no evolutionary mechanism that says, "I'm going to build an affiliation with a group that I know would kill me." But she is so kind, she's so empathetic, she so transcends the earthly survival instincts, that she has ascended to a higher plane of suicidal empathy. So it literally is straight out of what you said.

    15. JR

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    16. GS

      Right.

    17. JR

      So it's, it's a different situation because if, if the, if like there was no attacks on Gaza and Gaza was its own, you know, autonomous or completely separate state, and it wasn't controlled by Israel, and there was no conflict, I doubt they would have the same mindset. Like, the mindset is coming out of watching the destruction of Gaza. And so then instead of saying, "Hey, we shouldn't just be bombing this city into oblivion and supporting this," instead they go all the way and support the ideology of-

    18. GS

      Mm

    19. JR

      ... the authoritarian rulers of this area, which is kind of kooky.

    20. GS

      Yeah.

    21. JR

      But it's like, it's, but it's much like a religion. It's a you can abandon all logic-

    22. GS

      Yeah

    23. JR

      ... as long as you adhere to, and you, you, you have to, in fact, if you want to be accepted. And this, one of the, the things about the left is, like, there's never someone left enough, and when you think you're left enough, they move the border, they move the boundary lines. The goalposts are, like, a mile further to the left. You're like, "Oh God, I gotta support-"

    24. GS

      Yeah

    25. JR

      "... drag queens teaching kids now by themselves?"

    26. GS

      T-twerking.

    27. JR

      No parental supervision.

    28. GS

      Twerking, not tw-

    29. JR

      Twerking. It's like it just keeps getting nuttier and nuttier to where any protest of it is heresy.

    30. GS

      Yeah.

  10. 23:30 – 30:59

    Gad’s origin story: Lebanese Jewish upbringing, civil war escape, and kidnapping trauma

    1. JR

      We should tell people just-

    2. GS

      My background?

    3. JR

      Yeah, because it's, it's, you know, it's, it's very pertinent.

    4. GS

      Sure. Uh, so I was born in 1964 in Lebanon. My family were part of the last remaining v- miniscule community of Lebanese Jews. Historically, there was always a, a small but, you know, uh, pretty vibrant Jewish community. Most of the Jews had left prior to the start of the civil war, which happened in '75, I was 11, uh, because they'd already read the writing on the wall. So m-most of my extended family, my aunts, my uncles, my grandparents, had left to various places, most of them to Israel, but some of them to Montreal, Canada. That's why we ended up going to Montreal ourselves. But my parents had refused to leave because they were very well-entrenched within Lebanese society. They had nice business and so on. My older sibling, I have-Three other siblings. One is 14 years older, one is 12 years older, and one is 10 years older. The one who's 10 years older is the Olympian judoka that, that played in the-- that competed in the Montreal Olympics in 1976. Uh, so they already had left Lebanon prior to the start of the civil war because they had started facing some Jew hatred difficulties, and even in tolerant, progressive Lebanon. F- unfortunately for me, being the last, 10 years younger than everybody else, I was still a kid, we got caught up once the civil war broke out. Some really bad things happened during that first year, but then we were able, thank God, to escape to L- Montreal. But then my parents kept returning to Lebanon, uh, because they still had business interests, so they would go back to Lebanon from 1975 to 1980. On one of their return trips to Lebanon, they were kidnapped by Abu Nidal's group, F- Fatah, and some really, you know, bad things happened during their captivity, very much like the stuff that you hear about on October 7th. But luckily, they weren't killed. They were able to, you know, be freed. Uh, I mean, they weren't freed through a commando operation. They were freed through the connections that my parents had. Uh, my mother's, um, best friend was a Syrian woman, Syrian Muslim woman, who was the personal dresser of Hafez al-Assad, the, the, the father of, uh, Bashar al-, uh, the, the one who was recently deposed. And so through him, uh, my, my, uh, siblings reached out to this woman. Her name was Ahsan. I think she's passed away now. Uh, she got, uh, the father involved. He reached out to Yasser Arafat, who was the head of the PLO back then. Uh, as I understand the story, Yasser Arafat said, "Well, I don't even know whether they're with one of our groups. Let me do s- you know, make some calls." But at the time, there was sort of a battle between Yasser Arafat and Abu Nidal, and he said, "If, if he, if it's the Abu Nidal gang that took him, you know, good luck," and it was the Abu Nidal group. But I'm guessing there was some money that was exchanged. My parents were freed. When my father returned, he had a, a temporary facial paralysis akin to when you have a really severe stroke and your face is completely-

    5. JR

      Hmm

    6. GS

      ... disfigured and asymmetric.

    7. JR

      Guillain–Barré.

    8. GS

      Is that what it's called? Uh-

    9. JR

      Yeah

    10. GS

      ... but it was, it, it got resolved, and so for about, I don't know how long it was, maybe a month or two, his face was completely-

    11. JR

      Yeah

    12. GS

      ... asymmetric, probably due to-

    13. JR

      Stress

    14. GS

      ... the things that happened to him.

    15. JR

      Yeah.

    16. GS

      Uh, and actually, I, I, I mean, some of the stuff I may have s- briefly mentioned on this show, but here's a part that I, I'm almost certain I didn't mention. At one point, the, the, the militia group was trying to get my parents to, um, sign a confession letter that they are Israeli spies, which if you met my parents, you would know [chuckles] that that's not a very likely, uh, reality because the, it turns out that if they signed that, then they could legally execute them. And the guy who had started this whole thing was the owner of the building where my dad owned the store, and if they could now get rid of them, the store would... So it wasn't even, like, a religious thing. It was for one of the seven deadly sins of greed-

    17. JR

      Yeah

    18. GS

      ... at least as I understand it. And anyways, and so at one point, they had separated my parents, and they were trying to put a lot of pressure on each of them to sign this thing, and they go to my mother and say, "You know, uh, you know, admit that, you know, you're a s- a spy, whatever, Israeli agent." And she's like, "Are you, are you crazy? I mean, just go ask my husband, you know?" And they, they kind of mockingly say, "Oh, well, your husband has gone to join his God," meaning that they've already killed him. So then my mother is in her little cell, and they're, you know, they're doing bad things to them, and she hears my dad late at night in some other part of wherever they were keeping him. He had a very whooping kind of cough, like a, like a cough as if like... A- actually, I have a similar cough. I used to be asthmatic, so I have this very deep and loud cough. And so she was hearing that cough, but she wasn't sure if she's just hallucinating this in her thoughts or whether it was real. Well, it turned out that it wa- they hadn't killed him, but they were just trying to lean in on her. And so that's the background that I come from.

    19. JR

      Yeah. So you are very tuned in to-

    20. GS

      Yeah [chuckles]

    21. JR

      ... what could possibly go wrong.

    22. GS

      Unfortunately, yes.

    23. JR

      Yeah.

    24. GS

      And, and this is why, I mean, many times when I've come on this show, you know, I've talked about some of those difficulties that, you know, all religions are not indistinguishable from each other. All relig- I mean, religions have certain features that might be transferable from one religion to the other.

    25. JR

      Right.

    26. GS

      But there are many elements that are very specific to a given religion.

    27. JR

      Sure.

    28. GS

      If you're an extremist Jain, then you really take your, uh, u- using this, uh, the s- uh, sweeping thing. When y- y- you know, when they walk, they use a broom so that they inadvertently don't step on an ant and kill it. So an extremist, "extremist" in quotes, Jain, someone who really takes his religion seriously, is someone who's going to be extremist in his pacifism.

    29. JR

      Right.

    30. GS

      Right? Now, that religion has very, very different ethics about how to conduct yourself, even when you're walking on a sidewalk, than maybe will an Abrahamic faith, whether it be Judaism or Christianity or Islam. So the idea that ultimately all religions are simply preaching the same indistinguishable thing in slightly different ways is simply not trueBut it feels good to think that, right?

  11. 30:59 – 34:42

    Is Islam inherently political? Proselytizing, apostasy, and the “radical” label debate

    1. GS

      But even the Republicans are, to some extent, suicidally empathetic, because if you watch even the ones who very forcefully criticize Islam as being incongruent with, you know, American values, they'll always use lin- linguistic coverage to protect Islam. So it's Islamism.

    2. JR

      Yes.

    3. GS

      It's radical Islam. It's radical-

    4. JR

      Don't you agree with that?

    5. GS

      No.

    6. JR

      No?

    7. GS

      Not at all. So a political Islam, an Islamism, is a indelible, inherent feature of Islam. Much of Islam is Islamism. So if you do a content analysis of all of the canonical texts of Islam, which are the Quran, the Hadiths, the, the deeds and the sayings of Muhammad, and the sira, which is the biography of Muhammad, you could do a quantitative analysis of how often is it preaching brotherly love, how often is it really concerned about the infidels, how... And so Islam in its nature is political. Why? Th- there are many reasons why, but let me just give you one, and then if you wanna drill down, we can do so. Islam is a fully proselytizing language, um, religion, meaning that it is incumbent in an ideal world to turn the entire world into the one true faith. It is a peaceful religion if by peaceful it means the following: eventually, the entire globe, every millimeter of the globe, will be united under the unifying flag of Allah. Now, let's take, for example, Judaism, and it's not because I'm Jewish, but it's just to compare. Judaism is precisely the opposite, as it is, it is an anti-proselytizing language. You're not allowed to proselytize. As a matter of fact, if you proselytize, uh, let's say I try to convince you, Joe, "You know, why don't you join the tribe?" And you say, "You know what? I think I'd like to."

    8. JR

      It's a grind.

    9. GS

      It's a grind. Exactly.

    10. JR

      It's a long haul. My uncle did it.

    11. GS

      Well, there you go. Thank you. So the, it is literally in the canons of Judaism to try to dissuade the prospective convert to coming into the fold because the, the idea is to have a costly signal of your commitment, your, your, your religious piety to want to join the group. So it is a grind. It's very hard. In Islam, you just have to say the one proclamation, the Shahada, one sentence, and you're in. Now, try to get out, there are apostasy laws against you getting out. So the, the, the circuitry of Islam is one that is expansionist. That's why you have two billion Muslims. One out of every four human beings is Muslim, and it only took 1,400 years for that. So from a marketing perspective, as someone who studies consumer behavior, Islam is a brilliant marketing religion. It has found a way to get a lot of customers and adherents. Judaism sucks at marketing because the entire circuitry of Judaism is meant to keep it very, very small. And so which one is likely to lead to greater problems, the one that is meant to ensure that all of us become Muslim, or the one that says, "Even if your uncle wants to become Jewish, we're gonna put the barrier so, so high that nobody will ever become Jewish"? So we still have only 15 million Jews, roughly, in the world, almost the same as we had before the Holocaust. So Judaism sucks as a marketing religion, Islam incredibly successful.

  12. 34:42 – 1:37:08

    Iran, Iraq, and intervention: foreign policy morality, agency, and blame allocation

    1. JR

      In this country, the concern with Judaism is the support of the Israeli military.

    2. GS

      Right.

    3. JR

      That's the concern. The s- the concern is the amount of influence that it has on the United States government, how we got into the Iran war, why we give them so much influence over our military, over our decision-making, over our politicians. I mean, APAC famously promotes and supports a tremendous amount of politicians in the United States. That's, that's the big fear, is that there's-

    4. GS

      Right

    5. JR

      ... there's an inordinate amount of influence that Israel has over foreign policy, our, our decisions, and even our political structure in the country.

    6. GS

      Right. Several ways to tackle this. Say the Iran war, take Israel out of it. Do you think that the-- Do you think there are multiple countries that would share in the recognition that probably a Iranian regime that has an, uh, eschatology that basically says the end of times requires that there is sort of death to everybody before the final, uh, you know, uh, imam comes back, would it be a good idea for the Brits or the Romanians or the French or some of the other, the, the Gulf countries, would they be happy if Iran had a nuclear weapon? So to c- to, to frame the issue of the US as attackingOr is involved in the attack on the Iranians as, you know, the United States doesn't have personal agency. They're all wood crickets that are being puppeteered by this incredibly powerful lobby called Israel. That simply doesn't pass the smell test. Of course, Israel has shared interests with the United States, as most allies would, where they both agree that probably an Iranian regime that has nuclear weapons should, would not be a good thing for wor- world peace. And so because these two countries have maybe greater testicular fortitude than the NATO countries, it seems as though the U- the Israelis are puppeteering the, the, the, the, the Americans. But do you really think that Donald Trump is sitting and saying, "You know, had I not been such a weak guy with no personal agency, I wouldn't have fallen sway to the incredibly influential Zionist lobby?"

    7. JR

      Well, it's not just incredibly influential. It's the amount of financial support they gave his candidacy, and again, all the different politicians that are beholden to Israel. That's the concern that a, a lot of people on the right and on the left have here in America.

    8. GS

      So I-

    9. JR

      We, most people in America do not support this war. It's the, the, the large percentage of people think it was a bad idea.

    10. GS

      What are, what are your thoughts?

    11. JR

      I don't think it's a good idea.

    12. GS

      Why?

    13. JR

      But I... Well, because first of all, it doesn't seem to have a clear resolution, right? It's like we went over there because we were told that they were very close to developing a nuclear weapon. But if you've paid attention to what Netanyahu has said over the last few decades, it's always been they're a year away, they're two months away, they're whatever it is. I mean, he's been doing this forever.

    14. GS

      Hmm.

    15. JR

      Ever since he spoke at the UN and had that giant cartoon bomb. Remember the like fucking Looney Tunes bomb?

    16. GS

      Yeah, yeah, yeah.

    17. JR

      Where it was like-

    18. GS

      When he spoke in front of this

    19. JR

      ... with the percentage of-

    20. GS

      I remember that, yeah

    21. JR

      ... enrichment of uranium.

    22. GS

      Mm-hmm.

    23. JR

      He's wanted this for a long time. There's also a deep concern that he is only in office because of the war.

    24. GS

      Hmm.

    25. JR

      And he has corruption charges in Israel, and that in order for him to stay in power and for him to avoid going to trial, he has to continue war.

    26. GS

      Can I comment on that?

    27. JR

      Sure.

    28. GS

      Yeah. Let's suppose you go to see your physician, and your physician says, "Hey, Joe, God forbid, it looks like your blood sugar is very high, and I'm going to classify you as now, never mind pre-diabetic, I think you're diabetic. And if we don't manage your sugar levels, there will come a day where I can tell you exactly what's gonna happen. We're gonna have to amputate your extremities. You're probably gonna lose your eyesight. You're probably gonna have sexual dysfunction, and you're probably going to have some cardiovascular incident." That doesn't happen on day two of you having been diagnosed with diabetes. Like there is a trajectory, and at some point there'll be a tipping point where until then, none of the diabetes complications happened. Now why am I saying all this? Because I, I can't comment as to whether he's been lying all the times when he said it's, there's two more years left or one more year or six more months. But surely we can grant the American, uh, government enough leeway to presume that if they thought that at this point it's the right time and it is now intolerable for them to go another day with the current reality, that they probably had some intelligence that suggests that they are close. So I can't comment whether, uh, Netanyahu was pulling our eyes, but surely it can't be that the Israelis are so manipulative and they're puppeteering, that they've pulled the wool over the American eyes, and really there's no danger that the Iranians were posing, and we've convinced the Americans to go to war. Do, do you think that it, it is that? Do you think-

    29. JR

      Well, I wouldn't say there's no danger, right? So here's, here's one thing that we do know. They had said that their missiles could only reach a, a certain distance. That proved to not be true-

    30. GS

      Right

  13. 1:37:08 – 2:29:06

    Israel influence, campus funding, and the post–Oct 7 backlash: numbers, propaganda, and “no Jews, no news”

    1. JR

      Don't you think you could also make that exact same argument that those same people that are small in number but hyper-motivated and hyper-successful would also be much better at influencing policy in the country that they live in?

    2. GS

      [laughs] Uh, hence meaning that they're more likely to get the ears-

    3. JR

      Yes

    4. GS

      ... the lobby.

    5. JR

      Not just the ears, but donate money, you know-

    6. GS

      Yeah

    7. JR

      ... fund campaigns, get the ear of the president, donate money towards his campaign, fund him.

    8. GS

      I suspect that the answer is you're right, yes

    9. JR

      Most people would say that that is absolutely the case

    10. GS

      Right. But also, we could say that if we look at the philanthropy, Jewish philanthropy, compared to all other philanthropy, we'd probably score very highly, if not number one.

    11. JR

      What kind of philanthropy are we talking about?

    12. GS

      Art philanthropy, uh, hospital philanthropy, literary philanthropy for the art, right? So in other words, look, my-- So my family, uh, we moved to Montreal from Lebanon.

    13. JR

      Mm-hmm.

    14. GS

      We moved to Montreal for two reasons. Well, three reasons. Number one, Montreal is also French, and Lebanon, uh, France-- Uh, Lebanon used to be a French protectorate, so you already spoke French in Lebanon-

    15. JR

      Mm-hmm

    16. GS

      ... in, in addition to Arabic. So that was one. Number two, the immigration policy for war refugees was maybe easier to navigate. Canada was a more welcoming country than, say, maybe U- United States. But number three is that my mother's sister had already emigrated to Montreal with her husband, and that husband became the director general of the Jewish General Hospital of Montreal, which is the biggest hospital in Montreal. It's the Jewish General, right? So in other words, it is undoubtedly true, probably, I don't have the empirical evidence, that probably the, the Jewish lobby does its job really well and effectively. But let's look at all of the other things that they also do well. They contribute in m- So, for example-

    17. JR

      Well, that's wonderful, but it, but that doesn't take away from the influence that it has on our policies-

    18. GS

      Yes

    19. JR

      ... on our political candidates, on w- Like, look, for instance, one of the reasons why Mamdani won in New York City is because when they had the mayoral debate, he was the only one that said he's not immediately gonna go to Israel.

    20. GS

      Right.

    21. JR

      And a lot of people were shocked by that. They were like, "Why is everyone saying they're gonna go to Israel when they win as the mayor in New York City?"

    22. GS

      Yes.

    23. JR

      It didn't make any sense, and people were kind of dis- confused by it. New York City's a mess.

    24. GS

      Yeah.

    25. JR

      It's got a lot of problems. And this one guy said, "I think I can serve Jewish Americans better by staying here in New York City, and I'm not gonna go to Israel." And everybody was like, "Thank God someone said that."

    26. GS

      Right.

    27. JR

      Because all the other candidates, it seemed, at least to me, as an outsider, were being heavily influenced by the Jewish lobby.

    28. GS

      Maybe. I, I don't, I really don't know-

    29. JR

      Why else would they do that? They're not saying, "I'm gonna go to England."

    30. GS

      Right.

  14. 2:29:06 – 2:36:47

    Demography, assimilation, and the endpoint: why Gad left Montreal for Mississippi

    1. GS

      immigration, and the reason that in Quebec it was so is because the most important sense of personhood in Quebec is that you maintain your linguistic identity. We are French. We don't wanna be subsumed by the mean English language. Yes?

    2. JR

      Mm-hmm.

    3. GS

      So therefore, since many of the immigrants coming from Islamic countries were also Francophone, in their infinite wisdom, the Quebec government said, "Hey, you know, here's a great idea. There was a 1997 civil war between the Algerian government and hardcore extremist Muslims. The latter lost, so they were fleeing from getting killed by the Algerian government. Why don't you open the borders for them to Quebec? The decapitations will happen only when they say bonjour to you. So given that they will address you in French before they behead you, don't worry about it. Let them all in." I'm obviously being facetious, but the point is that hundreds of thousands of Islamic immigrants came to Quebec. I started seeing the changes. A lot more women in hijabs, a lot more dangerous to go to campus, a lot more requirements for accommodations, prayer rooms, public prayer-

    4. JR

      When you say dangerous, in what way?

    5. GS

      Uh, specifically to me?

    6. JR

      Dangerous going to campus, in what way?

    7. GS

      Well, I'm somewhat of a known entity who doesn't mince words, and so I started getting a lot of death threats. The first set of death threats I got were in 2017, where for that semester, I had to follow a protocol to walk on campus with security. They would lock the door so that the students could leave, but not come back in. So I had to check in with the security. That lasted for about a semester, and I mean, literally I would lecture, and then I would be ushered out. My wife would be waiting for me, and I would sort of let out a deep s- breath, like sigh, that thank God I survived another week. And-

    8. JR

      Did you ever experience, like, people trying to get at you?

    9. GS

      So the only ... So all of those threats were online, that necessitate ... But then we had to file with Concordia a Montreal police report and so on. In 2022, I had in-person threat. So a, a guy came up to me. I was walking with my then, so 2022, so four years ago, he w- must've been nine. I was walking with my nine-year-old, 10-year-old son, and this guy looks at me. He goes, "Are you Gad Saad?" I said, "Yes." Then he kind of composes himself to kind of deal with the hatred he feels, and he goes, "I'm not gonna do anything to you out of respect for your son today." And so then the detectives got the footage of that, you know, 'cause it was outside of a building.

    10. JR

      Yeah, I remember you telling me about this.

    11. GS

      Yeah.

    12. JR

      Yeah.

    13. GS

      And then, and then, by the way, he, I couldn't, they didn't wanna show me a lineup of things, of possible things, because it would be racist to do so. So the process of a police lineup, which is the most fundamental mechanism of identifying a perpetrator, was viewed as racist because the guy who levied the death threat to me was Black. I think he was maybe Somali. He looked Somali. So, so I took a two-year leave from Concordia University, and I'm now leaving, in large part because it became difficult for me, if not impossible, to be a high-profile Jewish professor who supports the right of Israel to exist. Is-

    14. JR

      What do you think happens in the future to Concordia and just to Montreal in general with this influx of people?

    15. GS

      It's a slow death. It'll take ... You have to have the imagination to extrapolate into a distant future. So if you today go to your friend who's got that steakhouse on that street, I'm, I wa- I don't know if you wanna mention it, in Montreal.

    16. JR

      Mm-hmm.

    17. GS

      Right? Would you walk around and think that it's all Islamic? Of course not. But it's a drip, drip, drip. It changes, right? So for example-Until very recently, the Quebec government was fully tolerating the public prayers, Islamic public prayers all over the place, like outside-

    18. JR

      Until recently?

    19. GS

      And now they passed a law banning it. Well, why did you need to wait till then? Why didn't you listen to me when I was standing on top of the mountain screaming into the void saying, "This is what's going to transpire"?

    20. JR

      But do you understand that you have more of a, an understanding of these things, more knowledge about these things, and to these people that are trying to get elected and that are dealing with their constituents, that this is a politically dangerous thing to bring up?

    21. GS

      I get it, but then you're engaging in suicidal empathy because, because-

    22. JR

      Yeah. Well, it's also, they're just, they have their own personal interests.

    23. GS

      They're traumatic, I get it.

    24. JR

      Yeah.

    25. GS

      But, you know, the, the, the reason why I lo- I mean, and now I'm gonna get th- threats for this. The reason why I appreciate Trump is precisely because he implements things that most politicians wouldn't have the testicular fortitude to do. But that's what you want in a great leader, right? Most people come in, do their time, parasitize the system, and then leave having accomplished nothing.

    26. JR

      Right.

    27. GS

      The reason why Donald Trump has had not one, not two, but three assassination attempts, that is a testament to the fact that he is a danger to the status quo. Why? Because he does things. Whether you agree with him or not, he's bold, he's fearless. He doesn't give a shit. To your point, most politicians would rather go, "La, la, la, I don't wanna hear it," until it's too late. The, the playbook is very clear. Depending on the number of Muslims in a society, you can exactly predict the level of conflict. And that statement that I just said holds true, notwithstanding the fact that most Muslims are perfectly lovely. Both those statements are both veridical. So when you are 0 to 2%, you're just the quiet, exotic minority. When you're 3 to 5%, you become a lot more engaged politically. When you become 6 to 10%, you start creating Sharia no-go zones. "We don't want your dogs here. This is not tolerated in our zone." Look at Britain, look at France.

    28. JR

      No.

    29. GS

      So in the same way that I can predict the trajectory of diabetes, and no, I'm not saying that Muslims are di- I'm drawing an analogy.

    30. JR

      In no sense.

Episode duration: 2:36:48

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