gratefulfloyd67

/u/Yahooyellow is gonna looooooove this answer lol

Before I get to the question I just wanted to say thank you. I think what you have to say about open discourse and totalitarianism is extremely important, especially given the widening gap between the left and the right. You've also helped me out of a slump of rather life-destroying nihilism, so I can't express my gratitude enough with regards to that.

In this video (I lost the time stamp of the specific quote, I apologize) you give a Nietzschean/Darwinian definition of truth: "truth serves life." When you elaborated on this definition of truth, you said "if a truth makes you insane, then it's not a truth - there is something wrong with it." Given this definition, if refusing to use gender-neutral pronouns makes somebody's mental state deteriorate to the point of insanity or suicide, does it follow that refusing to use gender-neutral pronouns is not acting in accordance with truth?

I wanted to ask you that question in the spirit of challenging all ideas when you came to McMaster last week, but I was unfortunately prevented from doing so.

If you have time for a second question, I have one about the people that influenced your thoughts on totalitarianism. Could you explain what led you to take Hannah Arendt's definition of totalitarianism - as well as the charges she makes against Stalinism - and apply it to all of Marxism? Are ideological Marxists inherently totalitarian because their belief system commands them to serve the law of history?

Edit: damn, I should have put the totalitarianism question first