Rogan is a great example of a few things:

• The Dunning-Kruger effect

• “I’m just asking questions” being used as an excuse to host an unbalanced number of individuals purporting one specific worldview

• Toxic masculinity posing as intellectualism

He is extremely popular with one particular demographic. That demographic tends to share the toxic masculinity and the Dunning-Kruger-fueled belief that they can be experts at everything from the armchair.

I work with a kid who I know listens to JRE often. He’s kind and very smart. What I’ve found is that he lacks confidence and prefers not to speak even when he thinks he has the right answer, for fear of being wrong. He’s depressed, and around this time last year checked himself into a hospital for a week. I know he recently started going to church, likely to try and find answers and support. He seems to mean well. All this to say, listeners of JRE may not be stupid or bad people. Some of them, a lot of them, I’d be willing the guess, are confused young men being brought to bad conclusions because they sound like answers and are wrapped with an “I’m just asking questions,” bow.

Yes, I agree with that about confused young men. However, at the end of the day, if JRE turns them into toxic men, then they’re still just toxic men.

I would hope that doesn’t happen. In general I think we as a society need to be kinder to these confused young men before they take that path. It’s a more difficult conversation to have and the solution is not very clear.

Either way, JRE is dangerous because it offers propagandistic suppositions as answers to people with big questions.