High Strangeness at the Daily Wire
The Daily Wire is a conservative media company with HQ in Nashville, TN. It was founded in 2015 by Ben Shapiro and film director Jeremy Boreing. It's a leading online publisher with a notable presence on Facebook, and it produces video podcasts for people like Ben Shapiro, Jordan Peterson, and Candace Owens. It also repackages journalism from various news websites, usually with a conservative slant, and has released several feature-length films and two television series.
As the company has conservative leanings, there have been complaints that some of its content is unverified and that facts are twisted to fit its partisan perspective. But this is to be expected, as progressivists and their partisans always claim, usually on no evidence whatsoever, to have an exclusive lock on truth and reason. In fact, DW appears to be a respectable company.
I was interviewed by the DW on April 30 in Nashville. It must have cost the company several thousand dollars (including airfare, car fees, and overnight accommodations for my wife and me). They pressed me repeatedly to be interviewed on short notice by Michael Knowles, who conducted the interview in what seemed a very professional way. The idea was that Michael wanted to use the interview as the inaugural presentation in a special series he planned to introduce.
In the course of the interview, Gina and I met Michael, Jeremy (co-owner of the DW), and other members of the DW staff. Everyone claimed to love the interview, and not just a little. We expected to see it online within a couple of weeks.
But then it was pulled without explanation of any kind.
"We have no plans to air the interview," the DW told us.
This is nothing short of a mystery. The mystery is complicated by the fact that popular, wide-ranging meaning-of-life pundit Jordan Peterson was signed by DW not long after the interview. Obviously, signing Peterson was a big deal; DW must have been in negotiations with him for some time. This raises the possibility that these negotiations were somehow involved in the scheduling and/or cancellation of the interview.
"In June 2022, Peterson signed a deal with the news company The Daily Wire, which includes the distribution rights to Peterson's video and podcast library. Peterson will also produce bonus content and specials featuring guests for the video on demand platform DailyWire+." [Wickedpedia]
Having signed on with the DW, Mr. Peterson recently interviewed the young Canadian author Matthieu Pageau to "discuss the structure and significance of the Biblical corpus of stories, concentrating in no small part on the Genesis account of Adam and Eve." Matthieu and his brother have been recurrent guests on JBP's YouTube channel and podcast, usually on the topics of religious philosophy and symbolism. Out of these discussions came a book: The Language of Creation: Cosmic Symbolism: A Commentary (Matthieu Pageau, 2018).
Obviously, this topic is not far removed from the CTMU. In fact, the CTMU Metaformal System - which was not explicitly mentioned or attributed by Peterson, or implicitly attributed to anyone but Mr. Pageau or Mr. Peterson himself - is generically described as follows:
"...a recursive language that’s fractal in nature and reflective of the structure of heaven and Earth" (evoking subsconscious mental symbolism that shows up in various religious traditions) [1:33:25, give or take a few seconds]
We know that the CTMU is what Peterson and Pageau are talking about because, as I've been explaining publicly for several decades in philosophical, theological, and mathematical detail, there is just one way for such a language to be structured: logico-geometrically, i.e., metaformally. Trying to combine “fractal” and “language” is absurd in any other context. The CTMU, being supertautological and based on logic and the logical requisites of existence and consciousness, is unique and “absolute”. Those waving their hands at it might as well name it, as there are no other candidates.
[Note that the CTMU supertautological reality-language was developed and described decades before it was described in this journal as the “Metaformal System”, and was usually called the “Self-Configuring Self-Processing Language” or SCSPL. It was published in Cosmos & History by invitation from the Foundations of Mind Group in 2018. It has always been linked exclusively with my name.]
Accordingly, I calculate the probability of Jordan and Matthieu never having heard a word about the CTMU to be negligible, and can't help but wonder why there is no mention of it here given that I had described it in my DW interview just five months previously.
Here's something else that occurs to me. DW is owned by Ben Shapiro, who is Jewish, and Jeremy Boreing, a Christian. Usually, those who admit to cancelling the CTMU are atheist-materialists or "metaphysical naturalists". But what about the Judeo-Christian Right (and for that matter the Catholic Church, of which Michael Knowles is reportedly a member)? Why haven't they jumped on the CTMU bandwagon, the best and most natural means of renewing and strengthening religious foundations?
The only probable reason would be their desire not to let Logos be associated with Chris Langan, notorious out-of-nowhere ex-bouncer and HIQ wild card from the wrong side of the tracks and currently residing in the sticks.
The rationalization might go something like this:
“The fact that Langan has been cancelled could mean that he’s all wrong about the CTMU being ‘Absolute Truth’ or ‘Logos’, making the CTMU as much a wild card as he is. After all, why have the academic experts not so much as commented on his theory? It can’t be them, so it must be him! We don’t have to look any harder to know that there’s something fishy going on. And look at his non-PC social media posts! We simply can’t take a chance on him or his theory!”
But this is ridiculous, as the media have taken chances on many “perfectly reliable” theories which later turned out to be wrong (and sometimes on others which turned out to be right), and I have long been making frank (and truthful) social media posts using the vernacular. There is indeed “something fishy going on”, but neither I nor the CTMU is to blame. Moreover, DW could have saved itself considerable time and money by employing this line of reasoning before requesting the interview.
It follows that the true rationale is thus more likely to have gone something like this:
“The Judeo-Christian Right already has a high-profile power structure, and Chris Langan isn't in it. We’re already Big Shots on a Mission from God, so why do we need Chris Langan? Who does this joker think he is, anyway?”
After all, the Judeo-Christian Right has been standing me off for decades. Contrary to expectations, its spokespeople wouldn't talk to me or even mention my name after my CTMU presentation at Biola University 20 years ago. They didn't seem to want me or my wife in their forums lest we upset the precious atheists with whom they were sanctimoniously "engaging in constructive dialogue".
Again, this is not just me, complaining about being ignored. The Daily Wire repeatedly asked to interview me, I accepted, and the interview was conducted. It's about why the interview was requested, and what happened (or failed to happen) afterward.
It’s no secret that I’ve sometimes been followed around by lying and especially vicious trolls who, when they hear of a third-party Langan/CTMU presentation, barrage the producers with disinformation, pleas, and threats in order to get it “pulled”. But those who bow to such deceit are unworthy of respect, and I’d taken the Daily Wire for a respectable organization. In fact, I had provided explicit advance warning of this prospect, and was earnestly assured that the Daily Wire would remain rock-steady no matter how many trolls and false witnesses came out of the woodwork.
No matter how one slices it, it's very weird. But given that it is suggestive of much else that has happened over the years, claiming that there was no personalized cancellation involved would be less than convincing.
In short, this is not a trivial anomaly. I'd appreciate it if everyone would bear this in mind before playing "blame the victim" at my expense, and thank you for your consideration.
© 2022 Christopher M. Langan. All rights reserved.
The full Daily Wire Interview can be viewed elsewhere on this channel.
This landmark video interview is also available in the member areas at www.CTMURadio.com and www.teleologic.org
I’m thankful that you all uploaded the interview.
Ben Shapiro is a conservative indeed. He fills his gatekeeper role like Jordan Peterson, who leads young men astray. Shapiro has always been pro fake-wars, pro Covid vaccine, and in 2017 he tweeted, “And by the way, I don’t give a good damn about the so-called “browning of America.” Color doesn’t matter. Ideology does.”
I think Michael Knowles is there as a useful idiot to keep the Judeo-Christian myth alive and well.
That is the best interview I have ever seen in my life. It was the right move to do it. Excellent job, and thank you.