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Notes -
I agree with you that it's annoying how the interviewer acts like certain political positions are obviously right rather than being willing to engage in a more dispassionate debate about them. To be fair, though, Yarvin frequently does the same thing in his writing and speaking. Indeed, part of why he is popular is because he uses many effective emotional and stylistic rhetorical techniques instead of just writing dull dry dissertations. And part of why he is often criticized even by people who are sympathetic to his worldview is that all too often, he jumps from one statement to another one that does not necessarily follow from what he said before and uses rhetorical flourishes to cover up the non-sequitur.
Also, to be fair to the interviewer, if you come into the interview knowing nothing about Yarvin's thought, I would say that Yarvin's views on slavery from years ago are actually pretty useful to know about. For one thing, they are one of the aspects of his thought that is most different from the typical NYT reader's thought, so it is worthwhile to draw attention to the issue so that the reader has a rough idea of what Yarvin is about. For another thing, claiming that the black slaves were better off under slavery is one of the easiest Yarvin ideas to critique even from a purely logical point of view, so critiquing it is a good way to show an example of some of the strengths and weaknesses of Yarvin's worldview in general. Do I think that Yarvin genuinely believes that the blacks were better under slavery? Not really. And I say this as someone who has read probably more than half of everything that he has ever written for public consumption. I think he believes that it is somewhat true that blacks were better off, in some ways, under slavery, but he does not really believe deep down that they were better off. When he claims that they were, it is because he wants to do a bit of very typical Yarvin trolling, plus he wants to poke at conventional wisdom in order to get people thinking more deeply. I think it would be fair to believe that when Yarvin says that blacks were better off under slavery, this is just a bit of a rhetorical flourish which covers the fact that he what he really probably thinks is that whites were better off when blacks were in slavery.
That said, all this doesn't mean that I think this is a good interview. I am referring to the printed version, I have not seen any video of it. The interviewer either deliberately or accidentally fails to talk to Yarvin in depth about the actually most interesting and useful aspects of Yarvin's thought.
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