Peter Boghossian: The Crisis of Honesty | Free Speech, Hard Conversations & What's Gone Wrong

"There is a crisis of honesty — and we're seeing the consequences in every sphere of life." American philosopher Peter Boghossian — author of How to Have Impossible Conversations and the mind behind Spectrum Street Epistemology — joins host Dane Giraud for a wide-ranging conversation on free speech, polarisation, religion, antisemitism, the trans medicalisation scandal, the breakdown of moral consensus, and why honest disagreement has become so rare. 🎟️ SEE PETER LIVE IN AUCKLAND — SATURDAY 16 MAY Peter's final New Zealand appearance. Ellen Melville Centre, Auckland CBD. Doors 4:45pm | Starts 5:30pm | Tickets $10. Book: https://www.fsu.nz/events/free-speech-union-peter-boghossian-free-speech-hard-conversations-and-whats-at-risk IN THIS EPISODE — What Spectrum Street Epistemology actually is, and why Peter uses it with school students — Why "online is a cesspool" and what in-person disagreement teaches that comments never will — The atheists who are more religious than the religious — The breakdown of the dominant moral order and the necessary backlash that follows — Sacred cows: the topics institutions still refuse to discuss honestly — The trans medicalisation scandal and the cost of suppressing dissent — Rising antisemitism in the UK and the institutional unwillingness to name what's happening — Dane's own recent experience of an antisemitic smear — and how to respond — Why the Israel–Palestine conversation collapses, even between people willing to talk — Reading scripture as literature, and the value of radical self-knowledge — Why fighting, jiu-jitsu and stand-up comedy share something the cognitive world has lost: a corrective mechanism — The crisis of honesty — and why everything downstream of it is breaking CHAPTERS (00:00) Welcome & guest introduction (01:55) Why Peter keeps coming back to New Zealand (03:48) How Spectrum Street Epistemology works (05:48) Why online conversation turns toxic (08:16) Making evidence and doubt fun (10:02) Religion, identity, and moral certainty (16:18) When moral orders break down (22:34) Echo chambers and institutional capture (27:04) Sacred cows and policy taboo topics (42:46) A personal smear story unpacked (46:02) Why some conflicts resist dialogue (51:42) Reading scripture as self-knowledge (56:52) Fighting, reality checks, and integrity (1:00:02) The crisis of honesty (1:09:12) Final thanks ABOUT PETER BOGHOSSIAN American philosopher, author of How to Have Impossible Conversations (with James Lindsay), and founder of the Spectrum Street Epistemology project. Formerly faculty at Portland State University. His work focuses on belief revision, civil discourse, and how people change their minds. Support the showhttps://www.fsu.nz/https://x.com/NZFreeSpeechhttps://www.instagram.com/freespeechnz/https://www.tiktok.com/@freespeechunionnz