📙 Part 2: Describe a famous person you are interested in

This episode's vocabulary

Resistance (noun) - the act of fighting against something that is attacking you, or refusing to accept something.

Infringe on/upon sth (phrase) - if something infringes on/upon someone's rights or freedom, it takes away some of their rights or limits their freedom.

Blow up (phrasal verb) - to become popular.

Notorious (adj.) - famous for something bad.

Grossly (adj.) - extremely.

Fleeting (adj.) - short or quick.

Schadenfreude (noun) - (from German) a feeling of pleasure or satisfaction when something bad happens to someone else.

Entitled (adj.) - feeling that you have the right to do or have what you want without having to work for it or deserve it, just because of who you are.

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Questions and Answers

M: Rory will describe a famous person he is interested in. He will say who he/she is, how he knew about this person, what he/she was like before he/she became famous, and explain why he is interested in this person. Rory, are you ready?

R: Yes.

M: Fire away.

R: I'd like to talk about Jordan Peterson, actually, or I should say Dr. Jordan Peterson. He's a Canadian psychologist and professor. I first discovered him in the summer of I think it was 2016. And I think, well, at least I think it was then. He started posting about his resistance to speech laws in Canada that would infringe on people's right to express themselves openly. This is important because in order for the world to function properly, people need to be able to state their ideas clearly and these kind of laws would prevent that from happening. So it is quite important. I haven't been to Canada, so I first heard of him through some of my favorite youtubers, and I went to go and have a look at his videos. And I really liked what he had to say and his mode of delivery. He's a very calm speaker, but he organizes views in a very logical way. And it's really easy to follow what he's saying. Since that time he's really blown up on social media and the media more generally doing news, interviews, including one notorious one with the UK interviewer that went viral itself. In terms of what he was like before going viral, prior to that, you can see for yourself. He recorded all of his old lectures and put them on YouTube. I'll grossly oversimplify and say that he tells well-known stories and highlights how elements of them relate to the field of psychology and how people operate in the world. The general idea isn't about being happy all the time because happiness is fleeting. Rather, it's about finding meaning and what you do to carry you through the hard times. And all of this is very interesting to me because I like people who have positive messages like that for the world to hear. And on a more sort of schadenfreude related note, he was annoying all of the people I generally dislike, so that's entitled college students and social justice warriors and ideological extremists. And it was great seeing them get what was coming to them. And all the while I learned something along the way and I couldn't think of a better person to spend my time listening to. Except maybe you, Maria.

M: What about your friends, do they like this person?

R: Um, some of them do and some of them don't. It's OK to have different tastes in that respect.

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