How PragerU Lies to You: The Enlightenment

I have something of an obsession with laughing at propaganda and debunking it. As a child, I went to an extremely propagandistic and cult-like private school where I had to learn how propagandists lie to you. For high school, I was in public schooling and despite some critiques of that (which I may write about later) I was generally denied access to the same level of terrible propaganda that I adore.

Then, I found my online substitute. A list of horrible propaganda videos online I could look through and debunk. Then, even better there was video after video debunking those same videos, I could compare notes with later. Being able to dunk on such silly deceptions with an audience of these videos’ size became something of a dream of mine.

Few people get to live out their dreams. For those who can, it is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity that can change their life forever. My opportunity came in 12^th grade, one winter in 2019 that was frighteningly close to the outbreak before the COVID-19 pandemic. Just before school was set to remote learning for the next few years, I was sitting at the front of European history class with one of my least favourite teachers.

Throughout the course, I noticed a lot of misleading oversimplifications that were interfering with the accuracy of the lessons. Strangely, the teacher diverted from the curriculum whenever it came to excusing or downplaying problems in European history. It just kept snowballing until we were basically learning an alternate universe’s history where Europe did nothing wrong and things were perfect. When I brought this up, my teacher simply said she was adding a “fair and balanced perspective to tell both sides”. Odd. That sounded like something from those propaganda videos I’d watch and laugh at in my free time. It sounded like a PragerU video.

And then it happened. On that cold, winter morn as I sat at the front of the class my teacher put on the PragerU video “What was the Enlightenment”.

I could hardly believe it. It was glorious. My best friend and I got to rip the video apart in front of the whole class. I got to live out one of Shaun’s How PragerU Lies to You videos in real life! It wasn’t one of those cheesy “and then everyone clapped” stories or anything, but I like to believe that our exposing of the video’s lies at least somewhat helped keep my classmates from falling for propaganda. In the same way, inspired by Shaun’s video, I hope to offer a written and expanded version of the critiques I gave back then in the hopes of keeping others from falling for it.

Why do I call PragerU propaganda, you might ask? Well for those of you blissfully unaware of this online “University” that isn’t a real University, PragerU is a YouTube channel for alternative education created by the world’s most divorced man: Dennis Prager.

Dennis Prager is a reactionary talk radio host for the Dennis Prager Show, a program on which he does such things as complain about it being “disgusting” and “idiotic” that he is not allowed to say the n-word and defending a misogynistic Nazi slogan.

Outside of sharing such wisdom on the air, Dennis also wrote insightful articles such as “When a Woman Isn’t in the Mood” which includes such gold as:

“It is an axiom of contemporary marital life that if a wife is not in the mood, she need not have sex with her husband. Here are some arguments why a woman who loves her husband might want to rethink this axiom.”

And after many more paragraphs of similar drivel adds:

“In Part II, I will explain in detail why mood should play little or no role in a woman’s determining whether she has sex with her husband.”

That’s right, Dennis was so passionate about normalizing spousal rape that he dipped his toes into the topic not once but twice. He seems nice, I wonder why he’s on to wife number three.

Screenshot from the article Truth or Fiction: ‘Dennis Prager Wrote a Whole Essay Whining About Men Having to Respect Women’s Sexual Boundaries’

All this is to say that after dipping his toes into brainwashing the public with talk radio and article writing, our boy Dennis decided to expand into brainwashing children directly with a series of short YouTube videos and thus, (with a little bit of oil billionaire money) Prager University aka PragerU was born.

Some of PragerU’s hits include:

A bizarre pro-slavery video about Confederate General Robert E. Lee’s statues which was quickly pulled from their social media in what I can only assume was utter embarrassment. The video includes the fact that he crushed a slave rebellion by “Radical Abolitionist” John Brown among its facts that “showed why his statue should remain standing”. It also included the fact that Lee opposed black people’s right to vote in that same list. Here is a good commentary on the video, since PragerU is still too ashamed to put the original back up: PragerU Releases Hilariously BAD Video To Defend Robert E. Lee Statues
A baffling video defending the “liberty-loving” British Empire. The video, written by an imperialist who wrote a book called “The Politically Incorrect Guide to the British Empire” sings the praises of a Dyer, a slaughterer of hundreds of innocent Indians, and calls him a “hero of the old school”. He was so awful that even the Empire criticized him at home. The video itself laughably declares that “[The British] were more than content to leave people alone, to let them be themselves, to govern them with the lightest possible hand.” When my father (who was born in a former British colony) saw the video, he audibly scoffed at it. A personal bucket list item of mine is to also show this video to some of my Indian or Irish friends to see what they think. This video is still up, unedited so we have found the threshold of what they aren’t ashamed enough to take down. Here is another excellent video that goes into further detail on the matter and helped to inspire this whole article. How PragerU Liest to You – The British Empire
A broken guide on “getting kids to listen”. The video’s presenter: the Ph.D. deficient psychologist John Rosemond describes parenting as an authoritarian dictatorship justified by the assumption that “obedient children are happy children”. Citation needed. Preferably one that is not also written John Rosemond, since he is all of his own sources. To clarify, he is a source that according to his own website “Does not employ psychological principles”. So, when he offers advice like locking kids in their room for a month to traumatize them, that’s why. Here is a great video on that matter too: PragerU’s TERRIFYING Parenting Advice | A Response to PragerU

To those who might be accusing me of poisoning the well, I would just like to point out that they said it, not me. It might be a foreign concept to fans of the “““““University””””” but it’s called providing sources to reinforce and legitimize my argument. Plus, unlike Prager, I don’t need to make things up to support my points.

Returning to my little opening anecdote, let’s now take a look at PragerU’s take on The Enlightenment. For this specific video, the presenter is Yoram Hazony. Yoram is a contributor to a litany of Reactionary think tanks as well as the author of a book called, no joke: “The Virtue of Nationalism”. His theories of nationalism have been called “intellectual dishonesty” and “incoherent”.

Fittingly, his PragerU video is full of misrepresentation, logical fallacies, and straw men. It can’t get past the first 30 seconds before reaching a major error. Yoram calls the Enlightenment “a sort of miracle that took place 250 years ago”. Even a cursory Google search will tell you the Enlightenment was not 250 years ago. It is widely agreed to have occupied a period of time that lasted roughly during the 17^th, 18^th, and 19^th centuries.

The point of the Enlightenment is not that there was a “magical moment” as the video describes, but rather that sociological and political forces allowed for many influential ideas to finally gain prominence across a broad period of time. Saying “aha” the Enlightenment wasn’t built one night 250 years ago is arguing with a silly straw man. All historical periods are built upon previous periods. The fact that the video highlights some earlier thinkers presenting similar ideas to Enlightenment philosophy does not diminish the Enlightenment’s impact.

Such points would be better described as precursors to the Enlightenment: the era where they became widespread, gained mainstream appeal and evolved into a state most resembling to their modern analogs. It would be like arguing that the Haitian Revolution is not significant because Spartacus also led a slave revolt nearly 2 millennia prior. If that example is a bit too cerebral for you Dennis, it is like saying “urine is feces.”

Honestly, PragerU is probably against the Haitian revolution. After all, this video cites the French Revolution as a bad thing and if white people aren’t allowed to violently resist oppression, African slaves definitely won’t be (at least until Prager gets that n-word pass he craves).

More to the point on the anti-French Revolution stuff, the reason given is that the Revolution failed and led to Napolean. This almost sounds like a half-decent argument until one remembers that PragerU released another video a week earlier called “@realNapoleonBonaparte” which adores the little corporal. That video argues that he brought forth the best parts of the French Revolution: Equality and Meritocracy. Reminder: Napoleon ended French democracy, re-instituted slavery, and crowned himself Emperor. But then again, they might not mind those things.

Is this a sign that PragerU is full of farcical contradictions or that they think democratic revolutions are bad and reactionary dictators are good? Maybe it’s both. I’ll let you decide.

PragerU’s anti-enlightenment piece goes on to say that not only did all good things come from Conservatives, but also that most big names associated with the Enlightenment were actually Enlightenment critics.

Their provided list is John Selden, David Hume, Adam Smith, and Edmund Burke. Strangely, the provided list of Enlightenment critics includes various Enlightenment thinkers and even more hilarious errors.

The so-called “Enlightenment Critics”

Firstly, the video spells John Selden’s name wrong which is funny, and more importantly it calls him an Enlightenment critic even though he died before the Enlightenment even began. Come on, Dennis, if you’re going to lie to me at least put some effort into it!

Here is what comes up when googling “John Seldon”

David Hume was a philosophical empiricist which is about as “Enlightenment thinker” as you can get. Unsurprisingly, this supposed critic is often found on lists of top Enlightenment thinkers for this very reason.

Adam Smith is almost single-handedly Mr. Enlightenment as far as the economic components of liberalism are concerned. He is often called the father of capitalism. You know, the economic model cemented during the Enlightenment? He is often called a key figure of the Enlightenment, hardly a critic.

At best, that buffoon Edmund Burke is the closest I could see as an actual critic. This makes sense since Yoram was the chairman of the Edmund Burke Foundation. The funny thing about Burke, he was against the American Revolution, a thing PragerU pretends to like (except in the episode where they licked the boots of the British Empire). In true supervillain fashion, Burke complained that he hated truth and reason because they were not in line with tradition. Burke summed up all his thoughts on the Enlightenment by saying:

“The pretended rights of these theorists are all extremes: and in proportion as they are metaphysically true, they are morally and politically false.”

And more blatantly:

“All the pleasing illusions, which made power gentle, and obedience liberal, which harmonized the different shades of life, and which, by a bland assimilation, incorporated into politics the sentiments which beautify and soften private society, are to be dissolved by this new conquering empire of light and reason.”

Basically, he’s complaining that educated people are harder to lie to and subjugate with the deceptions of tradition. People not being controlled by these traditional systems is seen as “immoral” to Burke and his defenders. He calls the Enlightenment a “conquering empire of light and reason” as if that is a bad thing. This is one of those quotes that really gives the game away. I like to compare it to the Athenian conservative Cleon’s assertion that it is better for a nation to have “bad laws which are never changed” than to risk change by improving them. However, I’d best move on before I start ranting about my personal hatred of Burke any further.

Back to the video “What was the Enlightenment”, only one-quarter of the video’s “Enlightenment critics” actually fit the bill. That’s a failing grade, I’m afraid. Do better next time.

The video is fundamentally anti-liberal which normally I’m all for. But if you’re going to critique liberalism, you have to do it properly. This video isn’t even criticizing the failures of modern liberalism, it’s shadowboxing with the long-defunct liberalism of the Enlightenment and pretending it is the same thing as modern neoliberal ideology.

Then, the video goes on to praise and extol the values of Anglo-Scottish Conservatives. Again, if they were conservatives in the Enlightenment, they are not the conservatives of today who want to go back to the 1950s or whatever. These people to be conservatives of their day would want to go back to the 1550s! They’d be imperialist slavery defenders to the last. Asserting that these ancient racists’ ideas are “Common Sense” is laughable, especially considering the actual world-changing Enlightenment text by Thomas Paine that is literally called “Common Sense”.

The 3 isms associated with the “clamoring for modern Enlightenment” are silly. Socialism is incompatible with liberalism’s tenet of private property because it is anti-capitalist. Liberal pinkwashing is not actual feminism. And most importantly we’ll all be dead before genuine environmentalism is allowed to supplant the profit motive of neoliberal economics. Also, leave it to the propaganda mill paid by oil billionaires to stick in some anti-environmentalist messaging there.

The video utterly fails at accurately answering the question posed in its title, but we all know that is now why it exists. The video’s true purpose is not to communicate facts, but rather to slander mainstream historiography as being anti-conservative propaganda. This reading of things is extremely telling. The immediate jump to assume that historical perspectives are not just inaccurate or misinformed, but rather intentionally misleading to promote a political point tells a lot about PragerU’s view of history. Every accusation is an admission.

The reason my teacher showed us this video was to support her argument that “The Dark Ages” were not that bad in Europe and that the age most ruled by superstition and the sword was just fine in the hands of reactionary psychos. When I would argue that the Dark Ages was reductive because it focused only on Europe and ignored ages of prosperity and flourishing abroad, she would argue that there were no real Dark Ages. Europe was always just fine.

The real reason for this video’s downplaying of the Enlightenment is simple: they don’t want to admit that the many icons and historical figures they idolize were politically progressive and revolutionary for their time. If new ideas were good back then, PragerU’s goal of keeping the world stagnant would be called into question. Like Burke, they hate this “conquering empire of light and reason” and spare no expense in trying to cast us all back into an age of darkness and lies.

The significance of this is that my isolated experience is going to become common soon. In various states across America, PragerU has wormed its way into mainstream education. Very soon, these kinds of lies will be streaming into the minds of much younger, less critical minds. Even if you read this and agree with PragerU’s political slant, surely you at the very least want the facts kids are learning to be true. Kids coming home with a 25% mark is not ideal and PragerU getting 1 out of 4 Enlightenment critics right poses the risk of leading by example!

I cannot overstate how wrong and how damaging the PragerU “courses” are for kids. Even beyond their reactionary and antiquated political messaging, it’s just bad for teaching actual facts or educating students in a way that genuinely benefits them. Their incompetence and sloppiness come from an obvious hatred of teaching as a craft and a downplaying of how difficult and essential the teaching career is.

A screenshot from Teacher Zoe Bee’s excellent breakdown of how PragerU’s lesson plans are a failure in every possible way!

If a recurring lesson goal for PragerU’s content is hating or “appreciating” something rather than truly understanding it, we are talking about propaganda, not education. When my parents heard that I was being taught this in school by a single rogue teacher, they were appalled. Do you feel comfortable with the next generation growing up with this kind of propaganda integrated into their curriculum?