Point of View May 19, 2026 – Hour 2 : Tuesday’s Headlines

[00:00:04] Across America, Live, this is Point of View, Kirby Anderson. Checking out today, let's get into some of the issues in the news and for a few minutes we're going to kind of talk about a theme because Derek Hunter has talked about the fact that you are seeing a situation, especially in the Democratic Party,

[00:00:32] but some of it is seen in the Republican Party as well, in which various individuals running for office, running for re-election, are deciding we're not even going to talk to people with whom we disagree. We're not even going to go on to various media outlets if we get the sense that we might be getting a difficult question. And first of all, that is certainly not in the spirit of trying to represent all the people of your district

[00:00:59] or a president to represent all the people of the country or a senator representing all the people of the state. And I think in some respects, as I mentioned last hour with our guest, I'll hold up this booklet, which has the title, A Biblical View on a Politicized Culture, which we wrote, I wrote back in 2017, a few years later, Politics of Hate in 2019.

[00:01:22] And it just, as you look at these pictures, of course there is talking about some of the athletes taking a knee, and we're going to get to that in just a minute. But I thought it was just striking that Derek Hunter says this is becoming really more of a problem, and we're in the midst of midterm elections. Okay, I recognize a third of the Senate is running, two-thirds or not. So yeah, they could probably play that game.

[00:01:48] All the people running for the House of Representatives, 435 members, are going to have to appear before the people. You have, of course, governors' races. You have state senate, state representative, all sorts of different things. And yet he says one of the things he's noticing, especially among the Democrats, is the unwillingness, and maybe the better word, is inability to speak to anyone who disagrees with them,

[00:02:15] and that this has become more of a chronic problem. He goes on in another paragraph to say, When's the last time you heard a dissenting voice on MSNOW? Used to be MSNBC. Anyone who dares disagree with a progressive narrative on CNN, and I'll say Scott's kind of doing missionary work there as well, and a few other people, but he's usually spoken over, shot it down, cut off, or a correction from a host.

[00:02:41] But I'll at least give CNN at least partial credit, because they will have someone. You see counterpoints all the time on others like Fox and whatever. But nevertheless, Derrick Hunter goes on in another paragraph to say, You know, President Joe Biden used to talk about how he wanted to be a president of all Americans, but he never gave an interview to Fox News. How can you be a president of anyone when you won't talk to half of the country for four years?

[00:03:07] He even, and I forgot this, passed on the Super Bowl interview. Now, if there's ever been a softball interview, it's when usually there are some questions asked to Mr. President just before the Super Bowl, and this, without a doubt, is the largest audience any politician might ever be able to garner. And Joe Biden turned it down. Now, he goes on to talk about the fact that you also have all sorts of other situations.

[00:03:37] He talks, and I never really knew this. He talks about AOC when sometimes you see her going down the hallway and being asked a question. It's actually scripted. I did not know all that. And he says it's more scripted than an Aaron Sorkin movie. Aaron Sorkin, by the way, is the one that did The West Wing. But nevertheless, I was unaware of that until I read this piece. And then the fact is there's probably very good evidence that they not only had set it up,

[00:04:05] but they were feeding the questions to her, coordinating with the staff to get the video of her relevant to the news cycle. And I've often wondered, of course, they talk about that with AOC. What about maybe even Jasmine Crockett and some others that you've always wondered about? But nevertheless, that is part of the issue that is there in which when other people try to approach her, she just simply walks past them.

[00:04:31] And so, again, I'll give credit to the fact that, okay, you do see Scott Jennings sometimes on CNN, but that's about it. And there are many people that have been banned from so-called left-wing media. Top of the list, of course, Stephen Miller and some others. And nevertheless, I thought it was just kind of interesting to look at that situation. And then to point out that he also is watching right now what's even unfolding in the California governor's race.

[00:05:01] Our California listeners are well aware of the fact that when I mentioned the name Katie Porter, she is an individual that probably isn't going to be doing as well. But when a while back, you might remember she was asked what she planned to do to reach out to the 40% of California voters that voted for Trump instead of giving kind of a standard, well, I'm going to try to make my case before them. I'm hoping someone will listen to me. She basically just said, why would I need to appeal to them?

[00:05:31] I can win without them. And again, if you are going to be a senator from the state of California and you have the mindset that unless you voted for me, I don't care who you are. That's going to be a tough sell. But I think it's typical of what we're seeing with more and more of this tribalism. And he says, can you imagine a conservative politician saying people who aren't in lockstep with them, I'm not even going to talk to them.

[00:06:00] And I really think it's kind of hard. He then gives a story. And for those of you that live in Tennessee, I'm not as familiar with the Democratic Congressman Steve Cohen. But ever since we had kind of the gerrymandering taking place, he decided, I'm not going to run because, after all, I was in a district that was like 70% Democrat. Now it's competitive and I just don't want to bother.

[00:06:24] And again, I think you're starting to see this mindset that just simply says, I'm only going to talk to the people I agree with. And the point he makes at the end is Democrats don't make a case for their ideas anymore. They make threats to those who don't get in line and obey them.

[00:06:41] And if you've been paying attention, you recognize that you've now had the NAACP call in on black athletes and fans to boycott the SEC, which is kind of interesting. Because they didn't make the decision. The SEC, the Southern Conference and the Atlantic Coast Conference and some of that so that it might actually deplete some of the programs, football and basketball.

[00:07:07] Similar, the NAACP urging fans and athletes to boycott over the question, basically, that came down from the Supreme Court. Same day, we have, of course, now members of the Congressional Black Caucus calling for members to block name, image and likeness.

[00:07:28] Some of the conferences and to begin to go after the NAACP, NCAA, I should say, first of all, the NAACP saying this and then agency AA. And I just think it's a good illustration again. Instead of saying, here, I want to make our case for why what you're doing is wrong and why we need to do this.

[00:07:52] Instead, the typical reaction is to boycott, to black ball, to just decide not to engage in the conversation. And it does seem to me at a time when we are seeing midterm elections, it is really unfortunate that more and more of these candidates are simply saying,

[00:08:15] I'm just going to go to the people that agree with me, even though when I'm elected, I'm supposed to represent everybody, even the people I won't even talk to, which I think is not healthy for the republic. Anyway, Derek Harper really gives us, I should say, Derek Hunter gives us a very good perspective on that. And it's just one more illustration of something we're going to come back to a little bit later. But let's take a break. We'll be back right after this.

[00:09:00] This is Viewpoints with Kirby Anderson. Psychologist and author Jonathan Haidt has been researching the influences on teenagers and young adults. Several years ago, we interviewed him on his book, The Coddling of the American Mind. More recently, he's been known for his book, The Anxious Generation. He was recently asked on a podcast, who makes better parents, left-wingers or right-wingers?

[00:09:25] At first, he pointed to data that showed a slight gap where conservatives are a little happier than liberals. He added it isn't clear whether that is due to parenting or some other factor. However, he then pointed to research he did for his book. The gap between left and right becomes a chasm after 2012. As we've discussed on previous commentaries, the date 2012 coincides with the mass adoption of the iPhone and social media apps.

[00:09:50] He says the bottom line is that when kids are rooted in communities, they don't get washed out to sea by the phone-based childhood living in the virtual world. So over and over again, when we look at the left-right or whether we look at religion, what we find is that secular kids and the liberal kids who get washed out to sea get really depressed after 2012. And a much less effect on conservative and religious kids because I think they're more rooted. The conclusion shouldn't be controversial.

[00:10:18] We know from numerous studies that children do best in a loving home with a father and a mother. They do best when children don't spend lots of time online. They do best when they're rooted in a community and have social interactions such as we find in church. We talked about the comments by Jonathan Haidt on my radio program and concluded that more and more research is confirming what the Bible has taught for millennia. I'm Kirby Anderson, and that's my point of view.

[00:10:49] Go deeper on topics like you just heard by visiting pointofview.net. That's pointofview.net. You're listening to Point of View, your listener-supported source for truth. I'd like to get into the whole issue of anti-Semitism. If for no other reason, that's something we've been talking about for some time. We produced a booklet years ago on anti-Semitism.

[00:11:15] I updated it in 2023 in light of some of the other arguments that were surfacing after Hamas attacked Israel. But whether you look at those historical issues or the more recent ones, I think you can see that we've got another real concern that has surfaced of all places in the New York Times. And that's why I come to Stephen Sokup, who writes from the Protocols of Elders of Zion to the New York Times.

[00:11:44] Now, first of all, to understand some of that, the Protocols of the Elders of Zion was a conspiracy. It was a fabricated text, which was known at the time probably by many people to not be true. But it was an anti-Semitic tract that was first published in Russia, translated in a lot of languages, calling and documenting the supposed conspiracy of the world, the Jewish world against our world.

[00:12:14] Also, as we go through this, he also mentions this idea of blood libel. What is that? Well, that was one of those that comes primarily, I think, during the Middle Ages, if I remember right, which was the false allegation that Jews were murdering Christian children to use their blood in the baking of unleavened bread during Passover. And that Jews said that they were drinking blood with wine and all this kinds of stuff.

[00:12:40] And these were these anti-Semitic tropes that existed. And you might say, OK, well, some of this comes from the Middle Ages. Some of this comes from maybe something that was at the last century. Why are we talking about it now? Well, it has to do with this particular piece by New York columnist Nicholas Kristof. And just days before, there was this incredible study that we talked about even yesterday. We talked about it on Friday.

[00:13:09] I don't want to get into it too much because it's pretty gruesome stuff in which doing hundreds of interviews and looking at thousands of pictures and videos and things like that. The nation of Israel documented for the first time some of the most gruesome aspects of what happened on October 7th.

[00:13:30] Well, just a few days before, New York columnist Nicholas Kristof published a piece in which it was said that you had Israeli prisoner guards using dogs and other things to torture Palestinians. And you can't help but wonder if that came out at first so that it could provide some kind of moral equivalency. As a matter of fact, Jim Dennison yesterday wrote about that.

[00:13:57] He said, really, if I could write about three articles, I would certainly write about Ebola being in Africa. Of course, the Rededicate 250, which we talked about yesterday. But also he had decided to write about this because you had the sense that that was the case. Well, Stephen Stofkoff says, look, I don't really know Nicholas Kristof. I know he at one point wanted to be the governor of Oregon. I don't know if he's anti-Semitic or whether he's just naive about all of this.

[00:14:24] I don't know if he really believes that dogs can be trained to rape people. And I'm being very careful even of the kind of description that was there. And nevertheless, whether he was a good person who thought he was doing a good thing or whether he was really trying to advance an agenda is sort of irrelevant.

[00:14:44] Because if nothing else, having this particular column come out days before was seeming to be an attempt to try to counter program against the real evidence that had been collected by the nation of Israel about how systemic and how brutal and how sexual some of the attacks were on October 7th.

[00:15:10] And so he goes into then saying, why is it we still have anti-Semitism? Not that I'm planning on writing another booklet on anti-Semitism. But if I do, this piece here gives you some great material. Because first of all, he talks about Hannah Arendt, who wrote the book The Origins of Totalitarianism, in which he talks about where some of this came from.

[00:15:33] Because people were upset about the fact that Jewish people had various finances, Jewish financiers. You also, of course, had had some anti-Semitism long before that. Which is why he points out that as helpful as her piece was, it failed, as he said, to explain how anti-Semitism became so potent.

[00:15:56] And really so justifiable that it could legitimize the murder of two-thirds of all the Jewish people in Europe. And that's where he then goes to Norman Cohn, who wrote the book Warrant for Genocide. In which he talks about the fact that this Jew hatred that was there really required a fantasy of cosmic conspiracy. Which gets us now to the protocols of elders of Zion.

[00:16:24] Because then this idea that the world is in a really bad place, according to these anti-Semitic people. Because the Jews control all of that. And so this, as he points out, set the stage for the Holocaust. And even some of the modern anti-Semitism that we have today.

[00:16:46] So he says, between those two individuals, we can then kind of arrive at, if you will, a complete explanation for the Holocaust. And this now maybe takes us into where we are. Because for centuries, Europeans turned their paranoia and their insecurity on anybody that was an outsider. Jews were one of those targets.

[00:17:12] He doesn't say here, except just in passing, witches in Salem. You know, you can mention all sorts of other things like that as well. And so he says, let's now come back to Nicholas Kristof, who wrote the other day, which is a textbook example of what he calls the blood libel. Whether he intended it to be or not, his column is a classic application of the fantasy of this cosmic conspiracy.

[00:17:39] He alleges that sexual violence against Palestinian prisoners is systemic. It's organized. It's state sanctioned. You know, it's one thing to talk about when individuals go wrong. We've had some examples. For example, I'll use the Vietnam War, a very convenient one, of the massacre of people at My Lai. And the fact that this may be not typical of the American military, but it certainly was of some individuals.

[00:18:09] But in this particular case, the idea is not that some individuals do it wrong. But this is really a secret rite of initiation of the nation of Israel. And again, he said medieval accusers did not allege that some Jews had killed some Christians, but that this was part of a hidden Jewish council coordinating all of that.

[00:18:32] And so, again, when you have this claim about what these trained dogs were supposedly doing, that this was institutional practice, this is bestiality, animals are an instrument. It just goes on and on.

[00:18:48] And I think it's just a reminder that this particular piece just illustrates how quickly there seems to be a willingness to assume that anything a Jewish person does, anything the nation of Israel does, is by definition wrong. And as soon as you get evidence, even if the evidence comes from the Hamas News Bureau, if you will, we're going to run with that.

[00:19:14] And I think it's just a good illustration of why we will continue to talk about this issue of anti-Semitism. We are convinced that this is a problem on the left. It has become, as we've mentioned sometimes, a problem on the right. And it's a reason for we as Christians to speak out and to support Jewish people and certainly the right of the nation of Israel to exist.

[00:19:37] Just before I take a break, though, let me also mention that my commentary today is titled Right-Wing Parents, which, interestingly enough, comes from a very good piece that came out in an interview that was done with Jonathan Haidt. You might say, who is he? Well, I'll hold up his book here, The Coddling of the American Mind. And that is a book that we did an interview with him on.

[00:20:02] And now more recently, his book, I'll hold this one up as well, The Anxious Generation, which, by the way, illustrates the fact that he certainly would not be considered a Christian by any stretch of the imagination, not even a conservative. But he has done very good work in looking at what is happening to the young people today. And it's a good illustration of that. But in the right-wing parents question, he was asked, well, who makes better parents, left-wingers or right-wingers?

[00:20:29] At first, he says, well, you know, there used to be a little bit of a gap where conservatives maybe were happier than liberals. But we're not sure that's due to parenting. But if you go to after the date 2012, when we had very significant market penetration of the smartphones and social media, the gap is huge. And he makes the case that, if nothing else, secular kids and liberal kids sometimes just get washed out to sea.

[00:20:57] They're more likely to be anxious. They're more likely to be depressed. And so, in some cases, the conservative and religious kids actually do better because they're more rooted. If you'd like to see the piece, it's very well done. And it's just a reminder of some of the good work that he's been doing over the years. We're going to be looking for more of his books. But I do commend you The Coddling of the American Mind and the Anxious Generation as two books worth your time to read. We'll be right back.

[00:21:27] I'm sure that you've noticed that social media is now filled with information generated by AI. Dramatic descriptions of politicians and music stars supposedly making statements about a current issue. Leaning into the microphone, looking into the lens, opponents silenced. It's powerful. It's riveting. And it's all lies.

[00:21:56] Even several national television networks were recently found using enhanced pictures, meaning manipulated, falsified, literally not giving a true picture. So many liars. So much deception. Where can we turn for truth? Right here. From Kirby and the team at Point of View. We need your support. Please join the Point of View Truth team today with a monthly gift of $30 or more.

[00:22:25] Together we can shine the light of truth and dispel the darkness and deception of this day. Give now at pointofview.net or call 1-800-347-5151. Pointofview.net and 800-347-5151. Point of View will continue after this.

[00:23:00] You are listening to Point of View. The opinions expressed on Point of View do not necessarily reflect the views of the management or staff of this station. And now, here again, is Kirby Anderson. Once again, I'm going to come to an article that actually I've had some difficulty getting on the air. It was one that I was going to originally discuss on Friday with Dr. Merrill Matthews.

[00:23:26] But then sometimes the number of articles that we do need to talk about gets a little bit long. So I pulled it off. I put it on yesterday to get to. And maybe if the talk show host wasn't so verbal. And also, of course, if we'd had our guest who from Brazil join us in the first hour instead of the second hour. But we eventually get to this. And the reason I bring it up is simply this. One of the themes that we've tried to add over the last couple of years here at Point of View is to look at emotional health.

[00:23:56] And I'll hold up our book on a biblical view on emotional health. We've had guests on here to talk about this. And that, I think, is very important. Because in some respects we have noticed since the pandemic some of the mental and emotional problems have increased dramatically. And I think that is due in large part to environmental issues. It's also due to a redefinition of what mental health might be.

[00:24:26] And so for just a minute I thought I would get into this. And then in some respects it's good that I waited because, interestingly enough, our next article comes from a new book by Jonathan Alpert called Therapy Nation. In which as an individual who is a therapist is criticizing fellow therapists. And in some respects a lot of this goes back to the coddling of the American mind which we just talked about and even the anxious generation.

[00:24:54] But let me get into this because Adam Omri says Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced an initiative last week to reduce the overprescribing of psychiatric medications, especially among children. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that autism now appears in 1 in 31 children, a 381% increase since 2000. Okay, first of all, let me issue all the disclaimers.

[00:25:23] Disclaimer number one. I'm not, as we go through this, arguing that we should never actually give people psychiatric medicine. We have had all sorts of people. Sheila Walsh, when she's been on this program many times, has talked about, I just took my pill. It's her way of saying this has been very important in her growth. I have people in the extended family, at least two individuals, who are in very good shape because of psychiatric medicine.

[00:25:53] But even the people that take those pills will admit we probably oversubscribe those. We probably overprescribe those. We probably give them to entirely too many people. The question of ADHD. The question of autism. In some respects, people are saying, well, maybe it's simply because we now have ignored, we have actually acknowledged things that we've ignored.

[00:26:23] Does that make sense? Of course it does. And so, first of all, recognize as we get into this, there's something else. Because Adam Omari says that much of the surge in mental illness can be explained. Are you ready for this? And I did not know this until his documented material on this.

[00:26:42] The American Psychiatric Association's diagnostic criteria in recent decades has actually made it more likely that you would diagnose somebody who has anxiety. As we all know, there are times when any one of us are anxious. But are we so anxious that we now have to reach for a pill or some kind of medication?

[00:27:09] And that, first of all, has made it easier to diagnose those things. But there's also, and as Marlon Maddox, the host of Point of View, the founder of Point of View, used to say so many times, you've heard it many times, follow the money. There's a financial incentive. How so?

[00:27:27] Turns out that the Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act of 2008, extended by the Affordable Care Act of 2010, required health plans to cover mental health services at parity with medical and surgical care. That, first of all, obviously did address an inequity. But it also meant something which I don't think was necessarily always an unintended consequence.

[00:27:55] Because clinicians now are paid more when they diagnose more cases. And if you think that that doesn't have an influence, well, I think you have to understand human behavior. The result is what economists call a supplier-induced demand. Now, when we have more supplies, we have more psychiatric drugs, and we can actually diagnose them more often, and they can get coverage.

[00:28:26] What's the implication? That is certainly the case. Now, again, to be fair, defenders of mental health parity in this article argue that spending and diagnosis are rising to meet previously unmet needs. But, as, again, the author points out, psychiatry is probably the most subjective of all the branches of medicine. I've had psychiatrists on this program.

[00:28:54] I've done interviews on programs that were run by psychiatrists, and they will tell you that. So they understand that only so well. And when the National Institute of Mental Health says that half of all American adolescents have experienced mental illness, either you've got to say, we are a really sick country, or maybe is it possible that psychiatry is advancing as a field

[00:29:23] and maybe even pathologizing ordinary struggle. And so as a result, just take this pill, and everything will be fine. I might point you to my commentary that I did on Friday, which has the title, George Orwell and Ados Huxley, because if you remember, in Brave New World and Huxley, you take this little pill, and it makes you have happiness. And so that is certainly the case.

[00:29:51] So anyway, Adam Omery goes on to say, wasteful spending and panic over a possibly nonexistent mental health crisis would be bad enough, but psychiatric overdiagnosis creates an even more serious problem over medication. So I was going to talk with Dr. Matthews, because he's the expert on kind of health care abuse and fraud, but there's only part of that.

[00:30:17] We're spending money to diagnose and treat people that maybe shouldn't be treated in the first place, but more importantly, we're over-prescribing these drugs as well. And he says, the reimbursement architecture makes over-medication practically inevitable. Once a patient is on a drug, the side effects are often addressed with a second drug, rather than with a reassessment of the first.

[00:30:44] Clinicians call this prescribing cascade. An antidepressant causes insomnia, so a sleep aid is added. A stimulant causes irritability, so a mood stabilizer follows. I learned this at a very young age when one time my father, who knew a lot about psychiatric medicines, and I really dealt a lot with pharmacy, was looking at his brother, my uncle,

[00:31:12] who, as they were starting to sort out all the drugs he was taking, concluded this whole idea of a prescribing cascade. You took the drug from this one doctor, and then you had negative implications, contraindications, side effects. So this other doctor prescribed you for the side effects, and then that created some side effects, and so another doctor prescribed you, or the original doctor prescribed it, and pretty soon you'd be better if you didn't take any of the drugs at all,

[00:31:39] or just went back to taking the one drug and lived with the side effects. And that, I think, is something we've all seen before. So, of course, you have right now the new initiative from the Department of Health and Human Services. This, of course, would be Health and Human Service Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. writing a dear colleague letter, which is a sensible step, he says, but it won't address the root problem.

[00:32:05] The fundamental problem is we have a federal law that actually has created an incentive structure that makes psychiatric medication the default for tens of millions of Americans who might be better served by therapy or lifestyle intervention, or in some cases no clinical intervention at all. In just a minute, I'm going to take the other part of that equation,

[00:32:33] and that is to say that sometimes the therapy itself is also a problem, but it's an illustration of something that I am going to start paying attention to. When on this program, and even through Jonathan Haidt, through The Anxious Generation, his book, points out that the number of people showing depression, anxiety, suicide ideation just rising significantly,

[00:32:59] is it possible that some of that has to do with the broadening of the diagnostic and the diagnostic criteria of the American Psychiatric Association? I think anybody with an open mind might say, yeah, that might account for some of that increase, and that's something to pay attention to. So I give you this article. It appeared in the Wall Street Journal. It documents some of this.

[00:33:28] Again, we recognize the value of psychiatric medication, but has some of that been over-prescribed? I think that's pretty obvious. Let's take a break. We'll talk about the therapy part of this equation right after this.

[00:33:59] You're listening to Point of View, your listener-supported source for truth. Back for a few more minutes. Let's see if we can talk about therapy. And again, the same disclaimer. We understand that there is a value to psychiatric medication, although I think it's over-prescribed. There's certainly a value to therapy or counseling. I would have to say biblically-based counseling. But I think it is really striking that Jonathan Alpert, who is a psychotherapist,

[00:34:27] has a book that is entitled Therapy Nation, How America Got Hooked on Therapy and Why It's Left Us More Anxious and Divided. Now, I haven't read the book for a very good reason. The book comes out today. The publication date is May 19th. If you've got your calendars, it's May 19th. So as I go into a bookstore, I might think about buying it, although this isn't necessarily something we talk about so often.

[00:34:53] But what he has done is actually posted a summary, if you will, of his book. And if you find yourself saying, well, I'd like to read about it, even if I don't read the book, this two-page summary is really pretty good. And so this one is entitled, Is Therapy Tearing Us Apart? And as I read through this, it reminds me of some of the conversation we had with Jonathan Hyde

[00:35:20] about the closing of the American mind. And it reminds me of some of the things in his book, The Anxious Generation, reminds us of some of the conversation we even had as we talked about this booklet on emotional health, where we spent some time talking with Chris Thurman about this. We've talked with Henry Cloud. Of course, we had June Hunt on, Dan Allender. We've had a number of Christians address this. But as far as I can tell, Jonathan Alpert is not a Christian,

[00:35:49] or certainly if he is, he hasn't made a point about that. But he's saying the kinds of things we would have probably said and had some concerns. Because he talks about a patient that came in to see him, furious with a friend, and furious about what would just be a disappointment, and canceled dinner date, and then a text that was returned too late. And this individual, and I'm pretty sure it's, yes, it says she, so this woman says that, my friend is toxic,

[00:36:18] the exchange has become a violation of boundaries, and the hurt has now elevated into trauma. Now again, somebody misses a dinner date, okay, that's a faux pas. I'm not sure that I'm going to end a relationship over that. But the point is, she had screenshots, she had a whole story that revealed her friend's pathology. What he says she didn't have was any introspection. Could this have been carelessness rather than ill intent?

[00:36:47] Was the reaction intentified by other things that might have been going on? Had she contributed in any way to the conflict? The language he says she brought into the room gave her something powerful. It's powerful. Certainty. But certainty isn't often the enemy of insight. And it reminds me, we've talked before about the kind of toxic ideas, what we call negative interpretation, where you say something that could even be seen positively or negatively,

[00:37:15] you always interpret it in the most negative light. And he says in my forthcoming book, of course it just came out today, he says, too much of modern therapy culture keeps people stuck, reinforcing grievance, externalizing blame, and turning everyone else into a reason their lives are so miserable. In other words, everybody else is the problem, not me. He says, for years my profession has trained clinicians to elevate validation over challenge,

[00:37:45] affirmation over interpretation, emotional fluency over the hard work of behavioral change. What has followed is the rise of grievance culture dressed up as psychological sophistication. We see that in these books that have come out. We see this in all sorts of articles. We see it in social media all the time. And so he goes on to say, of course it is your boss's fault. Of course your colleague is toxic. Of course your ex is a narcissist.

[00:38:15] Of course the world is wounding you. He says, every difficult interaction at work has been interpreted through the same frame. The boss is toxic. The coworkers are invalidating. And the environment unsafe. Too much, he says, of modern therapy culture keeps people stuck, reinforcing grievance, externalizing any kind of blame. He then goes on to say, this is how therapy can quietly become an engine that keeps people stuck.

[00:38:45] People leave not more capable of tolerating frustration, ambiguity, or ordinary disappointment, but less. While it may feel like growth, it functions as avoidance. That is corrosive. The patient becomes good at explanation, more sophisticated in the language of harm, and more certain about who is to blame, but no closer to actual change.

[00:39:13] Grievance becomes part of identity. What do they do? They separate. Oh, I think that was the conversation we just had a few minutes ago about politicians deciding no longer to even go to some of their constituency because we're just going to write them off. And all sorts of people getting more and more in their silos, more and more in their tribes. He says, the same emotional habit doesn't stay confined to the therapy office.

[00:39:43] People carry it into marriages. They carry it into friendships. They carry it into workplaces. And eventually, they carry it into, you know it, politics. Ordinary frustration becomes proof of mistreatment. Ambivalence becomes danger. Disagreement becomes evidence of harm. Once enough people are trained to interpret discomfort this way, coexisting with others starts to feel impossible. I have to stay with my tribe.

[00:40:11] Political consequences follow naturally. A citizen trained to experience ordinary conflict as evidence of harm will eventually bring the same mindset into public life. On national television, he says, prominent therapists and psychiatrists suggest it might be essential to your mental health to avoid anybody who supports Trump during the holidays. We don't want any of those Trump voting relatives around the table,

[00:40:40] so you probably should just avoid them. The same therapeutic scripts that encourage parents, patients to pathologize, difficult bosses, and disappointing partners now teach citizens to reinterpret ordinary democratic indifferences or differences as evidence of danger. Right? And he says, again, finally, the algorithm doesn't elevate the more psychologically accurate interpretation. It elevates the most

[00:41:09] emotionally satisfying one. Hence, the ecosystem of so-called mental health influencers, endless post, diagnosed narcissist, decode toxic bosses, turn ordinary disappointment into proof of pathology, social media rewards certainty, speed, and self-protection. Precisely the instincts real therapy is supposed to challenge before turning them into conclusions.

[00:41:38] The result isn't more psychologically sophisticated society. In many cases, it is just the opposite. He says, my own field should be willing to say this plainly, we helped create this culture. Real therapy should make people more capable of dealing with reality, not less. Very good piece. Preview, of course, of the book. But is therapy tearing us apart?

[00:42:06] The connection between my first article about what's happening in the political realm and my last article which talks about what's happening as you are getting therapy, maybe connect together in ways most people wouldn't have seen until now. Takes the time to read some of these. We've posted them for you to read and they're available on the website. And most importantly, just before I run out of time, let me mention tomorrow we're going to talk about our third very significant book about archaeology. Dr. Paul Weaver

[00:42:35] will be in studio with us. I think you will once again be encouraged that we have so much more evidence for our faith than we had even just a few decades ago, certainly centuries ago. And I think this will be an encouragement to do here on Point of View. Just before I say goodbye, let me mention again that I always appreciate what Megan does behind the scene engineering the program. Steve, thank you for producing the program. And if you find yourself saying, I need to read some of these materials, we have them available at the website, pointofview.net.

[00:43:04] Just click on that button that says, See More. And I think you will be enlightened by some of the articles we've posted for you to read today. See you back here tomorrow on Point of View. Where does moral truth come from? According to 58% of Americans, individuals determine moral truth. A quarter of Generation Z says society determines moral truth and morality can even change over time. Only 42% of Americans believe that truth comes from God.

[00:43:34] I don't know about you, but I find these numbers extremely troubling. It really is a crisis of truth, and that crisis has consequences. Look at society. Evil is called good. Good called evil. People with biblical beliefs are called bigots, or worse, they're canceled. But there is hope. The Bible promises the truth will set us free, and that's why Point of View is relentless in our commitment to the ultimate source of moral truth, God's Word.

[00:44:03] At Point of View, we know that God's truth is eternal, and if we stand together, we can help more Americans apply His truth in their daily life. Help Americans find truth again by giving at pointofview.net or call 1-800-347-5151. That's pointofview.net and 800-347-5151. Point of View is produced

[00:44:33] by Point of View Ministries.