Greg Gutfeld: Joe Rogan is widening the universe of ideas, media is shrinking it

Ever since this show began in the early 70s as a summer replacement for The Brady Bunch, we were on top of one trend: Cancel culture. 

The idea being, if your past isn't adaptable to current standards, you would lose your friends, social status, Netflix password and career. You'd be shunned from polite society. 

Its kindred spirit was wokeism, political correctness on more steroids than Lance Armstrong, which allowed no forgiveness relating not just to your past actions, but to who you are. 

Generally, it's things that can't be changed, like your race or Pete Davidson's bedsheets.

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In the world of the woke, you're either oppressed or the oppressor, and the offenses only flow in one direction. 

Suddenly, we no longer measure anyone by achievement, but by victim status, which creates a new kind of segregation that's now spreading like omicron in the Olympic Village. 

I call it idea segregation, IN that we cannot share our knowledge, wisdom or ideas if we're not of the same tribe. 

Now we see this with crime. This show has been blaring about rising crime, like the alarm at a broken Nordstrom's window, but the people who need to hear it won't listen because it's coming from us. It's the Fox crying wolf. 

They'd rather drown in raw sewage than grab a life preserver from us meetings. And I get it. 

It affects all issues, from the border to crime to COVID. It's a division of ideas, and none shall mix. 

Now, imagine if this kind of thing existed before we had a chance to make things. 

Did you ever wonder about how a pencil is made? Milton Friedman has. I certainly hope we have some grainy footage of him lying around. 

MILTON FREEDMAN: The wood from which it's made, for all I know, comes from a tree that was cut down on the state of Washington. To cut down that tree, it took a saw. To make the saw, it took steel. To make steel, it took iron ore. This black center, we call it lead, but it's really graphite, compressed graphite. I'm not sure where it comes from, but I think it comes from some mines in South America. This red top up here, the eraser, a bit of rubber, probably comes from Malaya, where the Rubber Tree isn't even native. It was imported from South America by some businessmen with the help of the British government. This brass feral, I haven't the slightest idea where it came from or the yellow paint or the paint and made the black lines or the glue that holds it together. Literally thousands of people cooperated to make this pencil. 

Someone likes his weed. 

So the moral is obvious. It's not like one person sits in a room and makes a pencil. 

As the lady in the pantsuit once said, it takes a village. 

Now you can use that pencil to write whatever you want, or to gouge your eyes out if you're watching "The View." 

But this is the case for everything we use today. It's the division of labor, which is not referring to twins being born more than 30 minutes apart, Cat. 

This clipboard right here. The chair I'm in, Cat's hair extensions. They all likely weren't made by a single entity, but cooperation of sources, workers, ideas and, of course, labor from people who never even met each other. 

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I wish that was how this show was produced. 

Imagine if wokeism existed before the pencil was made. 

Could the division of labor exist? Think of the micro and macro aggressions. Why does the pencil have to be yellow? Why isn't it black? Are you Black? Do you have enough transgendered persons of color making the erasers? What's with the lead? Talk about a carbon footprint. And why #2, why can't they all be equal? 

The fact is, nothing would happen because wokeism prevents the cooperation needed for any shared labor. It wouldn't just be pencils, but everything you use. You have to work together, whether you like it or not. And sometimes, you know, we have no choice. 

Take the Alec Baldwin tragedy, if there was an idea, segregation, that woman could be alive today because there would have been an NRA instructor on set, and that's cooperation, idea-sharing. 

Sure. Baldwin, a Democrat, might not like the instructor's politics, but he's not there for that. He's there to share his safety expertise. 

And, an NRA dude would have kept a loaded gun out of Baldwin's hands. 

Idea segregation prevents that. Wokeism demands you can't benefit from a person's expertise if they're not like you. 

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The political is now personal. Sure, you're having engine problems with your car, and your brother-in-law is a great mechanic, but he's got a "Back the Blue" sticker on his truck. Screw it, you'll just walk home. 

So now to Joe Rogan, there's likely no person on Earth who's doing more to dismantle idea segregation than him. 

The roster of his guests are more diverse than the Olympic opening ceremonies, and they're allowed to speak endlessly about whatever so the listener can decide. 

It's the antidote to cable TV, where shows rely on the same people who say the same things over and over again. 

I mean, look at this show. You get 42 minutes of content divided by five segments and five talking heads. No wonder I'm on drugs, and no wonder CNN hates Rogan. 

He's widening the universe as they shrink it. At first, the legacy media tried to take him down with his COVID content. He had doctors on who disagreed with Fauci, the left's patron saint of masks, mandates and mind control. 

But the takedown didn't take. So now some mysterious group released a supercut of Joe saying the N-word over a decade or so. 

Probably matching what previous Democrat senators and presidents would say in one afternoon. 

The fact that the montage was released after Spotify stuck with Rogen tells you it's less about the world and more about canning Joe. 

He's apologized, sincerely. 

But we all know, like me watching the first Magic Mike movie, that will never be enough. The N-word is being used as a tool. They're getting desperate. They want Rogen destroyed. I wonder what the Angry Black Male has to say.

TYRUS, ANGRY BLACK MALE: Greg, thank you for this time. This is not going to be your normal, everyday Angry Black Man. Oh, and I'm angry, but not for the reasons you might think. Yup. Joe Rogan said the N-word. Hell, he even said it with a hard-ass-R. A bunch of times on a podcast. And yeah, it pissed me off when I first saw it. So. Very clever woke. 

But you kind of left out a few things like it was 12 years ago. Nobody cares what he said 12 years ago. Hell, you didn't. Where were you then? I'll wait for a response, but we know that will fall on deaf ears. Maybe it's time you stop using us African-Americans to do your dirty work and fight your battles. 

Now I get it, you use your favorite little words to get us fired up. Racist. Systemic. Critical. And your new favorite word: Misinformation. And that'll get us fired up. And we won't even look at the facts of the whatnots, and we'll just jump in and cancel away with you. 

Your fight with Joe Rogan was about COVID, but you were losing that conversation, so you needed something else and you went to the good old woke playbook, but you went one too many times. 

How about this: Fight, Joe Rogan yourselves. Leave us out of it. Look, the N-word is bad. I learned his meaning at four years old. That was the first time I was called a N-word by a family member, and I've been called it enough times in my life to where I pretty much consider myself an expert on it. 

Now I know it's going to be a news flash to you, woke. But us Blacks, we understand the word context. Joe Rogan should keep that word out his mouth. Hell, everyone should. He said it then. But you're saying it now, for no other reason than to cancel a man you can't compete with. And you know what? That sounds racist to me, because that's usually when I was called it. I was winning the argument. So you had to pull that out of your bag of tricks because you couldn't compete. 

I think you just told on your woke selves. Now I just may be an uppity N-word, but that sounds a lot like - and I'll use one of your words - misinformation. 

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Well, there you go. You don't have to agree with him or you can. Either way, we get along like we always do, and he helps me and I help him. That's how it works in life, in making good pencils, making good TV and making good friends. 

This article is adapted from Greg Gutfeld's opening commentary on the February 7, 2022, edition of "Gutfeld!."