Every time Beer Biceps says something ethically convoluted, it becomes a whole thing…and rightly so. The thing about his podcasts is that he knows how to convince people into believing him. But so much of his content lacks basic research, sensitivity and a privilege check. For instance, he recently talked about dictatorship and its ‘nuances’ with a guest who had similar views.
In an episode with Rajiv Malhotra, Ranveer Allahbadia talked about dictatorship and how people view it as something negative. This started off as a discussion where Rajiv Malhotra said that democracies do not exactly work. According to him, companies and even families are run in a set-up which is not democratic. He said that a person who has more knowledge makes the decisions (also, the patriarch), and who knows about food, cooks.
“A family doesn’t make decisions on a democracy. Some people know more, some know more about cooking.”
Rajiv Malhotra
This ideology clearly stems from a patriarchal set-up – where men are decision makers and women do the chores. But of course, this was not pointed on the podcast. The guest further added that countries with dictators teach people the “obedience of authority”. He basically tried to justify why one person should have all the power, while also justifying patriarchal roles.
“They [dictatorship] can force people into things that are good for the long term.”
Rajiv Malhotra
The issue is, not only did Ranveer Allahbadia enable this, he also agreed with the guest. The podcast host mentioned that there have been “good dictators”, and started to list them out. However, one name into the list, he asked if there are more such dictators.
“Could a one leader rule actually be the solution? Like in the case of Genghis Khan. I don’t know, who else has been the one leader who has been epic?”
Ranveer Allahbadia
Such content is deeply concerning, given its reach and impact, and it’s really time that the host takes a deep look into it.