The True Tragedy of Huberman’s Hubris
A brief essay by the Food Chad on the topic of Huberman and the West
The real reason why I hate on Huberman is not solely because he’s a pseudoscientific fraudulent twat.
The main source of my disgust resides in his promotion of a unidimensional ideological frame that is arguably central to many of the problems that plague our existence, specifically pathological degrees of narcissistic nihilism and related callous disregard for others and the environment.
Huberman epitomizes what philosopher Herbert Marcuse deemed the attitude of “The One Dimensional Man.” The one-dimensional man is a byproduct of a societal organization characterized by technological rationality. The individual is unable to access any other frames, but rather reduces all causes to the efficient cause. Everything is experienced, conceptualized and navigated as a problem to be solved; an object to be analyzed in a cold and calculated manner, to be subjected solely to the will to power. This analysis was inspired by philosopher Martin Heidegger’s discussion of Gestell, which refers to a mode of revealing that reduces everything to a standing reserve. In these frames, everyone and everything are objects constrained to a conceptualization solely as energy and mechanism, to be exploited for instrumental ends.
Once one begins to view and experience oneself as primarily an instrument, it is easy to see how one’s physical, psychical and relational reality becomes a mere resource for rationalized ends. The individual becomes a means to an end, a problem to be optimized according to an instrumental rationality. This frame, in turn, extends to animals and the environment and as Heidegger and Marcuse suggest, ourselves and others. Humans become resources to be manipulated by Public Relation Firms and Human Resource Departments.
It is thus unsurprising to learn that Huberman employed a frame of instrumental rationality to reduce women and supposed friends in his life to objects for narcissistic supply and utiles of pleasure. It is also unsurprising to see those who ran to his defense are also the ones who similarly serve as proselytizing priests for the aforementioned ideology and frame, commonly observed in discussions of Scientific Nutrition, Exercise, Drugs/Supplements protocols, and “Evolutionary Psychology,” all of which tend to coalesce in the venn diagram of “optimization gurus,” “self help” and “pickup artists” who promise salvation and power through weaponizing rationality; including operationalized programs to attract, seduce and control relationships (primarily with women) as a means of becoming an “optimized alpha male.” In these worlds, bodies, food, exercise, the mind, women and people become objects for mastery. These groups can easily separate the work from the man, because the frame employed is always about extracting and employing what is useful, while ignoring anything that does not pertain to one’s own goals, others be damned.
As someone who primarily counsels individuals who are susceptible to such movements, the common thread that connects most of these groups and individuals is a pathological degree of insecurity and related fears of vulnerability. Extreme anxiety regarding one’s position within a dominance hierarchy and fear of disease, death and relational challenges, frequently results in maladaptive coping commonly witnessed in my clients. Common symptoms include eating disorders, substance abuse, and loneliness especially as one ages and is unable to tolerate or accept the feelings of vulnerability needed to connect with others and integrate challenging aspects of oneself, as well as related perpetual fears and anxieties typically centering around themes of control. It is not a coincidence that Huberman’s podcast exploded during a time of pervasive anxiety regarding the threat of unpredictable disease and death.
Unfortunately, these insidious tools of domination masquerading as scientific objectivity and truth, have remained central to the colonial and imperial regimes throughout the ages and are thus inexorably linked to Western culture. The origin of metaphysics and Plato is often identified as the watershed for this trajectory that often ends in this frame underlying the goal of establishing a permanent unquestionably tyrannical regime of “truth.” Claiming their actions and beliefs are based in a view from nowhere, and represent a “pure” and “true objectivity,” they often claim that “facts don’t care about your feelings,” while ironically employing these defenses as a means of asserting power over aspects of themselves they dislike. It is not by chance that those who claim authority over truth often tend to be white, cis, heterosexual, males seeking to assert a position that justifies and enshrines their own purported position within their asserted dominance hierarchy.
These are the folks who speak of logic, rationality, debate fallacies, discipline, will power, alpha males, hierarchy, natural selection, the “natural order” and the need for unbridled market-based competition. Ironically, it is the culmination of all these toxic expressions of philosophical thought and related constructs for masculinity which have been central to the absolute misery that plagues so many men.
Nonetheless, it is important to avoid dichotomous thinking and suggest that one must either wholeheartedly separate the art from the artist or accept them as one. Rather, we can often employ a variety of lenses and observe what lessons can be gleaned from separating the work from the author and similarly, analyze how the creator’s personal life may have influenced his views. This latter position is how one can learn from Martin Heidegger who simultaneously wrote many of the most profound and inspirational works known to man while also serving as a case study example regarding how such thinking can also exhibit a capacity for horror, violence and fatal degrees of hubris. Those who are unable to learn from such lessons, are those who are doomed to repeat. It is also why I think analyzing Huberman’s life can be useful as it elucidates the possible consequences of his unidimensional frame.
The epitome of the simultaneous insanity and insidious nature of this skewed frame is so aptly expressed during Huberman’s “scientific” discussion of Viktor Frankl’s account of the holocaust. Huberman claims that it was primarily Frankl’s means of manipulating dopamine in such a harsh environment that allowed him to survive. One might wonder how one could view the personal and existential tragedy of the Holocaust as merely a challenge for manipulating hormones and neurotransmitters.
Ironically once again, it is the same reduction of life to crude biologisms and optimization which was the driving inspiration for the Nazi Eugenic policies. It is for this reason that one of my most esteemed mentors, while teaching a class on the great World Wars, once remarked, that we should observe one lesson above all: “Be wary of those who have PhD’s and claim authority over truth. One must remember that both the holocaust on the Western and Eastern Front were led by the best and brightest that Nazi Germany had to offer. It was not the simpletons who led the charge into Russia with the monomaniacal goal of mass extermination but rather those with Doctorates who were fanatically convinced that their mission was rational, and that the ends truly justified the means.”
It is without a doubt that instrumental rationality is necessary and important, but when one wonders what a world would look like dominated solely by such a frame, one can simply visit Auschwitz and view the consequences. For the victims it was a tragedy, but for those who instigated such a crime, it was yet another rationalized statistic. Thus lies the fatal hubris and tragedy of Huberman’s philosophy and the West.