Billionaire venture capitalist — and incoming Stanford instructor — Peter Thiel is criticizing Silicon Valley once again, calling it a “one-party state” akin to North Korea.
Thiel spoke earlier this week at a high school leadership summit in Washington D.C. hosted by the conservative youth organization Turning Point USA. Thiel spoke about his experience as the lone Silicon Valley celebrity to endorse Donald Trump before the 2016 presidential election and his beliefs that Silicon Valley and coastal elites are turning into a “lemming-like herd,” according to the Washington Times.
“I supported Trump for president in 2016. … And it was in some ways both, perhaps, the least contrarian and the most contrarian thing I’ve done in my life,” Thiel said. “And then in certain contexts like in Silicon Valley, it feels like an incredibly contrarian thing where it’s like you’re the only person. It’s like you against everybody, and you always have this sense (of) ‘How can someone who’s in such a small minority ever be right?’”
Thiel spoke about the dangers of political and cultural unanimity and how it deviates society away from the truth. Thiel used Silicon Valley as an example of a place where “we can’t debate some of the most important foundational issues we have as a society.”
“You’re not getting closer to the truth, you’re getting to something like North Korea or a totalitarian one-party state,” said Thiel. “What’s very odd is that we’re living in something where the politics is this overwhelmingly one-sided, and it’s not an indicator that people have figured out the truth. It’s an indicator that there’s an incredible amount of political correctness and people can’t talk about the truth.”
Thiel will be back in Silicon Valley next year to teach at Stanford, his alma mater. Thiel and professor of German Studies Russell Berman will co-instruct German 270: Sovereignty and the Limits of Globalization and Technology in the winter quarter starting in January.
Thiel and Berman will be teaching based on the written works of various European scholars including Karl Marx and Friedrich Nietzsche, among others. The course also includes the work of French historian and former Stanford professor Rene Girard, who is considered Thiel’s mentor.
“Current opposition to globalization is emerging in many countries in the various forms of populism, restrictive trade policies, protest parties and localism, accompanied by appeals to national interests and cultural traditions,” reads the course description. “At stake is the reassertion of state sovereignty against market processes and internationalist claims. This seminar explores the tensions between state and market, their cultural contexts, new technologies, and the importance of community belonging.”
