0:14

everyone, i'm very pleased today

0:16

to be talking with mr christopher, rufo

0:19

who's emerged as a

0:21

national and international class

0:23

troublemaker i would say and policy

0:26

adviser on the culture

0:28

war front specially in relationship

0:30

to issues of public education and

0:33

critical race theory whatever

0:35

that means and

0:36

philosophically and politically that's what we're going

0:38

to delve into today christopher is

0:41

a senior fellow and director

0:43

the initiative on critical race

0:45

theory at a manhattan institute

0:48

is also a contributing editor at city

0:50

journal his writing is far as a

0:52

range of issues including critical

0:55

race theory homelessness addiction

0:57

crime the decline

0:59

of cities on america's west coast the

1:02

to rueful also as

1:05

i said became a focal point of attention

1:07

on the culture where front for reasons we will discuss

1:09

in this podcast he recently launched

1:11

the you tube channel called christopher

1:14

ruffolo theory concentrating

1:16

on all these philosophical political

1:18

and practical issues

1:20

thank you very much

1:21

the roof or christopher for agreeing to talk

1:23

to me today

1:25

the purported to be with you so let's

1:27

start with a broad question on

1:29

three i suppose who are you what

1:32

in the world are you up to and why

1:34

have people so suddenly and some real

1:36

sense become interested why

1:38

have you become a focal point of attention on these

1:40

issues sure , think

1:42

it's because i was really the first person

1:45

to do the reporting to actually

1:47

substantiate the ceiling that many

1:49

people had that our institutions had been captured

1:52

by left wing ideologies and

1:55

does this and does banner a kind

1:57

of concern for many people for a long time

1:59

for many years it felt like it was relegated

2:02

to the university setting and so conservatives

2:05

could say well you know there's something crazy going

2:07

on at vassar college it doesn't affect

2:09

me then after the death of

2:11

george floyd and twenty twenty a it

2:13

seemed like all of our institutions suddenly

2:15

shifted overnight so i did

2:17

a series of reports on a

2:19

diversity training programs in the

2:21

federal government that got the attention of

2:23

then president trump a then i shifted

2:26

to looking at critical race theory a

2:28

implemented as a pedagogical approach

2:30

and k through twelve schools a which set

2:32

off this massive a a

2:35

response or really revolt amongst

2:37

parents nationwide and now i'm focusing

2:40

on on a gender ideology

2:42

as well as looking at k through twelve

2:44

schools government agencies and even the fortune

2:47

one hundred companies so what

2:49

i think i'd been able to do that's been able to galvanize

2:51

attention is

2:52

take these issues establish

2:55

a factual basis saying this

2:57

is what's happening these of the documents

2:59

then describing the origins whether

3:01

it's critical race theory or queer theory in

3:04

a way that the average person

3:06

a parents in a public school district for example

3:09

then start to then pushed back and that's really

3:11

been my go on kind of an accidental activists

3:13

never set out to be an activist but

3:16

as it turns out i'm kind of reading

3:18

this fight in many ways

3:20

in here in the united states right so you

3:22

think you were able to make these issues to take

3:24

them out of the purely academic realm well

3:27

they were moving out of the purely academic

3:29

realm to articulate what they are

3:31

to articulate people's concerns about

3:33

that parental concerns and put in in

3:36

specifically and also to

3:39

the of an advisor let's say and an

3:41

educator on the political front does that

3:43

seem about right

3:44

that's exactly right and i think what

3:46

i've been able to do and it's actually been i'm

3:49

just a really fascinating rewarding

3:51

process is this kind of take my very

3:53

small team and we run the whole gamut so we

3:55

start at the very beginning which is always

3:58

creating new information the

4:00

sense that we're fielding reports were

4:02

talking the whistleblowers works authenticating

4:04

documents were putting them on television

4:07

we're putting them on social media some people are aware

4:09

what's happening and then all then sudden

4:11

people say well how do we talk about this

4:13

you know whether it's gotten people and caught

4:15

with you know congressmen or or state

4:17

legislators are governors hey what's

4:19

going on with critical race through what's the language i should

4:21

be using what can we do about it then

4:23

i started putting together those kind

4:26

of memos and in an advisory capacity

4:28

sense hey this is what's actually happening

4:30

this is what's going on beneath the surface and this is what

4:32

you can do about and right okay so you're also

4:34

detailing the way that this system of

4:36

ideas let's say you're also detailing the way

4:38

that this system of ideas

4:40

the manifesting itself concretely

4:43

in the educational establishment and

4:46

an actual institution so it's not

4:48

merely a theoretical discuss

4:51

that's exactly right and there's there's a really important

4:53

point on on that distinction

4:55

ah that i that i think it's really critical

4:58

i'm a lot of the debates that we've had

5:01

in in in recent years restrict

5:03

themselves to that theoretical basis it's

5:05

almost like with people who are playing politics

5:08

intellectuals journalists are having

5:10

an oxford style at debate

5:12

or and there's this really i think an illusion

5:14

that if you win the debates in that kind

5:17

of marketplace of ideas then

5:19

your ideas will win what

5:21

i've known as i've expose the that's actually not

5:23

true it's not how it works it's really

5:25

actually a harmful illusions because

5:27

when you have bureaucrats who have is

5:29

very specific ideology that

5:31

control public resources they control

5:34

the curriculum they control human resources

5:36

departments or our diversity

5:38

equity and inclusion departments even

5:40

if you have the better ideas they

5:43

have they political power and so

5:45

my big

5:46

hey who i am i big call really to

5:48

conservatives is to say i'm

5:50

sure having a stimulating intellectual discussion

5:53

is important i enjoy it many people

5:55

enjoy it but we actually have to get

5:57

down to that structural level of of

5:59

bureaucrat it and political power

6:01

and i was able to show through the reporting this

6:04

is what they're implementing in schools these

6:06

are the people who are doing it's and

6:08

these are people who have captured in hundreds

6:11

of millions of dollars in public resources

6:13

and we should really focused the debate there for want

6:16

to have a chance to changing this a cultural

6:18

pattern okay well i want to return to that because

6:20

one of the

6:21

i'm going to play devil's advocate on the

6:23

kimberly crenshaw insects or intersectionality

6:26

c r t front and i also want to

6:28

have a discussion with you about the

6:31

the place of this war let's say the proper

6:33

place of the war because one of the concerns

6:36

i have about attempts to fight clinical

6:38

race theory at the practical and pragmatic

6:40

level is that attempts to

6:43

regulate or ban it and i'm not

6:45

saying this is happening i'm saying it's a potential

6:47

danger attempts to regulate or ban

6:49

it run into the potential problem

6:51

of expanding the sensory

6:54

or capacity of governments in relationship

6:56

to educational institutions in the free flow of

6:58

ideas and that when especially

7:00

when you're dealing with something that is difficult

7:02

to pin down and define let's say as critical

7:05

race theory because where's it's boundaries that

7:07

poses a potential danger for the

7:09

future we don't want to establish government

7:11

institutions that are heavy handed in there since

7:13

oreo capacity so we'll go back to that

7:16

will go back to that's let's start though maybe

7:19

we could start for the audience and i'd like

7:21

you to talk about definition so

7:23

let's talk about the

7:25

your domains okay perhaps

7:27

we can try to entertaining along with what

7:30

specifically is critical race

7:32

theory that's very difficult thing to to

7:34

define how is

7:36

that related to queer theory which is something

7:39

that people know even less about and why should

7:41

we care and then how do you think these

7:43

are related to these broader issues of say

7:45

pause post modern philosophy and

7:48

the marxism that comes tagging along

7:50

in it's wake such start with c r

7:52

t what what what is crt how did

7:54

you become aware of at how some people understand

7:57

so i first became aware of critical

7:59

race theory the working backwards as

8:01

i mentioned i was doing the series of reports

8:03

on these diversity training programs in

8:05

the federal government and once you

8:07

look at enough of these documents they're all the same

8:09

they recycle the same ten set of concepts

8:12

are so and so i said where does this

8:14

come from what it wouldn't be origin

8:16

of the of this theory and

8:18

so i started working backwards looking at the footnotes

8:21

looking at the suggested reading and

8:23

, really discovered overtime the com

8:25

and intellectual framework is critical race theory

8:27

the definition is pretty simple critical race

8:29

theory maintains maintains the united states

8:31

as a fundamentally racist country

8:34

and that all of it's institutions from

8:36

the constitution to the loss

8:38

to the nuclear family to

8:40

the social institutions manners and

8:42

more as priests as the

8:45

values of liberty and equality but

8:48

these are really just smoke screens for name good

8:50

racial domination and so they look at me

8:52

entirety of american history from the declaration

8:55

ah to the constitution even

8:57

to abraham lincoln and then to the civil

8:59

rights act and they say it appears

9:01

that there's racial progress as appears

9:03

that there's reconciliation arm

9:05

but that's an illusion actually it's

9:07

just that power has become more sophisticated

9:10

more subtle and more insidious and says

9:12

you're starting from that point and then you're analyzing

9:15

any social phenomenon and your

9:17

surprise surprise discovering not

9:20

only that it's discovering manifestation of

9:22

racism

9:23

they try to say we're going to give

9:25

you tools to to to show exactly how

9:27

that's true okay so who would you identify

9:30

as let's do this into tears who

9:32

are the main thinkers on the

9:36

got critical race theory front per

9:38

se and then who would you

9:40

identify as the more fundamental

9:42

sources of the ideas that are driving these

9:44

ten com and concepts let's say that are

9:46

running through such phenomena as

9:49

there's any training so who are the main

9:51

political race theorists

9:53

you're so the critical race through the godfather

9:55

of credible race theory was a it's ah

9:58

black harvard law professor derek

10:00

bell who was hired as the first full

10:02

time up black law professor at

10:04

harvard and late nineteen sixties and

10:06

bell is a really fascinating person he set

10:09

the tone of critical raise their it's it's

10:11

an ideology of of extreme cynicism

10:13

a kind of negative philosophy

10:16

a kind of negation based philosophy

10:19

and he cultivated a network of young

10:21

students use a very charismatic figure

10:24

ah wrote a series of books kind

10:26

of allegorical books talking about house

10:28

or racism was the permanent indestructible

10:31

and overwhelming seat of the united states and

10:33

this message had a lot of students both at

10:35

harvard law school another law law

10:38

, other legal academies around the country

10:40

and some of those students came to get in the late

10:43

nineteen eighties kimberly crenshaw as one mari

10:45

matsuda charles lawrence a

10:47

number of other of figures at

10:49

that time same together really under

10:51

his tutelage and then established

10:54

critical raised during the late nineteen eighties

10:56

and then then you see the kind of remarkable

10:58

documentation that they've actually made themselves

11:01

talking about how they started in law schools

11:03

and then they went to public health and sociology

11:06

and and after the other academic departments

11:09

and then finally trickled into diversity

11:11

trainings and k through twelve pedagogy and

11:13

so that's the basic kind of you know ten second

11:15

lineage of where this comes from cape excellent

11:17

so now in terms of the

11:20

intellectual influence is so look

11:22

for everyone listening when you you try to

11:24

analyze the operation of a set of

11:26

ideas you want to find out first

11:28

to the current proponents are in

11:30

the conversation that's going on now but

11:32

then you need to trace it back who

11:35

deeper ideas and the philosophers

11:37

and sometimes the theologians events depending

11:39

on how deep you go from whom knows

11:41

ideas slow and in order

11:43

to understand the entire structure of

11:45

the system are guy ideas and it's into relationships

11:48

so that you can understand it's motivation

11:50

and it's nature you have to delve deeper into

11:52

the underlying history of the idea

11:54

so we have crenshaw i'm and pseudo

11:56

and lawrence in the so to have i got that pronunciation

11:59

right

11:59

yeah matsuda

12:01

suter okay i'm and

12:04

who would you say their intellectual who

12:06

are their intellectual inspiration

12:09

i would say they're really to t

12:11

inspirations one is derek belts

12:14

and derek bells innovation bomb

12:16

was bringing this really

12:18

acidic this really kind of solvent

12:21

our political philosophy arm he

12:23

was the first person to release weaponize

12:26

identity politics in the elite

12:28

institutions he was famous not

12:30

for his legal scholarship or

12:32

but actually famous for his political

12:34

and campus activism on you

12:37

know he would do things like right law review papers

12:39

where papers where fantasize about

12:42

about black law professors and the president

12:44

of his universities getting assassinated

12:47

and then he would conduct these protests outside

12:49

their offices and of raise the pressure

12:51

to hire specific left wing radicals

12:54

in the legal academy and sent his students

12:56

saw him or not only as an intellectual

12:58

inspirations but also they said he's

13:01

he's really tapping into the pragmatic

13:03

politics and so you have their at bell

13:05

in the legal tradition the other person that

13:07

i think is really essential for them someone at

13:09

the site over and over and they're big

13:12

red book of critical race theory on

13:14

is antonio gramsci and because what

13:16

they wanted was not just derek bell

13:18

who had this kind of cynical and pessimistic

13:21

philosophy that didn't seem to have much

13:23

practical application beyond the campus

13:26

and so they bring in gramsci

13:28

of course who talks about how

13:30

in order to win the battle of ideas

13:32

and ordered have influence over the and

13:34

economic and political base of a society

13:37

you want to infiltrate and then shift

13:39

those those meadows mechanisms

13:41

and institutions of cultural production

13:43

and cultural pattern

13:45

so they take a direct bell telephone

13:48

or some kind of radical racial his

13:50

philosophy ah they take

13:52

his identity politics and office politics

13:54

and then they grabbed onto with this month

13:57

and of marxian or gramsci and ah

14:00

the apology or and then also that

14:02

gramsci and tactics of

14:04

trying to then again influenced by getting

14:06

into a corporations into

14:08

schools and other parts of the academy and

14:11

on that front i think they've been remarkably successful

14:14

case of that's when it starts to sound conspiratorial

14:17

sound now i want to do two things i want to talk

14:19

want little bit more about gramsci and gramsci also

14:21

want to talk about the relationship

14:23

between the say derek

14:25

fell antonio gramsci the

14:28

left wing because you make the

14:30

case and we're not only you obviously

14:32

but the case is made quite continually

14:34

that this is a left wing movements so why

14:36

last what and who are the who

14:39

are the influences on that front of

14:41

the left wing influences and how do you see all

14:43

this developing in relationship to the ideas

14:45

that people like york derrida michel

14:47

foucault and karl marx have

14:49

developed and put forward as well that would bring

14:52

us in principle somewhat keepers

14:54

can we start with gramsci

14:56

yeah we can start with grams yeah i think gramsci

14:59

is very useful for

15:02

let's say post world war two ah

15:05

left wing intellectuals and specifically

15:08

if you look at history the united states you had a

15:10

really boom and radical

15:12

left wing politics and the late

15:14

nineteen sixties and early nineteen seventies one

15:17

of the greatest representations and something from

15:19

which the critical race theorists explicitly

15:21

draw from is the black nationalist movement

15:24

so these worth explicit marxist

15:26

leninist maoist revolutionaries

15:28

they believe that they could change the entire

15:30

structure the united states through armed

15:32

guerrilla warfare specifically

15:35

looking at urban centers on the west coast

15:37

and the east coast

15:38

ennis of course spectacularly crashed

15:40

and burned and so the critical race

15:42

their as they say where they were were inspired

15:45

by the black nationalist movements

15:47

because we share in some sense the same goals

15:50

we want to have a ton of total overturning

15:52

of society we want to move away from

15:55

capitalism we want to move away from individual

15:58

rights we want to move away from can

16:00

unfettered first amendment free speech

16:02

or that's mari messoud as argument or

16:05

and we want to have a ton of collectivist

16:07

a and and racially a gala

16:09

terry and society in which the scales

16:11

are balanced based on group identity what

16:14

they found and discovered is

16:16

that the are you know throwing hand

16:19

grenades at the police and oakland calif

16:22

there's not going to overturn and advanced industrial

16:24

society like the united states and

16:26

of course these are people who are embedded

16:28

in the most elite institutions in added states

16:30

places most notably like harvard

16:32

law school and so are you know

16:34

harvard law school student and then professor

16:37

is unlikely a a

16:39

to be winning and that's in that way so they

16:41

said what do we have what we have access

16:44

to elite institutions we have a way

16:46

of playing institutional politics that we learn

16:48

from derek bell

16:49

you can essentially bully shame

16:51

and pressure people are using all

16:54

of those tactics of identity politics or

16:56

to really get what you want the

16:58

why don't we just do that at scale

17:00

why don't we use our our position

17:03

the are prestige or institutional

17:05

power within these places then

17:09

bring forth and legitimize

17:11

some of those more radical ideas that

17:13

you might get from for say eldridge cleaver

17:15

angela davis in the nineteen sixties but

17:17

we're gonna take away the epithets and

17:20

epithets and the and the you

17:22

know the calls to execute police officers

17:24

were going to make them respectable we're

17:27

going to give them a gloss of academic

17:29

language so taking those latinate words

17:31

those most i syllabic words making it

17:33

sound very very very fancy

17:35

very respectable very intellectual intimidating

17:38

and then we're going to feed it through the system through

17:40

these transmission belts the critical

17:42

are a serious themselves talk about this as they have

17:44

their ten year reunion the exit interview each

17:46

other and talk about the progress of their ideas

17:49

that you can actually market decade by decade

17:52

and they say you know we started as a legal

17:54

discipline but actually our greatest

17:56

strength is an education

17:57

they build up this entire pedagogue

17:59

the and i said to change the world again

18:02

like any leftwing revolutionary has said for

18:04

the last hundred and odd years

18:06

you have to change our children are taught

18:09

so the critical are a serious were very focused

18:11

on building a pedagogy and so these are the ideas

18:13

systemic racism whiteness

18:16

white privilege intersectionality

18:18

ah etc these kind of course

18:21

set of ideas that are now ubiquitous

18:23

at one time were really marginal

18:26

academic ideas a limited

18:28

to just very few of these scholars

18:30

and intellectuals

18:32

we'll get me to more and justice second

18:34

first we'd like to tell you about birchgold the

18:36

consumer price index has reached yet 40

18:38

your and the latest

18:39

gdp numbers confirm

18:40

that the the united states is in a recession

18:43

now is not the time to have all your in

18:45

the stock market or tied to the us dollar

18:47

take action to protect your savings from a highly

18:49

turbulent economy now, but diversifying,

18:52

at least some of your investment portfolio kinda

18:54

gold and

18:54

i from birch gold text jordan

18:57

and eight and birch gold

18:59

will send you a free information kit on

19:01

how to transition ira or eligible

19:03

401k into an ira in precious

19:05

metals birch gold will even help you hold gold

19:08

in a tax account for decades,

19:10

investors have relied on gold and silver as

19:12

a hedge against inflation now you to

19:15

with an a+ rating with the better business bureau

19:17

of countless five-star reviews and thousands

19:19

of satisfied customers secure your future

19:21

with gold from birch gold now

19:24

text jordan to 98 98 98

19:26

and get real help for birch gold today

19:28

again text jordan 29898

19:31

982 clay, your free no obligation

19:33

information on how to protect your

19:35

hard earned savings with

19:39

okay so now let's let's

19:42

go under that again a

19:44

bit and then we'll return to gramsci

19:46

i think so

19:47

my understanding please correct me okay

19:50

my understanding of the relationship between

19:52

such ideas and the broader intellectual

19:55

tradition focuses for me on

19:57

food co derrida and

19:59

marks and so derrida

20:02

in particular based his philosophy

20:04

his post modern philosophy on

20:06

the idea that

20:09

there's no uniting grand narrative

20:11

and if there is that grand narrative

20:13

has been harnessed in the service of the

20:16

kind of power and impression that you describe

20:18

and stared at described the west as

20:20

fell p h a l l

20:22

o fellow well

20:24

logo centric they'll

20:26

dominated centered on the idea

20:28

of logic the greek fat

20:30

say the enlightenment tradition and the idea of logos

20:33

from the judeo christian tradition and

20:35

censoring and privileges those

20:37

concepts and hypothetically the people those

20:39

concepts represented which would have been mail

20:42

particularly and then secondarily

20:44

in some sense white males and part

20:46

of what they're it a wanted to do

20:48

the

20:49

pluto is well who had a similar

20:51

theoretical framework was to bring those

20:53

he ideas and people he regarded

20:55

as unfairly and in appropriately

20:58

marginalized by tyrannical systems

21:00

of power the center and

21:03

that aligned as far as i can tell

21:05

with a marxist presupposition and

21:07

derrida makes this explicit and it's it's not

21:09

like it is common knowledge that to call

21:11

was also radically leftist as were so

21:13

many french intellectuals of the time is

21:15

the marxist have a doctrine that was very similar

21:18

because they regarded the entire

21:20

battleground of human history let's say and all

21:22

the relations between individuals has characterized

21:25

fundamentally by the expression of nothing but

21:27

arbitrary power including institutions

21:29

like marriage all economic institutions

21:31

and even friendship and marks

21:34

decried the oppressive relationship

21:36

between the bourgeoisie the upper

21:39

ruling class i'd say and the proletariat the working

21:41

class and believe that

21:43

when the revolution came that those who were unjustly

21:46

oh pressed in the name of power would take center

21:48

stage and so the postmodern

21:50

and the neo marxist and a marxist ideas

21:52

could just wow apps on top of each

21:54

other i think the french intellectuals

21:57

of the nineteen seventies did that in some sense

22:00

ah and turned to ideas like the ones you're

22:02

discussing consciously

22:04

and purposefully because they also

22:06

realized as did the nineteen sixties

22:08

radicals especially in the aftermath

22:11

of solzhenitsyn revolutions both the brutality

22:13

of the stalinist their us that a

22:15

pure you're movement

22:17

forward on the communist revolutionary

22:19

front let's say just wasn't going to fly

22:22

with no longer ethically tenable but was also

22:24

practically on achievable now

22:26

there anything in the my derivation

22:29

of the sources of the buys these ideas

22:31

to those sources that you think is

22:33

incomplete or erroneous that needs

22:35

to be expanded

22:38

critical little and if you look at the lineages of

22:40

a fascinating question on critical race theory

22:42

it's it's almost like an intellectual stew

22:44

if you read their big red book and some the other

22:47

minor books did ,

22:49

appeal to almost every one it's almost

22:51

like they're agnostic whatever left wing

22:53

revolutionary deconstructionists thinkers

22:56

they're going to grab bits and pieces from all of them

22:58

so they specifically appeal to post

23:00

modernism they specifically appeal

23:02

ah so to gramsci they

23:04

specifically appeal to black nationalism they specifically

23:07

field all these concepts and in the early

23:09

work is sense that when they're when they're

23:11

kind of grasping for the post modernists post

23:13

modernists techniques techniques

23:16

doing so almost out of earth and a fashionable

23:19

ah pose or a posture

23:21

i don't think that it's really essential to what they're

23:24

doing though i'm because i'm

23:26

think if you look at queer theory obviously through

23:28

code arid ah post modernism arid ah

23:31

it's a hundred percent of the intellectual lineage

23:33

on the kind of axis of sex

23:36

and gender but on the axis of race

23:38

and specifically looking at the critical race there is i

23:41

don't think that it's the essential or

23:43

defining a set of ideas

23:46

they may appeal to them because i think during

23:48

the nineties that was really fashionable among

23:50

intellectuals who had decided to go yet the site's

23:53

post modernism you had to call into question

23:55

the existence of an an objective or absolute

23:57

truth or grand narrative

23:59

the

24:00

there is a bit of that but i think when critical race

24:02

theory kind of brass tacks when it comes

24:04

down to it is much more a direct

24:07

marxist revolutionary or even

24:09

almost a materialistic philosophy

24:11

because they take as the basis what they really

24:13

want is a total leveling of society

24:16

i'm and when there's grasping around for solutions

24:19

at that's where i think you can really get to the crux

24:21

of what critical race theory is you

24:23

take that old marxist framework of oppressor

24:25

indo press to kind of war between the

24:27

classes you substitute racial

24:30

categories for economic categories to

24:32

they say the history of united states is not the history

24:34

of these rich or pressing the poor

24:36

although it is in parts but it's really a history

24:39

of of of of whiteness and blackness

24:41

this almost metaphysical struggle the

24:44

are between these two a racial

24:46

forces so what did

24:48

a wants what is whoop you kind of really say okay

24:51

you know let's say we even buy into your premise

24:53

what would you want they , to

24:55

overturn capitalism they

24:57

think that they think are they they really think of

24:59

whiteness and property as synonymous

25:01

and mutually reinforcing though

25:03

unless you have the equality of property

25:06

the quality of wealth you're always

25:08

going to have of and racially based inequality

25:11

because into our system of rights

25:13

into our system of private property into

25:15

our system of free exchange is embedded

25:17

a race realist and really realist

25:20

racially oppressive notion of of

25:22

whiteness they're inseparable they

25:25

also think that some of those see constitutional

25:27

pillars of the key ah

25:30

pillars of the bill of rights such as free

25:32

speech ah encourage his

25:34

or allows racial domination so you need to have

25:36

really a regulator or of state power

25:39

to suppress the speech of people are

25:42

who would who would use it to reinforce that

25:44

that god system a racial domination and

25:47

even even the fourteenth amendment and

25:49

then by but to a lesser extent the civil rights

25:51

f nineteen sixty fourth they say in

25:53

a lot a hand waving you know derek bell

25:55

famously said that lincoln didn't

25:57

have free the slaves in order to advance racial

25:59

jokes and the fourteenth amendment was

26:01

really a kind of faith a

26:04

tennis a fake expression of equality

26:07

i'm a all the way leading up even to the nineteen sixty

26:09

four civil rights activists everyday sense

26:11

and so what do they want they really want a up

26:14

focused state power

26:16

they look to for example the d colonial

26:18

or postcolonial regimes in africa that

26:21

sees the land and wealth and then redistributed

26:23

along racial lines are that was one of their

26:25

inspirations in the nineteen nineties and so when

26:27

you put all these elements together really

26:29

getting the end of the constitutional system

26:32

because look if you don't have free speech you

26:34

don't have individual rights you don't have

26:36

equal protection under the law doesn't just

26:39

all masks for power as you pointed out

26:41

okay so let me make a counterclaim here for

26:43

counterclaim minute okay then we'll go

26:45

we'll get into this in more detail so

26:47

i've read a fair bit of the sixty

26:50

nineteen project poke poke actually

26:52

i liked and i was reviewing a fair bit

26:54

of kimberly crenshaw were intersectionality

26:57

before i interviewed you today and so let

26:59

me push back as hard as i can

27:01

on this so gray basic claim

27:03

is that all

27:05

of these institutions that are in some

27:08

sense central to what has been described

27:10

as the western enlightenment and also

27:12

judeo christian tradition and put

27:14

forth as a moral virtue

27:16

a set of truly moral guidelines is

27:19

actually nothing but a front for

27:21

the domination of a small number of individuals

27:23

who you can usually characterized by both

27:26

race and gender race gender and sexual

27:28

preference i'd say a white heterosexual

27:30

males what is the case white

27:33

heterosexual males occupy a disproportionate

27:37

the number of the

27:39

most influential positions in society

27:42

it is also the case that racial

27:44

minorities and you could put the

27:47

minorities and sexual minorities

27:49

in that same category do tend to

27:51

be overrepresented let's say at the bottom

27:53

of the heap and it

27:55

is also the case that people who have

27:57

positions of authority and power are

28:00

likely to harness whatever they can

28:02

sell us off ugly and theologically let's say

28:05

to buttress that their claim

28:07

that their there there

28:09

are occupation of those positions of

28:12

power authority and privilege are

28:14

justified not only on pragmatic

28:16

grounds because they fought

28:18

let's say fairer unfairly for what they

28:20

have but also on moral grounds and

28:23

so why isn't it acceptable

28:26

swallow the radical leftist

28:29

fatigue whole heartedly and say

28:31

look if you're not naive the

28:34

you do know that power can corrupt the

28:37

top power does corrupt and that many of our institutions

28:40

are corrupt and that marriage isn't

28:42

the only basis upon which people

28:44

progress that it's reasonable

28:46

to view the entire

28:47

three let's say of western civilization

28:50

as the attempt to merely dominate

28:52

and to use very elaborate

28:54

structures of rationalization to provide

28:56

a moral framework for nothing but that

28:58

dominance that's basically the

29:00

argument so what what's wrong with that argument

29:03

sure what i mean is it in if we kind

29:05

of take a step back in some ways i'm

29:08

somewhat sympathetic to it if you look at

29:10

the history of civilizations obviously

29:12

a lot of the principles the obama

29:15

proposed or or espoused by it and leading

29:17

leading figures are rationalizations

29:19

there's a certain truths to that's the stuff is not

29:22

totally bogus are totally out

29:24

of left field but the question is okay

29:26

let's actually get down to the implementation let's

29:28

get down into the practical unfolding

29:31

of this historical experience you start

29:33

from start position a starting point let's say

29:35

around the american sound where

29:38

human slavery for example was a universal

29:40

throughout space and time up until that

29:43

point and ,

29:45

declaration of independence was

29:47

a radical egalitarian documents

29:50

and attempt to raise human civilization

29:52

up from a kind of morass

29:54

of promotes and of promotes kind

29:56

of world kind where this kind of domination

29:59

was accepted did they transform

30:01

every element and society in a single generation

30:03

know what did they make significant

30:06

progress towards those republican

30:08

values of they as espoused absolutely

30:10

they did

30:11

them into if you look at american history from

30:14

that perspective where you have

30:16

the tragic nature of of man the tragic

30:18

nature of society you have

30:20

these these people entering into a

30:22

historical moment in which the world

30:24

looked a very bleak

30:26

in a lot of ways

30:28

bringing that level of civilization

30:30

i think undoubtedly upward and

30:33

so you start from that premise where they see

30:35

nothing but domination they see nothing

30:38

but negativity nothing but a kind of

30:40

parade of horrors of i

30:42

think any honest looking at american history

30:44

could say absolutely we've had a a

30:47

real history of racial injustice

30:49

a real history

30:50

that has to be grappled with what

30:52

if you put it in the context of the highest

30:54

ideals from the a declarations

30:57

of the constitution to the speeches abraham

30:59

lincoln in the absence of lincoln you

31:01

can see this kind of rising a

31:03

level of always moving towards the

31:05

completion of or or the the realization

31:08

of those highest ideals so

31:10

that's one thing you look at it from a historical

31:12

context or and then the second thing as

31:14

you look at it in a comparative where where

31:17

do you say okay less bus even grant

31:19

you let's say your argument is true these are rationalizations

31:22

use for domination what

31:24

other system would you suggest what

31:26

are their country would you would you prefer

31:28

as a as a better alternative you

31:31

know i started my career as a documentary filmmaker

31:33

and so over that you know ten fifteen

31:35

years of my first part of my career i

31:37

traveled to somewhere between seventy

31:39

seventy five different countries around the world and

31:42

so i got to see how pretty much all

31:44

of the major population groups live all of the

31:46

major governing systems and

31:49

so i think we should be very careful when we

31:51

says we're going to throw out the entire western

31:53

tradition order throughout the entire american

31:55

tradition we're going us throughout the entire

31:58

system of capitalism the as fire them

32:00

of constitutional government in pursuit

32:02

of some vague and fuzzy utopia where we

32:04

can really level society completely

32:07

you ask them or what countries do

32:09

it better what countries would you rather model

32:11

your society on or and

32:13

then you start to actually have a practical

32:16

do so let me push back against

32:18

that little bit so because

32:20

i'm trying to do what i can to

32:22

argue for the other side let's say shirt

32:25

so shirt might say well these western countries

32:27

that you point to as pillars of

32:29

freedom and freedom and

32:31

and and wealth

32:33

and in terms of let's say the remediation

32:36

the

32:37

the absolute privation the

32:39

reason that there the reason that

32:41

a small minority of people within them are hyper

32:43

successful is because they or press and dominate

32:45

the others in that society and siphoned off excess

32:48

resources from them in a manner that sucked

32:50

into assessed that's a marxist perspective

32:53

and then serve the reason that the united states

32:55

and canada and great britain lead sites are

32:57

wealthy in the manner that they are the has

32:59

nothing to do with the essential virtues of capitalism

33:02

in the free market and everything with to

33:04

do with the fact that they took all the land

33:06

from the native americans that they've been colonial

33:08

nations that they've exploited the third world

33:11

and that that they devote

33:13

they diverted resources that should be

33:15

more equitably distributed across the world

33:17

and within their own societies for the

33:19

benefit of a very small number of people

33:22

oh

33:23

that would be the counter position to the to the

33:25

case that you were making

33:27

that would yeah and it's economy

33:30

it falls apart on really a basic

33:32

scrutiny so on these the

33:34

i did you know marks the south a lot about the distribution

33:37

of resources or be never quite talk

33:39

about the production of resources and

33:41

in fact all of the marxist systems throughout history

33:44

or their greater distribution because

33:46

when you have all of the guns you can take

33:48

things from one person give them to another at

33:50

their really bad at production

33:52

and so are you you have a kind

33:54

of sale your of production throughout the

33:56

twentieth century it's that was really catastrophic

33:59

for ten million

33:59

the people the united states actually

34:02

has created created of production

34:05

it has raised a basic level of

34:07

of of standard of living of beyond

34:09

the wildest expectations of almost any one

34:11

a century ago and it's not out of exploitation

34:15

is actually out of cooperation it's

34:17

out of the division of labor or it's out

34:19

of having a price mechanism where

34:21

you can exchange your labor you can exchange

34:23

your time you can exchange your tasks

34:25

are you going to change other goods in a way

34:27

that everyone is winning and so if

34:30

you look at even for example to say well

34:32

are comparing it to the third world

34:34

if you look at the ancestry of of of

34:36

all of the different populations of united

34:39

states european americans african

34:41

americans latin americans etc even

34:44

down to the ethnic level

34:45

the are you know being a european

34:48

in the united states you are much wealthier

34:50

on average than being a european in europe

34:53

and the same holds true from all the other populations

34:55

and then this is the reason why people

34:58

vote with their feet to come to the united states

35:00

from all over the world but it's also why when

35:02

you asked people in survey data and

35:04

even anecdotally i think this is true in

35:07

across the board people

35:09

believe in the united states and in fact the

35:11

only people who don't believe in the united states

35:13

are are left wing whites

35:16

that have high levels of education and

35:19

so when you asked african

35:21

americans would he ask latino ah

35:23

for example some you know is

35:25

the united states the greatest country in the world people

35:28

still say yes to yes great extent when

35:30

you ask a ask people with if you work

35:32

hard and you still get ahead that basic bedrock

35:35

principle of the united states they still say yes

35:37

everyone except for people and that kind of upper

35:39

crust of our elite institutions and

35:42

the same thing holds true when you talk about critical race

35:44

theory or manhattan institute did manhattan poll for

35:46

example asking parents are white

35:48

parents black parents black parents parents

35:51

are latino parents

35:52

do you think public school should be teaching that the united

35:55

states is systemically race racist

35:57

using public schools should be teaching the doctrine

35:59

of why

35:59

privilege

36:01

every group

36:02

black white asian and latino they all

36:04

said no we don't want this in our schools

36:07

and so does the marxist and in the critical race

36:09

there's have to develop this release a sophisticated

36:12

almost absurd idea of false

36:14

consciousness yeah they've internalized

36:16

their own press and all those exactly

36:18

none and they're saying

36:20

you know the working class in the united states the

36:22

racial minority in the united states all of the

36:24

people who we know are oppressed

36:26

thought to to at it as a just as

36:29

press as they were are under jim crow

36:31

just as oppressed as they were under slavery said

36:34

fc make this argument which is so absurd

36:37

they're really truly oppressed they just don't

36:39

know it and it's up to us to explain it

36:41

to them and even if they don't agree with us we're

36:43

going to change the entire society on their behalf

36:46

and so boot the really interesting being and

36:48

interesting think the fatal a kind of

36:50

hypocrisy of critical race theory is

36:52

that these are these most privileged people in

36:55

the world the most privileged people in

36:57

human history human history great extent were

36:59

guard this of racial background

37:01

trying to impose their ideology

37:03

on working class people of all different

37:06

racial backgrounds who rejected it's

37:08

the same marxists the

37:10

end of jam that they get into the

37:13

the the proletariat the working class

37:15

or that that the racial minorities doesn't

37:18

want what they're selling

37:20

so they're just gonna do it for them i

37:22

think it's canada a reversal

37:24

of their entire philosophy it's a kind of impure

37:26

intellectual imperialism or

37:29

bet they use the kind of coded language

37:31

of racial category or that's that's really

37:34

been totally totally

37:37

disconnected from the reality

37:39

of even race in this country i will it's so annoying

37:41

when the working class doesn't know what's best

37:43

for them and so so let's let's take

37:46

that apart and two ways so one

37:48

question might be will why is it the educated

37:50

white upper class so to speak and

37:52

i know this is more characteristic of white upper

37:54

class women by the way than of men why

37:57

is is that they are the ones most likely

37:59

to espouse the series and i would say

38:01

and correct me if i'm wrong there are perhaps two

38:03

reasons for that is one is they will be the

38:05

last people affected by the detrimental

38:07

consequences of these theories because they're shielded

38:10

from their effects and number two sisters

38:12

are deeper problem you know

38:15

every system every economic

38:17

system that human beings has ever invented

38:19

every system of trade which

38:22

allows for cooperation let's say and for us

38:24

to benefit from the different abilities of other

38:26

people has also simultaneously

38:29

produced inequality an

38:31

inequality although necessary and

38:33

i would save for some reasons desirable

38:35

because there's no real difference by the way between

38:37

inequality and diversity it

38:40

also does put a heavy

38:42

load on the conscience of people you

38:44

know if you're the a san

38:46

francisco the upper middle class

38:48

housewife let's say and you're walking down the street

38:50

and you see it littered with homeless people so

38:52

to speak who are suffering and who go

38:55

clearly are suffering and who clearly are marginalized

38:57

and haven't been brought within the confines

39:00

of the economic system for

39:02

reasons that may be partly due to

39:04

their own misbehavior let's say and

39:06

inadequacies but also partly because of

39:08

sociological circumstances that were

39:10

beyond their control it's very very

39:12

difficult not to feel that your

39:15

privilege and status is in some

39:18

sense undeserved and also

39:20

a moral burden and very tempting

39:22

therefore to simpli

39:25

counterbalance that set of guilt with with

39:28

the proposition that not only are you in

39:30

a dorm and position but you're also firmly

39:33

and one hundred percent on the side of

39:35

the oppressed which is something you see happening

39:37

an ivy league schools all the time and rob

39:39

henderson as you know don't know

39:42

has described this are proclivity

39:44

as luxury beliefs right is that

39:46

you get to have your status and

39:48

then instead of doing what you should do to

39:50

remediate the problems of the world with that

39:52

status and privilege you jump on the bandwagon

39:55

of cheaply compassionate the the series and

39:57

then you can have your cake your moral

39:59

the needed to

40:01

i've been trying to parse out the psychological

40:03

reasons why it is precisely those who

40:05

are in these positions of vaunted privilege

40:08

lead says who are more likely most likely

40:10

to have these revolutionary ideas you have

40:12

any further thoughts on that the

40:14

average a couple things are me a this is kind of a stock

40:16

character in american history if you look at

40:18

the weather underground movement in the

40:21

late sixties early nineteen seventies which is really

40:23

authentic prototype for all the things we're seeing

40:25

today if you read their manifesto prairie

40:28

fire and i highly recommend you read it

40:30

the a a day i read it last

40:32

year and i can my eyes pops out of my head because

40:35

all of the things that were so that taser

40:37

twelve students are learning today

40:39

as you know white privilege anti

40:42

colonialism kind

40:44

, road marxists economics etc

40:47

that was that that time at radical

40:49

fringe idea that has now moved into the mainstream

40:51

but you look at the backgrounds of all these

40:53

people they're all elites there are people

40:56

who are the sons and daughters of bankers and politicians

40:58

and wealthy people in new york city it's wealthy

41:00

people in san francisco they were living on you

41:03

know houseboats and moran while they were out

41:05

planting bombs and police stations and

41:07

see sensible what is the psychology here

41:09

what's happening i think it's a couple things

41:12

certainly it's functions as it's luxury believe

41:14

the extended their insulated from the consequences

41:16

of those bullies i think we can't

41:18

underestimate two things however one

41:21

is that is that of these people are just

41:23

true believers the people who are most fervent

41:26

if you're gonna pick up a gun

41:27

for example like eric man did

41:30

, shoot it into the window of a police station

41:33

in cambridge massachusetts us

41:35

to be deeply committed and deeply

41:37

think you see that same spirit among people who

41:39

are members of anti fat people

41:41

who are members of the alam they're

41:44

really just possessed by this idea

41:46

then i think there's a certain amount of attractiveness

41:49

for people who are may be bored people

41:51

who may be feel resentful are

41:53

they can you all that resentment and

41:55

that boredom into revolutionary action

41:58

and then they can take the mantle of rome

41:59

and the system you know they can be che

42:02

guevara i mean that's a very attractive

42:04

figure yeah unless you know anything about

42:06

them you don't even have to because you see the

42:08

culebra you see that yeah beard you

42:10

see the cool a kind of high contrast

42:13

prince

42:13

and there's a sense

42:15

a fulfillment i think stemming

42:17

from anger resentment the

42:20

a sense of guilt you

42:22

have this complex web of emotions

42:25

litter then manipulated by media

42:27

manipulated by activists manipulated by

42:29

other leadership and so there's

42:32

that the latent i think there's also a sense

42:34

among people look these are my peers you know i have

42:36

a a weed education i've traveled

42:38

in the circles i've lived in those cities there's

42:41

a sense i think among many of

42:43

my peers and away especially the ones who are

42:45

last of and i was on the left for many years

42:48

and have graduated are right word overtime

42:51

there's a sense that dumb or

42:53

that they don't deserve it a

42:56

demon them have inferiority at

42:58

for maybe they don't you know there's

43:00

one while one open question well

43:03

what if there's an open question here on the

43:05

gills friends you know so there's

43:07

a gospel discussion of the

43:09

unequal distribution of talents right

43:11

because it's pretty clear that if you look at the

43:13

world as it's presently constituted

43:15

and always has been that you

43:17

know some people are more beautiful than others and

43:20

some people are healthier and some people are more

43:22

intelligent some people are more hard working

43:24

by nature and some time some people are

43:26

more creative and some people are more compassionate

43:28

there's this massively unequal distribution

43:31

of a priori resources

43:33

like what you come into the world

43:35

with not what you deserve

43:38

by dint of hard work and

43:40

then you might ask yourself well if

43:42

you happen to be born

43:45

we'll use all the tropes white rich

43:48

heterosexual healthy

43:50

attractive and you have all these benefits

43:52

and privileges in the luxury of this let's say

43:55

immense wealth that was gathered by your parents

43:57

why shouldn't you be guilty about that

44:00

then what because look at all the

44:02

people who don't have that and it was just handed

44:05

to was just lady your seat and the

44:07

answer that's put forward in the new

44:09

testament of i don't like to refer to religious

44:11

matters unless it's necessary is that to

44:13

those the who much has

44:16

been given much will be asked

44:18

and so then you might say well if you have

44:20

all this remarkable technological and

44:22

economic privilege much of which

44:24

was unearned and even much of which are

44:26

some of which was is

44:28

that the cost historical atrocity

44:32

what should you do and the answer

44:34

is you should put yourself together so

44:36

he are as good as likely as you are

44:38

rich financing that's

44:40

a heavy moral burden and a heavy

44:42

burden of responsibility and then i think

44:45

you can take these an uninformed

44:47

roots out and some of that's just based

44:49

in message casement pure ignorance so

44:51

that you can approach to yourself

44:53

the moral virtues it's necessary to solve

44:56

your conscience without having to do

44:58

any of the real difficult work that making

45:00

a full accounting of your talents and of

45:03

toning for your privilege would actually

45:05

require i've

45:07

been up one hundred percent right and i think that

45:10

you have then a group of people

45:12

people are people who look like

45:14

me people who are my age

45:16

the that are struggling

45:18

to find an identity struggling

45:20

to find a structure struggling

45:23

to have a standard of living maybe better

45:25

than their parents and , even

45:27

people who come from wealthy background there's a tremendous

45:29

pressure right if you're born to that level

45:31

of privilege it's very high to a very difficult

45:34

to maybe exceeds your family

45:36

in the past that we had a kind of paternal

45:38

structure where you're saying hey

45:40

even your kind of a

45:42

kind of wayward son of wayward wealthy family

45:45

you have to come into the fold you have

45:47

to be have good steward of these resources you have this

45:49

you know build libraries you have to build

45:52

or the opera house you have to do great

45:54

works that so that you can assume

45:56

the responsibility of this wealth and prestige

45:59

and then the provided back to the community

46:01

in a substantial right right right that's very

46:03

difficult it's much easier to

46:06

you know put on the keffiyeh ah

46:08

march at a blm protest and

46:10

then you know run a family foundation

46:12

writing checks to a bunch of useless nonprofits

46:15

you get the status you get the press these

46:18

you get the love you get the identity

46:20

as a kind of class traitor but it's an

46:22

adolescent posture of rebellion

46:25

from a generation that refuses to grow

46:27

up and become a father let's say

46:30

or become a mother become a

46:32

kind of matriarch figure and so

46:34

you have these permanent children

46:36

that are in eternal ret ret revolution

46:38

against their parents or that for them

46:41

or symbolically represented in a society

46:44

and they feel like they can stuff that feeling

46:46

or satisfy that feeling would be

46:48

kind of a the sugar high

46:51

of a revolution by play acting

46:53

some but it is it deals tremendous

46:55

damage to real people and you know

46:58

the reason i'm a conservative as

47:00

opposed to where i started ten fifteen years ago

47:02

as a kind of on the far left

47:04

then i saw in the international

47:07

contacts in many places at

47:09

what happens when these ideas take hold

47:11

but i also saw even spent five years

47:13

and three of america's poorest cities observe in these

47:15

communities the theory of

47:17

systemic racism white privilege intersectionality

47:21

etc all the solutions that they proffer

47:23

are very good if you want to achieve

47:25

social status and position and ivy league

47:27

university their disastrous

47:30

once they trickle down or imposed on poor

47:32

people have any racial background

47:34

so this this this this feeling

47:36

the psychological profile i

47:39

think is one of the most important things of our time i

47:41

think that's why your work has been so successful

47:43

why people on the left of furiously

47:46

are kind of rejected it

47:48

and furious like that it's in a deranged ways

47:50

last out against it's because you're

47:52

calling them to responsibility here

47:55

i got a funny story about man so

47:57

you know i've had the misfortune

48:00

to be invited to speak at universities

48:02

and i say misfortune of because

48:04

although some of the time that those quite well

48:07

the most disastrous public

48:09

events of my life have been on university campuses

48:12

where i'm harassed by student radicals

48:14

or literally accosted by them

48:17

yelled at by unbelievably narcissistic

48:19

brats on generally

48:21

harass the lord by the administration for

48:23

even daring to go to the damn university

48:26

having all sorts of obstacles put

48:28

in my past when i agree to do

48:30

so and then

48:32

spending a lot of time and resources you

48:35

speak to people who are often extremely narcissistic

48:38

for very little the back now that's

48:40

not always the case i've had good experiences

48:43

at cambridge and at mit and at stanford

48:45

most recently and so it can work

48:47

but it often doesn't and so

48:51

the the

48:53

i figured out a way to go to a university and

48:55

have at work and this is really quite

48:57

funny i figured this out about five years

48:59

ago so magical i'm invited to university

49:02

and i'm worried that there's going to be protests

49:04

and i worry because sometimes there

49:06

are murderous people at those protests is no

49:08

joke and people get in my face and they

49:10

threaten me and physically as well

49:12

as psychologically and are not afraid

49:14

of that but it makes me so angry that i'm afraid

49:17

of my own anger in situations like that

49:19

i say i joke with my security people

49:21

than half of the reason there there is to stop

49:23

me from attacking other people and i

49:25

mean that you know it's a joke but it's also

49:27

not a joke anyways i

49:29

figured out very early that if i had a meeting

49:31

at a university at eight o'clock in the morning i'd never

49:33

have a protester insight because

49:36

none of them had the bloody discipline to

49:38

stick to their principles the

49:41

internet with enough what would you say a sensuous

49:43

this so that they would sacrifice their

49:45

late night freaking says in the night before so

49:47

they wouldn't be too hung over and bleary eyed to come

49:49

out and conferences you know the evil prose

49:52

vivo professor who is going to go out there

49:54

and warp their compatriots

49:55

so the fact that i could circumvent the bloody

49:58

activists i nearly show

49:59

early in the morning is a pretty

50:02

fundamental indictment of their the

50:04

fundamental maturity of their motivation and

50:06

also something that's blackley comical in

50:08

the deep as possible said the

50:10

fact that these idiots professors on these leftwing

50:13

campuses taste the messianic

50:15

delusions of these overgrown adolescence

50:18

with some degree of seriousness overlay

50:20

that with compassion and then

50:22

invite them to become useless

50:24

activists and thereby some fill their

50:26

moral the moral demands that their own

50:28

conscience puts on them is an

50:30

unbelievably deep indication

50:33

of the absolute moral bankruptcy

50:36

of the modern university

50:38

though

50:39

i love it and and week parents

50:41

create narcissistic children and

50:43

so the administrator is the week parents

50:46

and the children are quite narcissistic

50:48

and you know this reminds me your your your your story reminds

50:50

me of two things one you know my

50:53

dad was an immigrant from italy came

50:55

over as over as with his family very poor

50:57

had nothing his father

50:59

immediately died when they came over

51:01

my dad became the man of the

51:03

household he was a great athlete

51:06

a good student got a scholarship was living

51:08

at home and , is during the set

51:10

of nineteen sixty nineteen seventies vietnam war protests

51:12

all of the kind of hippies and and

51:15

that kind of counterculture and

51:17

up you know my dad got dad scholarship to go to

51:19

school to go to college was working

51:21

the whole time to support his mother support

51:23

a sister kind of help the family then

51:26

and any with you so he says you know and

51:28

he always hippie all the rich kids were that were the

51:31

hippies and the protesters and the counterculture says

51:33

the working class to we

51:35

had to get a job we had to take things seriously we

51:37

had a you know show up to work and

51:40

you know is it really is this kind of

51:42

class kind version yeah

51:44

is an inversion of marxism where

51:47

our elites are the marxist revolutionaries

51:49

and are working class people are conservatives

51:52

because they need that set of structures and

51:54

values in order for them to

51:56

have a dignified and meaningful life

51:59

and so we haven't

51:59

the class but wants to dissolve

52:02

all of the social and economic structures

52:04

bitter providing the basis for stable

52:07

lives at the bottom

52:08

the second store i'm gonna tell you is very interesting

52:10

my wife and i went , see

52:12

you in seattle washington

52:15

seattle number of years ago when your speeches the

52:17

next to us with this a kid young kid

52:20

maybe twenty five we

52:22

got to talking to him before the show before you and dave

52:24

came on any , you know i drove

52:26

you know hour and a half i drove from the and

52:28

a more rural area here in washington state

52:30

and us you know my life was a mess

52:32

a few years ago i was doing

52:34

drugs doing was not showing up to work

52:37

i was waking up blade i was you

52:39

know just couldn't quite get things together get was anxious

52:41

all the time and i i

52:43

was on you tube i'm not much of a reader in

52:45

a fairly finish high school and i listened to

52:47

jordan peterson i don't know how then

52:50

piece by piece i started falling does basic

52:52

building blocks of of his advice

52:55

now i'm working full time i've got a great

52:57

job on a construction crew i'm getting paid

52:59

overtime i wanted to hear him speak and

53:01

so for me it was kind of remarkable

53:04

of remarkable of this phenomenon

53:07

where you have people in the country

53:09

especially younger people especially people

53:11

from a middle class or working class for

53:14

whom the stakes are high if you screw up

53:16

and you're from a working class families your life

53:18

can be a disaster very quickly then

53:21

you're giving this kind of time tested

53:23

advice about how to grow up how to take responsibility

53:26

and it makes a difference

53:28

in people's lives and and i think the reason

53:30

why the left is so upset with you

53:32

maybe the reason there are so upset with me and in

53:34

the same token is that bear

53:36

trying to give advice to the working

53:38

class that will end up destroying

53:41

their lives

53:42

you're trying to give advice to working class

53:44

people that will make their lives better any

53:47

exposes the fraudulent sub their

53:49

ideas it exposes the hypocrisy

53:51

of their position and it really exposes

53:54

a the kind of sensible heart of

53:56

their ideology

53:58

at the end to me that's really what

53:59

what what converted me out of

54:02

the last

54:03

i can't spend any more

54:04

the time with these phony people would

54:06

these people who are the sons and daughters

54:09

of immense privilege that are acting

54:11

rebel loot playing revolutionary trying

54:13

to impose a set of ideas that i know

54:16

out of my own observation in

54:18

all the countries around the world as well as many

54:20

significant time in the poorest places the

54:22

united states lead to nothing but

54:24

disaster or don't forget death

54:27

it's not just disaster it's torture

54:29

and death rate board scale economic

54:31

failure other contestants often so

54:33

let's let's do this let's

54:35

let

54:36

first of all throw out a compassionate

54:39

wrote to the narcissistic

54:41

messianic young people who are entranced

54:43

by the university because one

54:46

of the things that i have learned as the university professor

54:48

is if you take people who have some vengeful

54:50

motivation and some resentment let's say that their

54:53

parents and to broader society new say

54:55

well not things are

54:57

corrupted by power and you're gonna feel oppressed

54:59

and that's the constant lot of mankind since

55:01

the beginning of day one because history is

55:04

is is is an

55:06

app for this thick and out of date and there

55:08

is an element of atrocity in it so you're

55:10

going to have an antagonistic relationship to some

55:12

degree with your past but the appropriate

55:15

thing to do that is to do without is

55:17

to put everything it's proper place and to realize

55:19

that as an active moral agent you can remediate

55:21

the sins of the past as a consequence

55:24

of your ethical strive if you

55:26

introduce young people to that idea and show

55:28

them a pathway forward that doesn't allow

55:31

them to merely mask

55:34

their new and hard

55:36

one cynicism you know they're no longer naive

55:38

they can see that the world has some problems

55:40

and that can easily send them into a tailspin

55:43

you say yeah yeah the problems are there but

55:45

they don't constitute the core

55:47

the

55:48

central spirit led say of mankind

55:50

that the desire to dominate then you

55:53

can set them on a more appropriate pass

55:55

and so he's narcissistic young people

55:57

bear some of the responsibility for their

55:59

idiot revolutionary presumptions

56:02

that the full amount of banks

56:04

and revenge for dimwits who educate

56:07

them bear at least as much responsibility

56:09

who miss educate them who anti educate

56:12

them who made some stupid or and worse

56:14

than they would have been had they not attended the institutions

56:17

at off as well as picking

56:19

one hundred and sixty thousand dollars out of

56:21

the pockets of their future earnings for

56:23

the privilege of doing so even well

56:25

they

56:25

the didn't attend university say

56:28

during

56:28

the cold in period as we might point

56:30

out and so

56:31

having said that and putting

56:34

the our responsibility

56:36

on the educators especially the

56:38

faculties of education which are damn right

56:40

to their course i would also like

56:42

to take some issue with this notion

56:44

that

56:46

our is the fundamental motivation

56:48

that govern social interaction

56:50

so i i wanted mention

56:53

three facts and then we can discuss them

56:55

so first most there are percentage

56:57

of people who use our

57:00

as their fundamental the

57:02

those the governance of their social

57:04

relations so psychopaths

57:06

do that and so do the dark triad

57:09

types machiavellian the

57:11

narcissist and so so the three

57:13

of those make up the dark try out and then

57:15

you might ask yourself will of psychopaths

57:18

we'll power and that's their fundamental motivation

57:21

and their ethos how successful

57:23

are they if our societies are basically

57:25

dominated by power the power

57:27

structures then you'd expect the psychopathic

57:29

types to thrive and they data

57:32

on that anthropological he and psychologically

57:34

is quite clear you get the cynics who

57:36

say well all those who occupied the upper

57:38

echelons of power and authority are psychopaths

57:41

but that's simply not true and the reason

57:43

it's not true is because psychopathy is actually

57:45

a very

57:47

the ineffective adaptive strategy even

57:49

biologically speaking so big

57:51

a psychopath means if you're a male

57:54

that you can fool some of the girls some of

57:56

the time with your pretensions to

57:58

competence and power that are for

57:59

and now and then as a concept

58:01

you can reproduce and that

58:03

so psychopaths psychopathy propagates

58:05

itself biological it's not

58:07

an effective reproductive strategy but

58:10

it doesn't have zero utility in some

58:12

situations so it can be exploited fuck

58:15

the anthropological and cross cultural data

58:17

show quite clearly that psychopathy

58:19

rates vary between one in five percent

58:22

stabilize around three percent so

58:24

that if it falls to one percent

58:27

there's to feel psycho pass and everybody falls

58:29

asleep and then the cycle baskin then

58:31

how for sway and they increased but

58:33

if it hits five percent all the

58:36

then i would say half men and women

58:38

with an eye for deceit and

58:40

malevolent wake up and say oh my god

58:42

look at all the psychopaths we better do something about

58:45

this and they knock them back to three percent

58:48

i should also point out that psychopaths

58:50

despite the com and notion cynical

58:52

notion again if they're hyper successful let's

58:54

say and big business are not successful

58:56

at all because the clinical data shows very

58:58

clearly that psychopaths betray

59:01

their future selves just

59:03

as badly as they betray other people and

59:05

so it's a it's a counter productive adaptive

59:08

strategy an iterative games and it

59:10

might be better than like

59:11

a nerd

59:12

rated so to speak in your mother's

59:14

basement till you're fifty but it isn't

59:16

a good pathway through life so that's number

59:19

one power does not work

59:21

as as motivation for mediating social

59:23

relation try using it

59:25

on your wife constantly and see how far that

59:27

gets you number two let's

59:30

make the case that it's power that that

59:32

propels animals upward in their social

59:35

hierarchies right and so it's the it's

59:37

a dominant animal that achieves

59:39

repr duct of success and maybe the cardinal

59:41

example of that is among chimpanzees

59:44

where the elephant sam who's the roughest

59:46

toughness dominating oppressive

59:48

patriarchal male gets access

59:50

to all the females rules with an iron fist

59:53

and that by the waist is complete

59:55

bloody rubbish it's not true

59:58

and friends the wall that sadist that's

1:00:00

primatologist who's been studying chimpanzees

1:00:03

with ah with incredible

1:00:05

perspicacity over the last thirty years

1:00:07

has demonstrated very clearly that sometimes

1:00:10

even the alpha chimp so to speak is

1:00:12

the smallest mail in the true the

1:00:14

allies himself with powerful females and

1:00:17

who exceptional peacemaker and extremely

1:00:19

reciprocal for tab love thy

1:00:21

neighbor as thyself in his relationships

1:00:24

with his male friend and they

1:00:26

have friendships that can spend decades and so

1:00:29

the primate alpha is a

1:00:31

coalition builder and a peacemaker not

1:00:34

dominant and the ones who try to use

1:00:36

dominance and sometimes succeed

1:00:38

for short periods of time to destabilize

1:00:41

their whole societies and are likely to

1:00:43

meet a brutal vicious and as the

1:00:45

hand of two or more chimp so they've

1:00:47

unfortunately and are dangerously

1:00:50

subordinated so and them

1:00:53

next if about is not enough i'm

1:00:55

i did some work on the anthropology

1:00:58

of the doctrine of the elders so

1:01:00

in many a tribal in agricultural

1:01:02

societies there's this i'm

1:01:05

what what would you call proclivity for

1:01:07

governance to devolve toward

1:01:09

so called elders and they're often mail

1:01:11

but not always because the white females can play

1:01:14

a role to and so then the question is

1:01:16

in these societies cross culturally who's

1:01:18

elevated to the status of elder and you might

1:01:20

say well it's the roughest toughest most dominant

1:01:23

chimp like oppressive patriarchal mail

1:01:26

and that actually happens to not be the case

1:01:28

at all so what do you do

1:01:30

see is that productive males who are

1:01:32

older they have to be productive for

1:01:34

civil taney asli generous and

1:01:36

reciprocal and are recognized as

1:01:38

such in their communities he'll

1:01:41

hold the status of authority

1:01:43

and help govern properly and so

1:01:45

we can say that there's no evidence

1:01:47

whatsoever on the scientific or anthropological

1:01:50

front that the doctor

1:01:52

and that the prime human motivation for

1:01:54

the construction of social relations his power

1:01:56

and i would add to that further that is you

1:01:58

think our is the fundamental

1:02:01

motivation of the human kind

1:02:03

that is a concession not an observation

1:02:06

and so look out for people who make that claim

1:02:08

because they're making that claim to justify to

1:02:10

themselves their own use of psychopathic

1:02:13

a narcissistic social mediation as

1:02:16

strategies so i don't

1:02:18

see that the last this who made

1:02:20

the claim that power is the fundamental

1:02:22

motivations have a shred of evidence on

1:02:24

their side oh theologically

1:02:26

scientifically and of logically

1:02:28

politically economically theologically

1:02:30

or ethically and then we might out

1:02:33

about just in closing an observation that

1:02:35

you already made which is ok guys

1:02:38

if it's not capitalism which

1:02:41

to be admitted produces inequality

1:02:43

just like every other bloody economic system

1:02:45

we've ever created then what is it

1:02:48

and then the idea would be well as the

1:02:50

socialist utopia where everybody

1:02:52

has what they need and and does

1:02:54

for others what's a tan to

1:02:57

to paraphrase marxist famous fifth and

1:02:59

you might say well when is that

1:03:01

actually worked successfully

1:03:03

and not resulted in absolute economic

1:03:05

catastrophe and mass murders

1:03:07

and the answer is well pretty much never

1:03:10

and then you say well doesn't that constitute

1:03:12

evidence to invalidate

1:03:14

your claim and they say well

1:03:16

you know really the reason that

1:03:18

the marxist doctors have worked is because

1:03:20

they've never been implemented properly

1:03:23

and and so what do you think about that claim is

1:03:25

that fundamentally the doctor does sound

1:03:28

but for whatever reason maybe

1:03:30

it's the machinations the evil capitalists

1:03:32

send the you know the reactionary

1:03:34

tendency of

1:03:36

oh pressing patriarchs to

1:03:38

scrabble the socialists

1:03:40

and surprise like we did by refusing

1:03:42

to trade with venezuela and the actual

1:03:45

reason why these the galaxy or and states never

1:03:47

work isn't because of the doctor and but because

1:03:49

of reaction from those

1:03:51

who are putting forward traditional liberal

1:03:53

and conservative views so what do you

1:03:55

do about that claim i

1:03:57

mean it's so absurd you try

1:03:59

something you know as a thousand times it never

1:04:02

works the at

1:04:04

the evidence is in on marxists economics

1:04:06

you look at even the theoretically marxist

1:04:09

states in in in the world today

1:04:11

specifically , the

1:04:14

or even the or which had a kind of

1:04:16

socialistic economy until nineteen ninety

1:04:18

i'm all of these emerging economies that try

1:04:20

the socialist or even that kind of state marxist

1:04:23

systems they've abandoned them the

1:04:25

point where actually but say china

1:04:27

or vietnam that are still efficiently communist

1:04:30

countries have actually a lower

1:04:32

rates of state expenditure

1:04:34

as a percentage of gdp than the united states

1:04:36

the united states is actually in some measurements more

1:04:38

socialistic spend the marxist

1:04:41

leninist or communist countries in the world and

1:04:43

so the evidence is in among anyone

1:04:45

who's experienced the communist economy

1:04:48

there are fleeing that system as fast

1:04:50

as possible let's let's

1:04:52

let's list labrador not for a moment

1:04:55

because that's really accelerated

1:04:57

since nineteen eighty nine when the wall fell

1:05:00

the reason exaggerated is because the communist

1:05:02

start actively intermediates let's

1:05:04

say an african economies to the degree that they were

1:05:07

and demanding people into adopting

1:05:09

observed economic policies to impoverish

1:05:11

their people and so what's been the

1:05:13

consequence of that since the nineteen eighties

1:05:16

and the answer is that as these great economies

1:05:18

china and india included but also with

1:05:20

africa increasingly have

1:05:23

adapted themselves to free market

1:05:25

policies and rule of law and

1:05:28

and respect for the integrity and dignity

1:05:30

of the individual what's happened is that

1:05:32

we've seen and unpredep unprecedented

1:05:35

expansion of general wealth

1:05:37

all around the world and we've listed

1:05:39

more people out of poverty merely in

1:05:42

the last twelve years that had been lifted out

1:05:44

of poverty in the entire history of humankind

1:05:46

before that at any given moment and

1:05:49

that's all a consequence and then we could

1:05:51

say as to elaborate on your point

1:05:53

is that you look at china so

1:05:56

china would is wasn't near the communist

1:05:58

country but the reason that

1:05:59

it has left forward in is now

1:06:02

becoming twice as rich

1:06:03

the way in terms of purchasing parity

1:06:05

power parity every seven years

1:06:08

prices which is because they set

1:06:10

up special economic zones that we're basically

1:06:12

predicated on the hong kong model where

1:06:14

they can leave the free enterprise types of loans

1:06:17

within the broader confines of the ethically

1:06:19

appropriate communism and those places

1:06:21

took off like mad which meant

1:06:23

that as soon as he got mad men in the resentful

1:06:26

sons of bitches out of the ways that the

1:06:28

in essential ah conscientious

1:06:31

striving and native intelligence

1:06:33

of the chinese population was able

1:06:35

to manifest itself in turn that country

1:06:37

from an impoverished

1:06:39

and and

1:06:40

and starving country in many ways

1:06:43

in into one of the world's industrial power

1:06:45

houses and that only took a couple of decades so

1:06:48

that always thought when i hear these the matter

1:06:51

states claim that you know real

1:06:53

marxism is never been tried the face

1:06:55

a narcissistic li something along the fall

1:06:57

with lines which is where are you know stolen

1:06:59

didn't do a very good job and landed

1:07:01

into a very good job

1:07:03

neither did mile and

1:07:05

the needed in pol pot and those are quite a few

1:07:07

different cultures and situations boys

1:07:09

and girls but if i would have been the

1:07:11

tyrant in charge them with

1:07:13

all my wisdom and my deep knowledge of marxists

1:07:16

doctor and spend the socialist utopia

1:07:18

certainly would have come to fruition so

1:07:20

there is a loser ferry and narcissism

1:07:23

driving this activism

1:07:25

that's almost was certainly ungodly

1:07:27

and it's magnitude and and pretty much goes

1:07:29

all the way to the bottom and even if

1:07:31

that's not true of the individual holders

1:07:34

of these loose a ferry and vengeful ideas

1:07:37

it's definitely true of the pretenses

1:07:39

of the system of ideas

1:07:41

the film

1:07:43

i've been to china idea to china

1:07:45

that example is very important and

1:07:48

the we have a rough analog here and united

1:07:50

states of the question is you tube

1:07:52

laid it out i think everyone knows this even in

1:07:54

the nineteen fifties the nineteen sixties

1:07:57

the sophisticated and honest marxist

1:07:59

intellectual in the west for example

1:08:01

herbert marcuse are in his book on soviet

1:08:03

marxism they admitted this

1:08:05

they said at this system does not work

1:08:07

it can't solve the production problem or

1:08:10

a task or it is it's or devolve into

1:08:12

bureaucratic tyranny and repression our

1:08:14

venue have sought and it's and everyone knows this

1:08:17

and you have the fall of communism are

1:08:19

wary of kind of the definitive and and and

1:08:21

and and and of the explosion of the system

1:08:23

so the question then becomes if everyone

1:08:26

knows that this is the to this is how it works

1:08:28

everyone can observe and everyone who's smart knows

1:08:30

this already why are they still promoting

1:08:32

it and still think the reason is

1:08:35

not is because of some genuine conviction

1:08:37

that well if only trotskyists if had

1:08:39

been again power it would have worked out better

1:08:41

if only we can try it again it would

1:08:43

it work out great this time

1:08:45

i don't think they believe that it actually don't

1:08:47

think bit that deeply and they're

1:08:49

kind of heart of hearts

1:08:51

they actually want to have a socialist or

1:08:53

communist economies because that would require

1:08:55

them managing and running physical

1:08:57

production which were intellectuals as like

1:08:59

oh my gosh get me out of a factory

1:09:02

i can change a tire just forget it

1:09:04

and so what the actual

1:09:06

the earth and of gramsci an adaptation

1:09:09

is in a

1:09:10

post soviet historical period

1:09:12

is we don't really want to are

1:09:15

you know take over the ah

1:09:17

you know the the die hard to

1:09:19

factory and rural michigan to create auto

1:09:21

parts were not interested not interested

1:09:24

we want to redistribute prestige

1:09:26

and social status

1:09:28

so it's a real cynical game where they speak

1:09:30

the language of marxism they speak

1:09:32

the language you empowering the working class they speak

1:09:34

the language of material redistribution but

1:09:37

when it comes down to it they don't really

1:09:39

tear say no it wouldn't really work

1:09:41

and i think secretly they hope that

1:09:43

it doesn't happen because they benefit

1:09:45

from this incredible economic

1:09:47

production with as again they have those high

1:09:50

status positions they're in princeton

1:09:52

their economic fortunes they have

1:09:54

economic security through the bureaucracy

1:09:56

through the tenure system etc there's

1:09:58

cynically pushing this narrative the

1:10:01

way to redistribute status and

1:10:03

prestige which is really what they crave

1:10:05

that's the real currency that's the real

1:10:07

redistribution while everyone prays

1:10:10

everyone trades that everyone prays

1:10:12

that first for i would say because

1:10:14

there isn't anything

1:10:15

that you have that's more valuable than your

1:10:17

reputation you trade on

1:10:19

your reputation and if you're known the

1:10:22

people as an honest and

1:10:24

reciprocal player who's word

1:10:27

is his bond and who will do what he says

1:10:29

he will do then everyone

1:10:31

lines up to play with you and your ethanol

1:10:33

make viability his

1:10:36

is are guaranteed and so

1:10:38

what

1:10:38

the painted by constantly is the

1:10:42

the

1:10:43

we're tempted by the strategy of accruing to

1:10:45

ourselves the reputation

1:10:48

it it is a form of narcissism and

1:10:50

machiavellian isn't and psychopathy because

1:10:52

what it means is that people

1:10:54

who have stored up genuine value in

1:10:57

their reputation and who have been honest players

1:10:59

and who know how to work and know

1:11:01

how to share

1:11:02

our

1:11:03

much more likely to be rewarded with

1:11:05

a deserve procedure but the narcissist

1:11:08

send the psychopaths in the intellectual mackey

1:11:10

of allianz can parasatize that's

1:11:12

by making unwarranted moral claims

1:11:15

and then saying about themselves that they are

1:11:17

as good or better than the people

1:11:19

they're criticizing and because they have

1:11:21

intellectual prowess they're often able

1:11:24

to out argues the people who

1:11:26

have accrued genuine moral virtue that might

1:11:28

be like without self made working

1:11:30

class types who know what's

1:11:32

right and who act out what's right

1:11:34

but who aren't as able to articulate

1:11:37

it which is a challenge on the conservative

1:11:39

side

1:11:40

so

1:11:41

so what if you don't mind let's

1:11:43

turn to a minute well in our remaining

1:11:45

time for a minute to what

1:11:47

you've been doing more practically insult

1:11:49

a lot of this discussion has in fact been intellectual

1:11:52

and so let's nail it back down to the ground

1:11:54

you been working on the policy front in a

1:11:56

variety of different states most notably

1:11:59

florida so and to

1:12:01

push back classically

1:12:03

against the inroads have the system

1:12:05

of ideas that we've been discussing and so

1:12:08

tell me how that come about what it

1:12:10

is and what you think the advantages and pitfalls

1:12:12

are cheryl i

1:12:14

think first of all i'm as

1:12:17

, said at the outset what we have

1:12:19

to understand is that it's

1:12:21

if you want to take the metaphor of production

1:12:24

here's kind of intellectual production right

1:12:26

now that is now being dominated

1:12:28

by a specific ideology

1:12:30

then using the transmission belt of the

1:12:32

institutions

1:12:33

in order to corrupt them in order to achieve dominance

1:12:36

over them that was their strategy that they

1:12:38

laid out in the early nineteen nineties and critical

1:12:40

race theory and queer theory for example i

1:12:42

think the two most prominence theories that were

1:12:44

grappling with today and

1:12:47

david see this and this think

1:12:49

that there's that need and need and

1:12:51

a necessity for

1:12:53

people to understand the theories that and and

1:12:55

and intellectual or abstract level a

1:12:57

lot of the power just as if said

1:13:00

of these ideas is because they're intimidating

1:13:02

for people who don't have a background in

1:13:05

in academia background and or to

1:13:07

understand the the terminology where

1:13:09

the concepts behind these ideas and

1:13:12

so though they'll though they'll kind of bullied

1:13:15

into submission and away but the

1:13:17

the the take away and a keeping i've been working on

1:13:19

i'm really trying to return to explain

1:13:21

is that

1:13:22

when ideas when

1:13:25

when ideology becomes attached

1:13:27

to administrative power

1:13:28

in a permanent and and meaningful

1:13:30

way you have a revolution

1:13:33

that is the definition of a revolution the

1:13:35

kind of disruptive ideology achieves administrative

1:13:38

and bureaucratic power

1:13:39

the were in actually those conditions today we're

1:13:41

in the midst of a soft superstructure

1:13:44

or cultural revolution and

1:13:47

the goal for conservatives should be to

1:13:49

sever that connection between those

1:13:51

ideologies and bureaucratic power

1:13:54

you can't do that through mere persuasion

1:13:57

you can't do that sir mere intellectual discussion

1:13:59

or debate you can't do that even

1:14:01

by convincing a majority of the public which

1:14:04

in in which in these cases we've already done

1:14:06

the to agree with you to share your point

1:14:08

of view you actually have to say hey wait

1:14:10

a minute these ideas are wholly

1:14:13

subsidized by public dollars whether

1:14:15

it's at universities which are directly financed

1:14:17

by the public or private universities which are subsidized

1:14:20

through student loan guarantees by the public or

1:14:22

whether it's decades or twelve school system or

1:14:24

government agencies

1:14:26

the critical theory critical race theory critical

1:14:28

gender theory queer theory whatever you want to call them

1:14:30

or a creature of the states

1:14:33

there a creature of the bureaucracies they cannot

1:14:36

survive without public subsidy which means

1:14:38

they cannot survive without the continued support

1:14:41

of legislators of the state level and at the

1:14:43

federal level and so what

1:14:45

should we do about this well this well say hey wait

1:14:47

a minute these ideas violate

1:14:50

the basic values

1:14:52

the basic beliefs of the majority

1:14:54

of the citizens in the republic

1:14:57

you should then vote for legislators and encourage

1:15:00

your legislators to use the democratic

1:15:02

process in order to reform

1:15:04

those systems and bureaucracies to

1:15:07

align them morse more closely with

1:15:09

the values and the true tell loss of

1:15:11

the public

1:15:12

the of whom they represent

1:15:15

so what i want to do is really start

1:15:17

to outline specifically how we can do that

1:15:19

to say hey wait a minute if you're in a red state

1:15:22

let's say or even if you're in of supposedly

1:15:24

purple state trending read like florida

1:15:27

you don't have to be permanently subsidizing

1:15:30

last when ideologies at every level

1:15:32

of your government if you're a republican president

1:15:34

for example of worked with president

1:15:36

trump on this hey wait hey wait why

1:15:39

are you why is the federal government not through

1:15:41

the not through a legislative necessity

1:15:43

or kind of a specific

1:15:46

at legislative priority or or or

1:15:48

requirements but through the executive

1:15:51

function spending hundreds

1:15:53

of millions of dollars per year subsidizing

1:15:55

critical race theory subsidizing programs

1:15:57

the promote those ideas subsidizing

1:16:00

france and other and other funding mechanisms

1:16:02

how do you how do you know okay

1:16:04

so i'm the i'm i'm listening to an end

1:16:06

and and understand your point i

1:16:08

worked as an academic and a researcher for

1:16:11

many years and one of the things

1:16:13

that always disturbed me was when my research

1:16:15

became subordinate to government demand

1:16:17

so for example i was working

1:16:19

on surfing the

1:16:21

onset of alcoholism in young

1:16:23

man who didn't have alcoholic fathers

1:16:25

or mothers by the way and i concentrated

1:16:27

on young men because they're much more likely to become

1:16:30

alcoholic and because if your mother

1:16:32

was alcoholic you might have fetal alcohol syndrome

1:16:34

and that would the an additional

1:16:36

complicating factor in the resurgence

1:16:38

what happened was that partly because

1:16:40

of diversity requirements which which the

1:16:42

clintons broady and i was forced to

1:16:44

include females in equal

1:16:46

number in my studies and i just simply couldn't

1:16:48

do that because i couldn't includes email alcoholics

1:16:51

and so i just stopped doing it altogether my

1:16:54

research lab along with that

1:16:56

of my mentor robert peel had done some of the fundamental

1:16:58

work and outlining the biological basis

1:17:00

of the propensity for alcoholism so that was just

1:17:02

scuttle so i'm very afraid when

1:17:04

i hear policy makers including you are

1:17:07

despite or the why grounds for

1:17:09

agreements talk about how

1:17:12

legislatures can now intervene

1:17:15

and i know they're doing that anyway right

1:17:17

that's and that's party or points how they can

1:17:19

intervene in terms of sending

1:17:22

to stop subsidizing ideas

1:17:24

that are deemed undesirable but you

1:17:26

know that things up i

1:17:28

don't say i have a solution to this by the

1:17:30

way that but it brings up the specter

1:17:33

of producing a government bureaucracy

1:17:36

regards it as it's mission to

1:17:39

police intellectual content so

1:17:41

how do we how do we thread that needle

1:17:43

the effect the couple different

1:17:45

ways first i think you have to turn to

1:17:47

take a step back and really assess the status

1:17:49

quo there's this there's this kind of or

1:17:52

again what i think of as a myth or delusions

1:17:54

among many of my friends even on the center

1:17:56

right or maybe the libertarian rights where

1:17:58

they say no no no we don't meddle

1:18:01

with the government we don't matter what

1:18:03

the bureaucracy we don't meddle with public universities

1:18:06

that's an infringement on the so

1:18:08

called academic freedom has an infringement on

1:18:10

the free market etc

1:18:11

but when you say we're gonna take a kind of non

1:18:14

interventionist approach in

1:18:16

a government agency

1:18:18

that government agency will be filled by people

1:18:20

who have vastly different values

1:18:23

than you do and they have no qualms about

1:18:25

intervene so you and you've seen

1:18:27

the playing field you see the territory to

1:18:29

your enemies but even more broadly

1:18:32

at a very abstract level at a general level these

1:18:34

are public institutions these are

1:18:36

institutions that are already chartered

1:18:38

governed funded and and

1:18:41

and then administered by

1:18:43

the government's by the people by

1:18:45

legislation and so the question is

1:18:47

not do we want legislation and meddling or do

1:18:49

we not want it that's an impossibility

1:18:51

the question is

1:18:53

what what are the ground rules what are the guidelines

1:18:55

and order the principles by which are institute

1:18:57

or public institution should be governed and

1:18:59

my argument is to say is to to to to

1:19:02

to abdicate on that question

1:19:04

which is difficult i i i agree with you it's difficult

1:19:06

second be overreached there can be problems

1:19:08

it's very complicated

1:19:10

the for to abdicate and pretend

1:19:12

that you don't have to answer that question is

1:19:14

a recipe for guaranteed failure and

1:19:16

the continued corruption of what we seats

1:19:18

in our institutions today and so

1:19:20

the the conservative or someone who

1:19:22

wants to say these institutions has

1:19:25

to recognize that these are fundamentally political questions

1:19:28

there's no abstract and totally disconnected

1:19:31

or intellectual freedom intellectual the public

1:19:33

university you have intellectual freedom

1:19:36

under the first amendment as an individual citizen

1:19:38

but you don't have a license to do whatever

1:19:41

you want with a permanent taxpayer subsidies

1:19:43

even if you're violating or the

1:19:46

spirit of the law violating the letter of law

1:19:48

violating the will of the voters

1:19:50

through their state representatives and so while

1:19:52

it is a difficult question it's a

1:19:54

question that we cannot refuse

1:19:56

to answer and in fact we have to recognize

1:19:58

that there will be a said rules

1:20:00

governing our public institutions the question

1:20:02

is who sets them and all those

1:20:05

rules k oh well okay so here's here's

1:20:07

a counter example let's say it's

1:20:10

rather radical so i've been speaking

1:20:12

at some length recently with the president

1:20:15

of hillsdale college in michigan

1:20:17

and wholesale is a conservative

1:20:19

institution i would say a traditional

1:20:22

the educational institution and one that's thriving

1:20:25

and also offering from what i

1:20:27

can tell a genuine education to it's

1:20:29

students in the deepest sense and larry

1:20:31

arne who's the presence very respectable

1:20:33

man in all the positive ways and

1:20:36

they decided a long time

1:20:38

ago fifty years

1:20:40

i but believe i think it was in the nineteen sixties

1:20:42

the they would not take a sense of government

1:20:45

funding and the consequence

1:20:47

of that is that they haven't and

1:20:49

the secondary consequences because the place

1:20:51

is unbelievably well managed and govern

1:20:54

that they attract way more students than

1:20:56

they can possibly take their growing like mad

1:20:58

and they have a one percent drop

1:21:00

out rate one person not forty

1:21:03

or fifty percent one percent

1:21:05

and also the academic performance

1:21:07

margin between males and females in hillsdale

1:21:10

is actually quite small by

1:21:12

comparative standards which is also an

1:21:14

indication of their of the positive

1:21:16

quality of their efforts on the educational

1:21:18

front and so maybe we'll i don't know mans

1:21:21

may be part of the issue here is is

1:21:23

it possible that if we set up

1:21:25

public education institutions

1:21:27

per se that we end up in a

1:21:29

situation where they're going to be dominated by

1:21:31

parasitic bureaucrats who are pushing an ideological

1:21:34

agenda and that's that's an equal danger

1:21:37

right now it's a real danger on the left

1:21:39

clearly because they dominate the educational

1:21:41

establishment but maybe merely

1:21:44

setting our systems up so they are publicly

1:21:46

funded disintegrate degree make

1:21:48

the probability that they will become a

1:21:50

the illogically dominated approach

1:21:53

one hundred percent

1:21:55

that's probably right for the same reason

1:21:57

that it it's kind of the marxist economic problem

1:21:59

there related from consequences

1:22:01

their subsidized they don't have to have

1:22:04

productivity they can raise their prices in perpetuity

1:22:06

to extreme levels because there's those government

1:22:09

subsidies coming in on the student loan france

1:22:11

yes definitely i think you want to have a more competitive

1:22:13

environment i love hillsdale i

1:22:15

was visiting lecturer there earlier this year

1:22:18

got to know doctor aren't n n

1:22:20

and and and i would say they've really

1:22:22

created really model of extreme

1:22:24

integrity

1:22:25

if a stream accountability

1:22:28

extreme responsibility towards those students

1:22:30

and i think of pedagogy that works that

1:22:33

has stood the test of time

1:22:34

that is in some ways a

1:22:37

, and a good sense of the word

1:22:39

hillsdale of course was famously one of the

1:22:41

first colleges in the country to accept a

1:22:43

african americans to accept black

1:22:46

students in in the senate the

1:22:48

mid eighteen hundreds and it's initial class

1:22:51

and it's initial class right off the bat

1:22:53

right now regardless of of

1:22:55

race color creed or in

1:22:57

nationality et cetera et but

1:23:00

something else is happening with hillsdale that i think

1:23:02

it's very exciting and i think is worth

1:23:04

the risk ah doctor

1:23:07

on and in the governor of tennessee have recently

1:23:09

struck a deal where hillsdale

1:23:11

is going to found and operates

1:23:14

says the charter schools so

1:23:16

publicly funded charter schools are

1:23:19

following the hillsdale classical education

1:23:22

pedagogical approach or in partnership

1:23:24

with the governments of tennessee and

1:23:27

sure there are risks to this approach

1:23:29

but i think that again if you compare it to

1:23:31

the status quo it's an quo an improvement

1:23:34

will there be other problems and questions that we have to

1:23:36

resolve and three years five years ten

1:23:38

years of course yeah well how

1:23:40

do you know for example how do you know that your

1:23:42

temps or than temps or rapidly

1:23:44

let's say and ten years

1:23:46

the something that's indistinguishable from indistinguishable

1:23:49

from a persecution of those

1:23:51

who hold for temperamental reasons let's

1:23:53

say political views that tilt them towards

1:23:56

the last i'm not saying that you would do

1:23:58

that although i would say it's hard to read the

1:24:00

the temptation you know especially

1:24:02

given that the playing field right now is

1:24:04

so bloody lopsided you know that

1:24:06

does set up the desire to level

1:24:09

the playing field problem with leveling

1:24:11

the damn playing field as he attends a level

1:24:13

the players you know and so so

1:24:16

i don't ah was a was so

1:24:19

we have to him

1:24:20

here's what i think the ideal is i think it's important

1:24:22

for us to kind of reflect on okay will let's

1:24:25

all be practical problems sure there's no guarantee

1:24:27

right bit there's there's no guarantee

1:24:30

i think it's the only guarantee is that it's

1:24:32

an experiment that could be better than

1:24:34

the status quo and likely would be better

1:24:36

manage the question is what what system do

1:24:38

we want what is that envision and the envision

1:24:41

that i have one i'm working towards the

1:24:44

system of greater pluralism

1:24:47

a system of greater independence

1:24:49

and a system of greater self governance

1:24:51

and so another good example is in arizona

1:24:54

they recently passed legislation the great gov

1:24:56

down there wc saying

1:24:58

if you want to opt out of the public school system

1:25:00

if is violating your conscience if it's not

1:25:03

if it's not a serving your needs of

1:25:05

it's not ideal for your kids will give

1:25:07

you as a family man as a family seven

1:25:09

thousand dollars family year per child

1:25:11

to take to any educational nation

1:25:14

agree with right charter school private

1:25:16

school religious school home school so

1:25:19

these different model say hey we're gonna

1:25:21

have hillsdale charter schools were gonna have a

1:25:23

educational funding follow the family giving them

1:25:25

greater choice something create in the same

1:25:28

and and same way about capitals economic

1:25:30

system a more competitive educational

1:25:32

environments where people can go to

1:25:34

an institution that reflects their values that serves

1:25:37

their needs where they can have self governance

1:25:39

or local governance

1:25:40

then you can have you know is hey look i'm

1:25:43

personally if you want to have critical race theory

1:25:45

as as your tater tot pedagogy you

1:25:47

love it all power to you

1:25:49

you should have a school that serves your needs

1:25:51

that reflects your values i'll respect

1:25:53

that we want to have a system

1:25:55

of greater pluralism so communities can really

1:25:58

come together around a set of shared values

1:26:00

they can take responsibility for those institutions

1:26:02

or and so we want to have this patchwork

1:26:05

republic this system

1:26:07

where up people can find

1:26:09

something that really speaks to them and

1:26:11

then you have a greater overall system at

1:26:13

the general level of competition so

1:26:15

they can say hey wait a minute the sea or t schools

1:26:18

are crashing and burning their a total disaster

1:26:20

they're run by pathological people

1:26:23

are and their outcomes are poor

1:26:25

then we have other options that are actually performing

1:26:27

better right now there's no competition

1:26:30

there's no alternatives you are stuck

1:26:33

in a residential assigned public school

1:26:35

that is a zero sum game for the competition

1:26:38

of values and competition of ideologies their

1:26:40

said at the state level case let me

1:26:42

ask you about that to have have

1:26:44

you talked to any political types

1:26:46

of the governorship level let's say about

1:26:49

the fact that the faculties of education have

1:26:51

a stronghold on certifying teachers

1:26:53

to that's part of the problem because those institutions

1:26:56

are one hundred percent captured i think

1:26:58

i could say safely that there

1:27:00

are no more corrupt institutions

1:27:02

in western society in general

1:27:05

than faculties of education

1:27:07

so why is this the case that

1:27:09

states everywhere

1:27:11

the only require a teaching

1:27:14

certificate let's say teaching certification

1:27:16

from faculties of education why not open

1:27:18

up that up to holders a bachelor's degree

1:27:20

more generally and will