Nationalism Debate: Yaron Brook and Yoram Hazony | Lex Fridman Podcast #256

the following is a conversation with. yaran brook and yoram hazoni this is. iran's third time on this podcast in. yoram's first time. euron brook is an objectivist. philosopher chairman of the iran. institute host of the euron brook show. and the co-author of free market. revolution and equal is unfair. yo ramazoni is a national conservatism. thinker chairman of the edmund burke. foundation that hosted the national.

conservatism conference he's also the. host of the nat khan talk. and author of the virtue of nationalism. and an upcoming book called conservatism. a. rediscovery allow me to say a few words. about each part of the uh two word title. of this episode nationalism debate. first debate. i would like to have a few conversations. this year that are a kind of debate with. two or three people that hold differing.

views on a particular topic but come to. the table with respect for each other. and a desire to learn and discover. something interesting together through. the empathetic exploration of the. tension between their ideas. this is not strictly a debate it is. simply a conversation. there's no structure. there's no winners. except of course just a bit of trash. talking to keep it fun. some of these topics will be very. difficult and i hope you can keep an. open mind and have patience with me.

as kind of moderator who tries to bring. out the best in each person and the. ideas discussed. okay that's my comment on the word. debate now on to the word nationalism. this debate could have been called. nationalism versus individualism. or national conservatism versus. individualism or just conservatism. versus. individualism as we discuss in this. episode these words have slightly. different meanings depending on who you. ask this is especially true i think for.

any word that ends in ism. i personally enjoy the discussion of the. meaning of such philosophical words i. don't think it's possible to arrive at a. perfect definition that everybody agrees. with. but the process of trying to do so for a. bit is interesting and productive at. least to me. as long as we don't get stuck there some. folks sometimes do in these. conversations. this is the lex friedman podcast to. support it please check out our sponsors.

in the description and now here's my. conversation with yaran brooke and joram. i attended the excellent debate between. the two of you yesterday ut austin the. debate was between ideas of conservatism. represented by yoramazoni. and ideas of individualism represented. by yaran brook. let's start with the topics of the. debate you're on how do you define. conservatism maybe in the way you were. thinking about it yesterday. what to you are. some principles of conservatism.

let me define it and then we can we can. get into principles if if you want when. i when i talk about political. conservatism i'm talking about uh a. political standpoint that. regards the recovery elaboration and. restoration of. tradition. as the key to maintaining a nation and. strengthening it through time. okay so this is something. that if you have time to talk about it. like we do on the show it's worth. emphasizing that conservatism uh is is.

not like liberalism or marxism. liberalism and marxism are both. uh kind of universal theories and they. claim to be able to tell you. what's good for human beings at all. times in all places. and conservatism is a little bit. different because it's going to carry. different values. uh in every nation and every tribe you. know even every family you can say has. somewhat different values and the the. these loyalty groups they compete with.

one another. that's the way human beings work so it's. deeply rooted in history of that. particular area of land well i wouldn't. necessarily say land you're right that. many forms of conservatism are tied to a. particular place so how does the. implementation of conservatism to you. differ. from the ideal of conservatism the. implementations you've seen of political. conservatism in the united states and. the rest of the world just to give some. context. because uh it's a loaded term like most.

political terms. so when people think about conservative. in the united states they think about. the republican party. what can you kind of disambiguate some. of this what are we supposed to think. yeah that's a really important question. um usually the word conservative is. associated with. uh edmund burke and with the. uh with the the english common law. tradition. uh going back you know centuries and. centuries there's kind of a classical. english conservative tradition.

that goes. uh fortescue hooker. uh coke selden. hale burke uh blackstone before burke um. if you take that kind of as a as a as a. benchmark and you compare it then you. can compare it to things like. uh the american federalist party at the. time of the the american founding is in. many respects very much. very much in keeping with that tradition. um. as you go forward.

there's uh in. increasing mix of liberalism into. conservatism and i think i i think by. the time you get to the 1960s with uh. william buckley and frank meyer you know. the the jargon term is fusionism by the. time you get there. um. it's it's arguable that their. conservatism isn't very conservative. anymore that it's kind of a uh. a public liberalism mixed with a private. conservatism. so a lot of the debate that we have.

today about you know what does the word. conservatism actually mean a lot of the. confusion comes from that comes from the. fact that. um that on on the one hand we have. people use use the term. i think properly historically to refer. to this this common law tradition of. which burke was a spokesman. but but there are lots of other people. who when they say conservatives they. just mean liberal. uh and um. i think that that's a big problem i mean. it's a it's a problem just to have an.

intelligent debate as difficult when uh. when people are using the the the word. almost in too antithetical what would. you say the essential idea of. conservatism is time you mentioned your. father's a physicist so a lot of. physicists when they form models of the. universe. they don't consider time so everything. is. dealt with instantaneously a particle is. represented fully by its current state. velocity and position. you're saying.

so you're arguing. um with with all of physics and and your. father as we always do uh that their. time matters. uh in conservatives that's the. fundamental element is the full history. matters and you cannot separate the. individual from the history from the. roots that they come from the parallel. in political theory. is. is what's called rationalism. i guess we'll probably talk about that. some. rationalism is kind of an instantaneous.

timeless thing before i mentioned that. liberalism and various enlightenment. theories. they don't include time at all their. goal is to. say look there's such a thing as. universal human reason. all human beings if they're reason. properly will come to the same. conclusions. if that's true then it removes. the time consideration it removes. tradition and context because. everywhere where you are at any time you. ought to be able to use reason. and come to the same conclusions about.

politics or morals so that's a that's a. theory like uh. immanuel kant or. john locke as an example hobbes is an. example. that kind of political theorizing. really does say. at a given instant we can. know pretty much everything that we need. to know at least the big things. uh and conservatism is the opposite it's. a it's a it's a traditionalist view. exactly as you say that uh that says.

that history is crucial. so. iran. you say that uh history is interesting. but perhaps not crucial if in in the. context of individualism no i mean i. think i think there's a false dichotomy. he presented here and and that is that. one view holds that. uh you can derive any anything from a. particular historical path and a kind of. an empirical view. and if we know the history we know where. we should be tomorrow we know what what. where we should stand today and the the.

other path is we ignore history we. ignore facts we know what's going on we. can derive from some. a priori axioms we can derive a truth. right now and both are false both of. those views in my view are false. and uh you know i'm rand and i i reject. uh uh both of those views and i think. the better thinkers of the enlightenment. did as well although they sometimes fall. into the trap of appearing like. rationalists and yom and i uh agree on. one thing and that is that kant is is is.

one of uh. you know we've we've we've talked about. this in the past alex but we both hate. cons we both think kant is. is i at least think kant is probably the. the most destructive philosopher. uh since plato. uh who is pretty destructive himself but. um. and part of the problem is that kant. divorces reason from reality that is he. divorces reason from history he divorces. reason from experience because we don't. have direct experience of reality. according to cartwright we we're we're.

removed from that direct experience but. i i view kant as the anti-enlightenment. that is i view khan's as the destroyer. of good enlightenment thinking and and. joram and. acknowledge a lot of um history of. philosophy people who do history of. philosophy if you can't as the. embodiment of the enlightenment that is. the the ultimate but but i i think. that's a mistake i think both russo. and kant uh fundamentally the goal the. mission in life is to destroy the. indictment.

so my view is neither of those options. are the right option that is uh the true. reason based reason is not divorce from. reality it's quite the opposite reason. is a tool it's a faculty of identifying. and integrating. what it's identifying integrating the. facts of reality as. as as as we know them through. sense perception or through the study of. history through what actually happened. so it's the integration of those facts. it's the knowledge of that history and.

then what we do is we abstract away. principles based on what's worked in the. past what hasn't worked in the past the. consequences of different ideas. different paths different actions we. abstract away principles that then can. be universal. not always we make mistakes right we can. come up with a universal principle it. sends out that it's not. but if we have the whole scope of human. history we can derive principles as we. do. in life as individuals we derive. principles that are then. truths that we can live by but you don't.

do that by ignoring history you do that. by learning history by understanding. history by understanding in a sense. tradition and where it leads to and then. trying to do better and i think good. thinkers are constantly trying to do. better based on what they know about the. past and what they know about the. president what's the difference between. studying history. on a journey of reason. and tradition. so you mentioned that burke understood. that reason begins with inherited. tradition yesterday so what's the. difference between studying history but.

then being free to go any way you want. and. tradition where it feels more. um not i don't want to say a negative. term like burden but it's uh. there's more of a momentum that forces. you to go the same way as your ancestors. it's the recognition that people are. wrong. often are wrong and parents. including your parents including your. your teachers including everybody. everybody is potentially wrong.

and that that you can't accept anybody. just because they happen to come before. you uh that is you have to evaluate and. judge and you have to have a standard by. which they're valued and judged the. actions of those who came before you. whether they are. your parents whether they are the state. in which you happen to be born whether. they are. somebody on the other side of planet. earth. you can judge them if you have a. standard now my standard and i think the. right standard is human well-being that. is. that which is good for human beings. human beings uh you know is is the.

standard by which we judge i can say. that certain periods of history were bad. they happened it's important to study. them it's important to understand what. they did that made them bad so we cannot. do that again and i can say certain. cultures certain periods in time were. good why because they promoted. human well-being and human flourishing. that's the standard then derive from. that okay what is it that made a. particular culture. good what is it that made that. particular culture. positive in terms of human well-being. and human flourishing what made this bad.

and hopefully from that i can derive a. principle okay if i want human. flourishing and human well-being in the. future i want to be more like these guys. unless those guys i want to derive what. is the principle that will guide me in. the future that's i think how human. knowledge ultimately develops i think. people often make a mistake just. i'm not saying you're wrong but lots of. people you know don't actually read the. original sources and so what happens is. uh people will attack conservatives. assuming that conservatives think that.

whatever comes from the past is right. and actually it's it it's very difficult. to find a thinker who actually says. something like that the the selden or. burke the big the the big conservative. theorists uh hooker they're they're all. people who. understand that the tradition. uh carries with it mistakes that were. made in the past. and uh and this is actually i think an. important part of of their empiricism. is that they see the search for truth as. something a society does by trial and.

error and what that means is that in any. given moment. you have to be aware of the possibility. that things that you've inherited are. actually false and the job of the. political thinker or the jurist or the. the the philosopher. is not to dig in and say you know. whatever it is that we've inherited is. right. the the job is to look at uh the society. as a whole and say look we we have this. job of. first of all first of all conservation. just making sure that we don't lose good. things that we've had and and second.

seeing if we can repair things in order. to. to improve them where it's necessary or. where it's possible. and that process is actually a creative. process this is a way in which i think. it is similar to euron's philosophy that. you take the inherited. uh tradition. and you look for way that you can shape. it in order to make it something uh. better than it was. that's that's a that's a baseline for. for what we call conservatism yes the. comments of the trial and error.

the errors is uh you're proud of the. errors. it's a feature not a bug so the you. mentioned trial and error a few times. yesterday it's a really interesting kind. of idea. it's basically accepting that the. journey is going to have flaws as. opposed to saying. i mean the uh. the conclusion there is the current. system is flawed and it will always be. flawed. and you try to improve it when you. listen to iran talk there's much more of.

optimism for the system being. perfect. now or potentially soon or could be. perfect and to me the way i heard it is. almost like. accepting that the system is flawed and. through trial and error will improve. and. uh euron says. no. we can have. a perfection now. that's why it sounds to me yeah yeah and. i think that's right i think the. difference is that.

at some points just like in science i. think. one can stop the trial and error and say. i can now see a pattern here i i can see. you know that that certain actions lead. to bad consequences certain actions lead. to good consequences let me try to let. me try to abstract away what is it that. is good and what is it that are bad. and build a system around what is good. and and reject what is bad i i think. ultimately if you if you read the. founding fathers and whether we call.

them conservatives individuals. what the founding fathers actually did. all of them i think is study history. they all did they all talk about history. they'll talk about examples of other. cultures whether it's. uh whether they go back to uh uh to the. republic in venice or back to the. ancient greeks so. they they studied these they they. learned lessons from them they they try. to figure out what has worked in the. past and what hasn't and tried to drive. principles now in my view. they got pretty close to what i would. consider. kind of an ideal.

but they didn't get it completely right. and and here we sit 200 something years. after uh the declaration and after the. constitution i think we can look back. and say okay well what did they get. right what did they get wrong based on. how is it done and and where the flaws. and where the and we can improve on it. um i think we can get closer to. perfection um and uh and and based on. those kind of observations based on that. kind of abstraction that kind of. discovery of what is true just like.

at some point you do the experiments you. do the trial and error and now you come. up with a scientific principle it it is. true that 100 years later you might. discover that hey i missed something. there's something uh. but to not. take the full lesson. to insist on incrementalism to insist on. we're just going to tinker with the. system instead of saying no there's. something really wrong. with having a king there's something. really wrong with. uh not having any representation or.

whatever the the standard it needs to be. i in the name of we don't want to move. too fast i think is a mistake and the. problem with trial and error in. politics. is that. we're talking about human life right so. so there was a big. trial. around communism. and you know 100 million people paid the. price for the trial. i could have told them in advance as did. many people that it would not work there. are principles of human nature. principles of that we can study from. history principles about economics and.

and other aspects well we know it's not. going to work you don't need to try it. again you know we've had communal. arrangements throughout history there. was an experiment with fascism and and. they've been experiments with all kinds. of political systems okay we we've done. them sad that we did them because many. of us knew they wouldn't work. we should learn the lesson and i think. that all of history now converges on one. lesson and that is what we need to do is. build systems that protect individual.

freedom that is the core that's what. ultimately leads to human flourishing. and human success and and and human. achievement and to the extent that we. place anything above that individual. whether it's the state whether it's the. ethnicity whether it's the race whether. it's the bourgeois where it's whatever. it happens to be the class or whatever. whenever we place something above the. individual a consequence of negative. that's one of these principles that i. think we can derive from studying. two you know 3 000 years of civilization. uh and and.

it's tragic i think because we're going. to keep experimenting sadly i i see it. right i'm not winning this battle uh i'm. losing the battle we're going to keep. experimenting with different forms of. collectivism we're going to keep paying. the price in human life. and in. missed opportunities for human. flourishing and human success and human. wealth and prosperity well look if we. let's take communism as a good example. none of the the major conservative. thinkers would say you know what's a. good idea a good idea would be to. experiment by.

raising everything that we've inherited. and starting from scratch i mean that's. the conservative complaint or accusation. against uh uh rationalists i mean as. opposed to empiricism using rationalism. let's take you know let's take descartes. kind of as a as a benchmark you'll also. maybe define rationalism. yeah these are two terms that are in. philosophy especially in epistemology. they're often. uh compared to one another your own said. that it's an uh that it's a false.

dichotomy and and maybe it is a bit. exaggerated but that doesn't mean it's. not useful for for conceptualizing the. the domain so. rationalist is somebody like descartes. who says. um. i'm going to set aside i'm going to try. to set aside everything i know. everything i've inherited i'm going to. start from scratch and he explicitly. says you know. in evaluating the the inheritance of the. past he explicitly says. you take a look at the histories that we. have they're not reliable you take a.

look at the moral and the scientific. writings that we receive they're not. very good his baseline is to look. very critically at the past and say. look i'm evaluating it i i think all in. all it's just not worth very much. and so whatever i do. going. beginning from scratch is going to be. better as long as and he here's his. caveat this is as long as i'm proceeding. from. uh from self-evident. uh assumptions from self-evident. premises things that you can't argue.

against i think therefore i am right and. then from there deducing what what he. calls infallible conclusions so that. model of self-evident premises to. infallible conclusions. i'm i'm calling that rationalism i think. that's kind of a kind of a standard you. know academic uh uh jargon term and it's. opposed to uh empiricism which is a a. thinker i i think in universities. usually the you know the empiricist is. uh is david yum and uh david young uh.

will say. we can't learn anything the way that. descartes said i mean there is nothing. that's that self-evident and that. infallible so so. yum proposes. based on uh newton and and boyle and you. know the the the uh the the new physical. sciences so um proposes uh a science of. man and the science of man sounds an. awful lot like what euron just said. which is we're going to take a look at. human nature at the nature of societies.

human nature we're going to try to. abstract towards. fixed principles for describing it human. societies we're going to try to do the. same thing and from there we get you. know for ex for example contemporary. economics. but we also get you know sociology and. anthropology which which cut in in a. different different direction so. um. that's rationalism versus empiricism can. i just say go ahead please yeah it just. i agree with that i think i think it's a. i think empiricism. the one thing i disagree is that i think.

empiricism. rarely comes to these abstractions i. mean they they want more facts it's. always about. collecting more evidence in in the abs. but. this is where. you know i think i need so unusual and. where i i think. there's something new here right and and. that's a bold statement given the. history of philosophy but i think ayn. rand is. is something new and and and she so she. says yes. we agree about rationalism and it's. inherently wrong. empiricism has the problem of of okay.

where does it lead it's it's. you never come to a conclusion you're. just accumulating evidence there's. something in addition there's a third. alternative which she is positing. which is. using empirical evidence not denying. empirical evidence. recognizing that are some axioms there's. some actions that we all uh at the base. of all of our knowledge that that are. starting points we're not rejecting. extrematic knowledge. and integrating those two and. identifying the fact that based on these.

axioms and based on these empirical. evidence we can come to truths. just again like we do in science we have. certain axioms scientific axioms we have. certain experiments that we want and. then we can come to some identification. of a truth and that truth is always. going to be challenged by new. information by new knowledge but as long. as that's what we know that is the that. that is what true so truth is contextual. in the sense that it's contextual it's. based on. that knowledge uh that surrounds you so. for it to change if you get new facts.

it's always it's always available to. change if the facts that you get and and. there really are i mean the the burden. of. of of changing what you've come to a. conclusion of truth is high so you'd. have to have real evidence that it's not. true but that happens all the time so it. happens at science right we discovered. that what we thought was true is not. true and and it can happen in politics. and ethics even more so than in science. because they're much. messier uh fields. but uh the idea is that you can come to. a truth but it's not just deductive uh.

most truths are inductive. we learn from from obs observing reality. and and again coming to principles about. what works and what's not and here i. think this is. ein rand is different she she doesn't. fall into the and she's different in her. politics and she's different in her. epistemology she doesn't fall into the. conventional. view she's she's an opponent of hume and. she's an opponent of the cuts. she's certainly an opponent of kant's um. and uh and you know i i think she's.

right right so if it's okay. can we walk back to uh criticism of. communism. you're both critics of communism. socialism. why did communism fail you started to. say. that. conservatives criticize it on the. basis of like rationalism that you're. throwing away the past you're starting. from scratch. is that the fundamental description of. why communism failed i think the. fundamental difference between.

rationalists and empiricists is the. question of whether you're throwing away. the past. that's the argument and it cashes out as. a distinction between. abstract universal rationalist political. theories. and uh. empirical political theories empirical. political theories are are they're. always going to say something like. um. look uh. there are many different societies. we can say that some are better and some.

are worse but the problem is that. you know that that there are many. different ways in which a society can be. better or worse. there's an ongoing competition and we're. learning on an ongoing basis what are. the ways in which societies can be. better and worse. that creates a kind of i'd say a mild. skepticism a moderate skepticism among. conservatives i don't think too many. conservatives have a problem looking at. the. at the soviet union which is brutal and.

murderous ineffective and it's a it. economics totally ineffective you know. spiritually and then collapsed okay so. so so i think it's easier for us to look. at a system like that uh and say you. know what on earth what what should we. learn from that. but the main conservative tradition is. pretty tolerant of a diversity of. different kinds of society and is slow. to insist that france is so tyrannical. it just needs a revolution because.

what's going to come after the. revolution is going to be much better. the assumption is that there's lots of. things that are. good about most societies and that a a. clean slate leads you to. to throw out all of the inherited things. that you don't even know how to notice. until they're gone could i actually play. devil's advocate here and address. something you've also said. can we as opposed to knowing the. empirical data of the 20th century that. communism presented can we go back to.

the beginning of the 20th century. can you. empathize or steal man or put yourself. in a place. of the soviet union where the workers. are being disrespected. and. can you not see that the conservatives. could be pro-communism. or like communism is such a strongly. negative word in modern day political. discourse that you can't like you have. to put yourself. in the mind of. uh people who like red colors.

who like. what it was it was. it's all about the branding i think. um just but also like the ideas of. solidarity. of nation of togetherness. of uh respect for fellow man i mean all. of these things that kind of communist. represents can you not see. that this idea. uh is actually uh. going along with conservatism it is in. some ways respecting the the deep ideals.

of the past. but proposing a new way. to raise those ideals. implement those ideas in the system yes. i'm going to try to do it what you're. suggesting but historically we actually. have a more useful option i think for. both of our positions instead of you. know pretending that we like the actual. communists. we have conservative statesmen like. disraeli and bismarck who initiated. um. social legislation right the the the.

uh the the first step to towards saying. uh look we're one nation we're. undergoing industrialization. that industrialization is. important and positive but it's also. doing. a lot of damage to a lot of people and. in particular it's doing damage not just. to individuals and families but it's. it's doing damage to the to the social. fabric the capacity of britain or german. to remain cohesive societies is being. harmed. and so it's these two conservative.

statesmen israeli and bismarck who who. actually take the first steps. in order to legislate for you know for. what today we would consider to be. minimal social programs uh pensions and. disability insurance and those kinds of. things so for sure conservatives. do look at industrialization as a rapid. change and they say. we we do have to care about the nation. as a whole and we have to care about it. as a unity and and i assume that iran. will say. look that's the first step towards the.

the catastrophe of communism but. before your own drives that nail into. the. let me try to make a distinction because. when you read marx. you're reading an intellectual. descendant of descartes. you're reading somebody who says. um. look. every society has. uh consists of oppressors and oppressed. right and and and that's an improvement. in some ways over liberal thinking. because at least he's seeing he's seeing.

groups as a as a a real social. phenomenon but he says every society has. a oppressor class and oppressed class. there are different classes they're. different groups and whenever one is. stronger it exploits the ones that are. weaker. all right. that is the the foundation of a. revolutionary. political theory why because the moment. that you say that the only relationship. between. the stronger and the weaker is. exploitation. the moment that you say that then you're.

pushed into the position and marx and. angle say this explicitly you're pushed. into the position we're saying when will. the exploitation end never until there's. a revolution what happens when there's a. revolution you eliminate the oppressor. class it's annihilationist i mean you. you can. immediately when you read it see why. it's different from from uh descartes or. bismarck because they're trying to keep. everybody you know somehow at peace with. one another and marx is saying there is. no peace that oppressor class has to be. annihilated and and then they go ahead.

and do it and they and they and they. kill 100 million people so i i do think. that. despite the fact your question is is. good and right there are certain. similarities in concern but still i. think you can tell the difference. between that extra step of revolution to. you is where the problem comes like that. extra step of let's kill all the. oppressors. that's the problem right and then to you. you're on the whole step one is the. problem well it's all a problem b first. i don't view communism as um.

something that radical in a sense that i. i think it it comes from a tradition of. collectivism i think it comes from a. tradition of looking at groups and and. measuring things in terms of groups it. comes from tradition where you expect. some people to be sacrificed for the. greater good of the of the whole. uh i i think it comes from a tradition. where. mysticism a revelation as as the source. of of truth. is accepted i view marx as.

in some sense very christian i i i don't. think he's this radical rejecting i i. think he's just reformatting. christianity in a sense he's replacing. in a sense he's replacing god with the. proletarian. knowledge you know you have to you have. to get knowledge from somewhere so you. need the dictatorship of the palestinian. you need somebody the stalin the lenin. who who somehow communes with the spirit. the the spirit of the proletarian. there's no rationality not rationalism. there's no rationality in marx. there is a lot of mysticism and there is.

a lot of. hand waving and there's a lot of. sacrifice and a lot of original sin in. the way he views humanity. side view marx as. as one more collectivists in in a whole. string of collectivists uh you know and. and i think i think the. the the bismarck in response which. bismarck i mean. i know less about israeli so i'll focus. on bismarck and bismarck is really. responding to political pressures from. the left and and and uh he's responding. to.

the rise of of communism socialism. but what bismarck is doing he's uh. putting something alternative he's. presenting an alternative. to the proletarian as the standard by. which we should uh we should measure the. good. and this and and what he's replacing it. is the state he's replacing the. proletarian with the state and that has. exactly the same problems that is first. it requires sacrificing some to others. which which is what the welfare state. basically legitimizes. um it it places the state above all so.

the state now becomes i think the. biggest evil of bismarck and i i. definitely view him as a negative force. in history is uh public education i mean. i mean the germans really. dig in on public education and really. develop it and really the american model. of public education is is. copying. the the german the prussian uh. bismarcking public education. real quick why. the public education is such a root of. moral evil for you well because it now. says that there's one uh standard and.

that standard is determined by. government by by a bureaucracy by by uh. whatever the government deems as in the. national interest and bismarck's very. explicit about this he's training the. workers of the future uh you know they. they need to catch up and and you know. with england and other places and they. need to train the workers and there's. going to be a. he's going to train some people to be. the managerial class he's going to train. other people to be and he decides right. the the government the bureaucracy is. going to decide who's who and where they. go there's no individual choice there's. no individual uh is showing an ability.

to break out of what what the government. has decided is their little box uh. there's very little freedom there's very. little. you know ultimately there's very little. competition there's very little. innovation and this is the problem we. have today in american education which. we can get to is there's no competition. and no innovation we have one. standard fit all and then we have. conflicts about what should be taught. and the conflicts now not pedagogical. they're not about what works and what. doesn't. nobody cares about that it's about.

political agendas right it's about what. my group wants to be taught and what. that group wants to be taught rather. than actually discovering how do we get. kids to read i mean we all know how to. get kids to read but there's a political. agenda about not teaching phonics for. example so. a lot of schools don't teach phonics. even though the kids will never learn. how to read properly so it becomes. politics and i i don't believe politics. belongs in education i think education. is a product it's a service. and we know how to deliver products and. services really really efficiently at a. really really low price.

at a really really high quality and. that's leaving it to the market to do. but your fundamental criticism is that. the state can use education. to uh further authoritarian aims well or. whatever the aims i mean think about the. conservative today critique of american. educational system it's dominated by the. left yeah what did you expect right if. you leave it if you leave it up to the. state to fund they're going to fund the. things that promote. state growth and state intervention and.

the left is better at that it has been. better at that than the right and and. they now dominate our educational. institutions but look if we go back to. bismarck my problem is placing the state. above the individual so if if communism. places the the class above the. individual what matters is class. individuals are nothing they're cogs in. a machine. bismarck the certainly the german. tradition much more than the british. tradition or the american tradition the. german tradition is to place the state. above the individual i think that's. equally evil and and the outcome is. fascism and the outcome is the same the.

outcome is the deaths of tens of. millions of people. when taken to to its ultimate conclusion. just like socialism the ultimate. conclusion of it is. uh communism uh uh you know nationalism. in that form kind of the smoking form. the ultimate conclusion is uh is uh. nazism or some form of fascism um. because. you don't care about the individual. individual doesn't matter i think this. is one of the differences. in the anglo you know anglo-american. tradition where the anglo-american.

tradition even the conservatives. have always acknowledged and it goes. back to you. especially the conservatives yes the. conservatives were there first they they. acknowledged well you've you've defined. conservatives to include all the good. thinkers of the distant past and they're. all good thinkers we agree on that i'm. defining conservatism. the way that burke does i'm just. look this is a very simple observation. burke thinks when you open burke and you. actually read him he starts naming all. of these people who he's defending and.

it's bizarre i'm sorry it's just in. intellectual sloppiness for people to be. publishing books called burke the first. conservative the founding conservatives. the founder i mean this is non-stop it's. it's a it's a view that says burke. reacts to the french revolution so. conservatism has no prior tradition it's. just reacting to the french revolution. and this is i mean this is this is just. uh absurd. questions yeah on conservatism are there. any conservatives that are embracing of. revolutions so are they ultimately. against. the concept of revolution yes burke.

himself embraces the polish revolution. uh which takes place almost exactly at. the same time as the french revolution. and the argument's really interesting. because there's a common mistake is. assuming that burke and conservative. thinkers are always in favor of slow. change i i think that's that's also just. factually mistaken um. burke is against the french revolution. because he thinks that there are. actually. tried and true. uh things that work things that work for.

human human flourishing and freedom. included as as a very important part of. human flourishing. um. he like many others takes the uh takes. the uh the british the english. constitution to be a a a model of. something that works you know so it has. a king it has various other things that. that you know maybe euron will say well. that that's a mistake but still. for centuries it's the leader in many. things that i think we can easily agree. are human flourishing and. burke says.

look what's wrong with the french. revolution what's wrong with the french. revolution is that they is that they. have a system that has all sorts of. problems but they could they could be. repairing it. and instead what they're doing by over. by by overthrowing everything is they're. moving away from what we know is good. for for human beings then he looks at. the polish revolution and he says the. polls do the opposite the polls have a. non-functioning traditional constitution. it's it's too democratic it it's. impossible to get uh to to raise armies.

and and and to defend the country. because because of the fact that every. nobleman has a veto. so the the polish revolution moves in. the direction of the british. constitution they repair their. constitution. through a quick a rapid revolution they. install a king along the model that. looks a lot like britain and burke. supports he says. this is a good revolution so it's it. it's not. um the. the need to quickly make a change in. order to save yourself that that's not.

what conservatives are objecting to what. they're objecting to is. instead of looking at experience in. order to try to make a. slow or quick improvement a measured. improvement to achieve a particular goal. instead of doing that you say look the. whole thing has just been wrong and what. we've really got to do is annihilate a. certain part of the population and then. make completely new laws in a completely. new theory that that's what he's. objecting to that's the french. revolution and that then becomes you. know the model for for communist.

revolutions and for me the i mean the. french revolution is clearly. a real evil and wrong but it's not that. it was a revolution and it's not that it. tried to change everything i mean let's. remember what was going on in france at. the time and people were starving and. the monarchy in particular was. completely detached completely detached. from the suffering of the people and. something needed to change. the the the unfortunate thing is that. that. the change was motivated by a a an. egalitarian philosophy not egalitarian.

in a sense that i think the founding. fathers talked about it but in galilee. in a sense of real equality quality of. outcome uh motivated by a philosophy by. rousseau's philosophy and it inevitably. led you could tell that the ideas were. going to lead to this to massive. destruction and death and an. annihilation of a class. you can't annihilation is never an. option that is it. it's not true that a good revolution. never leads to mass death uh of just. whole groups of people because a good. revolution is about the sanctity of the.

individual it's about preservation. liberty of the individual and and again. that that goes back to and and defense. revolution denies and russo denies. really that in civilization there is a. value and a thing called the individual. i think this is a good place. to have this discussion. the founding fathers of the united. states. are they. um. individualists or are they conservatives. so in this particular revolution that. founded this country at the core of.

which are some. fascinating some powerful ideas. were those founding fathers were those. ideas coming from a place of. conservatism or did they put. primary value into the freedom and the. power of the individual what do you. think. there were both. i mean this is i this is something. that's a little bit difficult for. sometimes for for for americans i mean. even very educated americans they l they. they talk about the founding fathers as. though it's kind of like this this yeah.

this this collective you know uh entity. with with a single brain and a single. single value system but i i think at the. time that's not the way they uh. not the way any of them saw it so. roughly there's two camps and they map. on to the rationalist versus. traditionalist empiricist dichotomy that. i proposed earlier and the um so on the. one hand you have. real revolutionaries like uh jefferson. and payne these are the people who burke. was writing against these are the people.

who supported the french revolution so. when you say real so when you say pain. you're referring to revolutionaries in a. bad way like this is a problem these are. people who will say. history up until now has has has been. you know like with with descartes but. applied to politics history up until now. has been. you know just a story of. ugliness foolishness stupidity and evil. and uh if you apply reason. we'll all come to.

roughly we'll all come to the same. conclusions you know and pain writes a. book called the age of reason and the. age of reason is a a manifesto for. here is the answer to political and. moral problems throughout history we. have the answers and it's in the same. school as russo's uh the social con no. you you don't like that not at all oh i. thought it was like i think they're the. opposites okay so let me just throw in a. question on uh jefferson and payne. do you think. america would exist without those two.

figures. so like uh how how important is spice. in the uh in the flavor of the dish. you're making i don't want to try to run. the counter factual i don't you know i. don't have confidence that i know the. answer to the question but it's so much. fun you know what i'm going to offer. something that i think is more fun more. fun than the counterfactual is. america had two revolutions not one okay. at first there is a revolution that is. strongly spiced.

with. this kind this kind of rationalism. and then there's a ten year period after. the declaration of independence there's. a ten-year period under which america. has a constitution its first. constitution which today they call the. articles of the confederation but. there's a constitution from 1777. and that constitution is. based on in a lot of ways on the hottest. new ideas it has instead of the. traditional british system with a. division of powers between you know an.

executive and a bicameral camera. legislature instead instead of that. traditional english. uh model which most of the states had as. their governments instead of that they. say no we're going to have uh one. uh elected body. okay and that body that congress it's. going to be the executive it's going to. be the legislative it's going to be it's. going to be everything and it's going to. run as a big committee these these are. the ideas of the french revolution you. get to actually see them implemented in.

uh in pennsylvania in the pennsylvania. constitution and then and then later in. the national assembly in france it's a. disaster the thing doesn't work it's. completely made up it's not based on any. kind it's it's neither based on. historical experience nor is it based on. historical custom on what people are. used to and what what they succeed in. creating with this first constitution is. it's wonderfully rational but it's a. complete disaster it doesn't allow the. raising of taxes it doesn't allow the. mustering of troops it doesn't allow.

giving orders to to soldiers to fight a. war. and if it if that had continued if that. had continued to be the the the. the american constitution america never. would have been an independent country. they aren't willing to do that. counter-factual. what happens uh during those years. where uh where. uh washington and jay and knox and. hamilton and morris there's like this. group of conservatives they're mostly.

soldiers and lawyers other than. washington most of them are from you. know from northern cities and this group. is much more conservative. than uh than the uh than the tom paine. and and jefferson school you some some. historians some historians call them the. nationalist party. historically they give up the word. nationalism and they call themselves the. federalists but they're basically the. nationalist party what does that mean it. means on the one hand that their goal is.

to create an independent nation. independent from britain but on the. other hand. they believe that that they already have. uh national. legal traditions the common law the the. forms of government that have been uh. imported from from britain and of course. christianity which they consider to be. you know part of their inheritance. this this pharaoh federalist party. is the conservative party. these are people who are extremely close. in in ideas to burke and these are.

people who wrote the constitution of the. united states the second constitution. the second revolution in 1787. when washington leads the establishment. of a new constitution which you know. maybe technically legally it wasn't even. legal under the old constitution but it. was democratic and what it did is it. said we're going to take what we know. about. english government what we've learned by. pl applying english government in the. states we're going to create a national. government a unified national government.

that's going to muster power in its. hands enough power to be able to do. things like. fighting wars to defend a unified people. those are conservatives now it it's. reasonable to say. well look there was no king so how. conservative could they be but i think. that's a reasonable question. but don't forget that the american. colonies the the english colonies in. america by that point had been around. for 150 years they had written. constitutions they had already adapted. for an entire century adapted the.

english constitution to local conditions. where there's no aristocracy and there's. no king. you know i think you can see that as as. a positive thing on the other hand they. have slavery that's an innovation that. that's not english. so it's a little bit different from the. english constitution but those those men. are conservatives they make the the. minimum changes that they need for the. to the english constitution and and they. they largely replicate it which is why. the jeffersonians hated them so much. they call them apostates they say.

they've betrayed. equality and liberty and fraternity by. adopting an english-style constitution. so i would imagine you're on you would. put emphasis of the success of the key. ideas at the founding of this country. elsewhere. at the at the freedom of the individual. so the yes the tradition of the british. empire i mean the one thing i agree with. yom is is is the fact that yes the. founding fathers were not a monolith i. mean they argued they debated they. disagreed they they wrote against each. other i mean jefferson and adams for.

decades didn't even speak to each other. though they did make up uh and and had a. fascinating fascinating relationship you. and i are making up today. it's like the founding fathers. uh you know there's there's this massive. debate and and discussion. but i don't i don't agree with the. characterization of pain and jefferson i. don't think it's just to call them. rationalists because i don't think. they're rationalists people who've. looked at history at the problems in. history and and remember this is the. 18th century and they.

uh. were coming out of 100 years earlier. some of the bloodiest wars in all of. human history were happening in in in. europe uh. many of them over religion. um. you know they had seen what was going on. in in france and other countries where. people were with people who were. starving uh and where kings were. frolicking in in palaces in spite of. that. uh. they were very aware of the relative. freedom that the british tradition. uh had had given englishmen i think they.

knew that they understood that. and i think they were building on that. they were taking the observation of the. past. and trying to come up with a more. perfect system. and i think they did and in that sense. i'm a huge fan of jefferson you know. they're two things that i'm i think. unfortunate about jefferson one is that. uh. he continued to hold slaves which is. which is which is uh very unfortunate. and the second is his is early support. for the french revolution which i think. is a massive mistake.

uh and and i would be surprised uh if. you regretted it later in life given the. consequences but you know they were. trying to derive principles by which. they could establish a new state and yes. there was some uh there was pushed back. by by some and there was disagreements. and the in the constitution in the end. is is. to some extent a form of compromise it's. still one of the great documents of all. of human history political documents the. constitution uh although i think it's. inferior to the declaration i i'm i'm a. huge fan of the declaration and i think.

one of the mistakes the conservatives. makes one of the. mistakes the supreme court makes and. american judiciary makes is. assuming the two documents are separate. i think lincoln is absolutely right you. can't understand the constitution. without understanding the declaration. the declaration would set the context. and what sets everything up for the. constitution individual rights are the. key concept there. and and and one of the challenges was. that some of the compromises and. and compromise is not necessarily. between groups but compromises that even.

jefferson made and others made regarding. individual rights. set america on a path that uh we're. suffering from today uh and and uh i. mentioned three last night one was. slavery obviously there was a a horrific. compromise one that. american not just paid for with a civil. war six hundred thousand young men uh. died because of it but the suffering of. black slaves for all those years but. then the whole issue of racial tensions.

in this country uh. for. for a century and to this day really uh. is a consequence of that initial. compromise who knows what would what the. counterfactual is in america. if if there's a civil war right at the. founding right because there would have. been a war no matter what but if it. happened in the late 18th century early. 19th century rather than waiting until. to 1860s but then. second was um. jefferson's embrace of uh of public. education uh his founding of the. university of virginia which which i.

think is is a great tragedy. and um which nobody agrees with me on so. so that's one of the areas where i'm. pretty radical and then they embrace. both by jefferson and by hamilton. uh for different reasons but embraced by. both of them of government role in the. economy and you know i'm i do finance so. i know a little bit about finance and. the debate between jefferson and. hamilton about banking is is is. fascinating but at the end of the day. both wanted a role for government in. banking they both didn't trust.

uh jefferson didn't trust a big. financial interest hamilton wanted to. capture some of those financial issues. for the state and as a consequence. we set america on a path where. you know in my view regulation always. leads to more regulation there's never. never a case where regulation decreases. and we started out with a certain. regulatory body around banks and a. recognition it was okay to regulate the. economy so once we get into the late. 19th century it's fine to regulate the. railroads it's fine to pass antitrust. laws it's fine to then continue on the.

path to where we are today which is. heavy heavy heavy massive involvement of. governing every aspect. of our economy and really in every. aspect of our life because of education. so. i i think the country was founded on. certain mistakes and we haven't been. willing to. question those mistakes and in a sense. that we've only moved in the opposite. direction. and now america has become. whereas i think it was founded in the. idea of the primacy of the individual. the sanctity of the individual at least.

as an idea even if not fully implemented. i think now that's completely lost i. don't think anybody. uh it really is an advocate out there. for individualism in politics or for. true freedom in politics we'll get to. individualism but let me ask the beatles. and the rolling stones question about. the declaration of independence in the. constitution what. well because it's like which document. beetles are all which document is more. important so it's obvious it's the. beatles right okay is it questions is. there even a question but let me then. even zoom in further and ask you to pick.

your favorite song. so. what ideas in the constitution or the. declaration of independence do you think. are. the most important to the success of the. united states of america i'll answer the. question but before answering the. question i want a dissent from. registered descent from your runs is it. the public education is it which uh no. no actually. we're we're not so look we're not so far. apart on. on on public education i'm actually kind. of i'm actually kind of surprised that. you're so anti-bismarck because his.

public school system was his national. public school system was created in. order to stick it to the church it was. the church that ran the schools before. then and okay so that's a different i'm. also sticking it to the church. but not when the alternative is the. nation right. this is no that's a free educational. system you know where freedom is in. education okay so so um i i want to. register a dissent about uh lincoln look. lincoln is an important figure and a. great man and he was presiding over a.

country which at that point was pretty. jeffersonian in terms of its uh. self-perception he said what he needed. to say i'm not going to criticize him. but i don't accept the idea. that the the declaration of independence. which starts one revolution. is uh is of a peace with the. constitution the second constitution the. constitution of 1787 the nationalist. constitution. which is effectively a. counter-revolution. what happens is there is a revolution.

it's based on certain principles there. are a lot it not exactly but in many. ways resemble the the the later. ideas of the french revolution and what. the federalist party does the national. nationalist conservative party does is a. counter-revolution to reinstate the old. english constitution so these documents. are. if you're willing to accept the evidence. of history they are in many respects. contrary to one another. and uh so if if i'm asked what's the.

most important values that are handed. down by these documents i don't have an. objection to. uh you know to uh life liberty and. property all of which are really. important things i do have an objection. to the the to the pom po the pompous. overreach of uh these are self-evident. which is absurd they can't be. self-evident if they were self-evident. then somebody would have come up with. them you know like like 2 000 years. before it's not it's not self-evident. and and so so that's damaging i i like.

the conservative preamble of the. constitution. which uh describes the purposes of the. of the national government that's being. established there there are are seven. purposes. uh a more perfect union which is the. prince of the principle of cohesion. justice. uh domestic peace. uh common defense the general welfare. which is is uh the welfare of the public. is a as a thing that's not only. individuals but there is such a thing as. a general welfare.

liberty which we agree is absolutely. crucial and posterity the idea that the. purpose of the government is to be able. to sustain and grow. of this independent nation and not only. to guarantee rights no matter what. happens but you don't like the we hold. these truth to be self-evident so you're. definitely beatles guy you don't want. the you don't want the pompous. you don't need that right. look i just i think that that expression. self-evident truths it does tremendous.

damage because it it it. instead of a moderate skepticism which. says. look we may not know everything it says. look we know everything here it is. here's what we know we know we don't. know everything no we. think. so so i you know i'll agree with you i. don't like self-evident i don't like. self-evident because he's absolutely. right it's not self-evident these are. massive achievements. these are massive achievements of of of. enlightened thinking of studying history.

of understanding human nature of. deriving a truth from. 3 000 years of star of historical. knowledge and a better understanding of. human nature and and and capacity is. using reason. in some ways better than any human. beings have in i mean founding fathers. giants historically in my view. because they came up with these truths i. do think they're truths but they're. certainly not self-evident i mean if. they were your arm is right they would. have discovered them thousands of years.

earlier or or everybody would accept. them right i mean how many people today. think that those what they state in that. document is true. pretty much. you know five people i don't know it's. it's it's very it's very you're a. criticism of modern society it's it's. right there it's very very few people. recognize that if they were self-evident. bam everybody would have become a a you. know would have accepted the american. revolution as as truth and and that was. it a lot of work has to go into. understanding and describing and.

convincing people about those truths but. but i i completely disagree with you all. i'm about. uh this idea or i'll i'll voice my. descent as as we said. history you're this official. about about a that this being two. different revolutions and and b that the. american revolution was had any. similarity to the french revolution. you know that jefferson and payne were. that they were in france. running a different race. they were waiting constantly i mean they. were in communication with madison there.

was a lot of input going on i know and. jefferson's sitting there in paris. pulling his hair out because madison. madison has come under the influence of. these nationalists and he can't believe. it. the reality is that the difference. between the french revolution and and. the and the american revolution is is is. vast and it is a deep philosophical. difference and it's a difference that. expressed i think uh. between the differences that you know. joram. in his writings lumps who sew with locke. and with voltaire and with others and. and i think.

i i think that's wrong i think russo is. very different than the others i think. again we're so as an anti-enlightenment. figure we're so is a is in many respects. hawkening back to a past an ancient past. and i think and i think a completely. distorted view of human nature of human. mind he rejects reason i mean rousseau. is on the premise that reason is the end. of humanity reason is the destruction of. humanity. reason is is how we get civilization and. civilization is awful because i i i.

don't disagree we're only talking about. different texts. when i say i'm just talking about the. social contract yeah but the social. contract there's similarity between. others but he takes it in a completely. different direction and we agree social. context is a bad idea but i i it can't. have a contract that you don't actually. voluntarily accept but so is the french. revolution rousseau is. about destruction and mayhem and chaos. and anarchy. he is the spirit behind the french. revolution i think the american. revolution is a complete rejection of.

rousseau uh i think jefferson is a. complete rejection of russo i don't. think jefferson is a fan of who so he is. a voltaire he certainly is a monastery. if you look at it and if you look at the. federalist papers the intellectual most. cited in the federalist papers i think. in terms of this the number of times the. site is montesquieu you know so i think. that the american revolution is an. individualistic revolution. it is a revolution about the rights of. the individual the french revolution is. a negation of the rights of the. individual it's a collectivistic. revolution it's it's not quite.

the marxist revolution of the. proletarian but it it's defining people. in classes. and it's a rebellion against a certain. class and and yeah. kill them all right off with their heads. and it is a negation uh it's about. egalitarianism in the sense of equality. of outcome not in a sense of equality. before the law or equality of rights. which is the jeffersonian sense so i. think it's it's it's wrong to to lump. jefferson in. to the uh fraternity uh you know.

egalitarian notion of of the french. which is far more similar to. to what ultimately became socialism and. and marxism. uh and and kind of that tradition it's. anti-individualistic. the french revolution is whereas the. american revolution the first one uh is. is individualistic it's all about. individual rights and and while there's. certain phrases in the declaration of. independence that i don't. agree with you know it's beautifully. written and it's a magnificent document. so it's hard for me to say i don't agree.

who am i right these were these were. giants uh self-evident is one of them. you know i'm not particularly uh. crazy about endowed by the creator um. but i like the fact that it it's creator. and not god or not a specific creator. but just it kind of a more general thing. but putting those two ashes aside it's. the greatest political document in all. of human history in my view by far. nothing comes close it it is it is a. document that that identifies the core. principles.

of. political tourism of truth that is the. role of government is to preserve and to. protect these rights these inalienable. rights and and that is so crucial that. these rights are inalienable that is a. majority can't vote them out uh you know. revelation can't vote them out th this. is this is what is required for human. liberty and human freedom the the right. that is the the sanction the freedom to. act on your own behalf to act based on. your own judgment as and as long as. you're not.

you know interfering with other people's. rights you are free to do so that is. such a profound truth. and that to me is the is the is is the. essence of political philosophy that's. the beginning you know and and it's it's. based on just just uh not to fall into. you i'm gonna say uh it's a rationalist. it's based on a whole history of what. happens when we negate that it's based. on. looking at england and seeing to the. extent that they practiced a respect for. individual liberty of property of of of.

freedom good things happened so let's. take that all the way let's not. compromise on that let's let's be. consistent with the good and reject the. bad and when england goes away distance. itself from the rights of man from the. idea of of a right to property and so on. bad things happen and when they go. through let's go all in and i'm i'm all. in on on the right to life liberty. property in the pursuit of happiness and. i think the idea pursuit of happiness is. profound because it's a moral statement. it's a statement that says that.

sanctions and and and says that. ultimately people should be allowed to. make their own judgments and and live. their lives as they see fit based on how. they. view happiness they might be right that. might be wrong but we're not going to. dictate what happiness entails and. dictate to people how they should live. their lives we're going to let them. let them figure that out so it has this. self-interested moral code kind of. embedded in it so i think it's a it's a.

beautiful statement so i think the. declaration is key and i i i think there. was an experiment and the experiment was. post. uh in that period of of uh before the. constitution where the experiment was. let's let the states let's have a kind. of a loose confederation uh let's just. the states experiment with with setting. up their own constitutions and role of. government and we won't have any kind of. unity and i think what they realized. and i think even jefferson realized is. that that was not workable because.

many of the states were starting to. significantly violate rights there was. nothing to unify there was nothing to. really protect the vision of the. declaration. you needed to establish a nation which. is what the constitution does it. establishes a nation. but the purpose of that. was. to put everybody under one set. of laws that protected rights the the. the focus was still on the protection of. rights and i agree with six of the seven.

of the principles right i i and i and. which did disagree with the common. warfare which which the general which. you're going to worry. i think in the way the founders. understood it i think i probably agreed. with it but it's such an ambiguous i'm. sure you don't maybe don't maybe but. just can you state the general welfare. principle well the idea that part of the. world of government is to secure the. general wealth look it's something. look this is something we we didn't get. to in the debate we really should have. is the question of whether there is such. a thing as a a common good or a public.

interest or a national interest or a. general welfare do these words do these. terms mean anything other than the good. of all of the individuals in the country. that that's an important yeah so so. that's right so that's why so i object. to it because i think it's too easy to. interpret it as so i interpret it as. well what's good for the you know a. general a group a common uh uh. people or just collection of individuals. so what's good for the individual is. good for the common welfare but i.

understand that that is a that's. something that is hard for people to. grasp and and not the common. understanding so i was i i would have. skipped the general welfare in order to. avoid the fact that now the general. office includes. the government telling you. what gender you should be assigned to so. so i would have i would have wanted to. have skipped that completely um so i. think the the constitution is pretty. consistent with the the declaration with. a few exceptions the general welfare but. you know. perfection is is a difficult thing to. find particularly for me right.

politically. but it's it's a magnificent document the. constitution it doesn't quite rise to. the level i think of the declaration but. it's a magnificent document. because. you know and this is the difference i. think between the english constitution. here's here's what i see is the. difference. the difference is that the the. constitution is written in the context. of why do we have a separation of powers. for example we have a separation of. powers in order to make sure that the. government only does what the government. is supposed to do and what is the. government supposed to do well.

fundamentally it's supposed to protect. rights i mean all of those seven or at. least six of the seven about protecting. rights they're about protecting us from. foreign invaders about protecting uh you. know peace within the country. they're about preserving this protection. of rights and why do we have this. separation to so so that we make sure. that no one of those. entities the executive or the. legislature judicial can violate rights. because there's always somebody looking. over their shoulder there's always. somebody who can veto their power but. there's a purpose to it and that purpose.

is clearly. uh signified and characterized and. that's why i think the bill of rights. was written in order to. add to the clarification of what exactly. we mean what is the purpose the purpose. is to preserve rights. um and that's why we need to to. elaborate with those rights and and. madison's objection to the bill of. rights was to say not that he objected. to having a. protection of rights. but to listing them because he was. worried that other rights that were not. listed would not be and his worry was. completely justified because that's.

exactly what's happened it's like the. only reason we have free speech in. america we've got it in writing as a. first amendment if we didn't have any. writing it would have been gone a long. time ago and the reason we don't have. for example the freedom to negotiate uh. a a a contract uh you know independent. government regulation is there was that. was not listed as a right uh in the bill. even though i think it's clearly covered. under the constitution and certainly. under the declaration so there was a. massive mistake done in the bill of. rights they tried to. cover it with the ninth amendment but it. never really stuck uh this idea that the.

non-enumerated rights that that are. still in place so i don't see it as a. second revolution i think it's it's a. it's a it's a fix. to a flaw that happened it's a fix that. uh allowed. the expansion of the protection of. rights. to all states. by creating a national entity to protect. those rights and that's what ultimately. led. to the to slavery going away uh. you know under the under the initial uh.

the initial agreement slavey would have. been there in perpetuity because states. were sovereign in in a way that under. the new constitution they were not and. in a sense the constitution sets in. motion. the declaration and then the. constitution said emotion. the the civil war the civil war has to. happen because at the end of the day you. cannot have some states with a massive. violation of rights what's more of a. violation of rights and slavery and some. states that recognize it's not. it it if it inevitably leads to the.

civil war euron was just saying that you. know other than the general welfare. these principles are about individual. liberties i i i think i just don't think. you can read it that way the first. stated purpose of the constitution of. 1787. is in order to form a more perfect union. a more perfect union it would what it. it's describing a characteristic of the. whole it is not a characteristic of any. individual if you look at how the. individuals are doing you don't know. whether whether their union is more or. less perfect right so what they're doing.

is they're they're looking they're. looking at the condition in which uh in. in order to be able to fight the battle. of yorktown they have to somebody has to. write a personal check in order to be. able to move armies a more perfect union. is a more cohesive union it's the. ability to get. all of these different individuals to do. one focused thing when it's needed. necessary to do it. well it's it's more than that right so i. agree with that. but for what purpose. that is f and this is why i you know.

this is why it's so hard with these. historical documents because there's a. there's a context and there's a thinking. that they can't write everything down. right which is sad because i wish they. had. what's the purpose of a more perfect. union the purpose of the more perfect. war union is to preserve the liberty of. the individuals within that union now. how do you know how because because if. you look what's the rest so what is the. common defense the common defenses is to. protect us from foreign invaders who. would now disrupt what the rest of the. constitution is all about all of the. constitution is written in a way as to.

preserve find ways to limit the war the. ability of government to violate the. rights of individuals that. the the the beauty of this constitution. and again its connection to the. declaration and and tradition right what. came before it what came before it was a. was a document which they all respected. which was the declaration which set the. context for this and now the union is. there in order to provide for the common. defense great because we know that. foreign invaders can violate our rights. that's what war is about. to to protect us from peace to establish.

peace and justice within the country. that's based on law the rule of law and. and again uh uh. individual liberty so. to me when you read the founders when. you read the federalist papers when you. read what they wrote. what they're trying to do is figure out. the right kind of political system the. right kind of. structure. to be able to preserve these liberties. and and not all of them had a. from my perspective perfect. understanding what those liberties. entailed but they were all even the.

conservatives that you call. conservatives we're all in generally in. agreement about the importance of. individual liberty and imports of. individuals of course because almost all. of these rights are traditional english. rights they exist in the english bill of. rights in the english petition of right. in the existence of course. all of these are trying to perfect that. they're trying to take the british. system and perfect it and what but you. you keep leaving out that that they want. to be like england in that they want to. have an independent nation an.

independent nation is not a collection. of individual liberties an independent. nation the first sentence of the. declaration of independence is the. declaration that there is a collective. right that we as a people are breaking. the bonds within other people and we're. going to take our place our equal. station among the nations of the earth. that for what purpose the purpose is to. protect individual rights and there's no. collective right. your argument is completely circular. you're not allowing the possibility that. there could be that there could be.

great and decent men that you and i both. admire who wanted the independence of. their nation not not because that would. give individuals liberty but because the. independence of their nation was itself. a great good so we clearly disagree on. this because i i don't think the. independence of the nation is a good in. of itself because it's and this is what. they think it was i don't think they did. i and this is why they tried so hard not. to break from england and and why many. of them when many of them uh.

struggled really really struggled with. with having a revolution because england. was pretty good right english was the. england was the best and this is where i. you know we should get to the. universality of these things because i i. do think england was the best and. universally and and and absolutely was. the best system out there and what they. were. they struggled to break from england. because they didn't view. the value of having a nation as the. primary but what they identified in. england is certain flaws in the system. that created situations in which their.

rights were being violated so they. figured the our only option in order to. secure these rights is to break away. from england and secure nation now i am. not an anarchist as. i believe you need nations. you need nations to secure those rights. that is the rights are not you can't. secure those rights without having a. nation but the nation is just a means to. an end the end is the rights and i think. that's how the founders understood it. and that's why they created this kind of.

country. i think this is a good place to ask. about common welfare and cohesion. let me uh. say what john don wrote. that quote no man is an island entire of. itself. every man is a piece of the continent a. part of the main. he went on. any man's death diminishes me because i. am involved in mankind and therefore. never send to know for whom the bell. tolls. it tolls for thee.

so. let's talk about individualism. and cohesion. not just the political level but at a. philosophical level for the human. condition. what is central what is the role. of other humans. in our lives what's the importance of. cohesion this is something you've talked. about. so iran said that the the beauty of the. founding documents is that they create a. cohesive union that protects.

the individual freedoms. but you have spoken about the value of. the union. the common welfare. the cohesion in itself. so can you maybe elaborate on. what is the role of cohesion and the. collective not to use that term but. multiple humans together connected. in the human condition sure i keep. getting the feeling that euron and i are. actually having an a disagreement about.

empirical reality because i think that. enlightenment rationalist political. thought. features the individual. it features the state. uh there isn't really a nation other. than the the nation the people is as a. collective is created by the state and. when the state disappears then the. collective disappears now i think that. when conservatives. of all stripes. look at this kind of thinking that. there's the individuals and then there's.

the state. and there really isn't anything else. when they look at that. they say. even before you get to consequences it's. a terrible theory because when we try to. understand any field of inquiry any. domain any subject area when you try to. understand it we try to come up with a. small number of. uh of concepts. and of relations among the concepts. which is supposed to be able to to uh to. explain to illuminate.

as much as possible. the important things they're taking. place in the domain. and conservatives look at this. individuals and the state and they say. you're missing most of what's going on. in politics. also in in in personal human relations. as well. but. it it just doesn't look like a. description of human beings it looks. like a completely artificial thing and. then conservatives say well look if i. went to adopt this artificial thing then. the consequences are horrific because.

you're not describing reality. so a conservative reality. uh begins with. um. with an empirical view of what you know. what are human beings like and and. the first thing you notice about human. beings or at least the first thing i. think conservatives notice is that. they're sticky is that they clump they. turn into groups and you take any. arbitrary collection of. human beings and set them to a task or. even just leave them alone. and they they quickly form into groups.

and those groups are always structured. as hierarchies this is this competition. within the hierarchy who's you know. who's going to be the leader who's going. to be number two but. there are everywhere you look in human. societies. universally. there are groups the groups compete and. they're high and they're structured. internally as hierarchies and then. they're internal competitions for who. leads the different groups. and when we think about scientific. explanation we allow that there are. there are different levels of.

explanation. that you know a macroscopic object like. a table it doesn't have properties that. are that you know that can be directly. derived from the properties of you know. the atoms or the molecules or the the. microfibers that make up the table. and and and that's understood that. there's what you know. academic philosophers call emergent. properties that when you get up to the. level of the table it has properties. like you know that you can't put your. fist through it which you can't. necessarily know just by looking at the. atoms alone.

and i think conservatives say the same. thing is true for political theory for. social theory. that looking at an individual human. being and thinking about what does that. individual human being. need which euron does very eloquently in. his in his writings. but that doesn't tell you what the. characteristics are of this. hierarchically structured group as soon. as you have that it has its own. qualities so an example the question of. what holds these groups together and and.

we need to answer that question. i i try to answer it by by saying. there's such a thing as mutual loyalty. mutual loyalty is shorthand for. human beings individuals have the. capacity to include another individual. within their self within within their. conception of their self when two people. do it. it it creates a. a bond like a like a bond between two. two atoms creates a molecule that. doesn't mean that they lose their. individuality they.

within the group they they may still. continue competing with one another but. that doesn't mean that there isn't in. reality a bond and that real bond is is. the stuff of which uh political events. and political. history are made is the the coming. together the cohesion and the. dissolution of of of these bonded. loyalty groups that's the reality of of. politics. and so when i hear these discussions. about individuals in the state. i feel like we're missing most of the.

reality and in order to understand the. political reality. we need to understand. what makes human beings coherent to. groups what makes them dissolve what. makes the groups come apart and and end. up creating civil wars and that kind of. thing i think we also need to know um. what. in practice um rival groups do come. together and and bond i mean basically. when we think about uh democratic. society we're talking about different.

different groups we can call them tribes. or you can come up with a different name. but but different different tribal. groupings with different views they come. together to form a nation. and they're able to do that even though. you know often they they hate each other. you know like. like we were talking about the the. american revolution and often they hate. each other and nevertheless they're able. to come together why how. and that leads us into questions like. how does. honor the giving of honor by one group.

to another. how does that increase the. the mutual loyalty between groups that. that are still competing with one. another. all of these questions i think we have. to answer them in order to be able to. talk about politics and uh and and i i. think the reason the first reason why. why one should approach politics as a. conservative rather than as an. individual just because it gives us. gives us these these theoretical tools. to be able to talk about reality which.

we don't have as long as we keep within. the individual's framework as as you're. talking the metaphor that's popping up. in my mind and this is also something. that uh bothers me with theoretical. physics. the metaphor is. there's some sense in which there's. things called theories of everything. where you try to uh describe the basic. laws of physics how they interact. together and once you do you have a. sense that you understand all of reality. in in a sense you do and that to me when.

you that to me is understanding the. individual like how the individual. behaves in this world but then you're. saying that they're hey hey you're also. forgetting chemistry biology how all of. that actually comes together the. stickiness. uh the stickiness of molecules and how. they build different systems and they. some systems can kill each other some. systems can flourish some can make. pancakes and bananas and some can make. poison and all those kinds of things and. we need to be able to we need to.

consider. the the full. stack. of things that are constructed from the. fundamental basics. um and uh i guess iran you're saying. that no you. you're just like the theoretical. physicist it all starts at the bot like. if you need to preserve the fundamentals. of reality. uh which is the individual like the the. basic atom. of human society is the individual to.

you so yes so the the basic unit the. basic model unit the basic ethical unit. in society is the individual and yeah of. course we form groups. and and you can't understand history. unless you understand group formation. and group motivation and. and i have a view about what kind of. groups should be formed. uh and and politically from a political. perspective voluntary ones ones in which. we we join when we want to join and we. can leave when we want to leave and uh.

ones that help us and clearly groups. help us. pursue. whatever it is our goal is ultimately so. so in the pursuit of happiness there are. lots of groups that one wants the form. whether it's marriage whether it's. businesses whether it's sports teams. whether it's lots of there's lots of. different groups to fund. but the question is what is the standard. of well-being is it the standard well. being some. algorithm that maximizes the well-being. of a group you know some utilitarian.

function. you know is it. uh. is it. something that's inherent in the group. that we can measure. as goodness and to help with individuals. within as long as we can get that that. the group to function well we don't. really care about where the individuals. at so to me. the the the the goal of creating groups. is the well-being of the individual and. that's why it needs to be voluntary and. that's why there has to be a way out of. of those sometimes it's costly it's not. a cheap out that's why you should really.

think about what groups you you you and. this you know on an issue that's very. controversial. maybe we can discuss maybe not this is. why to me immigration is so important. right open immigration or free. immigration is because that's another. group that i would like people to be. able to voluntarily choose both in and. out and and i'd like to see people be. able to go and join that group that. you know that they believe will allow. for the pursuit of happiness but let me. say that you know. that's a description of an idea what i'm. just saying right i recognize that.

that's not the reality in which we live. i recognize that that's not a reality in. which history history. you know recognizing that such a that. the individual exists in a sense. philosophically is a massive achievement. right uh. you know human beings however they. evolved clearly we started out in in a. in a tribal context in which the. individual did matter we followed the. leader the competition was for power. power over the group and and and. dictates how the group should work uh.

you know it the the history of human. beings is a history of gaining knowledge. and part of the knowledge is. the value of an individual and you can. see that in in in religion you can see. that in philosophy you can see that uh. through the evolution and then. you know uh. we we evolved from tribes into nations. and then. empires and conflicts between nations. and conflict within empires and we tried. a lot of different things if you will i. don't think we always did on purpose but. uh we kind of did different philosophies.

different sets of ideas drove us towards. different. collectives different groupings and and. different ways in which to structure. and after i don't know 3000 years of. kind of known history uh this history. before that but we don't know much about. it 3000 years of known history you can. sit back and evaluate. and and i think that's what that's what. is done in the enlightenment and and and. you sit back and suddenly we can do it. today we can sit back and evaluate what. promotes human flourishing and what. doesn't and what do we mean by human.

flourishing human who's who's. flourishing. well individual human beings now. since i don't believe in a zero-sum. world and the world is not zero summit. we can see that it's it's empirically. possible to show that the world is not a. zero-sum game my fl human flourishing. doesn't come at your expense so i i you. know i can show that a system that. promotes my flourishing will probably. promote your flourishing as well and. promotes the general welfare in that. sense because it promotes. individuals. flourishing and we can we can look at. all these.

examples of how we evolved and what. leads to bloodshed and what doesn't and. and and what promotes this ability to. flourish as an individual again an. achievement the idea of individual. flourishing. and then we can think about how to. create a political system around that a. political system. that recognizes and allows for the. formation of groups but just under the. principle of voluntary so you can't be. forced to join a group you you can't be. cursed into forming a group. um other than the fact that you're born.

in a particular place in a particular. you know that in a sense but that's not. force that's there's a difference. between metaphysics and between choices. so this is something that came up in the. debate that yoram said that not all. human relations are voluntary and you. kind of emphasize that a lot of. where we are is not voluntary we're. grounded we're connected in so much so. how how can a human be free. in the way you're describing individual. be free if. uh some part of who we are is not.

voluntary some part of who we are is. other people well because what do we. mean by freedom freedom doesn't mean. and the negation of the laws of physics. right freedom doesn't mean uh ignoring. um. freedom means the the ability within the. scope of what's available for you to. choose being able to choose those things. um so. in in. in a political context vita means uh uh. you know the negate the the absence of. coercion uh so once you're an adult.

uh you know you almost says you're born. with a particular into a particular. religious context absolutely but once. you're an adult i think it's incumbent. on you to evaluate that religious. context and and and look at different. religions or non-religion or whatever. and choose your philosophy of life. choose your values choose how you want. to live your life that's the freedom the. freedom is. one one system says uh. you're either cursed by the state of. course by the group occurs by society. around you to follow a particular path.

or your. your uh. the expectation is the demand is the the. pressure is to conform to a particular. path and my view is no you you should be. in a position to be able to choose your. path and and that choice means you look. around. you you you evaluate you evaluate. history based on knowledge based on on. all of these things and you choose what. that path would be that's. fundamentally what what freedom means. yes you cannot choose your parents but.

of course not no nobody would claim that. that's what's in the scope of what is. possible i think that i think the. coercion freedom. dichotomy. these are too few concepts coercion and. freedom it's too simplistic to be able. to describe what we're actually dealing. with. the traditional. anglo-conservative view. is. that. society has to be. it has to be ordered it has to be. disciplined. and. there are two choices for how it can can.

be ordered. one is that a people is uh by its own. traditions you would say voluntarily but. these are mostly inherited traditions by. its own traditions. it is uh it it is ordered for example. people just in general will not go into. somebody else's yard because that that's. the custom here is we don't go into. somebody else's yard without their. permission and so fortescue we're. talking about you know 500 years ago.

already so fortiscue says that the. genius of the english people is that our. government can be mild and apply very. little coercion because the people are. so disciplined now when he says the. people are so disciplined what he's. saying is is that. that our art. our nation our tribes we have strong. traditions which channel people you know. through through tools of being honored. and dishonored now. that's a reality that exists in every.

society and it's it's not captured by. your distinction between coercion and. lack of coercion when it when when i'm. going to be dishonored if if i don't if. i don't care for for from from my aging. mother i'm not being coerced like the. state comes and puts a gun to my head i. but but i am being pressured. i'm given guidelines but i'm saying. that's wrong and i'm saying that's. dangerous because. because that could easily be used.

for bad tradition. but that's what's the standard by which. we evaluate what a good tradition is. about you you're the english you're. getting to the standard too wait wait. you're getting to the standard too fast. first i want to know factually is it. true that all societies work like this. because if it's true that all societies. work like this then saying saying we. should be free from it is is just a. fantasy. so a i don't think all societies work. like this i think much of what happened. in america post-founding in the 19th. century didn't work like that i think. that's the genius of america and i think.

what happened during the 19th century in. the industrial revolution what happened. in in in the 19th century to some extent. globally but certainly in the united. states didn't work that way it broke. tradition i think i think all innovation. breaks tradition and i think that's what. the genius of of this country is and and. the post-enlightenment. uh world is. uh i think pre that tradition they work. that way and then the question is that. people understand why they do what they. do. that is i don't want people doing what i.

think is right. just because i think it's right and i've. i you know and i've created a society in. which yeah. yeah okay. you know somebody founded this country. in a particular way so we're just gonna. follow i want people to understand what. they're doing so i want people to have a. respect for property not because it's a. tradition but because they understand. the value of a respect for property um i. i want people not to murder one another. not because there's a commandment that. shall not murder but because they have. an understanding of why murdering is bad.

and wrong and and bad for them and bad. for the kind of world that they want to. live in that's and i think that's what. we achieve through enlightenment through. education through through in and where. we don't treat people just as a a blob. tribe that just follows orders but we. now treat individuals as capable of. thinking for themselves capable for. discovering truth capable of of of. figuring out their own values and and. that's the big break between and this is.

why you know this is the break i think. that the declaration represents. the break between society that is based. on tradition following commandments. following rules. because they are the rules because they. are the commandments and a society where. individuals understand those rules. understand yes it's now become a. tradition let's say to respect. individual right to respect property. rights but it's they're not following it. because it's a tradition they're. following it because they understand. what it is about it that that that makes. it good so that's the world i think that.

that we were on the process of evolving. towards. and that is what got destroyed in the. 20th century and and. certainly disappeared today and i think. that's the great tragedy is that we're. evolving to a place where people. understood. the values the rep. that represent and of course the the. danger with tradition is. it. i mean we'll agree right it's it's it's. yeah it's it's okay to kill the jew. right or it's okay to steal people's. property if there are a certain color. okay to enslave those are all traditions.

and yet. once you stop and say but what are they. based on what's or is this right is this. just. based on some moral law. no it's not there's something wrong here. we can't achieve happiness and success. if we follow these you're talking about. reason and tradition but i think i would. love to sort of linger on the on the. stickiness of humans that you described. uh so you kind of said this primary the. individuals is primary i know as a great. invention but to me it's not at all.

obvious. that somehow. that. uh the invention that humans have been. practicing for a. very long time of the stickiness. of uh. of community of family. of love. it's that's that's not obvious to me. that's that's. not also fundamental to human. flourishing and should be celebrated. and protected.

now the i suppose the argument you're. making is uh when you start to let. the state. define what the stickiness how the. stickiness looks between humans so. you're really like the voluntary aspect. but i just want to. sort of the the the observation is. humans seem to. be pretty happy when they form. communities uh uh however you define. that it's a romantic partnership family. communities some communities people.

people are miserable in other. communities so the nature of the. community matters right we know this we. know that that some bondings are not. healthy and not good for the individuals. involved and they don't thrive. um so i i absolutely i mean i'm a lover. not a fighter right so i'm a huge. believer in love. the whole philosophy i think is. is a love-based philosophy i fight in. order to love right so it's it's love is. love is at the core of all of this and. it's it's it's it's a love of of life. it's a love of of the world out there.

and it's a love of other people because. they represent a value to you. so the stickiness is there it's it's you. know my point is a it should be chosen. it should be consciously chosen and and. this is i'm put aside the state forget. the state for a minute forget forget cos. and forget all that. what i would encourage individuals to do. and this is where you know i'm i'm not. primarily a political for you know. interested in politics although. i sent to talk most about that i'm.

primarily interested in human beings and. how they live in a sense in morality and. what i would urge individuals to do. is to think about their relationships to. choose the best relationships possible. but to seek out great relationships. because other human beings are an. immense value to us. and and. you know when i write. you know maybe you don't quoted this or. not but i write that. you know about the trade principle and. trading. you know it's easy and and obvious to.

think of it as a materialistic kind of. thing you know i get you know uh i i do. the chose this day and my wife does the. chose the other day we're trading but. trading is much more subtle than that. and much more can be much more spiritual. than that it's about. the the the the the trading in in. emotions it's about it's about the the. way one uh sees each other what one gets. from one another i think friendship is a. form of trade now i know that that seems. to make it material but i don't i don't. think it's of trade as a material thing.

but friendship is incredibly important. in life love is incredibly important in. life. you know. having having a group of friends is. incredibly important all of these are. sticky and important okay how can i try. to be eloquent on this so. if you give people freedom. if you give people politics yeah well. not politics relations relations uh. relationships so. this is interesting because we have an. interesting dynamic going on here in. terms of beliefs they're differing and.

so there's interesting overlaps but. there's a worry if you look at human. history and you study the lessons of. history and you look at modern society. if you give people freedom in terms of. stickiness and human relations and so on. full. like if you not give people freedom. emphasize. freedom as the highest ideal. you start getting more tender online. dating the stickiness dissolves just. like in chemistry you start to have a.

gas versus a liquid right that that's. the way so you have to what you have to. study. what actually happens if you emphasize. that. the stickiness the bonds of humans. is holding you back the exercise of. voluntary choice. is the highest ideal. the danger of that is for that to be. implemented or interpreted in certain. kinds of ways by us flawed humans that.

are not i mean you could say we're. perfectly reasonable and rational we can. think through all of our decisions but. really i mean especially you're young. you get horny you make decisions that. are. suboptimal perhaps so the the point is. you have to look at reality. of when you emphasize different things. so when you when you talk about what is. the ideal life what is the ideal. relations you have to also think like. what are you emphasizing i think you. both agree on what's important uh that.

community can be important that freedom. is important but what are you. emphasizing and you're really. emphasizing the individual and. you're emphasizing uh your arm you're. emphasizing. more. of the community of the family of the. stickiness of the nation. well look i don't want to deny the place. of the individual i i think that. uh. that. there really is a very great. change in civilization.

when the books of moses. announced that. the individual is created in the image. of god. that that's a step that's. as far as we know without pr precedent. before that in history. and uh to a very large degree i mean one. of the kind of unspoken. uh things going on is that that uh. euron and i really do agree on all sorts. of things i i think in part because. because we're we're both jewish and he. said you just say you're on his mo.

basically moses yesterday. no i said he was channeling moses but. that's still in my book you know that. that's still pretty pretty that's a. compliment that's pretty good. that. for me that's a compliment we'll talk. about this a little bit just for the. listener just so they. they know iran amongst many things we'll. talk about the virtue of nationalism but. uh. you're also a religious scholar of sorts. or at least uh leverage. the bible for much not much but some of.

the wisdom in your life. look the way that euron looks at. enlightenment or maybe at ayn rand that. that that's that's the way that i see. the uh hebrew scripture and and the. tradition that comes from it uh it has. the same kind of place in my life and i. i just. i don't know how much we want to. want to explore it but i i i think that. uh that. the agreement that we do have about the. positive value of.

the creative individual the positive. value of the individual's um desire to. improve the world and and and and. in my book that means. including his or her desire to improve. his family his his his tribe his. congregation his nation. but but it still comes from this kind of. for you know what your own calls. selfishness. the the desire to make things better for. yourself. in hebrew bible and in judaism.

that just is a positive thing of course. it can be taken too far but it just is. positive and it doesn't carry these. kinds of. uh you know you should turn the other. cheek you should give away your cloak. you should love your enemy these kinds. of christian tropes do not exist in. judaism and so it just i i like. listening to your iran's i do feel like. he goes too far on various things but. but i also hear you know underneath that. i can sort of you know hear hear the the. the jewish current and the resistance to.

you know to. uh to things that. about christianity the jews often find. can ask you a question there. uh can you make. an argument for turn the other cheek. no i i tend to. i guess you would equate that with. altruism. i tend to uh injustice. it's unjustified now that you all right. um. okay so yourself if you're turning. another cheek it's it's a lack of love. lack of self-respect well let me push.

back on that because i'm uh i i like. turn the other cheek um especially on. twitter. uh. so. i like i i like block the offender on. twitter. no what. uh so twitter aside is more like your. you um. you're investing in the long-term. version of yourself versus the short. term. so that that's the way i think about it. it's like the energy you put on to the. world the turning out of the cheek.

philosophy allows you to walk through. the fire gracefully. in some sense i mean perhaps you would. reframe that as not a. uh then that that's not being altruistic. or whatever but. there there is something pragmatic about. that kind of approach to life uh. disciplining yourself so that you become. a better version of yourself i mean i i. not not only do we agree but you know i. think i think every religious and. philosophical tradition probably has a.

version of that even even kant who we. join together in finding to be terrible. even kant makes that distinction between. the short-term interest and long-term. interest so i. i i think that's universal i don't know. of anybody who's really disagreeing. about that the thing that we were. talking about a couple of minutes ago. before we got onto this tangent is the. relationship between the the. individual who is in the image of god. and and is of of. uh. a value as an individual.

nevertheless there's this question about. what. what is what is good for that person. and and and also what makes them happy. i'm not sure that those are exactly the. same things but they're they're they're. both certainly uh relevant and. important. and um i i i feel like i mean i think. we're beginning to uncover this. empirical disagreement about what it is. that's good for the individual and what. it is that makes them happy and i'll go. back to something i raised um i i raised. in the debate which is uh this uh this.

theory of durkheim that now has been uh. popularized by. uh by jordan peterson but um. durkheim argues that. that. the. he's writing a book on suicide he's. trying to understand what what brings. individuals to suicide and he coins this. term anomi. lack of law. and the argument is that. uh that. individuals. basically are.

healthy and happy. when they find their place in uh in a. hierarchy within a loyalty group in a. certain place in a hierarchy they. compete and struggle in order to rise in. the hierarchy but they know. where they are they know who they are. the kids today like to say they know. what their identity is. because they associate themselves. their self expands to take on you know. the leadership the different layers the. past and the future of this this. particular hierarchy and i completely.

agree with iran that some of these. hierarchies are are pernicious and. oppressive. and and terrible and some of them are. better. what what we might disagree about is. that that you can find um human beings. who are are capable of. becoming healthy and happy. off by themselves without participating. in in in this kind of structure the. minute that you accept if you accept. that this is empirical reality but human.

beings it it's it's an iron law you. can't you can't do anything you you can. tell you human beings that they can be. free of all constraints all you want and. you can get them to do. things that that as you say dissolve. dissolve their pl they can have contempt. for hierarchies they can say i'm not. gonna i'm not gonna serve the man i'm. gonna you know i i'm just gonna burn. them all down you can you can. get them to say all get kids to say all. these things you can get them either to.

be marxists who are. were actively trying to overthrow and. destroy the existing hierarchies or you. can make them some kind of liberal where. they basically pretend the hierarchies. don't exist they just act like that that. they're not there. in both cases and it's not coincidence. that that's what universities teach is. your choice is either marxist revolution. or liberal ignoring of the hierarchies. in both cases what you've done is you've. eliminated the possibility that the. young person will be able to.

find his or her. place in a way that allows them to grow. and exercise their their their their. love their drive their their creativity. in order to to advance something. constructive you've eliminated it and. you've put the burden on them. you know kind of a niche burden to uh to. just be the fountain of all values. yourself. which you know maybe some people can do. it. but almost no one can do it and i think.

that's empirically true and so i i think. by telling them. about their freedom rather than telling. them about how. about the the need to join into some. some. uh traditionalist hierarchy that can be. good and healthy for them. i think we're destroying them i think. we're destroying this generation and the. last one and the next euron is the. burden of freedom destroying mankind. what freedom i mean uh. how many people are indeed free the the.

look the problem is that we we were. caught up on political concepts. and we we've. we're moving into uh uh ethical issues. and and. i i don't think it's right to tell. people. you're free go do whatever the hell you. want. just just use your emotions you know. just just go where you want to go. you know in the spur of the moment think. short term don't think long term or. don't think why think. one has to provide moral guidance. and and and morality here is crucial and.

crucially important. and part of taking responsibility for. your own life is establishing a moral. framework. for your life and and what does it mean. to live a good life i mean that's much. more important in a sense. of a question and it is. it is my belief that people can do that. they can find and choose the values. necessary to achieve a good life but. they need guidance they need guidance. this is why religion evolved in my view.

because people need guidance so so so. that says you know i had called religion. a primitive foreign philosophy it was. the original philosophy that provided. people with some guidance about what to. do and what not to do and. secular philosophy is supposed to do the. same and the problem is. that i think religion and. 99 of secular philosophy give people bad. advice. about what to do and therefore they do. bad stuff and and some of that sometimes. uh you know because uh uh when they do.

good stuff it gets reinforced that we. survive in spite of that but uh ideas. like kant and hegel and and mocks and so. on give young people awful advice about. how to live and what to do and as a. consequence really bad stuff happens and. the world in which we exist today which. we agree. there's a lot of. pathologies to it a lot of bad stuff. going on in my views going the wrong way. in my view a product. of of of a set of ideas uh you know on. the one hand i think i think.

christian ideas on the other hand i. think secular philosophical ideas that. have driven this country and the world. more generally in a really really bad. direction and this is why the this is. why what i do what i do because i think. at the core of it the only way to change. it. is not to impose a new set of ideas from. the top because i i worry about who's. going to be doing the imposition plus i. don't believe you can you can force. people to be good. it's to challenge the ideas it's the. question the ideas it's to present an.

alternative view of morality an. alternative a set of moral principles an. alternative ultimately an alternative. view of political principles but it has. to start with morality if you don't and. and my morality centered on the. individual and what the individual. should do with his life in order to. attain a good life uh i i believe that. leads to happiness but but but the good. life. that's why it's good right the the the. goal is survival and thriving and. flourishing and and happiness ultimately. but politics is a servant of that in the.

end it's it's not an end in itself. so the real issue is. you know you ask before what is the. value of relationship. there's enormous value in relationship. because we get values from other people. we don't produce all our values we don't. produce all our spiritual values. and we don't produce all our material. values other people. on a massive. benefit to us because they produce. values we can't there's a massive. division of labor in terms of values not. just in economics but also in philosophy. and elsewhere. it's why we have teachers it's why we. have moral teachers small teachers are.

important to help guide us towards a. good life not all of us are philosophers. but what i do. demand if you will of individuals this. is where i put a burden on people right. understand what you're doing. right. you know don't embrace a moral teaching. because it was tradition don't embrace. them all teaching because your parents. embrace that don't embrace them all. teaching just because your teachers are. teaching it. challenge it think about it embrace it. because you.

embrace it you might be wrong you might. embrace the wrong one but take moral. responsibility take responsibility over. your life by. evaluating testing challenging. what you have received and choosing. what your. what what you're going to pursue and i i. acknowledge empirically that most people. don't do that. and uh and and and this is why. intellectual leadership is so important. uh this is why you want to get peop you. want the voices in a culture to be good.

voices so that those people who don't. think for themselves. land up being followers but they end up. being followers of somebody good versus. followers of somebody bad. but. for the thinkers in the world out there. who i think are the people who count who. the people who shape society. no no. wait a minute not not count in a sense. that you can dismiss the lives of others. and you know because i'm you know. obviously i'm anti-coercion and. anti-violence. but. yes. i don't want to sound like plato but in.

the sense that they're the ones who. shape who land of shaping the world. they're the ones who land up shaping how. how they will be. i want those people to make choices. about their values and not to just. accept them based on traditional base. the commandment or based on. where they happen to grow up and and in. that sense again. you know i i do and this is this is an. interesting. point where i we disagree but i'm not. exactly sure what joram's position is i. do believe in universal values that is. there are things that are good and there.

are things that are evil and and i think. we'd agree on that and and there are. systems we agree that that communism and. fascism are evil well i think we should. be able to agree that some things some. political systems are good and maybe. there's this middle ground where. uh we both think that they're. not particularly bad but not. particularly good and you all might. think that better than i think they are. but if we can agree and this is good and. this is evil right then the systems that. tend towards the good are good and the. system to tend towards the evil or evil. and and but that's universal right you.

know i i look at places like uh uh south. korea japan uh asia you know cultures. that are very very different in many. respects in the west and yet when they. adopt. certain. uh western ideas right uh about freedom. about liberty about individualism i mean. the japanese constitution because. macarthur forced it in there has the. pursuit of happiness in the constitution. not because they chose it because he put. it in it but they to some extent adopted. that and and they're they're successful.

they're successful places today those. societies in asia that didn't adopt. these values are not successful. societies today euron. japan has a has a birth rate of what is. it one point no 1.1 1.2. children per woman i mean look. there. there are some things. there are some places where you give. people freedom this is also biblical. right the idea that. everyone did what's right in his own.

eyes. okay right this is a a refl refrain in. the book of judges and and and and the. bible is not an anti-freedom book i mean. there's many many look i i don't know. let's talk no we're not fine we will get. there okay. he's gonna go okay look just as an. asterisk i'm not asking you because you. know because the bible is such a great. authoritarian but it it's not that at. all my. in my in in my view if uh if you want to. know where you know. where where this uh the what you call.

the the sanctity of property where does. the sanctity of property comes from it. comes from the ten commandments it comes. from moses saying i haven't taken. anything from anyone it comes from. samuel saying i haven't taken anything. from anyone it's the condemnation of. have of the unjust kings who steal the. property of. of their of their subjects so so i'm not. so i i'm property and freedom i i think. there's great basis for for it in in in. the bible but right now i i'm focusing. on on on this other question which is.

what happens when everyone does what's. right in his own eyes that's the book of. judges and that's that's this civil war. uh moral corruption theft idolatry uh. murder uh rape i mean there's that. that's what what happens when everyone. everyone does whatever is writing isn't. organized. well no it's what that that's what it. says in the text i'm not okay so when i. look at. you're right there are things that i. think are objectively true i think it's. really hard to get people to agree agree.

to them. almost impossible but when i look at a. country which is uh is. approaching. uh one birth per. woman in other words half of the minimum. necessary for for replacement. you can say whatever you want whatever. you want about immigration we can have. that discussion but the point is that. when when when your values are such that. you're not even capable of of doing the.

most basic techniques that human beings. need in order to be able to propagate. themselves and their values and the way. they see things then i look you're. you're finished you can't say that so. you you can't if i implied that japan is. an ideal society i i take that back. but no but. let's think.

we should talk about hierarchy yeah but. uh just just to clarify do you. how do you explain uh the situation in. japan is it the decrease in value in. family like some of them. um just expand on that like how do you. explain that situation. you're saying that that society is in. trouble in a certain way can you kind of. describe the nature of that trouble i'm. saying that when. the individual is part of a social. group this can be a family a.

congregation a community a tribe a. nation. when the individual. feels that the things that are happening. to the society are things that are. happening to him or to her and i want to. emphasize this is not the standard view. of collectivism that you know that. mussolini will mussolini will say you. know the glory of the individual is in. totally immersing himself in you know in. in the organic whole. that's not what i'm saying i'm saying. that human beings. have and are.

both they enter into a society to which. they are loyal and they compete. with one another within. in the terms that that society allows. competition but also sometimes by. bending the rules and by shaping them. and by by changing them. what what you see in many societies. certainly throughout the liberal west. but also in countries that have been. affected by the liberal west by. industrialization and ideas of. individualism.

what you see is a collapse of a. willingness of the individual to look at. what the what is what is needed by the. whole. and to uh to make choices that are um. that are as th your own would call them. selfish because it's a because the. purpose of them is is self-expression. competition self-assertion moving up in. the hierarchy a achieving achieving um. honor or wealth.

in order to do those things but but. when you stop being able to to look at. the framework of a particular society. and identify with it. you lose. that. you cease to understand what it is that. you need to do. not not every single person but i'm. talking about society wide so there are. few individuals who are just going to. have a fantastic time and live the kind. of life that euron is describing and the. great majority they stop being willing. to take risks they stop being willing to. get married they stop being willing to.

have children they stop being willing to. start companies they stop being willing. to put themselves out to do great things. because the guide rails that told them. what what kinds of things and the the. social feedback that honored them when. they did things like getting married and. having children they've been crushed and. what have they been crushed by they've. been crushed by the the the false view. that if you tell the individual be free. make all your own decisions that they. will then be free and make all their own. decisions they don't they just stop they.

stop being human. that's powerful so do you want to. respond to that yes. so i don't think anybody should have. children. if the goal is the goal. this there's a good uh there's a good. tweet clip that. clip that. children for the goal of um. perpetuating their nation or. expanding their society or for some.

think they'd make people. parents if that was the goal the the. purpose of doing it. i i think people should have children. because they want to embrace that. challenge that that that. beauty. that experience that amazing very very. hard very very difficult. experience in life it's it's a it's. about being able to project the long. term but also being able to enjoy and. love the creation of another human being. that process of creation it is a. beautiful self-interested thing and by.

the way not everybody should have. children. i think way too many people have. children you know there's some awful. parents out there that i wish. uh would stop i mean there are you know. life is precious and life of suffering. is sad it's sad to see people suffer and. a lot of people are born into situations. and abort born into parents that that. destroy their capacity to ever live a. good life and that's that's a tragic and. and sad thing and uh so. so i don't measure um the health of a.

society. uh in how many children they're having. or a health of a couple whether they. have children or not those are. individual choices some people. make a choice not to have children which. is completely rational and consistent. with their values and. now when you look at a society overall i. do think having children not having. children is a reflection of something i. think it's a reflection of a certain. optimism about the future i think it's a. reflection of thinking long term versus. short-term i think a short-term society. doesn't have children people don't have. children there because.

children are long-term investment. they they require real planning and real. effort and real thinking about the. long-term but those are all issues and. again we're confusing or. or mixing. when i say japan look how well japan has. done i i don't mean the specific. japanese people and how many kids. they're having and what kind of life. they're having you know in terms of. these kind of particulars. but think about the alternatives japan. faces if you look around the the options. right that they face.

they tried empire uh they tried. nationalistic empire didn't turn out too. well for them or anybody who they. interacted with they could have become. north korea. we we know how that turned out we know. what that is they could have been. cambodia if you've ever been to cambodia. and seen the kind of poverty and and yes. maybe cambodia's have lots of children. but god i'd rather be in japan any day. than than have children in in the kind. of poverty and horrific uh circumstances. they have but in the context of the. available. um regimes that that were possible post.

world war ii for the for the japanese. ten-based name-based one that generally. led to prosperity. to freedom to individuals pursuing. values not perfectly because they didn't. implement the philosophical foundation. the mall foundation that i would like to. to have this still being impacted by. kantian hegelian whatever philosophy. that's out there in the west that's. destroying the better part so you give. people freedom now what do they do with.

it and if they have a bad philosophy. they're going to do bad things with that. freedom right you you tell people to do. whatever they choose to do but if they. have bad ideas they will choose to do. bad things. so it is true that the primacy of. morality and the primacy of philosophy. has to be recognized it's it's not the. primacy of politics and indeed you don't. get free societies unless you have some. elements of decent philosophy but. you can get free societies with a rotten.

philosophy but they don't they don't. stay free for very long don't understand. how can it be a decent philosophy if it. doesn't care about posterity if it does. it if. you're willing to say. i'm i'm offering guidance i think you. should live as a traitor all. relationships should be voluntary those. are those are interesting things but the. moment that it comes to posterity to the. future to there being a future let's say. that there were a society that lived the. way you know in general according to. your view let's say there was such a.

society how can you not care whether. that society is capable of passing it on. to the next generation or not but the. way to pass it on to the next generation. is through ideas and not through uh. through having children having children. is an individual choice that some people. are going to make and some people are. not but the fundamental that preserves. what the good life. what does that even mean. if. if if every generation from now on your. your your society that was good at a. certain point has half as many people in. it it's going to.

very quickly it's just going to be. overrun everyone back home. what do you mean over anybody are we. just totally ahistorical if you're the. spartans and you have all of these you. know like like warrior values but you. stop having children you get overrun you. get defeated in the case of spotter. that's a good thing not a bad thing but. i get my point you have to have the. ability to have enough children to. create enough wealth and enough power. enough strength who makes these kind of. conclusions and decisions about how many. you make it as an individual and you.

decide that you know what we're not. talking about we're talking about what. kind of intellectual cultural religious. inheritance you give your children yes. all right. and those are the ideas that i get. and those ideas are going to perpetuate. because they're good ideas if they're. bad they're not going to perpetuate they. can be. they can't be good ideas if they don't. produce future generations what are you. talking about why would they not produce. future generations i mean as i look at. every liberal every liberal society on. earth but i'm not.

in the democratic collapse is not a. single liberal society on earth tonight. that i'm willing to defend but. because they're not living by okay so. okay so they're not acceptable okay so. they have an assemblage. i am a semblance of a political i know a. system that is a little bit like what i. would like far from what i would i know. but they certainly don't have a moral. foundation i believe that people who. have the right moral foundation most of. them not all of them but most of them. will have children most of them will. continue into the future most of them.

will fight for a future but not because. they care what happens in 200 years but. because they care about their lifetime. and part of having fun and enjoying. one's lifetime is having kids is. projecting into the future are you. really gonna tell me that the people. have children because it's fun they're. fun when they're four years old they're. not fun when they're when they're 15. no. when they're 15 they're not funny. they're not just not funny look you. don't do learning so much today you. don't you you don't do this for fun.

marriage also you don't do for fun there. are times that are fun and there are. times they're not fun. it's not exactly the talent but you. certainly do it for you do it for. happiness you do it for fulfillment you. do it as a challenge you do it for. making. for making your life better for making. your life interesting for making your. life challenging for embracing. you know. part of it is fun part of it is hard. work but you do it because it's. it it's it makes your life a better life.

it's very interesting so empirically. speaking if you dissolve the cultural. backbone where everybody comes up like. the background. the moral ideas that everybody is raised. with if you dissolve that and if you. truly emphasize the individual. uh i think. joram is saying it's. going to naturally lead to the. dissolution of marriage and all these. concepts i think so you're not i think. so like everything or basically saying. you're not going to choose some of these. things you're not you're going to more.

and more. choose the short-term optimization. versus the long-term optimization. beyond your own life like posterity so. so i don't think about posterity i don't. know what posterity means right i can. project into my children's life. maybe when i have grandchildren at the. grandchildren but it ends there i i. can't project 300 years in the future. it's ridiculous to try to think about. 300 years into the future things change. so much and and and that's the founding. fathers that's the conservative founding. father well no i i don't think i think.

they set up a system i think the whole. idea was to set up a system i'm just it. was self-perpetuating. that would it would if. people lived up to it right no no would. perpetuate the subject no systems are. self-perpetuating things rise and fall. and it's they don't necessarily focus i. don't believe in that let me speak jared. for a second. the great the great individuals. in societies are the people who have. seen the decline understood it and. provided resources in order to redirect.

and bring it back up you can't agree to. that. i i don't see it that way at all yes i. want people out there to rebel against. conventional morality i think. conventional morality is destructive to. their own lives and broadly to posterity. because i think it's unsustainable it's. not good and this goes to i think. conventional morality is christian. morality is a morality that's been. secularized through christian lens and i. think it's destructive but i don't want. them to dump that and not replace it. with something. i want.

and i think it's necessary and essential. for people to have a moral code and to. have a a moral code. reality is. a set of guidelines to live your life it. is a set of values that did to to to. guide you to help you identify what is. good. you're saying. central to this morality that people. should have is reason yes okay. you're not saying other things you're. basically saying reason will arrive a.

lot of things why are you so sure that. reason is so important there's nothing. else no hold on a second but like it. seems like obvious to you. so first of all humans have limited. cognitive capacity so even to assume we. the reason can actually function that. well from an artificial intelligence. researcher perspective. uh it seems there's a whole discussion. about whether there is such a thing as. artificial intelligence whether whether. that is what it is but um but see here's. the thing i mean you're very confident.

about this particular thing but not. about other aspects of human nature that. seems to be obviously present so yes uh. almost. uh human relations love connection. between us so i it's very possible to. argue that all of the accomplishments of. reason would not exist without the. connection of other humans there is of. course that's true it's not obvious. though it's possible that reason is a. property of the collective of multiple. people interacting with each other when. you look at the greatest inventions of.

human history some people tell that. story by individual inventors. you could argue that's true some people. say that it's. it's a bunch of people in the room. together the idea is bubbling and if. you're saying. individual is primary and they have the. full power and the capacity to make. choices. i don't know if that's necessarily. obviously so there's a straw manning. going on here yeah my position right yep. of course my favorite thing to do. i'm you don't do it and you do it more.

politely than anybody else i know when. you do it of course we all stand on the. shoulders of giants of course invention. and science is collaborative uh not. always not not not a hundred percent uh. newton stood on the on the shoulders of. giants i don't know how collaborative he. was he wasn't exactly known as a. bubbling up and and testing ideas out. with other people but this is a. metaphysical fact you can't eat for me. there's no collective stomach you can't. eat for me. you know you can provide me with food.

but i need to do the eating you can't. think for me. you can help stimulate my thought. you can challenge my thinking you can. add to it. but in the end of the day only i can. either do my thinking or not do my. thinking but i need to think but you can. think all by yourself alone but what. does that mean all by yourself right can. can i think on a desert island yes i can. think on a desert line. can i can i think as big and as broad. and as deep as i can.

in in uh uh aristotle's i see him of. course not i i'm a much better thinker. and aristotle i see him or in or or in. any kind of situation like this where. you're going to challenge me and i have. to come back and i have to think deeply. about what it is you said and why i'm. not communicating very effectively and. why why you're not understanding me. of course now you're causing me to think. much more deeply and to challenge me but. it's still true that i have to think i. if i don't think for myself who's going. to think for me right so. so this is why.

um i'm not a philosopher. i'm certainly not an original thinker in. that sense i you know i recognize the. fact that they're geniuses that are much. smarter than me whether it's aristotle. line rand or people that inspire me i. study their work i try to understand it. to the best of my ability but i don't. take it as. gospel i take it as. you know this is something i need to. figure out i need to learn it i need to. understand it because it's good for my. life it's important to me. but i have to do the thinking it won't.

be mine. it it'll behind manage but it won't be. mine unless i've done the thinking to. integrate it into my soul into my. consciousness into my mind but it's. still true that i have to think for. myself not on a desert island i you know. and i i i now regret ever using a desert. island in in in the book as an example. because you know because uh uh. we've achieved something there. there is progress. because. clearly the truth is because clearly it. was misunderstood.

i didn't make myself clear enough in in. the book in terms of what i meant but um. you know i. i do not advocate for thinking alone in. a dark room not engaging with reality. not studying history not knowing about. the world or on a desert island not. interacting with you're a collectivist. no i'm a trader so i i enjoy what we're. doing right now because you're. challenging me you make me a better. thinker uh it's interesting you know the. fact that. a lot of people are going to watch this. plays into it as well but i would.

probably. enjoy engaging with you in conversation. recording so yeah there you go i i would. enjoy engaging with you with your in. conversation even if it wasn't being. recorded and even if it was because. uh you know that kind of conversation. makes me better there's some people who. i wouldn't there's some people who who. make it worse right that you want to. walk that you walk away from the. conversation because because they're. harmful to you and this is where choice. comes in it's i want to be able to. choose who i engage with i don't always. have that choice because.

as a public intellectual you go in front. of audiences you don't always choose who. it is but you want to choose who you. engage with and who you don't you want. to choose the forum in which you engage. and how you engage and the standard for. me is reason there is no understanding. so you asked a deep question to start. off why reason right. because. that's where the values come from that's. the only tool we have to discover truth. yes you know reason is something that it. doesn't guarantee truth it doesn't. guarantee they're always right it's. fallible.

but it's all we have it's the tool in. which we evaluate the world around us. and we come to conclusions about it. there is there just isn't other two. emotions. emotions are uh are not tools of. cognition consciousness is a tool. emotion like love all of these things. are ways to experience the world to say. that reason is the best tool but there's. a difference between experiencing the. world. and and evaluating the world in terms of. what is true.

as a scientist i appreciate the value of. reason and emotions and love. are consequences they're not primary. emotions are consequences of conclusions. you've come to your emotions will change. very quickly relatively speaking when. your evaluations of a situation will. change different people can see exactly. the same scene and have completely. different emotions because they're. bringing different value systems and. they're bringing different thoughts to. the process maybe love is primary but. let me ask uh love is the same thing you. can fall out of love with somebody why.

because you learn something new because. you've discovered something new about. the person now you don't love them the. wrong podcast to bring up love we'll. talk forever about it so uh. you wrote the book the virtue of. nationalism. contrasting nation states with empires. and with global governance like united. nations and so on so uh you argue that. nationalism uniquely provides the quote. the collective right of a free people to. rule themselves so continuing our. conversation.

why is this particular. collection of humans we call a nation. a uniquely powerful way to preserve the. freedom of a people to have people rule. themselves. before i say anything on the subject i. should emphasize that i'm not a. rationalist i'm an empiricist and i'm. i'm i'm offering what. uh. what i think is a valid observation of. of human history i i don't have some. kind of deductive framework for proving.

that you know that the nation is the. best and empirically we know something. about the way systems of national states. work and about the way empires work and. the way tribal societies work uh what we. don't know is uh you know. is it possible to invent something else. or i mean there's a lot of things we. don't know here. so. with the caveat that i'm i'm making an. empirical observation the basic argument. is. human beings form collectives naturally. loyalty groups. and.

for most of human history and prehistory. as far as as as we know human beings. lived in tribal societies tribal. societies or societies um in in in which. there's. um. uh constant friction and constant. warfare. among very small groups among among. families and clans. and we reach a turning point in human. history with the invention of. large-scale agriculture which allows the. creation of vast wealth it allows the. establishment of standing armies instead.

of militias you know. sargon of akkad says. i can pay five thousand men to do. nothing other than to drill in the arts. of war and then i'm gonna send them out. to conquer the neighboring city-states. and there you have empire. the bible which is the source of our. our image our conception of a world of. of independent nations that are not. constantly trying to conquer one another. the sort the source of that is the bible. and the the uh the biblical world is is.

one in which. uh. uh. israel and and and and various other. small nations are are trying to create. to to to to fight for their independence. against. world empires against empires babylonian. assyrian persian egyptian which aspire. to rule the world. my my claim is fundamentally. twofold it's it it it's moral. that whenever you conquer a foreign. nation you're murdering and you're.

stealing you're you're you're destroying. you you as as your own would say you. you're using force to to to. to to cause people to submit so so. there is something in uh in in the. prophets that rebels against this uh. ongoing atrocity and carnage of trying. to take over the whole world. and um and and there's a a prudential. practical argument which is that the. world is governed best. when there are multiple nations when.

when they're free to experiment and. chart their own courses that means they. they they have their their own route to. god they have their own. [Music]. moralities they have their own forms of. economy and government and what tends to. happen in history is that. when something is successful when. something looks like when people a. different nation looks at and say well. those people are they're flourishing. they're succeeding then it's it's. imitated and you know in in the way that. you know the dutch invented the stock.

market and and the english said look. that makes them them powerful so so. we'll we'll adopt it so that there's. endless examples of that so that's the. argument for it the argument is is um. since since we don't know. a priori deductively from self-evident. principles what is best. it it's best to have a world in which. people are trying different things so a. quick question because the word. nationalism sometimes is presented in a. negative light in connection to.

uh the nationalism of nazi germany for. example. so. so you're looking empirically. at a world of nations that respect each. other i use the word nationalism the way. that i inherited it in my tradition yes. which is it's a principled standpoint. that says that the world is governed. best. when. uh many nations are able to be. independent and charge their own course. that's nationals as far as the nazis.

hitler's an imperialist he hated nation. states his whole theory if you pick up. i i don't recommend doing this but if. you if you do actually reading it right. now mine conference right if you do read. mineconf then you'll see that he says. explicitly that the goal is for germany. to be. the the lord of the earth and mistress. of the globe and he detests the idea of. the independent nation state because he. sees it as weak and effete he might as. well have said it's jewish so let me ask. from the individual perspective.

for nationalism. what do you make of the value of the. love of country. the reason i connect that so. i i personally. uh what would you say a patriot i i love. the love of country or i am suscept or. the in iranian way i enjoy. i in a. love is a good word but what do we find. well i love a lot of things but i'm.

saying this particular love is a little. bit contentious which is loving your. country. that's an interesting love that some. people are a little uncomfortable with. uh even when especially when that love. you know i grew up in the soviet union. to say you you know i you you just love. the country it represents a certain. thing to you and it's not you don't. think like philosophically like i was. marching around with with like marks. under my arm or something like that it's. just loving. uh community.

at the level of nation it's very. interesting i don't know if that's an. artifact of the past. that we're going to have to strip away. i don't know if i was just raised in. that kind of community but i appreciate. that. my i guess. the thing i'm torn about. is that love of country. that i have in my heart that i now love. america and i consider myself an. american. that would have easily if i was born. earlier been used by stalin.

and i would have proudly died on the. battlefield i would have probably died. if i was in nazi germany as a german and. i would proudly die as an american are. you sure about these things yes. that's interesting no i think about this. a lot it's interesting to run. a radical counter factual and be sure of. the answer i mean i'm not sure i mean. but i think about this a lot because. obviously i'm really interested in. history and i put my this is the way i. think about most situations as i. empathize i really try to do hard work.

of placing myself in that moment. and thinking through it i'm just okay i. just know myself psychologically what. what i'm susceptible to. uh that's a negative way to phrase it. but what i would love doing. and so i'm just saying my question is um. is the love of nation. a useful. or a powerful moral. sort of from a moral philosophy. perspective uh a good thing.

i think it is a good thing but before we. ask whether it's a good thing i think. it's it's worth asking whether there's. any way to live without it. the idea of national independence. of a world or a continent which. politically is governed by multiple. independent national states that is a. political theory somebody came up with. that you know in the bible or elsewhere. some someone came up with this idea and. sold it and a lot of people like it. but the nation. is not an invention it it.

every place in human history that we. have any record of. there are nations. and. so. the the the. the fact of. people creating families families. creating an alliance. of. of uh of of clans clans creating. alliances of tribes tribes creating. alliances of uh. and. an alliance that becomes the nation. we see that everywhere in human history.

everywhere we look. and the love of a group of tribes that. have come together in order to fight. opponents that are trying to destroy. your way of life and you know and this. steal your land and and and and harm. your women and children. the the the love of. uh of. uh the leadership that brings it. together here this is. you know a george washington type figure. or an alfred the great type figure or or.

or saul the biblical saul somebody who. has the the wisdom the daring to unite. the tribes overcome their their you know. their their internal. uh uh mutual hatreds and grievances and. rally them around uh a set of ideas a. language a tradition uh a a a a an. identity as people say today that love. is eradicable from human beings maybe. we'll have brave new world people will. take drugs in order to get rid of it the.

problem is that could be leveraged by. authoritarian regime yes but that's true. of everything it's like saying you know. you can have children and you can teach. them to be evil you you can make a lot. of money you can use it for evil you you. can have a gun for self-defense but you. can use it for evil come on we just. that's that's that's human that's being. human but you guys are making love this. primary which i don't think it is there. are lots of people. i know there are lots of people in the. world out there who don't love their. nation because their nation is not worth. loving that is love is conditional it's. not unconditional love is conditioned on.

the value that's presented to you you. know so i i lived through this. experience in my own life right i was i. grew up in a in a in in israel. at a time uh of of everything was geared. towards. patriotism and in the state. uh i i would say i was trained to to. when i saw a grenade to jump on it. because that was. you know every song and every story and. everything was about.

the state is everything and you should. sacrifice and you know when the flag. went up i got teary-eyed i mean. i bought into it completely. um and at some point i rejected that and. i changed and i changed my alliance and. i i rejected my love of israel it's not. that i don't love it anymore but it's. certainly not my top love and it's. certainly i'm certainly not looking for. the grenade to jump on and i'm. volunteering to go fight the war there. and and i i fell in love from a distance. with with with the idea of america.

i i love the idea of america more than i. love america right and and i could see. myself falling in love out of love with. america given where it's heading right. it's it's not automatic it's it's it's. conditioned on what it is that it. represents and what it is what value it. represents. uh for me uh you know and and i think. that's that's always the case with love. uh you know it's not true. that children have to love their parents. that's the ideal and and hopefully most. children love their parents because. their parents but some children fall out.

of love with their parents because their. parents don't deserve their love. uh and and the same with this is the. same with the other way around i think i. think parents are capable of not loving. their children okay so it's it's love is. a is a conditional thing it's not. automatic but but let me let me point. out an agreement with let me say. something when you agree you're trying. to bribe me with an agreement okay. right mostly i like to talk to your own. about his ideas and i don't want to talk. about ein rand but i want to say. something just. just one one thing about iron ranch uh.

all my kids all my kids. read ayn rand's books my father read the. fountainhead i don't know like you know. like. we we know ein rand and um. i'll tell you it is incredibly difficult. reading for me it's it's it's painful. it's painful to read why is it painful. not because i disagree with the. with with the view of of trading and. business and the creativity of it and. and you know and and reardon metal i.

mean you know that stuff that stuff uh. moves me and and and and and i i do. admire it. but. to read you know a book that's a. thousand pages long in which. nobody nobody is having children nobody. is having a stable marriage no one is. running a uh an admirable government. that's fighting for a just cause. anywhere anywhere euron i it i feel i. just i feel like like.

it's focusing on one aspect of what it. is to be human and to flourish and that. everything else is just erased and. thrown out as though it's just not part. of reality and i'm scared i'm scared of. what happens to to to teenagers who. hormonally or in any case know that. that's their they're programmed to to uh. to pull away from their parents and. experiment with things they're. they're biologically programmed to do. that. and you give them a book which says.

look. you you don't you don't have to have a. family you don't have to raise children. you don't have to have a country you. don't have to fight for anything all you. have to do is. assert yourself and trade. i i i think it's destructive because. it's not realistic it's just not real. but i got none of that for mine rent. i got none of that from my man you know. the the the books were not about a. family uh you could write a book in in. iron man style about. where where people have a family but.

the goal the purpose it's a novel it's. not it's a novel which is delimited with. a particular story there's one family in. goat gulch and there's a little passage. about raising children and the value of. that uh because it's not core to what. she is writing about but that doesn't. exclude it i ne when i read i read i. read out of struggle when i was 16 and i. read it over over the years uh several. times more it never occurred to me oh. ain't man's anti-family i shouldn't have. a family it that that thought never came.

into my mind i i always wanted to have. children i continued to want to have. children. i thought of it a little differently i. thought of how i would find a partner a. little bit differently i thought about. what i would look for in a partner. differently but not that i wouldn't want. to get married the question i i have is. what effect has in society so outside of. you so for example you mentioned love. should be conditional i think well it is. whether you like it or not it is you. might pretend that it isn't but it's. always conditional well let me try to. say something and see if it makes any.

sense so could there be things that are. true like love is conditional is always. conditional that if you say it often. it has a negative effect on society so. for example. i mean uh so maybe i'm just a romantic. but good luck saying love is conditional. to a romantic partner. i mean you could. i would argue on mass. that would uh deteriorate the quality of. relationships.

uh if you remind the partner of that. truth. that is universal like you have to the. the i mean okay maybe it's just me i'll. just speak to myself it's like there's a. certain romantic notion of unconditional. love it's part of why. you have so many destructive marriages. it's it's part of why you say that's a. problem yes it's it's a real problem. because because. yes there is a you are talked about. honoring your spouse and and there's a.

real truth there and i i i respect that. yes. you have to do certain things love is. not you marry somebody and there's a. real attitude out there in the culture. you marry somebody and okay now we're. gonna we're just gonna cruise it's just. right hollywood that's that's the. hollywood map you know marriage is work. it it it it's like all values it's work. it it's something you have to reignite. every day you have to you have to the. challenges the real disagreements the. the the the the things you you fight. about you disagree about and and there's.

real if it's a value you work it out you. you you you struggle through it you you. and and sometimes you struggle through. it you come to a conclusion nah this is. not gonna work and and you dissolve a. marriage and i'm i'm all for dissolving. after. really really fighting for it because if. it's an important value and if you fell. in love with this person for a reason. then that's something worth fighting for. i have a feeling that hollywood goes the. other way but it's not this cruising. along and everything everything is easy. no human relationship is like that.

enough friendship not love not not not. not raising children not being a child. um you know they require work and and. they require thinking and they require. creating the conditions. to thrive and that's the sense in which. it's it's conditional you you have to. look at it. and it it's in in. it's very easy. not to do the work and it's very easy to. drift away and i think most people don't. do the work most people take it and. generally in life they the only place.

people seem to work is at work. and then they take the rest of their. life as i'm gonna cruise. and yet every aspect of your life the. art you choose. the friends you choose the lovers you. choose. all require real thinking and real work. to be successful at them none of them. are just. just there because there is no such. thing as just the intrinsic right i. agree with all of that i was going to. say before that the rabbis have this uh. sort of shocking expression.

the pain of raising. raising children and uh. i i find when i speak to audiences about. relationships i find that that in. general and this is a this is. cross-cultural it's for different. countries different religious. backgrounds that in general. young people. do not know that the only way to make a. marriage work is through a lot of pain. and overcoming they don't know that.

raising children involves a great deal. of pain they don't know that caring for. and helping your parents approach the. end of their lives causes a great deal. of pain and and. everything is kind of this sketchy you. know very very sketchy glimpsy kind of. and i i mentioned hollywood just because. it it it everything is is made to look. easy except you know there's kind of a. funny breakdown of something but then it. you know maybe there's a divorce they. you know they shoot one another so. that's so then they should get divorced.

but. but the the reality of. of how hard it is to do. and. how heroic it is to to do it and then. overcome and then actually in the end. achieve something create something that. that was really. it's almost it's almost not it's almost. not discussed and and so i look to me. it's just not surprising that. if if there's no parallel to ein rand. about you know the the the heroic saving.

of a marriage that was on the rocks how. does it actually happen. so. so. it's a good point you're making an in. but. something just came to me that i've. never thought of before so that's always. good this is where conversation is good. look. take the talmud and and and by i can't. remember how many years after the bible. talmud is written how many over how how. long of a period it's written how many. people participating in writing it. ein rand was one individual.

she wrote a series of books in. philosophy which i think. are true and and but they're the. beginning. there's a lot of work to be done. it's it to apply this so. uh hopefully there will be one of her. students who writes a book on. relationships. and there'll be a a a a somebody who. writes a book on on developing a. political theory in greater detail and. and develop her ethics she's got like. she's got she's got a few writings on. ethics and it's in the novels but but. there's a lot of work to be done. fleshing it out what does it mean how do.

you. so to to say iron man didn't do. everything. is a truism she didn't do everything. okay so what but she laid this amazing. philosophical foundation that allows us. to take those principles and to apply. them to all these realms of human life. and she does it on a scope that few. philosophers in human history have done. because she goes from metaphysics all. the way to aesthetics hitting the key. and she's an original think on each one. of those things. and. she might be right she might be wrong on. certain aspects of it.

always happy to have a debate about. whether where she's wrong or where she's. not but there's a lot of work to be done. right it's not like and if if there were. objectivists out there who presented as. okay human knowledge is over because. iron man wrote these books that's absurd. right this huge amount of work to be. done in applying these particular ideas. just like they was for any philosophy. take these ideas and now apply them to. all these realms and human experience. that flesh it out and make it and one of. the reasons i don't think objectivism.

has taken off is because there's all. this work still to be done that allows. it to be relatable to to people in every. aspect of them let me ask a hard. question here we've we've got we've. taken can i say what i agreed with you. all sure sure this is good it's a good. transition here this is the clip this is. this is the clip i mean i agree about. nations so i i don't like the term. nationalism because i i i fear what. happens when you put in ism at the end. of any anywhere anything yes but but the. nation is is a good thing then and and.

having a diversity of nations in a sense. it's a good thing and in this sense. in this sense i don't think one can come. up so look i i i said i hold that the. ideal nation is a nation that protects. individual rights. how do you do that. what are the details how do we define. property rights exactly in an internet. world. there's going to be disagreement. rational reasonable disagreement they're. going to be in in my. future in the 300 years from now when my.

ideas have won finally right there will. be multiple nations trying to apply the. principle of applying individual rights. and they'll do it differently one of the. one of the benefits of federalism. is that while you have a national. government there are certain issues that. you relegate to states and they can try. different things and learn because there. is a huge value in the empirical. knowledge comes the you can't just. deduce it all and figure it all out you. have to experiment so i do. i hate the idea of a one world na one.

world government because. experimentation is gone and if you make. a mistake everybody suffers. i like the idea and then i like the idea. of people being able to to choose. where they live but but this notion of. experimentation i think is crucial but. you need a principle. this is you need a principle so i don't. like the idea of nations if all the. nations are going to be. bad right if all the nations are going. to be horrible then i don't like it what. i like is a variety of nations all.

practicing. basically good ideas. and then we try to figure out okay what. works better than other things and and. and what is sustainable and what is not. given. how many difficult aspects of. history and society we've talked about. let me ask a hard question of both of. you. breathe up until now yeah. what gives you hope about the future. so we've been describing um. reasons to maybe not have hope.

what gives you hope when you look at the. world. what gives you hope that in 200 years. and 300 years and 500 years like the the. founders look into the future. that. human civilization will be all right and. and more than that it would flourish two. things for me. one is history so in the very long run. good ideas went out. i think in the very long run you can go. through dark ages but you come out of. the dark ages. um.

you know the the the the the good and. the just does win in the end even if it. is bloody and difficult and and hard to. get there so while i am quite. pessimistic unfortunately about the. short run i'm ultimately optimistic that. that in the long run good ideas win and. and they're justified and and and i. think the fundamental. behind that is. i i think is is that i'm fundamentally. positive about human nature i i think. human beings. um can think uh they're capable of.

reasoning. they're capable of figuring out the. truth they're capable of learning from. experience they don't always do it it's. an achievement to do it. but over time they do. and and if you create the right. circumstances they will and when things. get bad enough they look. for way out they look at maybe at. history if the history is available to. them maybe at just. learning from the. from from what's around them to find.

better ways of doing things and that. reinforces itself but human beings are. an amazing. creature right we're just amazing in our. capacity to be creative in our capacity. to think in a capacity to love and that. capacity to change our environment to. fit our needs and to fit our. requirements for survival. and to learn and to grow and to progress. and uh. you know so so again long term i think. all that wins out short-term in any.

point in history short-term um. it doesn't right now it doesn't look too. good. what about you yeah well. as usual i i moved by by what euron says. and i and uh and i hear scripture and uh. the the source for euron's. hope. um. is. uh the book of exodus. which is the first place in human. history where.

we we are presented with the possibility. that an enslaved people that's being. persecuted and murdered and living under. the worst possible regime. can free itself. and have a shot a life of independence. and worth. and it's another inherited jewish idea. in the in in the tradition. um. the way that we. express this is by saying. um that that there is a god who judges.

the the the israelites in egypt were. were enslaved for hundreds of years. according to the exodus story hundreds. of years before god wakes up and. and and and hears them and and he. doesn't do anything until until you know. moses uh uh kills the oppressor and and. and goes out into the desert so. um so i i think it's. pretty realistic that you know there's a. god that god judges and acts but. probably you know often not for a very.

very long time and not until there's. there's a human being who who gets up. and says enough. i know that today people don't want to. read the bible they don't like reading. the bible but i always hear in my ear uh. this uh. uh cry of the prophet. jeremiah who saw his his nation. destroyed and and these people exiled. and he says um. in in god's name he says he's not my. word.

like fire. like the hammer that shatters rock a. petition. my word is like fire like the hammers. that shatters rock. and this is actually this is the. traditional way of saying something like. what you're on is saying that it may. take a long long time but that but there. there is a truth and it has its own. strength and it will. in the end. shatter the things that are opposing it. that's. that's our traditional hope we.

we grow up like that. and um. [Music]. you know so so i i do have hope i i see. the trends the trends are terrible right. now. and uh and. and and and it's frightening and it's. hard but we are terrible at seeing the. future and it is very possible that an. unexpected turn of events is going to. appear. you know maybe soon maybe much later and. uh the possibility of. uh of a redemption.

um is there. let me ask given that long arc of. history given that you do study the. bible. what is. the meaning of this whole thing what's. the meaning of life. wow that's beautiful i think that the. meaning of of life is. uh. is in part. um what euron touches on when when he. says that. uh that um. the productive work labor creativity is.

is at the heart of what it is to be. human. i i. i just think that there there are. some more arenas and maybe we even agree. with a lot of them and i i on a lot of. them. to be human is to. inherit a world which is imperfect. terribly imperfect and perfect in many. ways. and uh and and god created it. that way he created a world which is. terribly lacking.

and he created us with the ability to. stand up and to say. i can change the direction of this i can. do something to change the direction of. this i can. take the time and the abilities that are. given to me to be a partner with god in. creating the world it's not going to. stay the way it was before me it'll be. something. different. maybe a little bit maybe a lot but. that's that is that is the heart that is. the key that is the meaningful life is.

to be a partner with god in creating the. world so that it is. moving that much more in the right. direction rather than. the way we found so nudge even if a. little bit the direction of the world. well uh you're you're on uh. you've actually been talking on your. program about life quite a bit uh so let. me ask the same question. and i i never tire you asking this. question.

what do you think is the is the meaning. of the soul well i mean i don't believe. in god so it god doesn't play a role in. in my view of of the meaning of life i i. think the meaning of life is to live. i like to say to live with a capital l. it's to embrace it and and. agree with your arm in a sense you were. born into a world and as human beings. one of the things that makes us very. different than other animals is our. capacity to change that world.

we can actually go out there and change. the world around us we can change it. materially through production and. through we can change it spiritually. through changing the ideas of of people. we can we can change the direction into. which humanity works we can um we can. create a little universe part of. that i think part of the joy of creating. a family is to create a little universe. right we're creating a little world uh. around us that's part of the the joy. and there is joy and family that's uh.

make it all about uh difficulty and hard. work i agree i agree you know but part. of the part of the the idea of getting. married is is to create a little world. in which you and your spouse are. creating something that didn't exist. before and and and building something. building a universe but it's really to. live i mean one of the things that. i i see and and that saddens me is is. wasted lives. it's people who just. just cruise through life they just they. just they get bored they get born in a. particular place they never challenge it.

they never question. they just. you know they live die and nothing. really happened nothing really changed. they didn't produce they didn't make. anything of their life and produce here. again in the in their largest sense. so to me it's it's and every aspect of. life you know as you know because you've. listened to my show i love art i love. aesthetics i love the experience of. great art. you know i love relationships i you know. i i love producing i'm you know i like. business i like that that aspect of it.

um and and i think i think people people. are shallow in in so many parts of their. lives which saddens me i mean if we if. you had eight billion people on this. planet. even if it never grew even if we just. stayed at 8 billion but the 8 billion. all lived. fully wow i mean. what an amazing place this would be what. an amazing experience we would have so. so to me that is the meaning is just. make the most you have a short period of. time on earth. and that's it this is it and and live it.

experience it fully and and challenge. yourself and push yourself and and let. me just say something about optimism. about you know one source of hope for me. in the world in which we live right now. is that there are people who do that at. least in certain realms of of their. lives right and and i'm inspired. and and i know a lot of people don't. like me for this but i'm inspired for. example by silicon valley in spite of. all the political disagreements i have. with them and all of that i'm inspired. by people. inventing new technologies and building.

i'm inspired by by the people you talk. to about artificial intelligence and. about about new ideas and about pushing. the boundaries of science those things. are exciting and it's it's terrific to. see a world that i think generally is in. decline yet that these pockets in which. people are still creating new uh new. ventures and new ideas and new things. that that inspires me and it gives me. hope that that is not dead that in spite. of the decay that's in our culture. there's still pockets where. that spirit of being human is still is.

still alive and well yeah they inspire. me as well yeah and they truly live with. the capital l and maybe i can do an uh. star maybe you can also put a little bit. of love with the capital l out there as. well. uh euron. you know i would end it that way. wouldn't you uh you're on your arm thank. you so much this is a huge honor i. really enjoyed the debate yesterday i. really enjoyed the conversation today. that you spend your valuable time with. me just means a lot thank you so much.

this is amazing. thanks for listening to this. conversation with yaran brook and joram. hazoni to support this podcast please. check out our sponsors in the. description. and now let me leave you with some words. from edmund burke. the only thing necessary for the triumph. of evil is for good men to do nothing. thank you for listening and hope to see. you next time.

you.