okay my millions of YouTube fans have
been clamoring for me to watch Jordan
Peterson and review him
I really haven't watched much Jordan
Peterson or I really not that familiar
with him I don't know what he's going to
say but apparently he had lots of stuff
about Marxism and I went online and
YouTube I saw lots of these marks and
Marxism videos and I don't want to just
go through a two minute thing we're just
really going to cover where Jordan
Peterson has to say about Marxism
identity politics and that stuff so I
downloaded this video from YouTube it's
called identity politics the Marxist lie
of white privilege so I'm gonna place
that and then when I feel the need to
I'm going to stop the video and you're
gonna get to hear me talk about maybe
how stupid it is I don't know I'm just
assuming that stupid and we have Jordan
Peterson here's Marx's capital so I can
reference everything he says right in
this book this is a bowling ball drill
trust which has nothing to do with this
video but I control the bowling balls at
home in my room okay so let's go to
Jordan Peterson and let's see how long I
let him talk before getting back to you
and interjecting
today's theme is understanding and so
what we're going to try to do built
building on the last talk is to
understand what's been happening I would
say under the subsurface of easily
perceptible reality and only the world
manifests itself at many layers you can
tell that when you get into an argument
with someone especially someone that you
love because partly what you start
already you vote is exactly what the
argument is about right you need to
specify the level of analysis before you
can move forward properly and specifying
the level of analysis is a very
difficult thing so I'm going to try to
specify
I'm gonna try to make the case or I'm
going to make the case mm-hmm that what
we're seeing unfold around us right now
in this era of increasing polarization
is the consequence of a very serious war
of ideas that's really been going on for
I suppose 150 years and in some ways
longer than that and that it's necessary
to understand the war of ideas to
understand the polarization and maybe to
see a road clear to ameliorating it
talks entitled identity politics and the
Marxist lie of white privilege and I
want to make a very careful case for the
validity of that title because one thing
that's useful to note is that there is
no question that some people have more
privileged than other people in fact you
might make the case that every person
has more privilege in some manner than
any other than every other person so you
have to give the devil his due so to
speak that's a very important thing when
you're dealing with ideas you can't just
throw everything away even if it is part
of something that you that you feel
deeply is runs let's say contrary to you
that runs contrary to your deepest moral
instincts you have to give it its its
place so you can formulate proper
arguments so we're going to try to do
that as well
so we'll start with an analysis of the
Marxist worldview and I'm going to try
to get to the bottom of it to some
degree so for Marx you could history
itself could be viewed as a never ending
sequence of battles between the
oppressed and the oppressor now Marx was
more specific than that because he took
an economic view of history a deeply
materialistic view of history and
believed that people were fundamentally
motivated by economic motives I never
did buy that because I think one of the
problems with that theory is that I
really don't want this to be about he's
saying over and over
that he knows nothing about marks he
hasn't read marks are not a Marxist
scholar people like Brendan mikuni and
David Harvey on YouTube will go into a
lot more detail about marks and my Erica
hope code but at least I have this book
at least I know a little bit about Mars
I'm not sure we're Marx makes his grand
sweeping statements that human beings
are inherently motivated by economics I
and what happens is in a capitalistic
world when Peterson says economics that
really can be reduced down to personal
financial gain that that sort of thing I
don't know where Marx makes that
statement marks as the materialist was
concerned with how the material world in
which we live will control our social
relationships and you know how people
live it'll can affect our culture our
belief systems all that and if you look
into say the zeitgeist movement
resource-based economy again we see the
same idea about how the material
conditions affect us unlike the common
libertarian notions that human beings
are somehow just inherently something
and that's unalterable so I feel like at
the start of this video Peterson is kind
of flipping these these views he's
taking this libertarian view that humans
are just you know self mechanized
self-maximizing and utility seekers and
do everything for personal gain that's
all they've ever been will he ever will
be it's kind of thrown that away and say
oh he's not for that but that's what the
Marxist view is because Marx did not
believe in this unalterable you know
human in reality he wanted to see humans
go from a capitalist note capitalists
ignore the production to something
better so I think that he's completely
wrong about this and he does that it
doesn't in a very like quick manner I
mean he spends like two minutes rambling
on about nonsense and then very quickly
just says some nonsense about Marx and
and then I guess he's moving on to the
next thing so let's see what he goes on
to it doesn't ever answer the question
what it is that people value it takes it
assumes value implicitly in
and associates that with economic
well-being but that's by no means
obvious it's certainly not
psychologically obvious that that's the
case and it's not actually how people
behave by the way from a psychological
perspective so that's a big problem but
I just watched that like like six times
nobody's okay get that I'm gonna slice
outward at the point that he made from
that the rest of his rambling and we'll
just watch it over and over again maybe
it'll make sense it doesn't ever answer
the question what it is that people
value it takes it assumes value
implicitly and associates that with
economic well-being but that's by no
means obvious it doesn't ever answer the
question what it is that people value it
takes it assumes value implicitly in and
associates that with economic well-being
but that's by no means obvious I'm sorry
for repeating that three times it just
doesn't make any sense maybe that's how
you become a libertarian genius on
YouTube just say you know convoluted
things that don't make sense
okay Marx doesn't define what people
value but but you don't define what you
mean by the word value so I have no
[ __ ] idea what you're talking about
I have this book Marx goes over a
use-value he goes over exchange value he
goes over price obviously there's also
an understanding of how things have
value even if they're not commodities
you seem to be accusing marks of
conflating the value of things in life
with economic or financial gain that's
the only way I could possibly triple
what you said but that's that what Marx
does that's what the capitalist
ownership class does it's their
pathology where it's never enough that
they need more and more and more and the
only way that they can get more value in
their lives is to Accord more billions
while most of humanity you know or if
not most you know billions of people now
we're living in abject poverty while we
have this tiny minority billionaire
class there owns more than Walden
combined
that's the pathology of the people
you're [ __ ] defending and it once
again remarks remarks before you make
youtube videos one after another about
how your
Marxist s expert when you're not it
doesn't matter it's it's a theory that
has at least some hypothetical
explanatory power and no shortage of
psychological attractiveness that's
certainly the case so anyways the basic
Marxist idea as I'm sure most of you
know is that the social world in life
itself is a battle between those who
have and those who have who don't have
and that the reason that those who have
have is because they take it from those
who do not have and that that's the most
appropriate way to view history itself
I suppose stemming back as far back as
you can imagine and that it's also
useful to think that way if you want to
conceptualize the proper future because
the proper future would be one in which
that essentially unjust division would
be eradicated so that everyone would be
equal in some fundamental way so that
everyone would be equal in some
fundamental way please equal um I don't
know um where does Marx take this
because I don't know what you mean by
the word equal where you're basically
shoving the word equal in Marx's mouth
like Mark said equal hero to go to this
equality in capital which he did not
write about in capital and you want
people to take the nonsense social
justice worry concepts about enforcing
equality amongst all people in all
manners that everyone is equal everyone
has to be true the same everyone has to
be treated with their legal skills
there's much other little nonsense out
there and you want people to conflate
that with Marxism I don't know where
this notion that Marx wanted to enforce
this general equality on to the world
you can't have that equal equality has
to be in terms of something in to in
terms of what you you know and you're
accusing Marx of making this vague
statement or belief about equality you
don't say where it is I'm gonna make a
prediction that with possible exception
of rambling off a line or two here and
there about the Communist Manifesto and
no point in this one
our intending to talk about Marxism is
he going to reference any works of Marx
and he will
even if he mentions the Communist
Manifesto and no point is he going to go
and say in this place and this part of
this presentation mark said specifically
this and this is what he meant he's not
going to get into any specifics he's
just going to ramble on about know his
beliefs about Marx from I guess um
Reagan era propaganda about the evils of
communism or whatever and so that there
wouldn't be an owning class and a
working class let's say now you know I
had some sympathy for that viewpoint
when I was a kid and I think it does
have to do with what the last speaker
calls empathy the world's a rough place
you know and there's no doubt that some
people have it better at some times than
other people and some people have it
have lives that are so unbearably tragic
that it beggars the imagination and
other people seem to float through life
with Neriah worry although I think
that's also exaggerated because no
matter how well-off you are economically
you're still not really free from the
fundamental tragedies of life right here
your loved ones still get sick and and
struggle through life and you're still
subject to aging and eventually to death
so it's not like even at the upper end
of the distribution you're necessarily
protected against the essential tragedy
of life so because having money doesn't
escape you from the tragedies of life
what was that to do it anything how does
that defend having a billionaire class
oh well this person sleeping in the
[ __ ] New York City Subway that person
is a billionaire because there are
parasite on Wall Street doesn't do
anything for dr. free and Mandy
whatsoever but um let's not worry about
that because the billionaire still has
to face death and cannot escape from the
tragedies of life what does that have to
do with Marxism I thought I was watching
a [ __ ] video on Marx why don't you
just get on with it already
and I also think that that's another
problem with the Marxist worldview is
that it implicitly makes the case that
the cause of human suffering is social
injustice and and that that's true in
some sense in that social injustice can
amplify suffering but it's certainly not
the cause of suffering no you [ __ ]
capitalism apologist [ __ ] who doesn't
care what deprivation is you see of
suffering at the hands of the [ __ ]
elitist ruling ownership class Marx is
not talking about suffering in general
is not the [ __ ] Buddha he's talking
about the suffering of people working 14
15 16 17 18 hour work days during the
industrial revolution maybe getting
their arms chopped off doing it so that
stories here about like railroad worker
so forced to run a train for like 30
hours in row then I lots is asleep and
then did when they accidentally kills
someone because they were so exhausted
they get thrown in jail he so mad that
[ __ ] [ __ ] hey and I'm sorry in these
circumstances the working conditions and
the class exploitation is the cause of
[ __ ] suffering so who the [ __ ] are
you to say that this book is wrong
because he's not talking about suffering
in all aspects as if there can be such a
thing obviously if someone they're
suffering they're suffering they are
suffering for a [ __ ] reason there
could be you know material reasons there
can be social reasons that could be
emotional reasons Camila sorts of
reasons for social for suffering it is
your [ __ ] projection that Marx is
making the claim that it's the material
conditions work under capitalism which
is the cause of all suffering
that's totally [ __ ] bogus claim he's
talking about class struggle under
capitalism and why is it that ten
minutes into the talk you have to leave
the particulars of Marxism not that you
were ever on them to begin with
and make these wide sweeping
generalizations in order to attack him
again read the [ __ ] book the cause of
suffering in some sense is life itself
and its fundamental limitations and it's
really important to make a distinction
between those two things because
otherwise you can easily be tempted to
assume that you could bring the utopian
if you only adjusted
sociological conditions properly and
there's just no reason to assume that
that's a reasonable perspective I'm not
sure Marx offers this utopia what we're
going to see in this video is the
conflation of capitalism with the
inherent human condition and Peterson is
going to make the argument that life as
it is under capitalism is the inherent
inescapable human condition and
therefore all we have to do to be happy
or what we need to do is to change our
mindset because he's a [ __ ]
psychologist to accept life on the
capitalism and the better competitors in
the economic game I didn't watch the
video I don't know what the [ __ ] he has
to say about capitalism that's my
prediction whatsoever as far as I can
tell I think it's actually a form of
existential cowardice to assume that
because it doesn't grapple with the real
problem and the real problem is that
well the real problem is as religious
people have stated over and over
throughout recorded history is that life
itself is is suffering that's a
fundamental truth you certainly the
truth for example that's well it's a
Buddhist truth a fundamental Buddhist
truth and it certainly graphically
presented in the idea of the crucifixion
so and that's a hard pill to swallow
it's a bitter pill to swallow and it's
comforting I suppose to think that if
you just adjusted society properly that
all that suffering would go away but
this is what he's really saying that
whether you are the Industrial Age
worker in England who was kicked off the
ural and so some people can raise ships
and sheeps and told to work in a factory
for 18 hours a day if you were a
meatpacker worker in Chicago you know
100 years ago and got your arm chopped
off so he's turned into hamburgers if
you are the woman in Korea who recently
committed suicide because she was so
sick from working 104 hours a week if
you are one of the people in China who
they put up nets so you can't kill
yourself there whether you are homeless
on the streets in New York if you're in
the United States and cutting up chicken
standing there for like 12 hours a row
in a diaper because the only
take a bathroom break will you people
you're suffering has nothing to do with
the material conditions of your life in
class conflict you just need to change
your mindset because be like the Buddha
who the [ __ ] oh you know what the [ __ ]
is with this guy you know deal with
reality you piece of garbage and now at
this point I can't even make this video
without I'm freaking angry insults at
him because he has no sympathy or a
compassion for people in actual
suffering yes you cannot eliminate all
suffering by changing the material
conditions of life and suffering is part
of life I think I get that and I think
parks are just done anything and we all
understand that except for the
capitalist class you just want to
accumulate more and more more and they
think eventually they'll be happy if one
if one of them owns everything there
isn't really any evidence that that
would occur now mm-hmm
I read George Orwell when I was a kid
probably about 17 I wrote read a book
called rode to Wigan Pier which if you
haven't read I would I would seriously
recommend it's a it's a it's a great
book it's in the same line in some sense
as Animal Farm in 1984 although it's
more journalistic wait Orwell went to
this coal mining town in northern
northern UK called Wigan Pier and
documented the lives of the
working-class coal miners who lived Erin
we may to call their lives difficult
it's like you're not even scratching the
surface right I mean they were old by
the time they were 40 most of them had
no teeth by the time they were thirty
they lived in abysmal conditions and the
coal miners themselves who of course
developed black lung quite early in
their life had to crawl through short
tunnels three and a half miles just to
get to their eight-hour shift and then
which was wasn't paid for them that was
the commute fundamentally Orwell who was
a rather tall man said that after 500
yards he could hardly stand up and of
course then they had to I don't know you
don't call this crowd crawling it's not
exactly walking it's stooping I suppose
it's not a normal form of ambulation but
in any case they also had to do that
after their eight-hour shift and I mean
that's just the begin
and so you know Orwell who was he he
engaged in the kind of argument that I
think it's Brett Weinstein has coined
the term steel man you know you can make
a straw man out of your opposition which
is a very bad idea because it weakens
your ability to think but you can also
make it in a presentation about Marx
where you say nothing about Marx you
know nothing about this your whole thing
is a [ __ ] straw man argument you
then go on this long rambling thing
about how you shouldn't engage in strong
arguments you are psychologically and
manipulating your audience because these
people are sitting there listening to
your [ __ ] and then you say well it's bad
to engage in straw man arguments so
they're probably thinking it to
themselves oh it's really good that
Peterson to my lung it's not engaging
you're destroying an argument it you
know manipulating me on top of that
manipulation is your fake empathy that's
why you went to the whole road for Wigan
peer which I happened to read in college
steel man out of your opponent and so
you even amplify the power of their
arguments if you can manage it so that
when you formulate a rejoinder the
rejoinder is as powerful as it could
possibly be and of course this is
exactly what Orwell was doing he was
saying look like if you had any sense
you'd have compassion for these
working-class people because their lives
are just in almost indescribable brutal
and but then you know in the last half
of the book he wrote this for the left
book club which was a socialist book
publishing entity that put out I think a
book a month and in the last half of the
book he switched to an analysis of what
he saw as the failure of the Labour
Party and in in the UK to attract as
much attention as much support from the
general population as you might predict
given the dismal conditions of the
working class and he wrote a line in
there that I've never forgotten I'd been
working for a mildly socialist party in
Canada at the time I was about 16 you
know Canada has a fairly long history of
democratic socialism and and for a long
time the democratic socialists were a
genuine voice for the working class and
the working class needs a political
voice I mean there's no doubt about that
but Orwell but I noticed something when
I
went to the political conventions and
what I noticed was that although many of
the leaders that I saw met at that time
because I have I had fortunate access
for reasons I won't go into
notice how during this presentation he's
constantly congratulating himself over
his empathy for poor people's empathy
for the working class and he used to be
involved with these people and the
working class need people to speak for
them this does not defend your arguments
this is you know total fluff do you
because you add a bunch of fluff about
how you're a great empathetic person
that doesn't mean you're right about
your fake critique of Marx it doesn't
mean that you're right about your
justification of the oppression of the
working class under capitalism it
doesn't justify anything well it is his
fluff that way when people watch your
presentation they're thinking oh he
Peterson is a really nice empathetic
person if he's saying barks is wrong it
must be because he has good reasons and
it's not because he's an [ __ ] [ __ ]
defending capitalism he's really
empathetic he really wants to see the
best for people that's what that's what
you're kind of subconsciously telling
people it's totally beside the point to
your argument anyway I don't care much
everything you have and I don't believe
it either big I don't believe you're
honest with yourself that's it's my
guess is that he's and I think Peterson
might be a bit of a narcissist but he's
a soft delusional one so he doesn't
really want to accept that that I'm how
narcissistic he really is so he keeps on
prompting himself up congratulating
himself on how great kind empathetic his
person he is and what his history is I
have we used to be of always socialists
people that know he cares about the
working class it doesn't make you so sad
that that he has such empathy he had to
turn his back on these people because
now he's seen the light actually did
seem to be genuinely concerned for the
welfare of the working class the lower
level functionaries especially the
activist types I didn't trust them when
I when I when I met them I didn't like
them they seemed to me to be mostly
peevish and resentful rather and so they
were motivated by something other than
well I would say sympathy for the
working class so if you're complaining
that they're not really motivated by
sympathy for the working class that
maybe that's telling people
subconsciously then you are motivated by
sympathy for the working class I mean it
just doesn't stop
and Orwell's Orwell said in last half of
them wrote dwegon here that it was
obvious that the sort of tweed weary
middle-class socialist that was typical
of of the English socialists of that
period didn't like the poor he just
hated the rich and I never forgot that
because well because I that's I had
observed that I did that's that's what
seemed it seemed to catalyze the
intuition that I had and articulate
fully articulate the intuition I had
that there was something rotten in the
state of Denmark and that what might be
passing for empathy was actually masking
something far darker and you know one
thing you do if you're a sensible person
is you kind of you kind of review you
view your own positive motivations with
a bit of skepticism you know so if
you're running around proclaiming that
you're full of empathy for the
working-class it's always worth giving
some consideration to whether there's
darker motives underneath your so-called
saintly goodness because you know
saintly goodness actually happens to
being rather short supplied so if you're
laying out a claim to that you better be
sure you're right you better be sure
you've examined your conscience and of
course people you don't people tend not
to do that because it's a rather dismal
affair examining your conscience and you
tend to find out that there's many dark
things going on to this on under the
surface that you'd rather not admit and
that's certainly the case in our world
right now so I didn't I I knew then at
that point and that really removed me
from the political sphere completely for
I would say forty years because I
learned that I didn't know what the hell
I was talking about which is a painful
thing to learn but in any case I was
quite convinced by orals analysis that
there was something other than brotherly
compassion motivating the hype the
theory that the world could be properly
divided into the oppressed and the
oppressor and that all of the suffering
of humanity could be laid at the feet of
that division because there's something
convenient about it you know especially
if you
to fight yourself as the oppressed
because it gives you a more
instantaneous moral stature and it gives
you the opportunity to act on that
hypothetical moral stature and and then
I started to study what happened in the
Soviet Union your analysis of why you
believe certain people or Marxist or
socialists or whatever is irrelevant to
Marxist critique of capitalism we have
this book we have concepts such as
surplus-value
your concepts around exploitation we
have the material conditions in which
people work we have on the social
relationships that Marx goes into detail
about none of which you're covering
because you don't know anything about it
you Freud you are you know
psychologically manipulating people
you're leading them on a psychological
journey but it seems that that at this
point you're saying Marx is invalid
because some people may have dissing
genuine motives for believing in Marx
which just totally sir convinced the
whole issue I guess let's go on with
this nonsense we have a lot more to do
so I'm and I'll tell you about that in a
minute but I'd like to contrast a bit
the idea this so this would be the
classic idea of suffering in the West
compared to the the Marxist idea and so
you know in some sense suffering comes
into the world from a mythological or
symbolic perspective when Adam and Eve
become self conscious in the Garden of
Eden they become self conscious they
become aware of their own nakedness
right and to become aware of your own
nakedness is to become aware of your
vulnerability that's why people have
nightmares about being naked on stage
you know and to know that you're naked
is also to know to be aware of that is
to also understand your limitations in
time and space
that's also why Adam and Eve developed
the knowledge of good and evil at the
same time which is a very difficult
thing to figure out because you see if
you know that you're naked and
vulnerable and you know that you can be
hurt which is the same thing then you
know how to hurt other people and you
know that consciously
and that's something that characterizes
human beings in a way that no animal is
characterized no no animal has that
knowledge I mean animals are predators
but they're not cruel now human being
can be cruel because a human being knows
how he or she him
self or herself can be hurt and hurt
badly and so you can't become
self-conscious of your own vulnerability
and and your and your mortality without
simultaneously becoming a moral agent
essentially and so that I found that
very interesting but anyways they all
know the story what happens as soon as
Adam and Eve have their eyes open and
make these terrible discoveries they're
they're cast out of paradise I mean and
and that's a story about how painful it
is to learn something that's deep and
true because almost always when you
learn something deep and true it's it
breaks your current state of complacency
and knocks you for a loop and maybe you
maybe you recover and maybe you don't
and I would say the entire corpus of the
biblical works after the fall is an
attempt to put Humpty Dumpty back
together again that's one way of
thinking about it or to return to the
Paradise estate at this point is that
you owe it to people that you're going
to reveal the deep deep truths in their
heart like I think I like I owe it to
you
you I through by watching this
presentation you better show me why
within my chest within like horrible
Marx's heart there is evil and depravity
and why I need to face it like I really
need to hear this in any case God casts
out of and Eve out of paradise and one
of the things he says he then he
explains to both of them exactly what
what their lives are going to consist of
and what they're going to consist of is
a fair bit of suffering and work knowing
for the woman it's it's work related to
childbearing in many ways but also a
destiny of something approximating
subjugation because of her vulnerable
state she's going to be under the
Dominion of the man and and I don't
think God necessarily says that is a
good thing I mean it's a curse that the
whole post-lab Syrian discussion with
God is a series of curses and the man
man of course he doesn't really get off
much easier because God points out that
he's going to have to work for his
living which is something that only
human beings do in some real sense you
know we we forego current pleasures in
order to
what to to to ensure that the future
isn't as horrible as it could be that's
a reasonable way of putting it and so in
that document which I'm making reference
to because it's at the cornerstone of
the ideas of Western civilization
suffering is something that's endemic to
life
we had hunter-gatherers then we had the
Neolithic Revolution and development of
Agriculture we had the Industrial
Revolution then we now we move into
computers Automation each one of these
changes it basically changes everything
for Humanity in terms of our mature
relations to the physical world and our
social relationships there's no such
thing as the stagnant you know way
people have to live and I think that's a
problem with this Adam and Eve in a
reference where you know God says you
know you must return to living by the
sweat of your brow or whatever that's
completely dependent upon the material
conditions in which Adam was a living
and the people who wrote Genesis
thousands of years ago were not able to
foresee the development of computers and
automation so if you want to argue
against a resource-based economy which
you I don't even know if you're aware of
you have to engage in reality engage in
discussion about the technology
available engage in discussion about why
people are doing work that has no social
technical use whatsoever do we really
need people selling stocks to each other
do we need really need people making
beer commercials or will these
commercials on TV I mean if you look at
the type of jobs people are doing today
there is no physical reference it's
simply done to move physical no abstract
notions of money around we have money
it's not even like paper representing
fiction it's just fiction and computers
and people just busy trying to move this
fiction around without any reference to
the physical world doing jobs that
cannot be excused through it through any
objective means and instead of engaging
in an analysis of reality and the
material conditions that people are
presently living under you go into this
rambling story about Adam and Eve but I
don't give a [ __ ]
Adam and Eve I care about reality I care
about technology and resources and how
people use them and how the particular
ways that we use those resources and our
material conditions affect our social
relationships there's no such thing as
the internal standing human condition
except if we talk about it in extreme
vague generalities such as there's
always some suffering but in terms of
saying well humans are always going to
have to work and the men are going to do
this and the women are going to do that
there's no universal so that that whole
thing is dependent upon technology and
our material surroundings and of course
you have a choice about what you're
going to do about that one of the things
they're supposed to do about that I
suppose in principle if you're a
Christian is accept that voluntarily
which is a which is a very terrible
thing to do and that's associated I
suppose with the imitation of Christ and
with the idea that everyone has a cross
to bear it's the idea is that you have
to accept that voluntarily right and
take individual responsibility for it
and that's no joke I mean that's a
that's a big that's a hell of a thing to
lay at the feet of someone that's
vulnerable and mortal you know it's you
might think that it's only this sort of
burden that a God could take on
voluntarily anyway so suffering is built
into the structure of existence and
there's no one there to blame except the
human what original sin I suppose that's
one way of thinking about it the the
proclivity of human beings to be self
conscious and to undermine ourselves
constantly it's it's late at the feet of
our intrinsic being it's not someone
else's fault suffering is part of the
inherent human condition having an
ownership class of less than one percent
according whether 50 percent of the
wealth well half the planet lives in
poverty is not inherit part of the human
condition now you see that also laid out
in the story of Cain and Abel which is a
remarkable story it's only about a
paragraph long it's one of the most
amazingly condensed stories that I've
ever seen ever come across and Cain
really tries to blame his suffering on
God
no his sacrifices aren't accepted he
doesn't really know why this story kind
of implies
maybe he's not putting his old heart
into it you know and he's very angry
about that about the fact that he's
breaking himself in half you know
offering up these vegetables and God is
rejecting them and whereas Abel it's
like he makes his sacrifices and God
smiles on him and everybody likes him
and you know he's a good guy too which
is really annoying because if you're
successful you should at least have the
decency to be a jerk about it so you
know Canaan Kane goes has a little chat
with God and he basically says you know
what kind of stupid University do you
make Here I am breaking myself in half
with all my sacrifices no offering
denying myself pleasure in the present
so that I can so that I can regulate the
future just like I'm supposed to because
it's the sacrificial discovery that's
equivalent to this discovery of time
that's really something to know and you
know God basically tells them that it's
his own damn fault that he's Sakura that
his sacrifices are being rejected in
that he's allowed sin to come into his
life and in some sense interact with
them creatively there's a sexual
metaphor in there it's as if Cain is
invited to sin into his house and and
and mated with it in some sense and
given rise to some monstrous thing
that's now possessing him so it's a
creative union with with resentment and
hatred and and so God basically says
well you know why don't you go get your
own house in order before you criticize
the structure of being and that's
exactly what Cain doesn't want to hear
and he's not very happy about it in his
countenance falls right and then what
does he do he goes off and kills Abel
and and then you know and and and and he
kills his own ideal so that's a hell of
a thing to do to yourself you have to be
pretty enraged before you'll destroy
your own ideal because your life is
basically over at that point and you
know God says or Cain says to God after
God gets wind of this that his
punishment is more than he can bear and
then you know the next story is the
flood and it's not accidental that those
two stories are juxtaposed in that
manner because if that way of thinking
propagates through the social world
which happens to Cain's descendants by
the way then all hell breaks loose and
everything's washed away and so you know
the story set up so interesting that you
you have this initial description of the
emergence of suffering into the
and then right next the next story is
the division of humanity into two
warring forces essentially one of which
is willing to make the proper sacrifices
whatever those happen to be I know and
people make sacrifices all the time
we've just I call it we've transformed
it into a psychological reality you know
you you make sacrifices so your children
can attend attend university you know
and immigrant families first-generation
immigrants sacrifice the possibilities
they have their home country for a
better life for their children and we
all make bargains with the future you
know and and that's a particularly human
thing to do and sometimes our sacrifices
don't seem to be accepted and that can
make us very bitter and you know that's
the Cain and Abel story is a story of
that bitterness and there's a real
reason for the bitterness and resentment
but the story makes it quite clear that
that is not the proper way to react
everything everything is washed away if
enough people act that way about the
structure of reality and so you know
thing you might ask yourself too is well
how do you know all about the Marxist
how do you know if if most of them had
sympathy for the working class you know
maybe that was genuine and how can you
distinguish that from resentment of this
successful let's say by however whatever
means are along whatever dimension
that's defined and I would say by the
murders so that's how because it seems
to me and this is a case that
Solzhenitsyn made very very clearly in
the Gulag Archipelago which is a book
that every high school student in the
United States should read and none do so
none of them know about any of this and
that's an absolute crime and it's a
consequence of the I would say leftist
domination of the of the education
system because it's a crucial document
maybe the crucial document of the 20th
century and we fought a whole Cold War
over those issues we put the planet at
risk to to lay that genocide Liddy ology
to rest and we haven't done it and
that's worth thinking about but you know
you'd think
and so Solzhenitsyn you know he knew
that there were
that ideas had had other ideas wrapped
up inside them in some sense that an
idea had a manner of unfolding in time
and space in some sense like a computer
program once you put it into a computer
it it had its its internal logic would
reveal itself across time and space
inevitably and amazing as this might
sound with their marks capital and his
other writings the blueprints of the
social of the Soviet Union just doesn't
exist I don't know where it is maybe I
missed it maybe I just glossed over it
instead of arguing with me about this if
you feel that I'm wrong you can just
reference me on where Marx wrote on the
blueprint for the Soviet Union weird he
laid it all out the murders the first
country that really went of through the
Industrial Revolution Great Britain how
many countries around the world did the
British Empire invade and conquer for
the expansion of their amazing
capitalism how many murders how many
countries had the United States attack
since World War two what about all those
murders what about all the avoidable
suffering that continues so a
billionaire class can hoard wealth what
about that suffering why is it that the
suffering under the Soviet Union matters
and the suffering under capitalism does
not when the internal logic of Marxism
revealed itself then hundreds of
millions of people died where the [ __ ]
is your analysis of the internal logic
of Marx and how that led to 100 million
people dying you didn't say anything
about Marx it's not like you spoke about
this book and you were like oh I paid
five hundred or capital there's the
blueprint for the Soviet Union you do
have literally said nothing whatsoever
but Marx
what you're doing is conflating things
like you're [ __ ] Ronald Reagan it's
like this is you know growing up in the
1980s and all this ridiculous
Union anti Soviet Union propaganda
conflating everything about them as evil
everything about the United States is
holy you know why was Christianity what
you've done is repackage this
so it's you know 2018 and it's aligned
with the psychology people want to hear
you have absolutely you know nothing
this is this is so [ __ ] stupid oh
really
it would be much more intellectually
stimulating for me to make a video about
that bowling ball drill press I built so
you know what the video it's there I
guess it's much more interesting well
let's just get back to this guy and you
know it'd be ok if it was just maybe you
know well it happened in Russia nowhere
else but it happened across the Soviet
you didn't have to cross China it
happened in Vietnam it happened in
Cambodia it's like how many damn
examples do you meet need Vietnam the
French Western capitalist territory then
invaded by the United States but I guess
history doesn't matter the interesting
thing about me critiquing this is that
I'm not even a [ __ ] socialist and that
I believe that there are errors with on
the proposed socialist solutions to the
problems of capitalism and if anything
just to let people know well I agree
with the Marxist analysis of capitalism
I don't believe that the Socialists had
a good handle on the solutions and I
believe that their emphasis on the
working-class it turned the bush rising
into the enemy did definitely lead to
problems however I could also understand
that these issues are complex and
because Marx had an analysis of
capitalism and Lenin had an analysis of
what should be done they are not the
same thing also just because Lenin was
wrong and Stalin was a horrible dictator
that doesn't justify the United States
doesn't justify capitals and doesn't
justify imperialism all these things are
no complicated and a part of a complex
system and you can't just conflate
things um left there
whenever you just want to make some
point about the how great capitalism is
how great do your home country is before
you think that something's rotten in the
state of Denmark we still got North
Korea to deal with I mean what kind of
place is that so now we have this being
conflated with North Korea without
analyzing anything in its [ __ ] pages
which doesn't seem to matter analysis
the United States and its history and
its war in Korea that's completely
irrelevant this all as well
it also do a psychology Adam and Eve and
people like Marx because I makes them
feel good about themselves and gives
them an internal orgasm or something I
guess that is point I thought I was
going to be watching this amazing
Marxist critique that being that I'm not
really a Marxist scholar I might be
overwhelmed by this but I I guess I'm
wrong I guess my question kid like
should I continue making this video off
like 40 [ __ ] minutes
do people really watch this guy he's so
[ __ ] stupid I'm boring why don't I
get more views I can't be more stupid
and more boring than Ted how is that
possible everything what everyone
they're starved what all the way through
the 90s essentially it's a monstrous
state and it could still embroil us in
an absolute catastrophe so anyways as
far as I'm concerned the historical
evidence is in and that that the idea
that the Marxist doctrine is genuinely
based on sympathy for the working class
is elides
it's a history itself has shown that
that's false if you want to condemn Marx
because North Korea has implemented
their Marxist doctrine with these
horrible results you have to say what
the Marxist Marxist doctrine is maybe
you can reference what you book it came
from it didn't come from this then show
specifically how North Korea has if not
directly implemented the Marxist
doctrine how would they have implemented
has come from Marx none of which you
have done now you know maybe the
revolutionaries back in 1917 you know
they didn't know they were you know I
mean there were it's trouble
in Russia in 1917 right I mean it was an
ugly situation and maybe they had they
had sufficient justification to assume
that their utopian vision was a
historical possibility I'm not convinced
of that by the way but I think you could
make that case I think they were
motivated by resentment and hatred right
from the beginning but trigger the
Russian Revolution was World War one
where we had all these expansionist
capitalistic powers going at it so each
one of their respective capitalist
classes can accumulate more wealth it
was one of the stupidest things humanity
has ever done to throw the history of
World War one which lived to the Russian
Revolution out the window and just say
it was anger and resentment I mean
obviously he's just a starter huge
chunks of relevant history and
conflating whatever nonsense he wants
otherwise to make his points it's not
intellectual it's not interesting and so
[ __ ] boring I grew up in the eighties
in the United States you don't think I
never heard called [ __ ] called war
propaganda before but you could make the
case that at least they also had the
benefit of ignorance but we don't have
that now it's like I don't know how much
proof you need if you need more proof
than the 20th century provided then the
next layer of proof is going to be the
annihilation of everything because we
came very very close to that a number of
times especially in the late 20th
century so I I'm buying the resentment
and hatred story over the we're all
possessed by empathy for our fellow
suffering human beings story so now
you're saying that it was the Communists
who threatened us with the annihilation
of everything not the United States in
concert with them threatening them it
wasn't a mutual thing of one side
against each other all the evil
communists what about the threat of
annihilation of everything being that we
have this if in a growth system called
capitalism on a finite planet and what
about all the environmental degradation
and how that's learning life on this
planet so are you concerned about that
at all there's just excuse that's all
fine and dandy but the evil communists
well
bla bla this is so boring I hope my
viewers think this is interesting
so especially because I don't think that
you get to be good just by adopting the
proper ideology I don't think that's how
it works that's a little bit too
simple-minded in my estimation being
good in a genuine sense is a very
difficult thing you know it means the
opposite of being evil and like if you
don't think evil exists then you're not
awake and the opposite of evil since
evil is so attractive is something very
very difficult to attain and you don't
get to portray yourself as good just
because you've learned in a week the
tenants of let's say postmodern
neo-marxist theory which a week is about
all it takes to learn them in fact you
could probably learn them in afternoon
to a sufficiently propagandistic and
what is postmodern neo-marxist theory
I didn't tell me I don't know I can't
critique when you claim is that because
you didn't say what it is about I guess
you're saying it's real simple and when
people care about Marxism it's not
because of the actual material suffering
the world is because I just want to feel
good about themselves so you're claiming
it's just a man and intellectual
emotional longest masturbation game well
so when it seems to me is that that's
really what capitalists are doing but
now you're making this argument that
people are just inherently evil it's
really hard to be good so let's just say
people are evil like it's guys this is
just you know rebranding concepts of
Christianity and original sin to fit
capitalism this is whatever well so what
happened well you know the story I mean
it's a terrible story the more you read
about what happened in the Soviet Union
I'm not as expert in what happened in
China although the death the death toll
in China was larger than the death toll
in the Soviet Union and Mao was an
absolute monster well I mean first of
all you know the Russians then this is
where the story gets interesting this
happened right in the 20s you know so
the first one of the first thing that's
that happened after the Russian
Revolution is they're going to
collectivize agriculture and you know
wasn't that long before that that the
Russian the Russian farmers were serfs
right there basically slaves for all
intents
says they've got freed you know 30 years
before without something like that no no
time historically speaking and so a
couple of them instructed them had
struggled up through the serfdom through
the post serfdom era and had managed to
become competent agriculturalists
competent farmers and you know maybe
they owned a house and a little bit of
livestock and maybe they could even hire
someone you know so they're there the
petty petty bourgeoisie and in the
hateful communist lingo and and you know
the Communists unleashed the full force
of their propagandistic nightmare on
them and they rounded them all up and
raped them and shot them and sent them
to Siberia in the middle of the winter
with no food and killed them all
they killed all the successful farmers
in the Ukraine for example and that was
an absolute catastrophe and you know
it's really interesting to look at the
details because all you have to do is
imagine a little town if you know
anything about little towns you know
maybe there's a couple of people whose
success puts them ahead above the rest
you know and then there's the people in
the town who are useless and don't do
any work and aren't going to look at the
mirror and think that their use listened
resentful and cruel they're going to
look in the mirror and say that there
are the victims of injustice and that
the reason these people are successful
is because they're crooked and they've
stolen everything and then the Communist
Indian intellectuals ride into town and
give them an intellectual story that
matches their feelings of resentment and
then all hell breaks loose and that's
exactly what happened and you know you
don't have to use your imagination very
much just to understand how awful that
would be and it was even more awful than
you think and then of course what
happened was because there was no more
farmers left who knew how to farm and
collectivization was an absolute bloody
catastrophe six million Ukrainians died
in the 1930s you know and if you went
out and pulled your high-school students
in the United States I bet you you
wouldn't find one in twenty who knows
about that and you got to think what the
hell's going on how can we not know
about that it wasn't very long ago you
know it was a death toll roughly
equivalent to the Holocaust now I mean
the Holocaust had its own set of unique
horrors
but there wasn't it was no what happened
to the Ukrainians in the 1930s that was
no cakewalk and that was just the
beginning right you know when that was
kind of blamed on Stella's cult of
personality but that was that's a what
post hoc rationalization for the
catastrophic failure of a resentful
ideologies and of course there was the
1956 crackdown on a Hungarian the 1968
invasion of Czechoslovakia and despite
the what would you say most pious wishes
of the bloody Western intellectuals the
Russians the Soviets kept doing exactly
what they shouldn't have done if they
were proper moral agents but the
intellectuals generally speaking were to
hidebound and arrogant and resentful to
notice what was happening in to comment
on it with very very very few exceptions
Orwell had a hell of a time getting Whig
and peer published you know it wasn't
the sort of thing that the Left book
club wanted to hear and it just got
worse from there and I mean it's not
like people didn't know in the West
Malcolm Muggeridge had documented what
happened to the Culex pretty nicely in
the 1920s because you know it was
complicated
we might have hoped that the Russian
Revolution would succeed and then the
Russians were allies in World War two
and you know the whole Spanish Civil War
messed things up from a conceptual
perspective but it wasn't like the
intellectuals the intellectuals could
have known or well knew other people
knew Malcolm Muggeridge knew so it was
head burying and in a terrible way it's
right looking the other way when massive
crimes were being committed and the
intellectuals in the West bear bear
particular responsibility for that
so anyways look by by the late 1960s
however the stories that had come uh
noted that come out of the Soviet Union
had had began and the historical
evidence for their misbehavior had
become so overwhelming and so awful that
even the most stubborn of idiot French
intellectuals had to admit that there
was something up right and that would
include people like jean-paul sartre who
really didn't repudiate the communist
party till approximately 1968 he wasn't
a card-carrying member but he was
certainly a sympathizer and there were
no shortage of sympathizers for Marxism
among
French intellectuals far longer than
there is any moral justification for
that and again I attribute that kind of
willful blindness not only to a
tremendous intellectual arrogance but
also to to the unwillingness to cast
aside their essential resentment so so
what so then you know and there
certainly even if it even if communism
Marxism wasn't completely dead as a
moral force by the 1960s it certainly
was dead by 1973 1974 with Solzhenitsyn
published ague like archipelago because
that was a book of unparalleled moral
force and it absolutely demolished
whatever moral and intellectual
credibility communism had ever had by
documenting the causal relationship
between the underlying doctrines and the
genocide Elan secuence --is that
followed and they ate and Solzhenitsyn
did it in a way that well no one has
ever been able to repudiate I mean
people will call him a reactionary now
and and and cast aspersions on his on
his name but that doesn't mean the
address the underlying argument because
they don't because they can't because
it's not addressable well you're saying
someone else has done this you yourself
have still failed to link Marx to any of
these atrocities you speak up so it
doesn't matter if you ramble on about
the atrocities on this local communism
wherever it is where there isn't Soviet
Union or China North Korea or whatever
it doesn't matter if you talk about that
for five minutes or five hours you still
have failed to link anything to Marx
here's Marx you're supposed to know who
Marx is and be so remotely familiar with
his work before you go on YouTube with
when will these lectures is one thing
you have to know there are no Marxism
dissing Marx isn't that all right I
guess I'll get on with the rest of this
and so you know so schnitz and took an
axe to the to the rotting tree and was
one of the forces that that had it fall
and you know that was very disturbing to
the French intellectual types they
weren't the only people who were trying
to propagate the remnants of Marxism in
in the West there's the Frankfurt School
that
we made reference to earlier although I
think the post modernists are a much
more insidious force than the Frankfurt
School because their Marxism is more
hidden but they basically pulled off an
intellectual sleight of hand which
enabled the Western intellectuals many
Western intellectuals to continue with
their narcissistic resentful utopian
visions under a slightly different name
and that's where we got post-modernism
and that's where we got identity
politics and so what's post-modernism
exactly and well that's a tricky thing
you know it's like defining
existentialism or phenomenology or any
of these other philosophical movements
they're great social transformations and
they manifest themselves in many places
and to try to reduce them to a set
number of principles is a very difficult
thing it's it slips out of your hands
and so any attempt to define is also an
oversimplification but nonetheless we'll
proceed with our oversimplification
because we have to do that to some
degree to think so post-modernism is an
attitude of skepticism irony towards and
rejection of grand narratives well
that's a problem it's grand narratives
that hold cultures together so it's fine
if you reject them and you can also
point out that their narratives and you
can also point out that they're in some
sense grand fictions and I'm an admirer
of fiction because fiction can tell you
the truth sometimes in a way that fact
count right otherwise we wouldn't read
fiction there would be no such thing as
great literature and so to call
something fiction in some sense is not
the same as calling it not true and
that's a very important distinction to
make but they reject grand narratives
when that's a problem because it's the
grand narratives they Unitas it's
certainly narratives that orient us as
individuals it's shared narratives upon
which our society is based and it's
grand shared narratives that allow us to
exist in peace within those narratives
so to call those into question is no
joke you don't do it trivially and it's
no different as far as I'm concerned
then playing oppressor or oppressed
politics in some sense because the
Marxists what they were trying to do was
called the grand narrative let's say of
where
during liberalism and capitalism into
question and the post modernists did
that under a different guise now there
were many factors that led to the rise
of post-modernism and I'll talk about
some of the other ones but there also
reject ideologies and and universalism
including objective notions of reason
that's a problem human nature that's a
problem social progress absolute truth
and objective reality well you know
that's a long list of things to
criticize right so we go were you to
walk through that again they criticize
the notion of objective reality well you
know objective reality is a very very
complicated thing and our knowledge of
it is approximate at best but to
criticize the idea that it exists in and
of itself is to is to destabilize us at
the epi'
at the most fundamental possible level
and I would say that the the fact that
that destabilization is an inevitable
consequence of postmodern thinking is
actually the reason for the postmodern
thinking right because because it's a
transformation let's and I'm not
inventing the idea that post-modernism
is a transformation of Marxism Derrida
who I would say is the lead jester who
who was running the post modernist
circus was it has stated very clearly
that his thought was a transformation
and development further development of
Marxism so well objective notions of
reason well unless we share no sense of
reason we can't communicate we reject
ideas of human nature okay well they did
that in the communist countries there's
no human nature well what does that mean
means I can make you into anything I
want that's a big problem you know
because it also replaces human nature
with someone's theory of human nature
and if you think you have a theory of
human nature that's as grand as human
nature itself then you're exactly the
sort of arrogant totalitarian that's
going to produce the kinds of theories
that devastated the Soviet Union and
China you just do not know enough you
you can't map yourself you don't know
enough about other people so even if you
have a coherent theory of human nature
and it's relatively informed let's say
scientifically it's it's
fragmentary and partial at best and
there's no way that you can predicated
an entire political system a social
system on that
that's what capitalism apologists do all
the time
is to create some vision of human nature
and say that it's in line with
capitalism the capitalism just and
anything an expression of inherent human
nature that were just little self
maximizing utility seekers it's when you
your suffer doing in this talk we're
what you're doing is you're indirectly
implying that our capitalism is a line
with human nature because on oh well
people suffer and you can't this mmm
escape that so the fact that people
suffer under capitalism like George
Orwell explains and roots we compare
that's just irrelevant people are going
to suffer just the natural state of the
world you can't do anything about it
these people like Marx who wanted to
make the world better for people and
wanted use technology and resources in a
more equal way so everyone's taking care
of their evil they an definitely lead to
all these abominations and deaths so
let's all just submit to the glorious
capitalism that that's the point of your
talk the fact that some of these things
are not just set out right now said and
they're sarcastically I'm saying yeah it
doesn't mean they you're not applying it
doesn't mean that it's all just of it I
mean on what's economic system are are
you on supporting are you supporting
then we develop alternatives to
capitalism or is this just an excuse to
defend the capitals and we have what is
your position of capitalism you know
what for obvious opposed to the end 70
minute talk about our Marxism you don't
actually propose what sort of economic
system you like it's just kind of
implied that capitalism is a perfect way
to go it's a turtle it's never going to
change
visits in line with human nature how
dare you imply that there is an inherent
human nature that's aligned with
capitalism and then attack other people
from claiming that they wanted to change
on the way humans behave to be in line
with another system what about marketing
and TV commercials isn't that just an
attempt
change you've been behavior to be online
with the system without our education
system what about universities well
we're surrounded by systems upon systems
of propaganda that's designed to alter
human behavior to be in line with this
with our capitalism you're not
complaining about that you're not you're
taking it why are you so focused on on
this whole Marxism thing yet the actual
world that we live in seems to be
irrelevant and you seem to be completely
oblivious to your hypocrisy you're just
too ignorant so it's a big problem to
criticize the idea of human nature and
that's where you get the idea of social
constructionism in part two which is a
which is a terrible a terrible force
that's invading I would say invading our
culture at especially at mid-level
bureaucracy level and certainly in the
education system you know the idea that
all of the elements of our identity are
nothing but the consequences of
enculturation I mean the under the
underlying pathology of that belief is
the justification for the people who
hold the belief that they have the right
to mold human identity in the image that
they want to have it molded so it's like
the the desire is the precondition for
the conclusion and it's a very dangerous
thing so isn't it a very dangerous thing
to tell people or strongly imply that
the world we live in is simply an
extension of inherent in altering human
nature and anyone who claims that the
way humans on behave can change
according to the environment they're
just saying that because they have some
devious plot to talk to human behavior
so exactly gonna follow their whims of
the controller no such thing as social
progress well that's the same thing as
the dissolution of the of the
meta-narrative you know if we can't
agree on what's good if we can't agree
on what we're aiming at then we're
completely fractionated and divided
because it's a shared aim it's a shared
vision that unites people and and I mean
that technically I mean that's
psychologically look our eyes have
evolved so that we can tell where each
of us is are looking because the one
thing we want to know about all the
other primates that surround us is what
the hell
they're up to and one of the ways you
figure that out is by looking at their
eyes and you see what they're pointing
at and if you're in a society everyone's
eyes are pointing at the same thing
that's what a flag is for is to indicate
a union of purpose and if there's a
union of purpose then we're all
predictable to one another because we
know what everybody's up to and that's
the same as piece so you fragment that
you allow that to disappear you
criticize it out of existence and you
have an atomized society and an atomized
society is a violent chaos it's not an
anarchic utopia it's an absolute
catastrophe I mean you lose that
hierarchical organization you know
hierarchies which the post modernists
criticize non-stop higher he's speaking
biologically are at least 350 million
years old they're older than trees while
I completely agree with him in this
regard where I think the attack against
hierarchies is completely ridiculous and
is about people really ignoring how the
universe works so we see in the
universes miss at hierarchies it doesn't
change the fact that he's now just
rambling off no we're saying this said
that post modernist and that I really
don't know what has to do with Marx he
says that they are derived ideas remarks
which I'm sure it's true mark has
influenced many people in many different
ways yet he's really not showing what
they derive from Marx and why that's
relevant to be the point of his talk
it's hard to say exactly what the point
of his talk is now because it's supposed
to be on Marx business anything about
Marx and it's titled something about
identity politics but he didn't get to
identity politics he's just like a
rambling Bluff he seems to be play
almost mind games with people where it's
almost like the authority in his voice
is supposed to lead people along there's
nothing in what he says about critiquing
our Western society at all or capitalism
so you can see it's extremely you know
one-sided but I think I'm just going to
let this play for a while I'm not into
Jack because I don't want this to be
like a four-hour video
and what's the point to me interjecting
when he's saying things that aren't
really completely irrelevant to what the
talk is supposed to be about every
animal that's evolved virtually exists
within a hierarchy because it's the only
way that animals can share a domain a
territory without constantly destroying
each other and so the attack on the idea
of hierarchy you know in the guise of
the patriarchy which is so absurd that
it's that it's it's it's an idea that's
absurd
you couldn't invent it if it didn't
exist there's no way you could dream it
up it's an idea that it's that absurd
because the the hierarchical
organization of society is something far
older than human beings it's a basic
truth and to consider that the cause of
all human suffering when in fact it's
the it's the cure for much human
suffering is another indication of the
actual motives of the people who are
putting the theories forward tear
everything down
well then everyone's equal everyone's
equal when everything is on fire and
everyone's starving in the streets you
know or at least they're equal in all
the important ways so no absolute truth
no objective reality well that means
that there's no way of of determining
who is right and wrong in an argument
there's no there's no higher authority
to to appeal to you know even if you're
an atheist a materialist scientific type
at least you grip the idea of an
objective reality that stands outside
your theorizing the post modernists
dispensed with all of that and so
there's no way of telling who's right
and there's no way of telling who's
wrong there's a trend tremendous
anarchic consequence of that and the
previous speaker referred to that as
well as if there's no truth that we all
knit are nested inside let's say then
there's no communication between people
because there's nothing that can you can
unite us and that's exactly why the
world of the post modernist neo-marxist
is a Hobbesian nightmare of competing
power higher that's another thing that's
so terrible about their theory is
they're they're absolutely convinced
that all hierarchies are a consequence
of power now you know power is
ill-defined but you might have
well just use tyranny because that's the
idea about the patriarchy right the
patriarchy is a tyrannical hierarchy and
so the idea is that human hierarchies
are based on nothing but tyrannical
power they throw out the idea of
competence
you know most non tyrannical hierarchies
are based on competence not power you
define tyranny as a hierarchy that's
based on power and not competence and
you know the evidence that the
hierarchies in the Western world at
least are predicated on competence is
the fact that the damn lights are on and
there isn't rioting in this as absurd as
the social justice warrior idea of no
hierarchy is and the idea that things
should be done according to merit that's
crazy
but as equally crazy as the notion that
capitalism just inherently organizes
everyone into a meritocracy which is
which is what he's getting at we live in
a class system where poverty causes
brain damage in people this is not about
merit you look at a country where Donald
Trump is the [ __ ] president while I'm
recording it you think he's like the
smartest wisest person what about the
merit in that so he's basically saying
capitalism class structure oppression is
just an expression of natural
hierarchies in nature that's all done
merit that's the implication of what
he's saying that's what the libertarian
is gonna do with this talk and it's
[ __ ] [ __ ] the fact that the
social justice warrior is full of [ __ ]
that doesn't change the fact that Jordan
Peterson is also full of [ __ ] streets n'
and the plains stay in the air most of
the time and everything functions and
people even postmodernists you know
they're gonna look for the best brain
surgeon if they happen to have cancer
that they happen to need an operation
they're not going to dispense with the
idea of confidence when their life hangs
in the balance but it when it when it
comes to being able to justify their
anarchic tendencies and their desire to
tear everything apart they'll
to deny the idea of confidence
altogether and you know that what that
that's so terrible it's almost
unimaginable because it destroys the
concept of value itself right because
erect a hierarchy of competency is to
say this mode of action is more
functionally appropriate at least all
you could say better this mode of action
is better than this mode of action and
if you don't have any distinction
between modes of action that are better
or worse than you have no direction in
your life right because it's that it's
the distinction between things in terms
of quality that gives direction to your
life and that's what gives meaning
positive meaning to your life so if you
eradicate the competence higher if you
blow out the value structure then no one
has anything to aim for and all there is
is chaos you wonder why people are
depressed and why they're nihilistic
especially after they go through enough
university trained postmodern training I
mean if you understand that and you
swallow it then there's no up and
there's no down and you know that's
another reason why it's so useful to
consider the view in genesis of human
suffering its intrinsic to the nature of
human existence and if you don't have a
positive value to set against that right
something to struggle for and something
to live for that all you have is the
suffering while again suffering is part
of the human condition capitalism is not
part of the human condition
well it might be argued that it's part
of the human condition that it's good
for people to have things to strive for
that that's something that we inherently
want to do either it's not in her father
human condition that humans are designed
to compete against each other under
capitalism given the resources available
to us our technical know-how and how
much real labor is needed in terms of
doing things with a physical reference
that serve people you need to be able to
take this and justify capitalism and he
has done nothing what remotely
approaches that the very concept of
needing to justify capitalism is absent
from him well he's just more rambling
let's go back to the ramp
well that's not good you know if an
animal if the human being has nothing
but suffering then what's that going to
do to them well they get embittered
that's for sure and that's what happens
to people who don't have any meaning in
their life they get embittered and then
they get vengeful and then they get
murderous and then they get genocide 'el
it's not a good thing so Derrida and
Foucault and the rest of those French
monsters you know they defined hierarchy
as power
an absolutely pathological sleight of
hand they destroyed the idea of
hierarchies of competence by undermining
the idea of an objective world and these
things are all linked together that was
a destruction of the idea of competence
itself and destruction of the idea of
the world
everything's interpretation there's no
human nature everything socially
constructed and you know you see this
even in small ways when when the poet
there be teaching your kids this in
elementary school in no time flat
because it's already happening in Canada
so you like if it hasn't happened here
it's going to and it'll be within the
next two or three years they're starting
to teach kids postmodern literary
criticism as the initial as the
initiation into literature appreciation
and if you're a postmodern literary
critic there's no great works because
there's no great if they're great if you
say Dostoyevsky is great it's because
you're a white supremacist and you
you've elevated the the Caucasian
literary figures arbitrarily to support
the domination of your own power group
and the read and if you take Dostoyevsky
apart you don't look for what the author
meant because there's no author meaning
you look for how the author's works
supports the power structure in which he
was embedded and that's all there is to
literature so that's coming along quite
nicely so according to the new radicals
the Enlightenment inspired ideas that
have previously structured our world
this is a quote by the way according to
the new radicals the Enlightenment
inspired ideas that have previously
structured our world especially the
legal and academic parts of it are a
fraud perpetrated and perpetuated by
white males to consolidate their own
power
and those who disagree with that
statement are not only blind but bigoted
the enlightenment goal of an objective
and reasoned basis for knowledge merit
truth justice and the like is an
impossibility objectivity in the sense
of standards of judgment that transcend
individual perspectives does not exist
reason is just another code word for the
views of the privileged the
enlightenment itself merely replaced one
socially constructed view of reality
with another mistaking power for
knowledge there is nothing but power
that's from Daniel Farber and Suzanna
sherry beyond all reason this was quoted
in the New York Times not but power well
then you might think about that one for
a minute too because they're you know if
you formulate a political doctrine or
let's say an ontological or
epistemological dr. an even more deeply
that says there's nothing but power then
what do you do with the people who
hypothetically oppose you well obviously
you use force on them because there's
nothing but power and so if the only
reason that they exist and have their
positions of privilege is because
they've dominated through tyranny and
power you're fully justified in using
that force against them well especially
if that's all there is and that is all
there isn't in the postmodern
nihilistic Hobbesian nightmare it's it's
groups groups of people united by their
by their well this is where it gets
murky by their group identity whatever
that is it's socially constructed when
that's convenient there so anyways
there's no individuals there's just
groups and the groups cannot communicate
with one another because there's really
no way of engaging in reasoned discourse
between groups of disparate origin
that's just that's just that's just part
of the overarching paint white male
patriarchy's justification for holding
on to their power claims they've
formulated this theory that discourse
between different groups as possible to
make the system look less tyrannical
than it actually is this is the sort of
thing that your kids are being taught in
the university I don't think identity
politics was the
these postmodernists thinkers I think it
was what the left did with all of the
anti-communist propaganda and it became
such a taboo thing just to bring up
concepts such as class struggle class
conflict you know who knows with surplus
value is no one has any idea who Marx's
so it became such a taboo topic that the
dialogue started to move from the
oppression of the working class to the
oppression of the blacks or the women or
the gays and so forth and while there is
a place for that to a certain degree
there there's a lack of an overarching
philosophy and we went from the civil
rights movement where people are
protesting for concrete you know goals
to to help like specifically blacks on
the rights movement to would it's
descended to now which was just nonsense
which is people running up the street
calling on the people racists or
accusing other people of sexism or
whatever
we're just accusations of bigotry and
what this has done is turn the left from
being an actual critique of capitalism
into a farce and because the identity
politics left is such a farce it just
gives the ammunition to people like
Jordan Peterson you know to tear the
farce apart so to a degree a lot of what
he says now I agree with but but for the
most part he's just rambling on a
conflating stuff left and right so I
don't know what I'm supposed to do to
critique this I know I could either just
let him blab on or I could pause him
after every other sentence and say well
does he mean this or that in charter
dissect it because he's just rambling
off all over the place I really would
almost have to pause this video after
every one or two sentences if I wanted
to do this video in a complete way and
I'm not gonna do this because who wants
to watch this for three hours
identity politics is the division of
society into groups which cannot
communicate and cooperate well you know
this this is a this is a big problem you
think well worries
so why is this happening exactly like
what's going on cuz that's what we're
trying to figure out great what's going
on well well I talked to you about
Marxism I talked to you about the
worldview that underlies Marxism which
is predicated fundamentally on
resentment for differences in the world
Marxism is predicated on the working
class fight against oppression of the
ownership class from the capitalism it's
not predicated on people resenting all
this because there are Herot differences
in the world and it's complete nonsense
because Peterson is obviously against
class struggling against class conflict
while it seems implicit in his argument
that he believes class conflict is just
a natural hierarchy then it seems that
you know he is in favor of the 18 hour
work day exactly where does he want to
go to just get rid of minimum wage job
jobs uh what what type of depravity does
he want to see the working class suffer
clearly the coal miners that George will
will spoke about um I've heard that
that's just a natural hierarchy
everything is a natural hierarchy under
capitalism of capitalism is a natural
expression they give me condition and if
you can play to better well then you
have to read up about Adam and Eve and
get in touch with your suffering and
then find something to strive for and
would you strive for us to make more
money because that's the only thing that
people really try to do in a capitalism
for the most part I mean
so obviously the directions that people
can go with Jordan Peterson if they are
a libertarian and they they are implied
to to think in these ways is they can
just justify all sorts of right-wing
fanatical nonsense then that's what this
is about um some of it he openly says a
lot of it again is implied because the
so-called read between the lines but
it's all there
what else is someone who is
indoctrinated to believe that capitalism
is a perfect internal system what else
is that person going to do with Jordan
Pearson except to use Jordan Peterson to
justify all the depravities that we
suffer under capitalism I'm
I mean look we got to take that with a
bit of sympathy you know it's not like
the world is fair its tragedy ridden
it's unfair and there's malevolence
everywhere now that's not surprising to
those of you who consider themselves
Christian I mean that's that's a basic
part of the doctrine but that doesn't
mean it's palatable
I mean people differ in all sorts of
important ways that have non-trivial
effects on their life outcome they in
fact they differ in innumerable ways
which is actually part of the technical
and methodological problems of
post-modernism I mean think about the
difference here there's differences you
know and you might say well some of
these are your own doing and maybe they
are and maybe they aren't but a lot of
them are let's say gifts of God for lack
of a better term analogy one of the
biggest differentiators between people
with regards to their long-term success
far more important by the way than race
is intelligence intelligence has a very
powerful biological basis so you know
it's it's funny because there's plenty
of modern academics who deny the
existence of biological intelligence and
I think that's because they like to
think that they got to their positions
by pulling themselves up by their own
bootstraps you know there's there's no
gratitude in that they don't think well
I was given a gift and it's not like I
earned it it was part of my was part of
my but might the structure of my being
the given structure of my being you know
you could have a little humility in the
face of that well so people differ by
intelligence they differ by temperament
some people are extroverted some people
aren't some people are very very
sensitive to negative emotion others are
very emotionally stable
some people are compassionate and polite
and some people are disagreeable and
competitive some people are
conscientious and others aren't and some
people are creative and all of those
have major effects on the way that life
unfolds there's there's accidents of
geography I mean here we are in the
first world well that's a good deal for
us isn't it because the infrastructure
is in place and it's the arbiters an
arbitrary Tunis that to that that the
existentialists called thrown this and
you can't really attribute that to your
own doing it's something to be grateful
for and to recognize and the same with
regards to your positioning and
historical time you want to go back to
to like the 1400s and 1300s it seems
unlikely I mean people work even in
1890s they worked so damn hard that
modern people can hardly even imagine it
right think one day in the life of a
frontier pioneer would kill most of us
in this room or if it didn't kill us
we'd at least wish we were dead well
then there's attractiveness attractive
people do far better in life and you
know it's just no joke to be cursed with
with ugliness and and that's a major
differentiator and well the youth have
advantages over the old right and I mean
when you're old maybe you're rich
because actually being old is a pretty
good predictor of being rich as it turns
out and given that you had a whole life
to gather up resources but I suspect
it's the rare old rich person who
wouldn't trade in all their money for a
young body so it's not exactly obvious
who's got the upper hand there the old
person has the fruits of their labor but
the young person has the potential of
the future and you can't buy that health
well you know everybody knows people who
are promising in six different ways to
basically got cut off at the knees by
some you know incomprehensibly arbitrary
tragedy and cut their life shorter
produced an excess of suffering
different sexes have different
advantages no women can have children
their mo they can have multiple orgasms
it's not a trivial thing in the entire
course of life no men are bigger and
stronger but they die sooner women live
about eight years longer that's actually
quite an advantage
some people are athletic other people
are weak some people are born wealthy
it's better to be born intelligent by
the way if you're looking at future
prediction it's better to be born
intelligent than to be born wealthy at
least in Western societies some people
have an intact family structure and
others don't some people have friends
some people don't and we differ from an
educational perspective those are major
dimensions of difference right and
they're all really relevant and
important and they have a major impact
on how our lives unfold across time and
the consequence of that is massively
unequal distribution of socioeconomic
resources now that's not the only
measure by which life should be assessed
the real question is do you support an
economic system that punishes people
because their own lucky with some of
these factors
cuz that's what we have now oh if
someone looks good or if they're healthy
they're gonna make a lot more money
where someone is sick and where they
mean they're not so attractive or blah
blah blah well not only can they not
achieve certain things that the other
person can but we're gonna make them
suffer economically maybe they'll just
be homeless maybe they can die in the
gutter now that that's just part of the
natural expression of these hierarchies
you [ __ ] piece of [ __ ] this computer
so god far from it and that's another
problem that I have with the radical
leftists that even though they're
anti-capitalist to the extreme they are
also convinced that money solves all of
the world's problems and that's just not
true there's lots of there's lots of
problems that money makes worse and
certainly many problems that money can't
solve but you know the funny thing is
even with all these dimensions of
difference the only thing that's really
been concentrated on well race is the
big one get sexual identity it's a race
and gender those seem to be the big
three and it's not exactly obvious why
it's the one part of this talk that I
haven't really been able to crack you
know it's like I don't know what the why
the focus is there although I do know
that the reason that intersectionality
has emerged within the postmodernist
corpus is because the the theorists
themselves have started to understand
that there's an infinite number of
dimensions across which people differ
which is actually why the West invented
the concept of individuality to begin
with
because if you fraction eight groups
down to the ultimate ultimate what
atomic level you end up with the
individual you have to treat the
individual as a unique Nexus of factors
and so well and so the entry and the
logical consequence of intersectionality
taken to its final conclusion is the
individualism of the West which I think
is extraordinarily funny although I'm
not sure we're gonna we're gonna make it
to the point where we rediscover that
but anyways race has become the major
issue why race I don't know maybe it
aligns most evidently with the oppressor
oppressed narrative maybe it's this
maybe it's the simplest way that people
can be divided apart from sex but it
does beg the issue well what do you do
with all these other dimensions of
of individual difference you know and
this also shows you the absolutely
appalling scholarship that characterizes
so much of the postmodern work you know
so look there are all sorts of arbitrary
reasons semi arbitrary let's say that
determine our our movement up status
hierarchies or competence hierarchies as
we move through life you know and the
other thing to understand is that your
position in a competence hierarchy isn't
an award that's given to you because of
your intrinsic worth that's the wrong
way of thinking about it the reason that
you get promoted up a competence
hierarchy is because other people want
to maximize the value you can produce
for society that's why you get paid it's
not an award right and so and that's a
much better way to think about it
because the more most intelligent thing
to do even if there are arbitrary
reasons for competence differences is to
place the most competent people where
they can do the best job because that's
best for everyone else and if you have
to pay them a bit more to motivate them
well that's the price you pay for
extracting the value that they can give
to you and to the other members of
society it doesn't actually demonstrate
how capitalism is a competency hierarchy
how it creates that you just kind of
assumes it
it also doesn't demonstrate why all this
labor is needed and why people need to
compete like why do we have people
making commercials to sell beer on TV
why do we have people delivering mail
which is junk mail that's thrown away
that's just advertisements now why do we
have it whole industries would literally
produce and nothing with a physical
reference that's going to serve anyone
quite like the insurance feel the
insurance field is just something that
moves around this fictional thing called
money but it really doesn't produce
anything we have insurance because we
use a monetary system but that monetary
subsystem is supposed to somehow
facilitate trade but we were at the
point where it actually seems that we
have more people working to move money
around than actually doing the
production the money is supposed to no
harm in theory regulate I mean how many
people do we know that actually in a
factory may
getting something how many people are
delivering something that needs to be
delivered how many people are providing
a service that legitimately would need
to be done outside of capitalism for
example like a doctor or a dentist you
need their capitals or not but financial
analysts only reason to exist is because
we're using this monetary system
what about planned obsolescence I mean
if someone's if something is designed to
break so instead of making one of them
we make ten of them if you're in a
factory and you're make then that means
you only really we need from you and
that factories to make the first one we
don't need you to make the next
additional nine but you're in the
factory making the next additional nine
because of planned obsolescence and
things being designed to break so even
people involved in production most of
their labor is nonsense if we actually
did things in an efficient way he has no
critique of how we use technology and
resources with regards to objective
human needs to provide for people he
just claims we living in a competency
hierarchy based upon absolutely nothing
so what this boils down to is just
boring Cold War level anti Soviet Union
capitalism propaganda give it a little
bit of a modern psychology twist it's
not extremely intelligent it's
disorganized it's all over the place
it's full of idiotic non sequiturs and
conflation I really don't know what the
point is of why I'm watching it is
anymore except that my hundred or so
subscribers they have to be like some
type of sick sadist you apparently
wanted to torture me with this absolute
[ __ ] garbage it's like I'm 41 years
old living in New York my whole life you
don't they got familiar with Cold War
anti-communist propaganda you have to go
ever heard this before maybe [ __ ]
stupid people be stupid or like this
that has me something wrong with their
brain that to be so mind warped from
capitals in their life yes during a
beautician says we live in a competency
hierarchy and if I'm suffering because
I'm homeless I guess that's just the way
things are and I need to accept that
suffering is part of the human condition
and how dare I think I will be suffering
less if we lived in a resource-based
economy that actually took care of me
that's the type of thinking that Jordan
Peterson once Adam I guess is what hits
it's not an award it's not altruism it's
not it's none of that it's cold-hearted
individual and social preservation and
it's the right motive its blinds
everyone's motivations up properly so
all right so I'm going to talk to you
now a little bit about white privilege
okay because that's the that's the most
egregious example of poor scholarship as
well as the logical conclusion of the
dialogue about race so we're all groups
racial groups ethnic groups gender
groups we can't talk to each other we're
all involved in a power struggle across
which there's no communication and the
white people roughly speaking have it
best and so this is Peggy McIntosh she's
all smiles as Shakespeare said you can
smile and smile and smile and still be a
villain so that's how I look at this
photograph
she's a nice grandmotherly type but you
know that just doesn't cut it when
you're talking about things like this
she's Associate Director of the
Wellesley College Center for Research on
women research yeah this is a is
excerpted from working paper 189 white
privilege and male privilege a personal
account of coming to see correspondences
through work in women's studies the
working paper contains a longer list of
privileges okay well what's her
methodology for laying out what
constitutes white privilege the papers
rely on personal examples of unearned
advantage as McIntosh says she
experienced in the 1970s and the 1980s
you know in in a social science a
reasonably well developed social science
such as psychology that gives you a
failing grade in the first research
project you do you know this is at best
that's a hypothesis at best right and
just it's derived from your pretty so
weak hypothesis because if you're gonna
formulate a hypothesis it can't just be
what you think you should go do a little
research and inform it even before you
get the damn hypothesis generated and
then you have to go actually do the
testing to see if your hypothesis holds
up like we could say well racial
discrimination plays some role in an
unfair inequality in the West it's like
okay probably right for all sorts of
reasons
well how much exactly like really
exactly is it more important than
intelligence are less important what
about attractiveness do we know do we
know how much of the variance in in
outcomes it it actually produces we need
to know these things no no you know it's
okay if you're a postmodern especially
if you're working in an appalling field
like women's studies you can just use
your own personal experience and that's
good enough this is an incredibly
influential piece of work she produced
this here's the white privilege list I'm
not going to go through it completely I
can if I wish arrange to be in the
company of people of my race most of the
time if I should need to move I can be
pretty sure of renting or purchasing
housing in an area which I can afford
and in which I would want to live I can
be pretty sure that my neighbors in such
a location will be neutral or pleasant
to me I can go shopping alone most of
the time pretty well assured that I will
not be followed or harassed I can turn
on the television or open to the front
page of the paper and see people of my
race widely represented what I'm told
about our national heritage or about
civilization I'm showing that people of
my color made it what it is
okay methodological critiques first of
all we don't know how many instances
she's actually providing right because
it's a list of so-called privileges but
many of them are manifestations of the
same underlying so-called privilege so
the fact that there's say seven listed
here doesn't mean that the
understructure of what she's talking
about
it can actually be enumerated in that
manner it's basic social science right
that sort of technology for clarifying
what constitutes a measurement device of
this sort has been instantiated since
the
1960s she doesn't know it she doesn't
care neither do any of the people who
follow this okay and then let's let's
think about this it's like why exactly
is this white privilege I don't quite
get that why isn't it majority privilege
you know like that's really different
it's like well you think that's not true
if you're Chinese in China so what if
what if you're black in a black African
country you know or Hispanic in a
Hispanic country aren't all these things
true well if they're true then it's I
mean there might be privileged but we've
already established that there is
privilege there's differences between
people and all the differences aren't
fair we've established that while
terminology matters well you know it
seems to me that these all flow from the
mere fact that in any civilization
there's a certain amount of homogeneity
that constitutes the majority and that
the majority is most comfortable in a
society that was produced by the
majority it's like the definition of
civilization
so to attribute that to something like
systemic racism which is another term I
just absolutely despise and which is
making headway in Canada like you
wouldn't believe
so you know what we have a very peaceful
country we've had very little racial
tension but we're working hard to solve
that problem I can tell you so I won't
read you the rest of these you can take
a look online you know white privilege
and male privilege a personal account
god of coming to see correspondences
through work in women's studies well all
this idea of white privilege came out of
her working paper like as an academic
document it's appalling beyond belief to
the degree that I'm a Marxist I would
make the point that what he's talking
about now is not Marxism what identity
politics has done is replaced legitimate
capitals of critique and Marxism with
ramblings on about people's identities
and I agree a lot of it is [ __ ]
ridiculous and I can't send a lot of it
also there's nothing to do with Marxism
you know and this is a real failure of
the universities because they've allowed
these pseudo disciplines to multiply and
and they've become unbelievably dominant
and it's it's as a member of the Academy
I'm deeply ashamed
and embarrassed that that's the case
like every intellectual in the damn
country should apologize for what the
universities are doing to society under
the guise of these absolutely appalling
doctrines based on myth no
methodological sophistication whatsoever
absolute domination of ideological
theory no understanding whatsoever of
history it's absolutely embarrassing but
you can smile about it and that's the
important thing
all right so so anyways I gave you a bit
of a critique about the idea of white
privilege and you know as far as I'm
concerned it's just an attempt to uh
what would you say augmenting the
postmodern worldview which means you
know if we differ across races or
ethnicity then we can't communicate and
that's an attempt to fragment the
society and that's as an extension of
the marxist desire to uproot the entire
structure and start again under the
guise of hypothetically of equality and
sympathy further well it was at one
point let's say the working poor but
really driven by a resentment that's
really as old as mankind itself that's
the right way of thinking about it as
far as I could tell and as I said the
proof of that is in the genocides you go
to think about what you're willing to
accept as proof like for me the fact
that 40 million 60 million something
like that 20 million no one knows were
killed in the Soviet Union as these
ideas were instantiated that was enough
proof that there was something wrong you
know and if that's not enough proof for
you well then you might ask yourself
exactly what it would require to prove
your theory wrong how many tens of
millions of people would have to die
before you would admit that there's
something wrong with the way that you're
construing the world well you have to do
Marx reference what he said and show how
what he said was the Soviet Union and
and and that's all you have to do in our
long plus talk about Marx you have not
referenced marks a single time and
anything that you said and I think that
says a lot about your worldview and how
many people have to die in poverty under
capitalism were
suffer because of structural violence
for you to critique it it's a decent
question you know I had a talk on free
speech cancelled I had a talk on the
suppression of free speech at university
campuses cancelled by a university in
August and the people who got it
cancelled yeah it was pretty funny all
right
the people who canceled it came out and
had a little after-party and a bunch of
them came out with a hammer and sickle
banner you know because they were
communists and you know the media
covered that to some degree and like if
they would have come out with a swastika
there would be no hell to pay but a
hammer and sickle man that's everyone's
friend it's like bringing your
girlfriend a bouquet of roses you know
there's nothing wrong with communism
apart from the hundred million people
it's slaughtered it's like I don't know
what the hell's wrong with us you know
what I've tried to I've tried to puzzle
this out like why it's pretty obvious
why the Nazis have a bad name like we
really don't have to go into that but
it's not so damn obvious why the
Communists the Marxists don't have an
equally bad name and that students can
come out and protest with the hammer and
sickle intact and act morally virtuous
and people don't recoil from that and
with absolute repugnance which is of
course the right right approach it's a
very hard thing to figure out so I mean
maybe it has something to do with the
universal utopian dream it's at least
Universal where the Nazi utopian dream
was so delimited you know there was
something more
I don't know aggressively evil about it
or obviously evil about it maybe it's
that but the net consequence was I mean
from from the perspective of numbers of
people dead and horror all and horror in
what would you say inflicted on the
world it's very difficult to tell the
two apart so all right so then the next
question is well there's liberals right
and i'm a liberal I'm a classic liberal
and conservatives have a pretty good
time making borders between things it's
actually one of the hallmarks of
conservative thinking but the
left-leaning liberal types aren't very
good at that from a temperamental
perspective and so you know when back
when William F Buckley
made the national review the John
Birchers were trying to affiliate
themselves with him and he said no no no
you you guys aren't part of what I'm
doing you know he cut he drew a line and
the same thing happened pretty fast
after Charlottesville when people like
Ben Shapiro came out and said yeah yeah
I've known Nazis yeah how about no white
supremacists now we're done with that
that that's not part of the conservatism
that I represent well the Liberals need
to do the same damn thing but they're
not very good at it so I've gone a basic
primer here for all the Liberals who
might be paying attention to this at one
point or another how to identify the
people from whom they should be rapidly
dissociated and this is the terminology
equality diversity inclusivity equity
that's a bad one that means equality of
outcome and that and in that term
equality of outcome is nested all the
horrors of Marxism and white privilege
is another one you know on and you might
then I would also say with regards to
white privilege let's get it clearly how
about we do this how about we decide
what actually constitutes racism it's
pretty bloody straightforward it's the
attribution of a set of attributes to
someone based on their skin color and so
to say that because you're white and
that's actually a quite difficult thing
to define that you're somehow
characterized by privilege and that that
privilege is associated with guilt for
for historical crimes that's racism you
see to attribute to the individual the
characteristics of one of the groups to
which they happen to belong in some
sense that's the thing we're supposed to
be fighting and to talk about white
privilege is precisely that it's racist
period and obviously self-evidently
because well look it's based on race you
know and there's the thing is there's so
many differences between people there's
so many differences between people you
can't just do that you can't pull
someone out and say well you're the
member of this homogeneous category
system and I can ignore all your
the diversity that the left radical left
is always talking about I can ignore all
that diversity and I can attribute to
you this set of properties including
your let's call it class guilt for let
for back a lack of a better term if you
want a formula that will break your
society up in pieces then that's the
formula and then you might also
understand that the people who derive
those formulas that's exactly what
they're aiming at so it's not any it's
not chance and you might say well do all
these neo-marxist types know what
they're doing and the answer that is
well not not at all no more than every
Christian is a theologian or every
Muslim understands the full doctrine of
Islam that just doesn't happen because
we're pretty ignorant so you know you
take the typical social justice activist
and you pull them out of their mob and
it's like you know they're your
neighbor's daughter and eighty percent
of the time or ninety percent of the
time there are fully rational human
being abiding by the general rules of
the state but if you get a hundred of
them together in a mob then all the
fragmented pieces of the postmodern
Doctrine manifest themselves in a unity
and then look the hell out because it's
the idea that's got the mob and the idea
that's got the mob is not an idea that's
conducive to the survival of our
civilization or peace so we better
bloody well wake up and do something
about that
you know partly what I've been doing and
this is quite interesting this and I'll
all stop with this you know for the last
year I've been in a very big political
battle in Canada and it's by no means
over
that's beside the point I don't even
like being in political battles but
sometimes there's no choice but I've
been trying to figure out like
increasing the polarization which is
something I've been accused of obviously
isn't helpful it's not working in the
United States that's for sure it's not
working in Europe it's not working in
Canada so it's not a good idea and so
and then sometimes to engage in the war
at to engage in the war at all the
Battle of ideas is to it's not to win
but to engage at all is to lose because
you increase the polarity and so what
I've been doing
III about this when I wrote my first
book which was called maps of meaning um
I was looking for a third way you know
between nihilism and group
identification what could what could be
an alternative to those two because you
need to identify with your group in some
sense to have a purpose right that
that's being a civilized and socialized
person if you lose that then you descend
into nihilism and that's not good but
nihilism can kill you and group identity
can become totalitarianism that's not
good what's the alternative so I've been
going around well on my You Tube videos
and then in my public statements I've
been talking to especially young men
because they're the ones that are coming
to see me weirdly enough about
responsibility and about truth you know
and this is something that conservatives
need to take note of it's really and I'm
gonna talk to the Conservatives in
Canada about this or have been to some
degree and I think I'm doing doing that
again in September but for the first
time and that I remember conservative
types even centrists because I would
regard myself essentially as a centrist
have something genuine to sell to young
people it's something that no one is
selling to them and that's like
responsibility responsible this final
message is just a little twist on the
same ol pull yourself up by your
bootstraps capitalism apology propaganda
it's boring I don't feel like you're
taking it now if you watch this whole
thing I think you deserve a reward from
me but I have nothing to give you so
you're not getting any [ __ ] reward
okay that's a say goodbye nobody gives
your life meaning it's like shoulder
your damn bird and stand up quit whining
don't be a victim put yourself together
contribute to the world
accept responsibility speak the truth
put the world together don't identify
with your damn group and don't pour
don't perceive yourself as a victim it
entitles you to resentful vengeance and
it makes you weak why would you want to
do that of course you're a damn victim
it's built into the structure of reality
well that doesn't mean you get to go all
it doesn't mean you get to get murderous
about it
it just makes it worse so you got the
motivation like life is hard there's no
doubt about that and certainly not fair
and in any multiple dimensions well how
are you gonna respond to that are you
gonna stand up and be useful you're
gonna take that on voluntarily if that's
what it means to shoulder the cross you
know it means to take on the burden of
suffering and malevolence individually
and voluntarily well people are dying
for that message man you just can't
believe how hungry young people are for
that message it's absolutely
overwhelming so that's that's we have to
go back to the individual we have to go
back to the individual as the center of
the cosmos right that that image of God
that the previous speaker talked about
that brings order out of chaos through
the power of truthful speech that's the
core idea of Western civilization and
it's the greatest idea that that
humanity has ever produced but we can't
lose sight of it because if we lose
sight of it we're going to lose
everything and that with all our
technological power losing everything is
going to be one awful show so that's all
I have to say thank
[Applause]
[Music]