WEBVTT 1 00:00:05.639 --> 00:00:08.759 Hello everybody. Today we have with us mister Yarn Brooke. He is an 2 00:00:08.800 --> 00:00:14.240 Israeli American entrepreneur, writer and activists, an objectivist, and the current chairman 3 00:00:14.560 --> 00:00:18.839 of the Iron Rand Institute, where he's been executive director from twenty to twenty 4 00:00:18.879 --> 00:00:23.960 seventeen. Also the founder of BHZ Capital Management LP. How are you doing 5 00:00:23.960 --> 00:00:26.920 this afternoon, mister Brooke. I'm doing well. Thank you call me you 6 00:00:27.120 --> 00:00:32.280 on. I've had several people sort of in the libertarian circles and beyond on 7 00:00:32.320 --> 00:00:36.399 my channel for interviews. I felt like I hadn't had an objectivist on and 8 00:00:36.439 --> 00:00:42.039 I feel like you're the leading objectivist today. So well, I appreciate that. 9 00:00:42.200 --> 00:00:46.159 It's I'm glad to be on, looking forward to discussion, glad to 10 00:00:46.159 --> 00:00:48.799 have you. So do you think you could start by telling me a little 11 00:00:48.799 --> 00:00:51.920 bit about your background, what you do and the history of the Iron Rand 12 00:00:51.920 --> 00:00:59.920 Institute. Sure. I was born and raised in Israel, so Israeli Military, 13 00:01:00.119 --> 00:01:06.079 got my undergraduate in the TECHNI the Israel Institute of Technology in Engineering, 14 00:01:06.719 --> 00:01:11.599 went on to get an MBA in PhD in finance at the University of Texas 15 00:01:12.719 --> 00:01:19.280 UH Finance professor from nineteen ninety three to two thousand, then joined the Animated 16 00:01:19.319 --> 00:01:25.519 Institute in two thousand and I think you told the rest of that story. 17 00:01:25.959 --> 00:01:29.680 You know, I first read iron read when I was sixteen in Israel. 18 00:01:29.879 --> 00:01:33.719 I read Atlas Shrugged, and at the time when I read it, I 19 00:01:34.120 --> 00:01:38.680 was pretty much opposed to every idea that was in the book, almost every 20 00:01:38.680 --> 00:01:41.840 idea in the book. You were raised a socialist originally? Correct? Pretty 21 00:01:41.920 --> 00:01:44.719 much? I mean, I you know, my parents when they originally came 22 00:01:44.760 --> 00:01:48.799 to Israel had the dream of living on a kiboots. They never actually made 23 00:01:48.799 --> 00:01:53.599 it, but you know, Israel was very socialist back then. Everybody was 24 00:01:53.640 --> 00:01:56.280 a socialist. I didn't know anybody he was not a socialist, basically, 25 00:01:56.680 --> 00:02:00.599 it was it was very unusual, at least in among my friends for anybody 26 00:02:00.640 --> 00:02:04.920 to express a different point of view. When did that change? Like I 27 00:02:05.200 --> 00:02:07.200 know, I know right now there's been a sort of like they say, 28 00:02:07.200 --> 00:02:15.159 a right word swing with Yahoo was an interesting country in nineteen seventy seven was 29 00:02:15.199 --> 00:02:19.599 the actually the same year right at La Shrugged. It was the first year 30 00:02:19.759 --> 00:02:24.680 non labor party party won an election. So that was Bagan. For those 31 00:02:24.719 --> 00:02:28.680 who you might remember, he was part of what today is that he could 32 00:02:29.319 --> 00:02:32.039 or same party that Natanyao is that the head of and that was the first 33 00:02:32.039 --> 00:02:36.360 election Israel was founded in nineteen forty eight. This was the first election that 34 00:02:36.400 --> 00:02:42.000 a non labor party, non social democratic party, was elect was voted in. 35 00:02:43.199 --> 00:02:46.960 That was the beginning of the change. Israel today basically has no left. 36 00:02:47.199 --> 00:02:53.080 There is no left in Israel now, certainly not socialist left. Everybody 37 00:02:53.120 --> 00:02:57.719 everybody in Israel pretty much as a centrist. There's center left, the center 38 00:02:57.840 --> 00:03:01.280 right, and there's far right, you know, and the far right is 39 00:03:02.439 --> 00:03:08.159 primarily religious, dominated by religious parties. I say that I could. Natennel's 40 00:03:08.240 --> 00:03:13.120 party is a center right party, even though it sometimes wants to play on 41 00:03:13.159 --> 00:03:15.960 the far right. It's it's basically a center right party. It's vote is 42 00:03:15.960 --> 00:03:20.479 a center right, and the opposition is center left. But the center left 43 00:03:20.479 --> 00:03:27.560 opposition parties are pretty center kind of the more radical leftist ideas have very little 44 00:03:27.639 --> 00:03:35.199 representation in Israeli politics today. The almost everything is tilted is tilted through right. 45 00:03:35.240 --> 00:03:37.639 And by right, I mean here just to be clear, I don't 46 00:03:37.639 --> 00:03:43.560 consider myself right, I don't consider myself left. Right to me is nationalist, 47 00:03:44.639 --> 00:03:53.039 usually religious, central powerful central government, particularly interfering in our social in 48 00:03:53.039 --> 00:04:02.000 our social lives and usually usually right today means a government and interferes and now 49 00:04:02.479 --> 00:04:05.520 economics as well. I mean, you see that in the US, and 50 00:04:05.560 --> 00:04:12.360 you certainly see that elsewhere. So you know, I don't consider myself anywhere 51 00:04:12.400 --> 00:04:16.240 on that political spectrum. I think we need to reconceive the spectrum. Yeah, 52 00:04:16.759 --> 00:04:19.879 agree with that. Yeah. So so if I go back to this 53 00:04:19.920 --> 00:04:23.759 story, so I read out The strugg that same year, nineteen seventy seven 54 00:04:23.759 --> 00:04:29.920 as it happened, and it again I was raised. It was a very 55 00:04:30.439 --> 00:04:34.519 nationalistic country kind of by almost by definition because of the way it was founded. 56 00:04:35.480 --> 00:04:41.720 So I was raised very collectivist, very nationalist, very socialist, and 57 00:04:42.040 --> 00:04:44.959 I right of course rejects all that. I was already an atheist at that 58 00:04:45.000 --> 00:04:46.959 point, so that wasn't a big deal. I ran as an atheist, 59 00:04:47.519 --> 00:04:50.639 but so that was no big deal for me. But everything else was earth 60 00:04:50.680 --> 00:04:57.480 shadowing. Basically, after that book consumed everything, tried to consume everything she'd 61 00:04:57.480 --> 00:05:00.839 written, and if dedicated the rest of my life to kind of understanding it, 62 00:05:00.879 --> 00:05:06.360 applying it, studying it, And as part of that, I got 63 00:05:06.399 --> 00:05:11.439 involved with kind of the Iron Rand movements, if you will. In the 64 00:05:11.560 --> 00:05:15.439 United States. When I moved here and that's how I got ultimately to be 65 00:05:15.600 --> 00:05:18.279 CEO and now chairman of the board of the Institute. I took classes from 66 00:05:18.319 --> 00:05:27.519 the leading philosophers in iron Rand's thinking in the nineteen nineties and was you know, 67 00:05:27.600 --> 00:05:30.839 ran a conference business around that. So that's kind of my story. 68 00:05:30.279 --> 00:05:35.040 The Institute was founded in nineteen eighty five, three years after Ironrand had died. 69 00:05:35.079 --> 00:05:42.439 She died in eighty two, and it basically dedicated to preserving and promoting 70 00:05:42.439 --> 00:05:48.040 her ideas to keep them alive. And a lot of that the Institute did 71 00:05:48.160 --> 00:05:53.040 through promoting her novels and trying to get her novels read by young people. 72 00:05:54.480 --> 00:06:00.480 The Institute runs today the largest high school essay constiest in the world. It 73 00:06:00.560 --> 00:06:05.480 gets it provides free books to teachers who want to teach iron Rand, Fountain, 74 00:06:05.519 --> 00:06:11.600 ad Shrugged anthem quite predominantly in high schools, so we provide them books 75 00:06:11.600 --> 00:06:15.839 for free. We provide curricula, so we try to get people exposure to 76 00:06:15.879 --> 00:06:21.319 the ideas. And then we also have today something called the Ironmand University, 77 00:06:21.360 --> 00:06:27.519 which is within the Ironman Institute, and it is dedicated to really training people 78 00:06:27.560 --> 00:06:32.040 in the philosophy, primarily future intellectuals. Primarily people who then teach or become 79 00:06:32.079 --> 00:06:36.519 speakers, or do media, write up eds, write audible books, whatever. 80 00:06:38.839 --> 00:06:43.160 So you are of course leading proponent of the philosophy objectivism, which of 81 00:06:43.160 --> 00:06:47.240 course devised by Russian American author and philosopher Irand firstly, do you think you 82 00:06:47.279 --> 00:06:53.160 could explain what exactly objectivism is, its moral foundations, and what distinguishes it 83 00:06:53.240 --> 00:06:56.759 from libertarians, because I know Iron Rand to not consider herself a libertarian, 84 00:06:56.839 --> 00:07:00.560 called them the hippies of the right quote unquote yeah, so yeah, yeah. 85 00:07:00.639 --> 00:07:04.279 Let me let me start with the distinguishing, because that is relative, 86 00:07:04.319 --> 00:07:10.360 that is relatively easy at that kind of big picture level. And then as 87 00:07:10.399 --> 00:07:15.560 objectivism is the philosophy, it has positions in metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, 88 00:07:15.920 --> 00:07:21.959 and in politics and in even aesthetics. Libertarianism at best is a political philosophy, 89 00:07:23.759 --> 00:07:27.800 but it's not even really an integrated, coherent political philosophy because there's a 90 00:07:27.800 --> 00:07:33.600 whole variety of of different views within it. Libertarianism has no Libertarianism has no 91 00:07:33.839 --> 00:07:40.399 philosophical foundation, it has no metaphysics. No true libertarians are can agree on 92 00:07:40.439 --> 00:07:45.040 metaphysics or epistemology or morality. You can be you can be a Christian, 93 00:07:45.360 --> 00:07:48.319 you can be pretty fundamentalist, you can be an atheist, you can be 94 00:07:48.959 --> 00:07:51.879 you could be a subjectivist, you can be an intrinsicist, you can be 95 00:07:53.839 --> 00:08:01.160 pretty much anything and then have political views that somehow quote libertarian. Objectivism is 96 00:08:01.360 --> 00:08:07.240 an integrated philosophy. It has clear use in every aspect, every big branch 97 00:08:07.279 --> 00:08:11.040 and philosophy. And while it doesn't have answers to every question in philosophy, 98 00:08:11.079 --> 00:08:16.399 has tries to have answers to all the big questions in philosophy. And again, 99 00:08:16.480 --> 00:08:22.279 libertarianism is more eclectic and not really philosophical, primarily focused on politics and 100 00:08:22.279 --> 00:08:28.759 economics almost exclusively. I'd say it's like, do you think it could define 101 00:08:28.759 --> 00:08:33.639 objectivism? Yeah? Yeah, So objectivism first is a philosophy of Ie Ran. 102 00:08:33.759 --> 00:08:37.159 So it's a name for philosophy. It's a name for a particular set 103 00:08:37.200 --> 00:08:41.080 of ideas as defined by their author, by which who is Igne Ran? 104 00:08:43.399 --> 00:08:46.480 But what is it? So now this is going to be superficial and quick 105 00:08:46.639 --> 00:08:54.120 and kind of objectivism philosophy on one leg or on a few toes. In 106 00:08:54.159 --> 00:09:01.360 metaphysics, Ran holds that reality is what it is. It's uh, it 107 00:09:01.399 --> 00:09:07.519 isn't uh it isn't created by a consciousness. UH. It isn't created by 108 00:09:07.600 --> 00:09:11.080 emotions. It facts the facts. Reality is what it is, A is 109 00:09:11.120 --> 00:09:20.759 a and and the laws of causality apply to h to reality. You know, 110 00:09:20.799 --> 00:09:24.120 we have in epistemology, we have the tool to to to no reality 111 00:09:24.320 --> 00:09:28.559 UH, to discover it, to understand it, and that is our faculty 112 00:09:28.600 --> 00:09:33.480 of reason. We don't gain knowledge through our emotions. We don't get knowledge 113 00:09:33.600 --> 00:09:39.000 through revelation. Knowledge doesn't just imprint itself on us our emotions and our tools 114 00:09:39.000 --> 00:09:43.759 of cognition. The only way to discover knowledge is to use our rational faculty 115 00:09:43.840 --> 00:09:50.399 to observe reality UH facts and integrate those facts logically by use. By the 116 00:09:50.480 --> 00:09:54.720 use of logic, only individuals can reason. Groups don't reason. There's no 117 00:09:54.919 --> 00:10:00.600 group consciousness. Nobody can reason for you any more than anybody can eat for 118 00:10:00.720 --> 00:10:07.399 you. We can contribute to one another's UH cognitive development by by you know, 119 00:10:07.440 --> 00:10:13.080 stimulating and asking questions and conveying information. But you can't do somebody else 120 00:10:13.200 --> 00:10:18.279 is thinking for them as as you know. So the unit of thinking is 121 00:10:18.279 --> 00:10:22.639 the individual. And in morality RAND advocates for you know, the individual is 122 00:10:22.679 --> 00:10:26.919 the unit that is alive. The individual is the unit that must act. 123 00:10:26.320 --> 00:10:31.679 The individual is the unit that must live. And and and think you're the 124 00:10:31.679 --> 00:10:37.039 ones you said. Civilization is the process of setting man free from men. 125 00:10:37.960 --> 00:10:41.639 Yeah, civilization I think or something like that. Yes, And and basically 126 00:10:41.799 --> 00:10:46.840 it's not free from men in the sense of other men are not of value 127 00:10:46.879 --> 00:10:50.159 to you, of course they are, but free from them in a sense 128 00:10:50.200 --> 00:10:56.000 of various levels and forms of enslavement. Right, So, so you know, 129 00:10:56.039 --> 00:11:00.759 throughout history men have been subjugated in one way or to other men, 130 00:11:01.360 --> 00:11:05.440 and civilization as the process of freeing the individual from that subjucation and only dealing 131 00:11:05.440 --> 00:11:11.679 with other men in a voluntary process, a voluntary process of trade. So, 132 00:11:11.759 --> 00:11:16.840 in morality, your moral responsibility in life is to survive, to thrive, 133 00:11:16.960 --> 00:11:20.840 to flourish, and ultimately to be happy. That is your moral purpose. 134 00:11:20.159 --> 00:11:26.000 And you are You're not there to sacrifice your life other people. Other 135 00:11:26.000 --> 00:11:28.919 people are not the standard of morality. So you don't give up your life 136 00:11:28.919 --> 00:11:33.799 for them and your values for them, But you don't also expect them to 137 00:11:33.840 --> 00:11:37.039 give up their values in their life for you. So you don't you know, 138 00:11:37.159 --> 00:11:39.840 you're you're not sacrificed to them, or you don't expect them to sacrifice 139 00:11:39.840 --> 00:11:45.600 to you. And sacrifice here means giving up something important without expectation of anything 140 00:11:46.039 --> 00:11:52.120 in return, or something less valuable in return. So morality is an egoistic 141 00:11:52.159 --> 00:11:56.320 morality. It's a morality of self interest. It's a morality of individuals pursuing 142 00:11:56.720 --> 00:12:01.440 their own rational, long term self interest. Tool by which we do that 143 00:12:01.679 --> 00:12:07.200 is our mind is a reasoning faculty. So if you had to boil down 144 00:12:07.360 --> 00:12:13.240 Rand's morality to one world, I'd say, think, I think before you 145 00:12:13.320 --> 00:12:18.960 act. Act based on thought. So individuals need the ability to think in 146 00:12:20.039 --> 00:12:26.159 order to pursue their happiness. The enemy of thought is force coursion, and 147 00:12:26.559 --> 00:12:31.240 therefore when we come with it, when we're in a society with other people, 148 00:12:33.159 --> 00:12:37.200 the one rule needs to be no coersion, no force. The concept 149 00:12:37.240 --> 00:12:41.559 that captures that is the concept of individual rights, the idea that every individual 150 00:12:41.639 --> 00:12:48.240 has an inalienable right to live his life free of coersion based on his own 151 00:12:48.320 --> 00:12:52.639 judgment in pursuit of his own values. And the political system then manifests rights 152 00:12:52.679 --> 00:12:58.279 as capitalism. It's the system that basically leaves people free to pursue their judgment 153 00:12:58.320 --> 00:13:01.440 in pursuit of their values. Fee of cos and she rejects all full of 154 00:13:01.480 --> 00:13:05.480 statism, but she also rejects, and this is a difference with libertunism. 155 00:13:05.639 --> 00:13:11.159 So as she rejects anarchism of all forms, she believes in a government, 156 00:13:11.480 --> 00:13:15.200 a strong government that does one thing and one thing only, and that has 157 00:13:15.240 --> 00:13:20.080 protect you, protect you from others who would who would curse you, whether 158 00:13:20.120 --> 00:13:24.840 those others live outside of your borders or inside your borders. Its stay to 159 00:13:24.879 --> 00:13:30.519 protect you. We could get into the aesthetics if you're interested, But yeah, 160 00:13:30.600 --> 00:13:33.000 if we have time towards the end, perhaps we could do that. 161 00:13:33.759 --> 00:13:37.799 So objectivism has faced both controversy and scrutiny over the years from both people on 162 00:13:37.840 --> 00:13:43.159 the religious right, mainstream democrats most notably, and even other libertarians like Robert 163 00:13:43.159 --> 00:13:48.120 Nozick, who argued that it doesn't explain why people couldn't rationally prefer having no 164 00:13:48.240 --> 00:13:52.679 values as a means of furthering a particular principle or set of values. It's 165 00:13:52.679 --> 00:13:56.039 been accused of promoting selfishness. What would you have to say in response to 166 00:13:56.080 --> 00:14:00.840 this? Do you believe that this is primarily a misinterpretation of Brand's ideas? 167 00:14:01.159 --> 00:14:05.759 And additionally, what criticisms of objectivism would you theoretically find the most valid, 168 00:14:05.879 --> 00:14:11.600 if any. Well, I think most of the criticism sadly, and I 169 00:14:11.639 --> 00:14:15.600 wish this wasn't true, but most of the criticisms of brand strong Man who 170 00:14:15.720 --> 00:14:18.399 position. You know, a lot of the people critical of Ironman, if 171 00:14:18.399 --> 00:14:22.480 I never read her, or at least if they've read it, they didn't 172 00:14:22.519 --> 00:14:24.879 understand. And a lot of that, you know, some of that, 173 00:14:24.960 --> 00:14:28.720 and we'll get to kind of nosic, but a lot of that has to 174 00:14:28.759 --> 00:14:37.240 do with, you know, the emotionalist gut response reaction to a philosophy that's 175 00:14:37.440 --> 00:14:46.000 egoistic, that's selfish. People cannote or think about selfishness as meaning exploiting other 176 00:14:46.039 --> 00:14:48.759 people, as meaning being a lying, cheating s ob and doing whatever it 177 00:14:48.799 --> 00:14:54.000 takes to get your way, and your way meaning whatever you feel like. 178 00:14:54.840 --> 00:15:00.480 An Ironman is clearly not for that. She calls the philosophy selfish, her 179 00:15:00.519 --> 00:15:05.480 morality selfish, but she doesn't mean that by the word. What she means 180 00:15:05.519 --> 00:15:11.840 by selfish is pursuing what objectively you're what is objectively good for you in the 181 00:15:11.919 --> 00:15:16.519 long run, and doing so rationally. And I have not seen a critique 182 00:15:16.519 --> 00:15:22.639 of that. It just seems that people always fall back on the straw manning 183 00:15:22.679 --> 00:15:28.399 anyway from you know, Ben Shapiro arguing that, you know, what's to 184 00:15:28.440 --> 00:15:31.679 stop somebody from just hitting on the goal at the bar? You know, 185 00:15:31.720 --> 00:15:35.039 he's married, he's got kids at home, that there's an effort involved in 186 00:15:35.159 --> 00:15:39.720 maintaining a marriage and taking care of kids. Why not just go sleep with 187 00:15:39.759 --> 00:15:43.120 a woman at the ball? What the hell? And the reality is that 188 00:15:43.159 --> 00:15:46.519 if you're rational and if you think long term, there lots of reasons not 189 00:15:46.559 --> 00:15:48.600 to sleep with a woman in the ball. Part of them is that you're 190 00:15:48.679 --> 00:15:52.440 just not attracted to us as good looking she may be, because you have 191 00:15:52.759 --> 00:16:00.759 a you know, a more wholesome perspective and what is attractive, and that 192 00:16:00.799 --> 00:16:03.399 comes from being rational and having a long term perspective on life. And you 193 00:16:03.519 --> 00:16:07.799 love your wife and your kids. So it would actually be a sacrifice to 194 00:16:07.840 --> 00:16:12.879 sleep with some random woman at the bar and put in jeopardy your relationship with 195 00:16:12.879 --> 00:16:17.120 your wife and your kids, and put in jeopardy just the integrity of your 196 00:16:17.159 --> 00:16:22.799 own soul. So that kind of understanding of what self interest means and linking 197 00:16:22.799 --> 00:16:27.960 it to reason and rationality something people really resist. It's it's interesting just to 198 00:16:29.480 --> 00:16:33.799 think about why that is, but people really do resist it. So I 199 00:16:33.840 --> 00:16:41.519 think those criticisms are either ignorance or evasive of what she actually is talking about, 200 00:16:41.679 --> 00:16:47.240 what she actually says. I think there are other criticisms Knowsick who try 201 00:16:47.320 --> 00:16:52.480 to deal with and but I think it's just wrong. I just think Knowsick 202 00:16:52.559 --> 00:16:56.519 is wrong. I think he it's to some extent he doesn't understand it. 203 00:16:56.559 --> 00:17:00.320 But I think more deeply, I think it just makes logical stakes in trying 204 00:17:00.320 --> 00:17:06.519 to refute her. You know, and for example, the way you phrased 205 00:17:06.519 --> 00:17:10.839 it before illustrates one have no values or to achieve a value. Well, 206 00:17:10.880 --> 00:17:12.960 but that's a contradiction in terms right there. You you know, if you 207 00:17:14.000 --> 00:17:15.839 have no values, you have no value to achieve. If you have no 208 00:17:15.960 --> 00:17:21.599 values, why even live? What's there's nothing? You're just nothing. So 209 00:17:21.680 --> 00:17:26.319 you're not striving towards anything. As soon as you're striving towards something, you 210 00:17:26.400 --> 00:17:29.519 are, you are value. And then the question is is the value good 211 00:17:29.519 --> 00:17:32.799 for you? Isn't it a good for you? And and and you know 212 00:17:32.920 --> 00:17:34.759 you want to avoid things that are bad for you because the bad for you 213 00:17:34.839 --> 00:17:40.599 and life is the standard and if life is not the standard of what is? 214 00:17:41.440 --> 00:17:45.680 So I think there's just some logical mistakes there. Look, when it 215 00:17:45.680 --> 00:17:49.720 comes to the philosophy itself, to philosophy, I have not found any critique 216 00:17:49.759 --> 00:17:56.319 that is convincing. I have not found any critique that is that really is 217 00:17:56.640 --> 00:18:02.359 deeply challenging. Uh, you know, to and you know, at best, 218 00:18:02.440 --> 00:18:06.920 on a bad day, you could get me to say, given how 219 00:18:06.960 --> 00:18:11.000 people behave, it's how to conceive as man as the rational being because there's 220 00:18:11.039 --> 00:18:15.240 so much huractionality out there. But then you know, you find the things 221 00:18:15.240 --> 00:18:18.119 that man is created and man is none, and you see the glimpses of 222 00:18:18.119 --> 00:18:22.839 that rationality, and you know what's possible. And I think that's what ein 223 00:18:22.960 --> 00:18:26.480 Man is arguing, is she's not arguing that people all like this. It's 224 00:18:26.519 --> 00:18:30.440 what people can be and what we should be, and what we should strive 225 00:18:30.559 --> 00:18:33.720 to be, and what it means to be a moral human being, and 226 00:18:34.359 --> 00:18:37.880 that I think every human being has the potential to do. It's sad that 227 00:18:38.000 --> 00:18:41.799 very few people choose to do it. So moving on to religion, Rand 228 00:18:41.880 --> 00:18:45.519 was highly critical of it, believing that organized religion and even belief in God 229 00:18:45.559 --> 00:18:49.480 itself was actually an insult to man. Do you think you could elaborate further 230 00:18:49.559 --> 00:18:52.759 on what she meant by this, and is there a direct link between this 231 00:18:52.799 --> 00:18:57.519 idea in Nietzsche's notion of slave morality? And moreover, did she ever draw 232 00:18:57.519 --> 00:19:03.319 a direct link between this and communism? Okay, a lot there, All 233 00:19:03.400 --> 00:19:07.880 right, let's bake it down. So first, well, forgot to religion, 234 00:19:07.079 --> 00:19:11.200 or let's start with they're just a belief in God. I mean, 235 00:19:11.240 --> 00:19:15.440 the problem with a belief in God is that it's based on by definition faith. 236 00:19:15.559 --> 00:19:18.160 There is no evidence for God. There are no logical arguments for God. 237 00:19:18.519 --> 00:19:23.359 In spite of the attempts of some people to present some, they're not 238 00:19:23.599 --> 00:19:27.720 real arguments, and philosophers have refuted them over and over again. And at 239 00:19:27.720 --> 00:19:30.920 the end of the day, nobody believes in God because there's a logical argument 240 00:19:30.960 --> 00:19:33.200 for God. At the end of the day, people believe in God because 241 00:19:34.119 --> 00:19:41.119 they believe in God because they've they've taken it on faith. And Rand would 242 00:19:41.160 --> 00:19:45.359 say anything taken on faith is bad. You know. The standard for human 243 00:19:45.400 --> 00:19:49.000 cognition, the standard for discovering the truth, the standard by which one should 244 00:19:49.000 --> 00:19:56.519 live is reason, fact, evidence, logic. That's what we should pursue 245 00:19:56.599 --> 00:20:02.200 in order to achieve success at living. That's what human life means. That's 246 00:20:02.240 --> 00:20:07.160 what progresses human life. Faith in God is the negation of that. Whether 247 00:20:07.000 --> 00:20:10.720 some people want to say, well, it's a negation only is one little 248 00:20:10.839 --> 00:20:14.960 part of me. It's almost never just one little part, because that faith 249 00:20:15.000 --> 00:20:19.160 has implications, particularly when you get to organized religion. But but beyond that, 250 00:20:19.640 --> 00:20:23.359 if reason is really our means of survival, whose reason is really a 251 00:20:23.519 --> 00:20:30.319 tool? Why have an exclusion clause? Why have some parts of your life 252 00:20:30.720 --> 00:20:37.079 not guided by reason? So she rejects the whole idea of faith in God 253 00:20:37.240 --> 00:20:41.480 lepricans many of the conspiracy theories going on right now, anything that's based on 254 00:20:41.519 --> 00:20:45.079 faith and not evidence and facts, I mean, Q and on you could 255 00:20:45.160 --> 00:20:48.880 argue is basically a gnostic religion. Yeah, And I think there are a 256 00:20:48.920 --> 00:20:56.440 lot of kind of religions out there in some form another that basically take a 257 00:20:56.440 --> 00:21:03.319 lot of the kind of principles of Christianity and just you know, change them 258 00:21:03.319 --> 00:21:08.200 and morph them into into something into something different. But it's all based on 259 00:21:08.240 --> 00:21:15.839 faith. And she rejects faith. So so that's and then once you get 260 00:21:15.880 --> 00:21:19.519 into organized religion, I would say, particularly Christianity, I'm sure the supplies 261 00:21:19.559 --> 00:21:22.200 that I know, the supplies to Islam as well, and to some extent 262 00:21:22.240 --> 00:21:27.079 to Judaism, but I think Christianity is the model in the West. She 263 00:21:27.200 --> 00:21:32.480 then has a lot of critique gives Christianity as a philosophy, if you will. 264 00:21:32.920 --> 00:21:37.319 Generally, she viewed religion as a primitive form of philosophy. You know, 265 00:21:37.359 --> 00:21:41.680 man has a real need for answers, answers kind of the big questions, 266 00:21:41.960 --> 00:21:47.119 you know about life. Where did this world come from? What is 267 00:21:47.160 --> 00:21:49.039 the nature of reality? What's the nature of my consciousness? How do I 268 00:21:49.079 --> 00:21:52.480 know reality? What is right? And what is wrong? Right? And 269 00:21:52.640 --> 00:21:56.240 religion provided some primitive alliances to it, because you know, everything else, 270 00:21:56.279 --> 00:22:00.400 science and everything else was pretty primitive back then, so religion was as good 271 00:22:00.400 --> 00:22:07.319 as a god as a philosophy. She was very critical, particularly Christianity, 272 00:22:07.319 --> 00:22:11.839 because of its altruism, because of its morality. I mean, obviously, 273 00:22:11.920 --> 00:22:17.680 the epistemology isn't a pistemology of revelation. You know things because somebody, it 274 00:22:17.759 --> 00:22:21.359 was revealed to somebody and then they told you about it. That revelation is 275 00:22:21.400 --> 00:22:23.720 to the prophets, or to the pope, or to Jesus or whoever. 276 00:22:25.680 --> 00:22:30.519 So she rejects out of pistemology, and she rejects the whole metaphysics of a 277 00:22:30.599 --> 00:22:34.160 world created by a God. But I think a lot of the criticism is 278 00:22:34.200 --> 00:22:41.640 around the morality. Christianity basically says, you know your life, the purpose 279 00:22:41.680 --> 00:22:45.160 of your life should be the sacrifice. The purpose of your life is some 280 00:22:45.359 --> 00:22:48.559 higher goal, and indeed, in another life, in another dimension, in 281 00:22:48.599 --> 00:22:53.079 another world, your purpose in life is God. You need a sacrifice to 282 00:22:53.200 --> 00:22:57.640 God, or to the religion, or to other people, but you cannot 283 00:22:57.680 --> 00:23:02.960 live your own life or your own sake. You know. The symbol of 284 00:23:03.039 --> 00:23:07.400 Christianity being Jesus on the cross suffering the most horrific death possible, not for 285 00:23:07.480 --> 00:23:11.640 his sins, not for anything he did, but sins other people committed. 286 00:23:11.720 --> 00:23:17.799 Talk about a massive injustice, and Rand would view it as a massive injustice, 287 00:23:17.799 --> 00:23:22.039 So somebody to die for other people's collect tying into collectivism, I assume, 288 00:23:22.359 --> 00:23:26.240 definitely into collectivism. He is sacrificing the individual for the sake of the 289 00:23:26.319 --> 00:23:30.519 group, even though the individual is a hero. You know, within the 290 00:23:30.559 --> 00:23:34.519 context Christianity certainly a hero. So she rejects the morality and the whole, 291 00:23:34.920 --> 00:23:41.039 the whole system that religion builds in order to justify knowledge. But also he 292 00:23:41.079 --> 00:23:45.240 knows to justify what's right and wrong. And her philosophy is a real challenge 293 00:23:45.720 --> 00:23:52.359 to conventional philosophy and to religion in terms of all the metaphysics, epistemology, 294 00:23:52.400 --> 00:23:56.720 but more than anything in ethics, which is how people live, because it 295 00:23:56.799 --> 00:24:00.000 says, no, your purpose in life is not to suff it's not to 296 00:24:00.039 --> 00:24:03.920 sacrifice, it's not to do what the group demands or what God demands, 297 00:24:03.960 --> 00:24:07.359 somebody else demands. You purpose in life is to pursue your happiness. That 298 00:24:07.559 --> 00:24:12.559 is that's a that's a major revolution in ethics. And you know she it's 299 00:24:12.599 --> 00:24:18.359 not completely out of noway, because this builds an Aristotle. Aristotle ethics is 300 00:24:18.359 --> 00:24:23.200 an egoistic ethics. It's an ethics of self fulfillment, of flourishing, of 301 00:24:23.240 --> 00:24:33.880 individual human flourishing. So that's that's the essence. You mentioned communism, communism, 302 00:24:34.279 --> 00:24:41.400 the very strong parallels between communism. I think in Christianity you can replace 303 00:24:41.519 --> 00:24:48.079 God, you can replace God or Jesus with the politarian and they're the elect. 304 00:24:48.279 --> 00:24:52.440 I mean, I remember I had this conversation with I don't know if 305 00:24:52.480 --> 00:24:56.079 you know, Michael Rechtenwald, but no, okay, you know, but 306 00:24:56.960 --> 00:25:00.880 former Marxist professor who became a libertarian, But yeah, I know about I 307 00:25:00.920 --> 00:25:03.039 asked him what he thought about the idea. It was just something that came 308 00:25:03.079 --> 00:25:07.599 to mind about how if you think about it, Marxian eschatology is very similar, 309 00:25:07.720 --> 00:25:10.599 like the idea of okay, there's especially when you think of like pre 310 00:25:10.680 --> 00:25:15.000 millennial like interpretation of the end of like the idea that okay, there's going 311 00:25:15.039 --> 00:25:21.039 to be this great time of horror, You're going to have a Eventually Christ 312 00:25:21.079 --> 00:25:23.880 will return, There'll be the reign of a thousand years. It'll pass away 313 00:25:25.680 --> 00:25:27.519 old heaven and old Earth. You'll have a new heaven on earth. Same 314 00:25:27.559 --> 00:25:32.000 with that, you'll have a transitional dictatorship of the proletariat. The old or 315 00:25:32.160 --> 00:25:38.759 the state will wither away, and there's needs will be taking care of magically, 316 00:25:38.920 --> 00:25:42.960 no explanation how, and you'll be able to live in heaven. According 317 00:25:42.960 --> 00:25:48.640 to communism, of course, truth is revealed to the dictatorship. The dictator 318 00:25:48.759 --> 00:25:52.759 knows what the truth is, he represents it politarian. The politarian doesn't know 319 00:25:52.799 --> 00:25:56.200 what's good for it. He has to dictate to them, just like just 320 00:25:56.240 --> 00:26:00.480 like in Christianity, and of course the ethic of sacrifice, you must sacrifice 321 00:26:00.519 --> 00:26:07.079 yourself to this noble cause, to this poltarian God and to this mystical future. 322 00:26:07.599 --> 00:26:11.920 So yes, I think Christianity is a secularization of Christianity. It's it's 323 00:26:11.960 --> 00:26:17.480 a communism secuation of Christianity. And it's why it's so popular. It's it's 324 00:26:17.559 --> 00:26:21.759 it's so popular because it's not that radical. It's it's just taking your Christianity 325 00:26:21.799 --> 00:26:27.160 seriously, but rejecting God. And that's why I think it. It latched 326 00:26:27.279 --> 00:26:30.759 on. You know, it's not surprising it latched on in Russia. It 327 00:26:32.119 --> 00:26:37.680 latched on where people were more mystical, took the Christianity most seriously, but 328 00:26:37.759 --> 00:26:41.559 what was really important to them, and the Christianity was not God. It 329 00:26:41.640 --> 00:26:45.640 was really important to them in the Christianity was the sacrifice and uh and and 330 00:26:45.759 --> 00:26:51.759 the revelation and this this story of achieving paradise sometime in the distant future. 331 00:26:52.680 --> 00:26:56.119 Yeah, reminds me of that. There's an old Oswald Spangler quote which is, 332 00:26:56.319 --> 00:26:59.960 uh, it was Christianity as the grandfather of Bolshevism. I remember, 333 00:27:00.480 --> 00:27:03.799 yep. I think that's absolutely right. And then you talked about the slave 334 00:27:03.839 --> 00:27:10.759 morality, and well, I don't think Iran has ever referred to the morality 335 00:27:10.799 --> 00:27:14.519 of altruism or the morality of Christianity is a slave morality. She wouldn't have 336 00:27:14.720 --> 00:27:18.720 used those terms. But but yes, altruism in the essence is a slave 337 00:27:18.759 --> 00:27:21.839 morality, right, It's a morality. It says your life doesn't belong to 338 00:27:21.880 --> 00:27:25.640 you, you must sacrifice it to others, you know, to God, 339 00:27:26.079 --> 00:27:29.799 to the proletarian, to the group, to the collective in some form, 340 00:27:29.839 --> 00:27:32.680 to the weak, to the poor, to the meek in some form. 341 00:27:32.759 --> 00:27:37.119 And that that is, I think, a slave morality. And I think 342 00:27:37.160 --> 00:27:44.599 that is suddenly Imrand rejects that whole idea. I think where I Rand disagrees 343 00:27:44.599 --> 00:27:48.640 with Nietzsche really, really fundamentally is on the positive, not so much on 344 00:27:48.680 --> 00:27:52.400 his critique, but on the positive, on what should replace the slave morality 345 00:27:52.400 --> 00:27:56.039 and how does one think about it? The world of reason versus emotion, 346 00:27:56.160 --> 00:28:00.839 All of that is very different differentiates Ran from Nietzsche quite. It's like the 347 00:28:00.920 --> 00:28:04.799 Enlightenment versus Romanticism debate they had. Yes, absolutely so, I considering Rand 348 00:28:04.839 --> 00:28:12.599 as as a continuation of the Enlightenment in all important philosophical senses. Okay, 349 00:28:12.799 --> 00:28:17.880 so, although she promoted secular values, Rand was heavily inspired by the writings 350 00:28:17.880 --> 00:28:22.039 of philosophies of people like Aristotle and Saint Thomas Aquinas, one of whom was 351 00:28:22.079 --> 00:28:25.839 the basis of Christianity's metaphysical framework, and the other, of course being a 352 00:28:25.920 --> 00:28:30.480 Christian saint. Many would argue that it's impossible to detach the spiritual from their 353 00:28:30.519 --> 00:28:33.920 philosophies. How does rand and by extension, yourself, also being a secularist, 354 00:28:34.000 --> 00:28:38.440 square this with your religion. Well, so, first, you know, 355 00:28:40.119 --> 00:28:42.519 I don't think Aristotle was certainly now religious, and I certainly don't think 356 00:28:42.519 --> 00:28:49.599 his metaphysics or his morality aligned necessarily with religion. It is Thomas Aquinas that 357 00:28:51.039 --> 00:28:57.400 kind of forced Christianity to embrace Aristotle and and kind of created diffusion that I 358 00:28:57.440 --> 00:29:02.960 think was unnatural and is unnatural, kind of broke apart with the Reformation, 359 00:29:03.039 --> 00:29:06.680 right, I mean, the Reformation rejects all that and is much more based 360 00:29:06.680 --> 00:29:11.240 on pure emotion. Evangelic in the evangelical movement today rejects that. So I 361 00:29:11.279 --> 00:29:18.279 think that fusion of astarted with Christianity was never completely natural, was always unnatural 362 00:29:18.400 --> 00:29:22.640 and had to dissolve, And it starts dissolving in the Renaissance, and it 363 00:29:22.640 --> 00:29:29.680 gets more fully dissolved in the in the Enlightenment. She admired Thomas Aquinas because 364 00:29:29.799 --> 00:29:34.920 of his deep, respectful reason and because he is the one who brings reason 365 00:29:36.160 --> 00:29:40.440 back into Western civilization. In a sense, with the fall of Rome and 366 00:29:40.839 --> 00:29:45.000 the disappearance of the libraries, the ancient libraries, many of them as started, 367 00:29:45.200 --> 00:29:48.720 is lost, the whole idea of reason is lost, and we go 368 00:29:48.799 --> 00:29:53.279 into what I think was a dark ages, and the dark ages of mysticism 369 00:29:53.400 --> 00:30:03.079 and irrationalism. Acquainas brings civilization out of that, and he basically sets the 370 00:30:03.720 --> 00:30:10.480 conditions for the Renaissance that happens about a hundred years after he dies. But 371 00:30:10.640 --> 00:30:14.200 without Acquaintance, there's no renaissance. And that's why she's such an admirer of 372 00:30:14.240 --> 00:30:18.519 Acquaintance. It's not she She admires the arguments, specific arguments. She admires 373 00:30:18.599 --> 00:30:22.640 what he does to Western civilization and where he takes it. I mean, 374 00:30:22.039 --> 00:30:27.160 I consider, uh, you know, I have no problem with the idea 375 00:30:27.240 --> 00:30:33.000 that I have a spirit. I just don't consider that spirit mystical. I 376 00:30:33.039 --> 00:30:37.039 have a consciousness. I have spiritual experiences when I contemplate arts, when I 377 00:30:37.079 --> 00:30:41.000 listen to music, when I uh, you know, see a you know, 378 00:30:41.680 --> 00:30:45.799 look at the Sistine Chapel or Michelangelo. But they have nothing to do 379 00:30:45.839 --> 00:30:48.039 with religion. They have nothing to do with God, they have nothing to 380 00:30:48.039 --> 00:30:52.279 do with something mystical. They have something to do with the soul, the 381 00:30:53.039 --> 00:30:59.960 consciousness that that I have that to some extent I control or I have helped, 382 00:31:00.480 --> 00:31:04.640 you know, work to create, so I you know. Rand also 383 00:31:04.680 --> 00:31:10.519 talked about separating religious concept from religion. That is that a lot of these 384 00:31:10.519 --> 00:31:14.839 concepts shouldn't have just a religious connotation, and it's a shame that they do. 385 00:31:17.039 --> 00:31:21.559 So I think spirit is one of those I don't think. I don't 386 00:31:21.559 --> 00:31:25.839 think one should necessarily do. The human spirit is something that is mystical. 387 00:31:26.000 --> 00:31:32.200 It is it is about our character, it's about how our mind, it's 388 00:31:32.240 --> 00:31:40.680 about how you know our values. So you are obviously an advocate for secularism 389 00:31:41.279 --> 00:31:44.960 yourself, I believe. Would you consider yourself agnostic? Is that you're I 390 00:31:44.960 --> 00:31:48.480 don't know. I'm I'm an atheist and I've been an atheist since the age 391 00:31:48.519 --> 00:31:52.400 of six. So okay, this is this, This was the easy part. 392 00:31:52.720 --> 00:31:56.200 Why do you believe that a secular society is preferable to one that is 393 00:31:56.240 --> 00:32:00.440 religious, particularly when religion regardless of whether or not God exists. That's a 394 00:32:00.440 --> 00:32:06.319 completely different conversation has actually provided a certain amount of efficacy over the course of 395 00:32:06.319 --> 00:32:08.519 civilization. Again, when we go back to the idea of finding meaning, 396 00:32:09.599 --> 00:32:15.200 side challenge all of that. So, first, you know, I start 397 00:32:15.240 --> 00:32:17.799 with the question is it true? Is it false? That? To me 398 00:32:17.920 --> 00:32:22.640 is what's important? And God doesn't exist, So that's it. So why 399 00:32:22.640 --> 00:32:28.599 would I advocate for God because people have advocated for him for two thousand years? 400 00:32:28.599 --> 00:32:30.480 Why would I believe in something just because other people do it. I 401 00:32:30.559 --> 00:32:35.240 see no evidence for it, I see no reason for it. Therefore, 402 00:32:35.559 --> 00:32:39.839 so what's important is the truth. What's important is reality, not what works. 403 00:32:42.039 --> 00:32:45.680 And then I challenge if it works right to the extent. Religion is 404 00:32:45.759 --> 00:32:54.400 practice consistently, it is destructive, it is harmful. It leads to dark 405 00:32:54.440 --> 00:33:00.799 ages. Dark ages is what Christianity is. Anything better than the dark ages 406 00:33:01.000 --> 00:33:08.680 is the victory as secularization over Christianity or over religion. The renaissance is the 407 00:33:08.759 --> 00:33:16.079 rediscovery of ancient ideas, ancient sculpture. I mean, you cannot make Michelangelos 408 00:33:16.119 --> 00:33:22.599 David. You cannot sculpt Michelangelos David in the dark Ages. First of all, 409 00:33:22.640 --> 00:33:24.640 you'd be stoned to death, the sculpture would be destroyed. They tried, 410 00:33:24.920 --> 00:33:28.599 the religion has tried to do that in fluence anyway. They tried to, 411 00:33:29.039 --> 00:33:32.240 you know, they tried to destroy David. And even though Michelangelo was 412 00:33:32.279 --> 00:33:38.400 religious and became more and more religious as he aged, that spirit of the 413 00:33:38.880 --> 00:33:45.160 David is a secular spirit. That is, an individual who is competent, 414 00:33:45.200 --> 00:33:46.680 who is able to deal with reality. If you look at the sculpture, 415 00:33:46.880 --> 00:33:51.640 there's no God, there, there's no religiosity. There. There is a 416 00:33:52.319 --> 00:33:58.519 David standing up to Goliath by himself alone and with his own strength, as 417 00:33:58.559 --> 00:34:01.759 with own determination, all in that sculpture. That is the spirit of enlignment. 418 00:34:01.759 --> 00:34:06.880 The spirit of enlignment is the beginning of the shrugging off of religion, 419 00:34:07.279 --> 00:34:13.159 the beginning of man standing up for himself. They called it humanism, which 420 00:34:13.239 --> 00:34:16.559 is the beginning of a secular philosophy. And that is the beginning of the 421 00:34:16.559 --> 00:34:20.920 rejection of religion, the beginning of the rejection of Christianity. And I think 422 00:34:20.960 --> 00:34:27.599 that only intensifies with the scientific revolution and the Enlightenment, where men are starting 423 00:34:27.639 --> 00:34:31.599 to see that they can understand reality without a God, without revolution. You 424 00:34:31.599 --> 00:34:37.880 know, the Bible actually contradicts science the things in the Bible that don't make 425 00:34:37.920 --> 00:34:42.840 sense. Science can explain the world, yes, can explain everything yet, 426 00:34:42.960 --> 00:34:45.360 but it can explain more and more and more, and we have the tool 427 00:34:45.440 --> 00:34:47.920 for understanding the worlds. What do I need? Religion? And I think 428 00:34:47.920 --> 00:34:52.360 the alignment is a period in which people start relegating religion even more, shrugging 429 00:34:52.360 --> 00:34:57.880 religion off even more, and making kind of a personal thing and everything else 430 00:34:58.519 --> 00:35:04.119 science understanding the world. Politics were secular, but in only in private life 431 00:35:04.119 --> 00:35:07.400 are we religious. And it's trying to shrug off the remnants, the last 432 00:35:07.480 --> 00:35:15.519 remnant of it. Morality right and wrong, undermined by religion, not promoted 433 00:35:15.559 --> 00:35:21.280 by it, you know, because they teach a wrong morality. So I 434 00:35:21.320 --> 00:35:30.800 think a properly construed secular society, a secular society built on rational principles, 435 00:35:30.840 --> 00:35:37.239 on the role of reason, is a fons superior society than a religious society. 436 00:35:37.440 --> 00:35:39.840 And the more secular the society has become over time, the better it's 437 00:35:39.880 --> 00:35:44.920 become, both materially and I think in every other regd you know, the 438 00:35:45.719 --> 00:35:53.519 life expectancy, material success, but also aesthetics and aesthetic creation. I think 439 00:35:53.559 --> 00:35:58.440 to a large extent that the spirit that created all that over the last two 440 00:35:58.480 --> 00:36:04.719 hundred fifty years is a consequence of the alignment of the consequence of rejecting religion 441 00:36:04.719 --> 00:36:08.559 on embracing it. So you're Israeli and consider yourself a Zionist, on which 442 00:36:08.559 --> 00:36:14.960 you've written extensively. So many libertarians pardon, not really, but oh you 443 00:36:15.000 --> 00:36:17.719 don't okay. So I don't send myself as Zionist unless you're anti Zionist, 444 00:36:17.719 --> 00:36:22.800 and then I'll fight you. But I'm neither. He know, you know, 445 00:36:22.840 --> 00:36:27.000 I think Zionism is a necessary evil, if you will, okay, 446 00:36:27.039 --> 00:36:30.760 So so many That's what I'm getting, So many libertarians being non intervenetists, 447 00:36:30.800 --> 00:36:34.599 having critical of Israel, with some even considering themselves to be full on anti 448 00:36:34.679 --> 00:36:39.000 Zionists or against the existence of an Israeli state itself. What is your argument 449 00:36:39.039 --> 00:36:44.719 as to why you believe it is important to support Israel? How would you 450 00:36:44.840 --> 00:36:47.679 approach that if you were trying to convince somebody who is anti Israel to kind 451 00:36:47.679 --> 00:36:52.199 of come over to that perspective. Well, first, let me say, 452 00:36:52.760 --> 00:36:53.960 I don't know what you mean by support Israel, because I want to be 453 00:36:53.960 --> 00:37:00.679 clear. I don't think the United States government should be sending Israel money I 454 00:37:00.679 --> 00:37:04.440 don't think American troops should be sent to the Middle East to fight for Israel, 455 00:37:04.920 --> 00:37:08.920 you know, any of that. I think what Israel deserves is a 456 00:37:09.039 --> 00:37:15.679 mall support and to some extent our military working with Israel as an ally, 457 00:37:15.960 --> 00:37:20.079 not not giving them, but trading with them as an ally. And why 458 00:37:20.119 --> 00:37:23.519 do I think Israel deserves a'm all support Because it's a good country. It's 459 00:37:23.639 --> 00:37:29.400 it's fundamentally a country that is basically free. You know, it's not as 460 00:37:29.400 --> 00:37:31.440 fee as I would like it to be, but neither as America. But 461 00:37:31.519 --> 00:37:37.039 it's basically free. It's a country that basically respect individual rights, the property 462 00:37:37.119 --> 00:37:42.639 rights, the religious rights, that the individual rights of its citizens. Again, 463 00:37:42.800 --> 00:37:45.320 is it perfect. No, It's got flaws, It's got problems, 464 00:37:45.400 --> 00:37:53.159 particularly in giving too much respect for Jewish fundamentalists. But it's basically a rights 465 00:37:53.159 --> 00:38:00.239 respecting, free, good moral country, and as such deserves our support, 466 00:38:00.320 --> 00:38:07.880 particularly given that it is attacked by everybody. It's being attacked for since its 467 00:38:07.880 --> 00:38:17.320 founding, by its Muslim and Arab neighbors, who represent the exact opposite civilization 468 00:38:17.360 --> 00:38:22.119 and culture than the Israel does. Israel represents a culture and civilization of individualism, 469 00:38:22.159 --> 00:38:29.280 of relative free markets, of freedom speech, of all the things that 470 00:38:29.320 --> 00:38:34.559 we associate, I think with Western civilization. It's the Middle East, of 471 00:38:34.559 --> 00:38:37.559 course, like in its dark ages, essentially the Middle East, especially if 472 00:38:37.559 --> 00:38:42.679 you take especially if you like analyze it in the context of like civilizational cycles, 473 00:38:43.239 --> 00:38:45.920 like after the end of the Ottomans, after that lights out. Yeah, 474 00:38:45.920 --> 00:38:49.760 I mean, it's an interesting there's an interesting I mean, we can 475 00:38:49.800 --> 00:38:52.519 get into the history of that, because I think it's interesting. But the 476 00:38:52.599 --> 00:39:00.960 reality is that civilization launches with Aristotle, and whoever adopts Aristotle is civilized, 477 00:39:00.960 --> 00:39:07.079 and whoever rejects him is not. The Arabs were civilized when they embraced Aristotle, 478 00:39:07.159 --> 00:39:09.880 which was from about nine hundred a d. To about twelve hundred eighty. 479 00:39:10.360 --> 00:39:15.840 They did phenomenally well, the biggest libraries in the world when Baghdad and 480 00:39:16.039 --> 00:39:22.920 later in places like Kodava and Toledo in southern Spain, they had scientists and 481 00:39:23.039 --> 00:39:29.400 mathematicians. They made real progress in the scientists while Europe was still Mayad and 482 00:39:29.519 --> 00:39:36.599 mysticism and witch burning and craziness. The Muslim world because of their respect for 483 00:39:36.639 --> 00:39:43.000 Aristotle, we're doing amazing things. And then a famous Muslim philosopher by the 484 00:39:43.079 --> 00:39:46.440 name of a Ghazzali, who one of the things that they were trying to 485 00:39:46.480 --> 00:39:51.320 do in the Muslim world was trying to writ him solve faith with reason, 486 00:39:51.599 --> 00:39:54.880 same thing Thomas Aquinas would later do right for Christianity. And they couldn't write. 487 00:39:54.880 --> 00:39:59.440 They kept trying and kept battling in but they tilted towards reason, and 488 00:39:59.480 --> 00:40:02.719 that's why they published. And then al Ghazali came was the greatest philosophy's time, 489 00:40:04.119 --> 00:40:07.639 and he went into the desert to contemplate this question of faith versus reason. 490 00:40:07.000 --> 00:40:09.199 And he came back one day and he said, I've got the solution. 491 00:40:09.800 --> 00:40:15.079 We must abandon reason. Faith is it? You cannot have both. 492 00:40:15.000 --> 00:40:22.599 And literally within fifty years, every library is burnt in the Photo Crescent, 493 00:40:22.679 --> 00:40:28.280 the area between Baghdad, Baghdad and really Egypt. That civilization disappears by the 494 00:40:28.280 --> 00:40:32.039 time the Mongols arrive and completely the story back Dad. There's no libraries there 495 00:40:32.039 --> 00:40:36.079 anymore, and there's no science, and there's no The only remnants of that 496 00:40:36.519 --> 00:40:40.239 survive in Spain, and those are taken over by the Christians. And it's 497 00:40:40.360 --> 00:40:45.880 those books that they take when the Christians take some of these cities in Spain. 498 00:40:45.360 --> 00:40:50.239 Those are the books that travel to the University of Paris where Thomas Aquinas 499 00:40:50.280 --> 00:40:55.280 reads them. He reads the Arabic translations of the original Greek, right, 500 00:40:55.440 --> 00:41:00.079 he doesn't read them in Greek. Only later they translated the Latin. And 501 00:41:00.119 --> 00:41:05.880 so that's the path. You know, the Arab saved civilization because they saved 502 00:41:05.920 --> 00:41:09.599 Aristotle. But Aristotle the respects to the individual, respect for reason. That 503 00:41:09.760 --> 00:41:14.159 is the civilization of force, the moves of forward. And if you think 504 00:41:14.159 --> 00:41:17.639 about Israel, going back to Israel, Israel represents individualism. It has a 505 00:41:17.719 --> 00:41:22.719 generally individualistic culture and reason. It's a it's a culture that respects science, 506 00:41:22.760 --> 00:41:29.960 respects thinking, respects argumentation. Again, not consistently. It's too religious, 507 00:41:30.239 --> 00:41:34.199 way too religious for my taste, but it's it's westernized. And the Arab 508 00:41:34.320 --> 00:41:38.119 world is a world dominated by mysticism and faith and is still in the dark, 509 00:41:38.400 --> 00:41:43.039 has retreated into the dark ages as a consequence of kind of Elgas, 510 00:41:43.039 --> 00:41:45.719 all these teachings. So, yes, we should support Azraelka's a bastian a 511 00:41:45.719 --> 00:41:52.119 civilization, just like I think we should support Taiwan relative to China, just 512 00:41:52.159 --> 00:41:54.519 like we should support Ukraine relative to Russia. That's a whole other issue. 513 00:41:54.519 --> 00:42:00.960 I disagree with men in libertarians on right. You know, whenever barbarism raises 514 00:42:00.039 --> 00:42:07.039 its head, we should support the civilized and because that's who we are, 515 00:42:07.239 --> 00:42:12.360 and and and and anybody who threatens another civilized country is a threat to us. 516 00:42:13.119 --> 00:42:15.800 Yeah. I feel like a lot a lot of people, especially the 517 00:42:15.840 --> 00:42:21.920 people who are critical of Israel, forget, like what is the country where 518 00:42:21.960 --> 00:42:25.280 Arabs have the most rights? Like that? That's that'll shut them up. 519 00:42:25.320 --> 00:42:30.239 That'll basically it's like don't you care about right, it's support It's like fine, 520 00:42:30.280 --> 00:42:34.400 Like I criticism of the Israel government completely understand that, as you and 521 00:42:34.440 --> 00:42:40.360 I both used earlier. But I mean if you support the creation of like 522 00:42:40.800 --> 00:42:45.960 replate giving it back to Palestine, like not only does that completely revert all 523 00:42:46.000 --> 00:42:50.559 that progress, but then also you risk it becoming a vassal state of Iran. 524 00:42:51.599 --> 00:42:55.119 I mean absolutely. And look, the Palestinian authority has some autonomy in 525 00:42:55.119 --> 00:43:00.639 the West Bank. They have Gaza. Gaza is completely independent, and yet 526 00:43:00.719 --> 00:43:05.079 Gaza is a religious theocracy. It is it is brutal, it is horbable. 527 00:43:05.400 --> 00:43:10.320 They throw gays off of buildings, They they they execute people with no 528 00:43:10.360 --> 00:43:14.639 real rule of law. It is barbaric and primitive, and it is a 529 00:43:14.719 --> 00:43:17.360 vassal of you on to a large extent. The West Bank is terrible. 530 00:43:17.360 --> 00:43:22.960 There's no free speech on the West Bank. Try try criticizing Mahmoudabas, who 531 00:43:23.079 --> 00:43:28.320 is the president. Last elections were I don't know, twenty years ago. 532 00:43:28.400 --> 00:43:31.320 Yet he's still president. This term expired a long time ago, doesn't matter. 533 00:43:31.400 --> 00:43:37.800 Nobody cares. There's no democracy or semblance of kind of elections. So 534 00:43:37.280 --> 00:43:42.599 absolutely, you know, I used to when I lived in Israel. I 535 00:43:42.760 --> 00:43:46.400 actually worked as a construction manager and all of my all of my contractors were 536 00:43:46.400 --> 00:43:51.280 Arabs, and you know, they used to tell me. And I think 537 00:43:51.320 --> 00:43:55.199 this has changed because of them becoming more religious, unfortunately over the last twenty 538 00:43:55.280 --> 00:43:59.840 years. But this is back in the eighties. They would say thank Allah 539 00:44:00.039 --> 00:44:01.360 that I was every morning. I think, I'll love that I was born 540 00:44:01.400 --> 00:44:05.360 in Israel. You know, they go, they say, I go see 541 00:44:05.360 --> 00:44:09.360 my relatives in Cirio and Jordan or in Egypt. Life here is so much 542 00:44:09.400 --> 00:44:15.039 better than over there. And it is the richa the Fria. They write, 543 00:44:15.079 --> 00:44:19.559 some more respected and and and and many of them, at least I 544 00:44:19.559 --> 00:44:24.199 think most of them understood in you then, okay, so final question. 545 00:44:24.440 --> 00:44:29.280 You will be hosted by the SOHO form for a debate between you and Brian 546 00:44:29.360 --> 00:44:36.079 Kaplan regarding monarchism versus anarchism. You argue in favor of the former. Of 547 00:44:36.079 --> 00:44:43.000 course, I assume that goes back to the Rand's criticism of anarchism and in 548 00:44:43.119 --> 00:44:47.679 pro monarchism. But so that said, what is your specific argument in favor 549 00:44:47.719 --> 00:44:52.840 of monarchism. How does that differ from other monarchists libertarians such as Robert Nozick 550 00:44:53.280 --> 00:45:00.239 and moreover, what are your criticisms of anarchism itself specifically? Well, if 551 00:45:00.280 --> 00:45:01.400 you want to give us, like a little example of what your argument's going 552 00:45:01.440 --> 00:45:05.960 to be, sure, well, I don't want to give Brian heads up 553 00:45:06.000 --> 00:45:09.599 here, but will be it. I think he knows first. I don't 554 00:45:09.599 --> 00:45:14.199 consider myself a Menichist. I don't like that term. I consider myself an 555 00:45:14.199 --> 00:45:17.719 advocate for limited government limited to the protection of individual rights. That's its own 556 00:45:17.840 --> 00:45:22.920 classical liberal is out of term. You are still maybe, but you know 557 00:45:23.199 --> 00:45:28.400 again, I consider myself I think I like the term capitalist because I think 558 00:45:28.400 --> 00:45:30.760 that captures it. But at the end of the day, limited government limited 559 00:45:30.800 --> 00:45:37.199 by the principle of individual rights. I don't like the I don't think meno 560 00:45:37.480 --> 00:45:42.400 key you know it's an ism. I find the whole construct of that would 561 00:45:42.559 --> 00:45:47.400 problematic. But the the essence of my argument is that individuals, as I 562 00:45:47.440 --> 00:45:52.639 said earlier, in order to be able to use to pursue their reason in 563 00:45:52.679 --> 00:45:57.320 pursuit of their own values and pursuit of their own happiness, to pursue their 564 00:45:57.360 --> 00:46:04.119 life, must be free to use their mind and uh free of coersion. 565 00:46:05.159 --> 00:46:09.760 The coersion fundamentally is the enemy of society. So in order to create a 566 00:46:09.800 --> 00:46:15.000 civilized society, the first step once must make is eliminate coersion from society. 567 00:46:15.360 --> 00:46:21.239 And the only way to do that is by creating some kind of monopoly over 568 00:46:21.280 --> 00:46:24.320 the use of a force, limiting that monopoly over the use of force to 569 00:46:24.360 --> 00:46:30.880 only use it as retaliation in defense, but extracting force for society, so 570 00:46:30.920 --> 00:46:35.920 we can all start interacting with one another knowing force is not allowed. Force 571 00:46:36.039 --> 00:46:38.880 is not an option. Forces off the table because we have this entity that 572 00:46:39.000 --> 00:46:45.559 is basically outlawed. It it is eradicated and is maintaining the peace, maintaining 573 00:46:46.000 --> 00:46:51.840 maintaining that. You know that that that is followed, that there's a and 574 00:46:51.880 --> 00:46:55.440 then you know, I believe that they are objective rules. Uh, you 575 00:46:55.440 --> 00:47:01.199 know that needs to be that need to be determined in terms of both what 576 00:47:01.320 --> 00:47:06.639 are the laws, what are the ways in which we've sticked force? And 577 00:47:06.639 --> 00:47:09.840 then what are the procedures by which we go about enforcing it? Right? 578 00:47:10.119 --> 00:47:13.519 I mean, how do we know somebody's a criminal, how do we know 579 00:47:13.599 --> 00:47:17.039 somebody initiated force? Rules of evidence? I mean, there's a massive amount 580 00:47:17.079 --> 00:47:22.320 of things that one has to determine in order to figure out how to objectively 581 00:47:23.639 --> 00:47:30.760 have a justice system that enforces laws that are properly defending individual rights. All 582 00:47:30.800 --> 00:47:36.719 of that requires real thinking, and that needs to be done by in a 583 00:47:36.800 --> 00:47:42.400 sense of centralized authority where they, you know, people can really think it 584 00:47:42.440 --> 00:47:51.119 through and figure this out. Anarchy is, in my view, the legitimization 585 00:47:51.199 --> 00:47:54.199 of force. He says, Look, force is just one other thing we 586 00:47:54.360 --> 00:48:00.400 human beings do. Let's have a market in it, let's negotiate around it, 587 00:48:01.159 --> 00:48:07.440 let's compete over it, and some you know, different agencies will have 588 00:48:07.679 --> 00:48:13.960 different laws, different rules. It will all be in the same geographic area. 589 00:48:14.079 --> 00:48:17.119 You might have your system of government in a sense running you and I 590 00:48:17.159 --> 00:48:22.840 have my system of government and will somehow negotiate and all these security forces, 591 00:48:22.880 --> 00:48:30.280 all these private governments, private militaries, private police forces will all negotiate deals 592 00:48:30.400 --> 00:48:36.119 between them. And I say, first, that's a rejection of the objectivity 593 00:48:36.440 --> 00:48:38.920 of law, the fact that there are objective values, the objective laws. 594 00:48:38.960 --> 00:48:44.440 There's there's an objective good law and objective bad law. It leaves it up 595 00:48:44.480 --> 00:48:54.079 to you know, socially determined in a sense marketplace determined. And second that 596 00:48:54.079 --> 00:49:01.480 that it's it basically reverts to who to violence, right, It basically revots 597 00:49:01.599 --> 00:49:05.719 if if the if what we're trading, if what we're trading honest force, 598 00:49:06.159 --> 00:49:08.920 then if I can build the strongest of those militaries, I'm going to do 599 00:49:08.960 --> 00:49:14.920 a hostile takeover my competitors. And that hostile takeover will always engage involve force, 600 00:49:15.400 --> 00:49:21.360 will always involve violence. Why not. I mean, there's no authority 601 00:49:21.440 --> 00:49:24.760 that says that's not okay. It's it's already been legitimized by the very acceptance 602 00:49:24.760 --> 00:49:30.239 of anarchy. So I think anarchy by definition has to evolve to some form 603 00:49:30.320 --> 00:49:38.280 of authoritarianism, some form of might makes rights. Uh, And with one 604 00:49:39.119 --> 00:49:47.119 dominant security agency creates a government and rules over that territory. But now agree 605 00:49:47.360 --> 00:49:52.519 that's actually when I was the first time I had Walter block on, I 606 00:49:52.599 --> 00:49:54.639 asked him, in the absence of the state, what is to stop another 607 00:49:54.679 --> 00:50:00.519 state from forming, particularly one that's that's like undemocratic. It has to I 608 00:50:00.519 --> 00:50:06.519 mean, over any particular geographic area, you cannot have multiple legal systems, 609 00:50:07.000 --> 00:50:13.320 you cannot have multiple police authorities. That only devolves into violence and ultimately, 610 00:50:14.480 --> 00:50:17.599 you know, victory of one over the others. It's not a stable equilibrium. 611 00:50:17.719 --> 00:50:22.599 We have competition of governance. The competition of governance is different geographic area 612 00:50:22.639 --> 00:50:27.199 having different governments, and you know, they can offer different things and therefore 613 00:50:28.559 --> 00:50:31.599 people can move from one to the other and uh and and that's where you 614 00:50:31.599 --> 00:50:37.280 get the competition. But over a particular geographic area, it's just a recipe 615 00:50:37.280 --> 00:50:40.920 for violence. Okay. So to that end, thank you so much for 616 00:50:40.960 --> 00:50:45.360 coming on. Before we go, are there any particular like books or writings 617 00:50:45.400 --> 00:50:50.119 of yours that you would like to share for the audience. Well, first, 618 00:50:50.159 --> 00:50:53.679 I'd like people to go to the iron Rand Institute website iron Rand dot 619 00:50:53.719 --> 00:50:58.360 org a y n R n D dot org. You can find a lot 620 00:50:58.400 --> 00:51:01.440 of information there. You can also, hopefully, hopefully those of you have 621 00:51:01.519 --> 00:51:05.679 not read iron Rand, pick up a copy of fountain Head or a shrug. 622 00:51:05.800 --> 00:51:07.760 I think, I think, I think you'll really enjoy those books, 623 00:51:07.800 --> 00:51:13.039 whether they change your mind or not. The books that are worth engaging with, 624 00:51:13.480 --> 00:51:16.119 ideas worth engaging with. And then for me, I would say, 625 00:51:17.559 --> 00:51:21.599 you know, I've got a channel on the on YouTube, you're on books, 626 00:51:21.960 --> 00:51:24.719 you're on book, I'm on Twitter, so so look me up. 627 00:51:25.199 --> 00:51:30.320 Please subscribe to my YouTube channel. That'll be fantastic. And yeah, just 628 00:51:30.440 --> 00:51:36.719 google you google my name and everything is right there available. I've also got 629 00:51:36.719 --> 00:51:40.960 a few books, Equal is Unfair that deals with inequality and free market Revolution 630 00:51:42.039 --> 00:51:46.320 that deals with kind of the capitalism and free markets, and then finally a 631 00:51:46.360 --> 00:51:51.400 book in a model defense of finance. And you can find all those books 632 00:51:51.800 --> 00:51:54.559 on Amazon. Okay, again, thank you so much for coming on. 633 00:51:54.679 --> 00:51:58.920 It was a pleasure talking to you, my pleasure. Thanks for having me. 634 00:51:59.000 --> 00:52:01.679 Fantastic rest of your summer, and good luck soho debate. Thank you. 635 00:52:01.719 --> 00:52:10.480 I'm looking forward to that, right m.