1 00:00:16,719 --> 00:00:20,359 And we are back with another edition of the Federalist Radio Hour. I'm Matt 2 00:00:20,440 --> 00:00:26,920 Kittle, Senior Elections correspondent at the Federalist and your experience shirpa on today's quest 3 00:00:27,000 --> 00:00:31,719 for Knowledge. As always, you can email the show at radio at the 4 00:00:31,839 --> 00:00:38,960 Federalist dot com, follow us on x at fvr LST, make sure to 5 00:00:39,000 --> 00:00:44,079 subscribe wherever you download your podcast, and of course to the premium version of 6 00:00:44,119 --> 00:00:49,759 our website as well. I'm joined today by Wilfred Riley, political science professor 7 00:00:49,799 --> 00:00:54,759 at Kentucky State University, an author of the new book Lies my liberal teacher 8 00:00:54,880 --> 00:01:00,840 told me, debunking the false narratives defining America's school curriculum. It is a 9 00:01:00,880 --> 00:01:07,920 topic, of course, that is ripe with all kinds of very important material. 10 00:01:08,599 --> 00:01:12,000 Thank you for joining us, Wilford. I appreciate your time. Thank 11 00:01:12,040 --> 00:01:15,439 you for having me on the show. This is a very interesting book. 12 00:01:15,480 --> 00:01:19,560 Like I said, there's so much here to break down. But doesn't this 13 00:01:19,680 --> 00:01:25,959 really come out of that nineteen ninety five book about the lies my teacher told 14 00:01:26,000 --> 00:01:32,560 me, kind of a left wing look at the things omitted in, you 15 00:01:32,599 --> 00:01:36,680 know, in our lessons in school over the years. Certainly some truth to 16 00:01:36,760 --> 00:01:41,640 that, but you have, as you note, have have seen over the 17 00:01:41,719 --> 00:01:48,920 last generation plus how much the left has infused itself in the lying in our 18 00:01:49,000 --> 00:01:53,040 curricula. Yeah, so, I mean I think that the short answer is 19 00:01:53,319 --> 00:01:57,719 yes, it's to some extent a response to that text. But over the 20 00:01:57,799 --> 00:02:01,239 last really sixty years, I mean, the trend in higher education is cut 21 00:02:01,280 --> 00:02:05,640 in the other direction. And this is one of those books that sounds sort 22 00:02:05,640 --> 00:02:08,159 of dry, but I think will be actually really engaging to read, just 23 00:02:08,199 --> 00:02:14,360 as a reminder of how fascinating American history is, what the real stories of 24 00:02:14,400 --> 00:02:16,960 the country are. I even get into some discussions about whether, for example, 25 00:02:17,120 --> 00:02:22,439 ultimate morality is real and if so, what it entails. But I 26 00:02:22,479 --> 00:02:28,479 mean, so for in the past forty to fifty years, there's been a 27 00:02:28,599 --> 00:02:31,360 huge block of books that have come out that have focused on the idea that 28 00:02:31,520 --> 00:02:37,800 one, Western civilization is arguably one of the worst human cultures in history, 29 00:02:38,240 --> 00:02:43,080 and two that you are being lied to about this by the white man would 30 00:02:43,120 --> 00:02:46,080 be only a somewhat glip way of putting it. So, I mean, 31 00:02:46,120 --> 00:02:51,120 you have lies. My teacher told me you mentioned that one correctly, but 32 00:02:51,240 --> 00:02:53,879 you also have you know, sixteen nineteen, a Black history of the United 33 00:02:53,879 --> 00:02:57,240 States. If I have that title correct, that book came out about a 34 00:02:57,319 --> 00:03:00,800 year ago. You have Bury My Hearted, Wounded Knee, A Native History 35 00:03:00,840 --> 00:03:07,240 of the United States, probably the the og in this field that old communist 36 00:03:07,280 --> 00:03:15,199 Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States. And what all of these 37 00:03:15,280 --> 00:03:19,199 I think heaven common is something that we both already sort of summarized. But 38 00:03:19,800 --> 00:03:27,199 point one the idea that there are massive, unique flaws in the Western project, 39 00:03:27,759 --> 00:03:30,960 and point two the idea that no one is telling you this, and 40 00:03:30,000 --> 00:03:35,879 you're gaining a sort of arcane knowledge by learning about it, usually from the 41 00:03:36,039 --> 00:03:40,000 rids or the feminists or whatever. And by the way, they're also feminist 42 00:03:40,080 --> 00:03:43,759 versions of this ons I'll do as the bridges my back and so on. 43 00:03:44,159 --> 00:03:46,919 And what I'm saying in this book is no, that's simply not realistic. 44 00:03:47,080 --> 00:03:53,800 The problem in higher education and secondary education is not that mainstream academics love the 45 00:03:53,800 --> 00:03:58,840 country too much and are coming too hard from the right. So I point 46 00:03:58,879 --> 00:04:03,159 out that in reality, first of all, the flaws of Western culture exist 47 00:04:03,319 --> 00:04:09,680 in almost every human civilization. So I open the book by going through this 48 00:04:09,800 --> 00:04:14,520 lengthy discussion of slavery. It is somewhat heavily reliant on Thomas Soul, but 49 00:04:14,599 --> 00:04:18,959 really just digging into the actual academic research on the concept. Going back to 50 00:04:19,000 --> 00:04:24,319 Babylon and Rome, I talk about the Native Americans, and chapters two and 51 00:04:24,480 --> 00:04:29,839 three I explained that these basic ideas, the oppression of women to some extent, 52 00:04:30,000 --> 00:04:32,399 vascilage for men, the abuse of battle captives, these are pretty much 53 00:04:32,519 --> 00:04:38,560 universal. One two. What distinguishes the West, if anything, is the 54 00:04:38,800 --> 00:04:45,399 uniqueness of the glories of our civilization emancipation. For example, the idea that 55 00:04:45,439 --> 00:04:50,680 people who aren't themselves slaves should object to slavery is a uniquely Western idea. 56 00:04:51,600 --> 00:04:57,800 Slaves, who historically have generally been defeated warriors, have obviously always objected to 57 00:04:57,839 --> 00:05:02,600 slavery, but free men have not. In Britain, in France, in 58 00:05:02,680 --> 00:05:09,040 America, Whites, free blacks, other people who were ordinary silversmiths and such 59 00:05:09,519 --> 00:05:14,879 decided that slavery was inherently immoral and launched a campaign against slavery. And if 60 00:05:14,879 --> 00:05:18,959 you're an adherent of contemporary moral ethos, this means that the West, for 61 00:05:19,040 --> 00:05:24,279 most of it's much of its history was simply better than the societies against which 62 00:05:24,279 --> 00:05:27,279 we were competing. So there's point one point Two, we did the same 63 00:05:27,360 --> 00:05:30,959 things that everyone did, some of which I don't even viewer with, particularly 64 00:05:30,000 --> 00:05:35,279 wicked of fighting declared wars and then taking booty from the people that were defeated. 65 00:05:35,279 --> 00:05:39,240 But we did those things, some of them were bad. Two we 66 00:05:39,399 --> 00:05:43,800 improved at a faster rate, if anything. And three, And I think 67 00:05:43,800 --> 00:05:46,199 this is really the key point, because these sort of conversations about the morality 68 00:05:46,199 --> 00:05:49,720 of war have been had thousands of times. The Catholic Church of published books 69 00:05:49,720 --> 00:05:57,839 and discussions about this. Three. The sort of center left, hippie influenced 70 00:05:58,240 --> 00:06:02,959 ethos that's often presented edgy and radical in the USA isn't edgy and radical at 71 00:06:02,959 --> 00:06:09,040 all. It's stale and boring. It's actually the mainstream ethos that you get 72 00:06:09,079 --> 00:06:13,560 in high school textbooks, which I quote extensively throughout the book. And I 73 00:06:13,560 --> 00:06:16,240 think that's something that's not noted as often. That sort of a warmed over 74 00:06:16,399 --> 00:06:24,079 Marxist feminism is entirely ordinary today. It's what you're expected to say about gender 75 00:06:24,160 --> 00:06:28,720 ideology and American history and a dozen other things. Pride parades are sponsored by 76 00:06:28,759 --> 00:06:31,680 Halliburton. So even if you want to be an authentic, youthful rebel, 77 00:06:31,399 --> 00:06:35,480 you should find something else you should for young marriage, or something that would 78 00:06:35,519 --> 00:06:39,600 genuinely shock someone. So those, I guess would be the three points of 79 00:06:39,639 --> 00:06:43,199 the book. It's interesting you note that, you know, if you really 80 00:06:43,240 --> 00:06:47,560 want to be a rebel today, it is truly going against the whole Marxist 81 00:06:47,600 --> 00:06:53,160 notion that you find that has led to well, for instance, what we've 82 00:06:53,160 --> 00:06:58,399 seen on our college campuses over the last several months, and probably what we'll 83 00:06:58,439 --> 00:07:03,079 see at our DNC RNC conventions coming up in a couple of months. So 84 00:07:03,160 --> 00:07:09,759 then let me ask you this, Why is the Western, particularly the American 85 00:07:09,839 --> 00:07:15,000 system, that has achieved so much, that has been so truly progressive in 86 00:07:15,360 --> 00:07:19,480 the real sense of the word. Why is it deemed so awful by all 87 00:07:19,519 --> 00:07:24,759 of these organizations? Now? I think, and this is a kind of 88 00:07:24,800 --> 00:07:29,720 cynical view from a businessman, but I think the uniquely positive Western moral code 89 00:07:29,720 --> 00:07:32,920 has been taken too seriously by a lot of Westerners. I mean, that 90 00:07:33,000 --> 00:07:40,000 might be one way to put it. So Western morality, and Nietzsche and 91 00:07:40,040 --> 00:07:44,879 a number of other people pointed this out. But Western morality became the first 92 00:07:45,079 --> 00:07:49,439 moral system to value empathy in and of itself to an extraordinarily high level, 93 00:07:50,720 --> 00:08:00,480 and traditionally, that has not been the case across human ethical MODI. I 94 00:08:00,480 --> 00:08:05,319 mean, so let's see what the nine noble virtues of the warrior are. 95 00:08:05,680 --> 00:08:11,600 Nine Nordic virtues. Okay, so the nine noble virtues. We associate these 96 00:08:11,639 --> 00:08:15,680 with the Vikings, but the Roman Stoics, the Iroquois so on, followed 97 00:08:15,800 --> 00:08:22,000 almost an identical code. Courage, fidelity, self reliance, truth, discipline, 98 00:08:22,240 --> 00:08:28,480 industriousness, honor, hospitality, perseverance. You know, I suppose that's 99 00:08:28,600 --> 00:08:35,080 pretty much the moral code I would attempt to pursue today. Obviously, Christianity 100 00:08:35,240 --> 00:08:39,879 added a few other things into that mix that we that have been called the 101 00:08:39,960 --> 00:08:43,039 virtues of Mary in the past, if I recall correctly, empathy and tolerance. 102 00:08:43,639 --> 00:08:48,240 And I think that as the West has moved beyond Christianity into a sort 103 00:08:48,240 --> 00:08:52,039 of woke paganism. And again I'm kind of making up my theology on the 104 00:08:52,039 --> 00:08:56,000 fly here, but a lot of people seem to have settled on empathy and 105 00:08:56,080 --> 00:09:03,519 tolerance as the only virtues worth having or worth practicing. So in a situation 106 00:09:03,600 --> 00:09:07,480 where a lot of Westerners don't know too much about other societies, what you 107 00:09:07,639 --> 00:09:15,039 see is an insane over analysis of our own history. In the context only 108 00:09:15,159 --> 00:09:20,600 of these specific virtues of empathy and tolerance, and that leads to the idea 109 00:09:20,759 --> 00:09:24,919 that people like the conquistadors are the pioneers, who obviously were brave, forthright, 110 00:09:26,120 --> 00:09:30,240 truthful, inspiring and so on, were evil because they were not empathic, 111 00:09:30,360 --> 00:09:33,399 or they committed acts of violence and so on down the line. And 112 00:09:33,440 --> 00:09:39,320 I think there are two points of review here. One using any other ethical 113 00:09:39,360 --> 00:09:45,000 standard, those people are extremely impressive, and two using the ethical standard that 114 00:09:45,120 --> 00:09:50,879 quote unquote woke people use every other society and history was worse. But I 115 00:09:50,919 --> 00:09:54,879 think what you have is basically the application of this neo morality only to our 116 00:09:56,000 --> 00:10:00,080 society. And the final point that I would make is that this is to 117 00:10:00,000 --> 00:10:03,240 to some extent, guided by smart, cynical people that know what they're doing. 118 00:10:05,279 --> 00:10:09,960 I mean, I would assume that this movement is to some extent influenced 119 00:10:09,000 --> 00:10:15,639 and funded by actors from foreign powers, by people who would like to see 120 00:10:15,799 --> 00:10:20,279 Western society collapse from within and rebuild along another model. I mean, American 121 00:10:20,360 --> 00:10:28,039 communists have generally encouraged some collapse within our society so on. But it's a 122 00:10:28,080 --> 00:10:33,080 good question why why Westerners seem to dislike our society so much more than other 123 00:10:33,200 --> 00:10:39,960 people in other societies dislike their society. I think it's because the focus on 124 00:10:39,080 --> 00:10:45,960 empathy is inherently virtuous, created a potential weakness that, in the absence of 125 00:10:46,039 --> 00:10:50,840 actual religion or countervailing virtues, becomes very, very dangerous. Also, in 126 00:10:50,879 --> 00:10:54,679 the absence of knowledge about other societies, there seems to be a self loathing 127 00:10:56,000 --> 00:11:00,360 component to that, and we have certainly seen that, of course, most 128 00:11:00,440 --> 00:11:05,240 recently when we take a look at, for instance, some of the far 129 00:11:05,320 --> 00:11:13,200 left Jews who have supported in essence Hamas in the guys of course of supporting 130 00:11:13,559 --> 00:11:20,720 the Palestinian movement, so to speak. We have seen this definitely pushed by 131 00:11:20,879 --> 00:11:26,360 an opportunistic left and a democratic party in this country. You mentioned a number 132 00:11:26,399 --> 00:11:31,679 of things that have been taught in schools over the last generation, couple of 133 00:11:31,759 --> 00:11:37,559 generations, really, you know, that simply don't stand up to history, 134 00:11:37,639 --> 00:11:41,320 that don't stand up to reality. You mentioned the Red Scare was a moral 135 00:11:41,440 --> 00:11:46,480 panic that caught no Kamis. That's the kind of you know, that's the 136 00:11:46,559 --> 00:11:48,679 kind of stuff that's been taught in our school that's patently not true. The 137 00:11:48,720 --> 00:11:54,279 other that I think is interesting Native Americans were peaceful people who spent all day 138 00:11:54,399 --> 00:12:00,240 dancing. That's the kind of concept we have, especially at our university that 139 00:12:00,279 --> 00:12:05,080 have now made their students their staff, their faculty. You know, recite 140 00:12:05,120 --> 00:12:11,679 a pledge that says we stole this land from the natives. They were genuinely 141 00:12:11,879 --> 00:12:18,000 good, peaceful people and this was horrible. There is definitely truth to that, 142 00:12:18,080 --> 00:12:20,759 but it's not the whole truth. And that's the problem, and that's 143 00:12:20,799 --> 00:12:24,159 I think what your book tries to dispel. Yeah, well, I think 144 00:12:24,159 --> 00:12:26,639 that's a very important point, and I thank you for bringing it up. 145 00:12:26,720 --> 00:12:31,200 Yeah. So, in many of these cases, the mainstream, kind of 146 00:12:31,240 --> 00:12:37,679 center left narrative isn't disputable or debatable. It's just wrong, which makes it 147 00:12:37,759 --> 00:12:43,840 so remarkable that it is universally accepted that you often almost have to pledge adherence 148 00:12:43,879 --> 00:12:46,080 to it. So, I mean, the obvious example of this, and 149 00:12:46,120 --> 00:12:48,679 I'm not going to take this far off the rails here, but is gender 150 00:12:48,720 --> 00:12:54,440 ideology where I mean, if you've taken college level biology. I mean, 151 00:12:54,480 --> 00:12:56,440 in Kentucky we learn how to sex a racehorse. And I don't mean to 152 00:12:56,440 --> 00:13:00,559 be crue, but the joke is the males, the one with the testicles. 153 00:13:00,639 --> 00:13:05,080 Let's say, like it's pretty obvious that there are males and females. 154 00:13:05,120 --> 00:13:11,559 There's a very small intercepts subcomponent of humans or not clownfish. But I mean 155 00:13:11,639 --> 00:13:16,720 the idea that this is complicated difficult. You can't on a third date or 156 00:13:16,799 --> 00:13:20,720 during a varsity tryout figure out what sex people are. That's just clearly wrong. 157 00:13:22,320 --> 00:13:26,080 So to some extent, the question that comes to front of mind as 158 00:13:26,120 --> 00:13:31,960 a psychological question, why are we being asked to pretend this isn't So it's 159 00:13:33,159 --> 00:13:35,399 almost at that level when we get into some of the racial stuff. So 160 00:13:35,879 --> 00:13:41,240 Nicole Hanna Jones sixteen nineteen project makes a series of claims about slavery that are 161 00:13:41,360 --> 00:13:46,159 astonishingly sweeping. One of them, for example, is that slavery is a 162 00:13:46,639 --> 00:13:52,600 or the thing that enriched the United States, brought us essentially to where we 163 00:13:52,600 --> 00:13:58,000 are today. Another is that virtually everything that's unique about the United States of 164 00:13:58,039 --> 00:14:03,480 America came out of historical blacks slavery. We are a slaveocracy. Another one 165 00:14:03,559 --> 00:14:07,240 is that the Revolutionary War was fought to preserve slavery. And you could just 166 00:14:07,279 --> 00:14:11,799 go on and on with this. Racism is in our country's DNA, and 167 00:14:11,000 --> 00:14:16,279 just I mean going backwards through those DNA is unchangeable. Whereas we passed the 168 00:14:16,320 --> 00:14:20,240 Civil Rights Act in nineteen sixty four and made racism illegal, the Revolutionary War 169 00:14:20,440 --> 00:14:26,159 was not fought to preserve slavery. Britain didn't free the slaves in her out 170 00:14:26,159 --> 00:14:33,120 of country overseas colonies until eighteen thirty three, if I recall correctly, Yes, 171 00:14:33,159 --> 00:14:37,600 indeed, I mean yeah, if you want to talk about everything unique 172 00:14:37,600 --> 00:14:43,320 about America, that would include Irish pubs, Indian immigration, the tech sector, 173 00:14:43,399 --> 00:14:46,399 and most of that has nothing to do with black people whatsoever, although 174 00:14:46,399 --> 00:14:52,799 we've made great contributions, and the percentage of American wealth attributable to slavery has 175 00:14:52,840 --> 00:14:58,279 been variously pegged between three percent twenty percent before eighteen sixty five, after which 176 00:14:58,320 --> 00:15:03,559 there was no slavery. We've seen an eleven six hundred percent increase in national 177 00:15:03,600 --> 00:15:07,200 GDP. Of course, since eighteen sixty five, since the end of the 178 00:15:07,200 --> 00:15:11,960 Civil War, mister Lincoln's and Men's Patient Proclamation, the final breaking of the 179 00:15:11,960 --> 00:15:15,679 Confederacy Met's Patient Proclamation, of course has a bit earlier. But I mean, 180 00:15:15,799 --> 00:15:20,679 so the points are just factually invalid. You're just supposed to kind of 181 00:15:20,720 --> 00:15:24,360 reiterate them. So you have a situation where a lot of people believe things 182 00:15:24,840 --> 00:15:30,679 that are empirically not true, and if you make a quantitative center right point 183 00:15:30,720 --> 00:15:35,000 in response, you're in a weird situation where you're saying something that's absolutely, 184 00:15:35,200 --> 00:15:39,679 verifiably accurate, and you're being treated like a loon. So my book is 185 00:15:39,720 --> 00:15:46,000 intended to some extent to provide ammunition at the level of the smart college senior, 186 00:15:46,080 --> 00:15:52,519 the intelligent layman in some of these conversations. Final point, your point 187 00:15:52,519 --> 00:15:56,159 on the Red Scare, that's actually chapter two of the book. I mean, 188 00:15:56,200 --> 00:15:58,360 I say one of the lies is the Red Scare was just sort of 189 00:15:58,399 --> 00:16:06,080 an incoherent social panic. It didn't catch any communists. That's absolute nonsense. 190 00:16:06,120 --> 00:16:10,519 As a political scientist, you're often expected to be at least familiar in passing 191 00:16:10,960 --> 00:16:15,440 with what are called the Venona cables. And the Venona cables were the declassifications 192 00:16:15,559 --> 00:16:22,480 of the Russian communiques with intelligence agents in the USA, which we I believe 193 00:16:22,519 --> 00:16:26,159 completed in the nineteen nineties when we were fairly friendly with Plutin and the Russians. 194 00:16:26,600 --> 00:16:30,360 So we know who most of the Russian agents who were in the USA 195 00:16:30,559 --> 00:16:34,840 during the Cold War era were, And I think it's fair to say that 196 00:16:36,000 --> 00:16:41,720 virtually every sort of caused celeb individual who was accused of spying for the Ruskies 197 00:16:42,159 --> 00:16:47,360 and who was defended by the American left, I mean Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, 198 00:16:48,000 --> 00:16:52,639 Alger Hisss, so one down the line actually was at least an asset 199 00:16:52,679 --> 00:16:55,600 of not an agent. Most of them were spying for the Ruskies during the 200 00:16:55,600 --> 00:16:59,960 Cold War. So the whole idea that this never happened, no one was 201 00:17:00,159 --> 00:17:03,480 doing this. That's a fiction that's been created over decades of effort, and 202 00:17:04,000 --> 00:17:08,279 the question is why create it? Who created it? And those are real 203 00:17:08,359 --> 00:17:14,160 questions we're looking at. This is Pastor Matthew Harrison, President of the Lutheran 204 00:17:14,240 --> 00:17:18,759 Church Missouri Syentate. The LCMS operates the second largest parochial school system in the 205 00:17:18,839 --> 00:17:23,000 United States. What can you expect from a Lutheran Church Missouri Centate school. 206 00:17:23,599 --> 00:17:27,680 There's one race, the human race, and Jesus died for the sins of 207 00:17:27,839 --> 00:17:33,200 every man, woman and child from every land and every nation. Life begins 208 00:17:33,200 --> 00:17:37,920 a conception. All life is precious, from womb to tomb, and every 209 00:17:38,000 --> 00:17:42,319 student, parent, and teacher is created in the very image of God. 210 00:17:42,799 --> 00:17:47,000 There's right and wrong, and we know which is which. From the Ten 211 00:17:47,039 --> 00:17:52,039 Commandments. There are only two sexes, male and female. He created them. 212 00:17:52,680 --> 00:17:56,880 Marriage is the lifelong union of one man and one woman. There's such 213 00:17:56,920 --> 00:18:00,119 a thing as objective, absolute truth, and it's found in the person and 214 00:18:00,279 --> 00:18:04,960 work of Jesus Christ and his word. To find a Lutheran church Missouri sentis 215 00:18:06,039 --> 00:18:11,680 school near you, visit LCMS dot org slash schools. Your last point really 216 00:18:11,960 --> 00:18:18,599 drives home. I think what is the meat of the matter today, and 217 00:18:18,680 --> 00:18:26,000 that is we have our educational systems now pre kindergarten through high school, into 218 00:18:26,359 --> 00:18:32,359 our institutions of higher education. And I guess what is most important to me, 219 00:18:32,720 --> 00:18:37,759 and I think what is important to many of our listeners is how much 220 00:18:37,799 --> 00:18:44,359 of this is based on just leftist zeal how much of this is based on 221 00:18:44,920 --> 00:18:52,079 changing the power dynamic over the last couple few generations in America. You mean 222 00:18:52,319 --> 00:18:59,519 the content of the curriculum itself. I mean the curriculum and the mission. 223 00:19:00,079 --> 00:19:03,039 There's you know, that's I guess that's what I'm asking. Is this more 224 00:19:03,160 --> 00:19:07,680 than just saying, hey, the America is systemically racist, take a look 225 00:19:07,720 --> 00:19:12,440 at slavery, blah blah blah the rest of it. Is this just a 226 00:19:12,480 --> 00:19:21,079 matter of the miseducation of Americans for some liberal point or is there a power 227 00:19:21,200 --> 00:19:29,119 dynamic? Is there the reason behind all of this to recreate, reconfigure the 228 00:19:29,160 --> 00:19:33,119 foundation of the United States of America. No, no, yeah, I 229 00:19:33,119 --> 00:19:36,240 think that's a good question. I think it's instrumental in the sense that you're 230 00:19:36,240 --> 00:19:40,440 describing. So I don't think that the ordinary teacher and I don't mean to 231 00:19:40,480 --> 00:19:42,559 have fun with the education majors here, but on average, and I actually 232 00:19:42,599 --> 00:19:48,119 think this is a problem for the country. Education as a major boasts the 233 00:19:48,240 --> 00:19:52,400 lowest or the second lowest board scores of any major in college, so I 234 00:19:52,400 --> 00:19:56,279 mean usually a little over one thousand math and verbal combined. So I don't 235 00:19:56,319 --> 00:20:02,720 think the average perky incoming teacher really necessarily has And I mean, you know, 236 00:20:02,720 --> 00:20:04,519 in business and political science, we're not we're not smashing that by four 237 00:20:04,559 --> 00:20:08,119 hundred points, you know. But I don't think the average incoming teacher really 238 00:20:08,200 --> 00:20:15,240 has wildly sophisticated views about global communism or something like that. But I think 239 00:20:15,279 --> 00:20:19,240 at the level of the people that are writing the materials for these programs. 240 00:20:19,319 --> 00:20:22,680 And James Lindsay's pretty good on this, I mean he'll he'll go back and 241 00:20:22,720 --> 00:20:25,960 forth and scream on Twitter. But I mean in terms of books like The 242 00:20:26,039 --> 00:20:29,440 Querying of the America entertainingly, but in terms of books like The Queering of 243 00:20:29,440 --> 00:20:33,720 the American Child, I mean he's broken down the sources of these curricula. 244 00:20:33,839 --> 00:20:37,519 I mean the number of times the Brazilian Marxist Apollo Ferrere is cited in the 245 00:20:37,640 --> 00:20:41,839 ed schools and so on. The people that are putting together the curricular packages, 246 00:20:41,920 --> 00:20:48,160 I think are very aware of what they want for society, and I 247 00:20:48,240 --> 00:20:52,279 think that at that level, the goal is very much getting these out, 248 00:20:52,359 --> 00:20:57,599 these ideas out into society. Instrumentally and obviously to some extent, what people 249 00:20:57,680 --> 00:21:03,160 are taught and also what people are allowed to do by other sectors, like 250 00:21:03,200 --> 00:21:06,960 the medical sector, does have an impact for society. I mean, you 251 00:21:07,400 --> 00:21:12,000 see massive shifts in society caused by everything from education to medical technology all the 252 00:21:12,039 --> 00:21:15,119 time. I mean, one of the most basic going on right now is 253 00:21:15,160 --> 00:21:22,599 just that humans aren't reproducing anymore. A combination of everything from anti natalist education, 254 00:21:22,039 --> 00:21:27,000 easily available birth control, the no fault divorce has not the fertility rate 255 00:21:27,079 --> 00:21:32,440 per couple in the American upper middle class down to one point one kids per 256 00:21:32,480 --> 00:21:37,799 two people. So that's a problem. I mean, that's actually a survival 257 00:21:37,880 --> 00:21:44,359 level problem for humans at least of that nation and that position in the social 258 00:21:44,440 --> 00:21:48,799 order. So clearly, what you're told, what you learn does have consequences. 259 00:21:49,240 --> 00:21:52,279 And I think that a very specific goal of a lot of the people 260 00:21:52,400 --> 00:21:57,680 pitching these ideas that very often again aren't accurate, is having certain things happen. 261 00:21:59,200 --> 00:22:03,079 So if you read even the sixteen to nineteen project is pop culture to 262 00:22:03,079 --> 00:22:06,599 some extent in terms of where it was originally published, but is a good 263 00:22:06,599 --> 00:22:11,400 example of this. Every one of the essays has an instrumental component. So 264 00:22:12,400 --> 00:22:18,319 a core goal of the project is linking almost everything imaginable to the worst kind 265 00:22:18,359 --> 00:22:25,240 of historical slavery and then proposing some kind of solution to the problem that was 266 00:22:25,319 --> 00:22:29,319 just invented. So why do Americans eat so much sugar because blacks used to 267 00:22:29,359 --> 00:22:33,240 grow sugar cane in the South, And now what do we need to do? 268 00:22:33,279 --> 00:22:36,680 You know, why is there a traffic problem in the cities of the 269 00:22:36,720 --> 00:22:41,079 South and Midwest because slavery led to segregation, and now what do we need 270 00:22:41,119 --> 00:22:45,960 to do? So I very definitely think that the argument that the USA is 271 00:22:45,160 --> 00:22:49,400 a horrible country that was founded on the conquest of natives, that was founded 272 00:22:49,440 --> 00:22:52,839 on the oppression of black people, founded on the oppression of women, so 273 00:22:52,920 --> 00:22:59,000 on down the line is usually used as a prerequisite for a whole bunch of 274 00:22:59,039 --> 00:23:02,759 proposed social chain. Is like, and that's why we need land acknowledgements, 275 00:23:02,839 --> 00:23:06,880 that's why we need reparation, that's why we need a female dominant society today, 276 00:23:06,920 --> 00:23:08,720 et cetera, et cetera. At Center, I think at least some 277 00:23:08,759 --> 00:23:12,480 of these people do very much know what they're doing. With that in mind, 278 00:23:12,839 --> 00:23:18,839 how can a nation that has existed for two hundred and fifty years as 279 00:23:18,880 --> 00:23:22,519 a republic, as Benjamin Franklin said, if you can keep it? And 280 00:23:22,559 --> 00:23:26,079 that's I think that's the crossroads point that we're at now. How can a 281 00:23:26,160 --> 00:23:37,480 republic survive with the constant teaching that the republic is innately bad? How can 282 00:23:37,559 --> 00:23:44,720 the republic that was founded nearly two hundred and fifty years ago still be that 283 00:23:45,000 --> 00:23:49,519 republic if all of our many of our institutions, particularly our institutions of education, 284 00:23:51,200 --> 00:23:56,640 continuously are breaking that republic down, Well, it probably can't. I 285 00:23:56,640 --> 00:24:00,880 mean, I think that we need to stop doing that a certain level. 286 00:24:00,920 --> 00:24:03,400 And again I talk about this when I engage morality in the book. But 287 00:24:03,599 --> 00:24:10,359 even if it were true that the founding of the USA were extraordinarily brutal in 288 00:24:10,400 --> 00:24:15,839 a time when extraordinary brutality were common, if we came to the logical conclusion 289 00:24:15,960 --> 00:24:18,880 that the USA today was a good thing for the world, I'm not necessarily 290 00:24:18,920 --> 00:24:22,400 sure we should lie to kids, although I'd consider it in a leadership role, 291 00:24:22,880 --> 00:24:29,599 but it would probably be a good idea not to constantly emphasize American brutality 292 00:24:29,640 --> 00:24:33,640 and failure in a way that would lead to the collapse of the United States 293 00:24:33,799 --> 00:24:37,839 and worsen the world. So there, when you're involved in a leadership role, 294 00:24:37,880 --> 00:24:40,519 as both you and I, as I understand, have been, there's 295 00:24:40,559 --> 00:24:45,920 an element of core practicality. What should your immigration policy be. It should 296 00:24:45,920 --> 00:24:48,200 be the policy that is most likely to benefit the country that is letting in 297 00:24:48,240 --> 00:24:53,880 the immigrants. That is the answer. There's plenty of room for interesting theoretical 298 00:24:53,920 --> 00:24:57,160 debates when you go to church on Sunday, but that is the actual answer 299 00:24:57,279 --> 00:25:02,920 as read how immigrants should be handled. So similarly here, I mean, 300 00:25:02,960 --> 00:25:07,400 I think even in a scenario where the USA was a much worse country than 301 00:25:07,440 --> 00:25:11,319 we are, there are many practical ways to handle education. I mean, 302 00:25:11,359 --> 00:25:15,799 the Germans might provide some lessons from their Holocaust educational curriculum or something like that. 303 00:25:15,640 --> 00:25:19,960 The basic idea that you spend twelve years teaching people that the country is 304 00:25:21,000 --> 00:25:26,920 horrific is not a good not a logical one. But as it happens, 305 00:25:26,079 --> 00:25:30,920 we're actually a pretty good country, certainly in comparison. So doing this, 306 00:25:30,640 --> 00:25:40,839 allowing a small fringe of the political population that dislikes the country to dominate media, 307 00:25:41,240 --> 00:25:45,720 secondary education, higher education, so on, in this sort of a 308 00:25:45,799 --> 00:25:49,960 lenski I fashion, is a really stupid thing to do. Now, when 309 00:25:49,960 --> 00:25:52,599 you ask how can we survive, I mean, the answer, of course, 310 00:25:52,680 --> 00:25:59,319 is that past a certain point we can't. If most people come to 311 00:25:59,440 --> 00:26:06,880 believe negative things about the nation, and most people are normally moral when it 312 00:26:06,880 --> 00:26:10,960 comes to individual action, I mean, that would require at some level most 313 00:26:10,960 --> 00:26:17,000 people to radically change the nation. The one possible intervening variable there is that 314 00:26:17,559 --> 00:26:22,319 there aren't that many far leftists, so as people leave those few structures where 315 00:26:23,000 --> 00:26:27,039 people of the kind that I'm describing have influence. I mean, what we 316 00:26:27,119 --> 00:26:30,079 used to say on the right, in the center right was well they'll go 317 00:26:30,079 --> 00:26:34,200 out into business, they'll get married, they'll participate in normal institutions, the 318 00:26:34,319 --> 00:26:37,359 church, and most of this stuff will just sort of be washed out of 319 00:26:37,400 --> 00:26:42,599 them. I mean, they'll see why the rules regulating sexual behavior exists. 320 00:26:42,640 --> 00:26:48,759 They'll see why capitalism and advocacy for lower taxes exist. They'll see why support 321 00:26:48,799 --> 00:26:53,440 for closed borders exists. And very often that's been the case. And that's 322 00:26:53,440 --> 00:26:57,839 one of the reasons we're kind of stumbling along quite well even today. The 323 00:26:57,960 --> 00:27:04,559 problem with that going forward is that a lot of these ideas have been migrating. 324 00:27:06,400 --> 00:27:12,759 Basically, so the concepts like CRT, fourth wave feminism, et cetera, 325 00:27:12,880 --> 00:27:18,279 that were considered radical even in the Academy twenty years ago during the Black 326 00:27:18,319 --> 00:27:22,319 Lives Matter era, during what's been called the Great Awokening, which seems to 327 00:27:22,359 --> 00:27:27,079 have begun after the rise of social media after about twenty twelve, have been 328 00:27:27,160 --> 00:27:33,960 reaching into the corporate sector. So you now have I mean new HR is 329 00:27:33,000 --> 00:27:38,000 a commonly used buzzword, DEI CRT. You now see all this in the 330 00:27:38,039 --> 00:27:44,000 real world, and I if that becomes something that endures for several decades, 331 00:27:44,039 --> 00:27:48,960 that's going to have very major civilization damaging impacts. I don't know if it 332 00:27:48,960 --> 00:27:52,319 will, though, I think people are getting very tired of it right now. 333 00:27:53,079 --> 00:27:59,359 Indeed, I certainly am. I can't speak for the rest of my 334 00:27:59,400 --> 00:28:02,799 fellowship sins all of them, but I think I think you're absolutely right. 335 00:28:02,799 --> 00:28:06,440 I think there are a lot of people who are indeed getting tired of it. 336 00:28:06,759 --> 00:28:08,160 You said something interesting a moment ago that I wanted to pick up on, 337 00:28:08,440 --> 00:28:12,640 and you're absolutely right. It just again, it feels differently, and 338 00:28:12,640 --> 00:28:17,960 that's the left. It's feel versus fact a lot of times. But I 339 00:28:18,000 --> 00:28:19,880 want to pick up on their point. I guess you said there aren't that 340 00:28:21,000 --> 00:28:23,960 many far leftists. And when we say far leftist, of course we mean, 341 00:28:25,039 --> 00:28:27,680 you know, the extremes of what you just mentioned, the different sorts 342 00:28:27,680 --> 00:28:36,400 of ideologies that have come to play, particularly in the advent of social media 343 00:28:36,440 --> 00:28:41,519 social networks. But there are a lot of people who have been The word 344 00:28:41,640 --> 00:28:48,720 is perhaps overused, but it is right indoctrinated through this educational system for the 345 00:28:48,839 --> 00:28:53,599 last fifty years in this country, particularly over the last thirty years. And 346 00:28:53,680 --> 00:29:02,160 one of the phrases that I hear repeatedly that they make the left, the 347 00:29:02,240 --> 00:29:07,680 far left makes this constant argument is about there is no absolute truth. There 348 00:29:07,759 --> 00:29:15,160 is their truth, Your truth. This groups truth, the particularly groups that 349 00:29:15,279 --> 00:29:22,039 have been you know, impacted negatively by the American system, you know, 350 00:29:22,200 --> 00:29:26,960 the systemic racism or whatever that's going on. How do you go up against 351 00:29:27,319 --> 00:29:33,640 that notion that there is no such thing as absolute truth because I think that 352 00:29:33,720 --> 00:29:38,079 permeates our educational system today more than ever. Well, it depends what you 353 00:29:38,200 --> 00:29:41,039 mean. I mean so traditionally, and we talked about this in the book 354 00:29:41,079 --> 00:29:44,680 as well. The book does get a bit philosophical from time to time. 355 00:29:44,799 --> 00:29:48,480 There's been a distinction that people have drawn between facts and morals. So you 356 00:29:48,559 --> 00:29:52,400 can argue that there is no objective morality. I mean, it's one of 357 00:29:52,440 --> 00:29:56,880 the greatest human debates essentially to some extent, that gets down to is their 358 00:29:56,960 --> 00:30:03,119 or God? So I mean, if I kill, is that objectively absolutely 359 00:30:03,160 --> 00:30:06,359 wrong? That can depend on a number of circumstances. Are you an enemy 360 00:30:06,400 --> 00:30:10,440 and so on. At a deeper level, it probably does depend on whether 361 00:30:10,519 --> 00:30:15,119 there's some kind of judge that exists outside the realm of man that can analyze 362 00:30:15,119 --> 00:30:19,319 whether my behavior is good or bad. It gets some absolute objective standard. 363 00:30:19,519 --> 00:30:23,079 If not, it's probably not ultimately wrong. But none of that changes the 364 00:30:23,119 --> 00:30:26,759 fact that you are dead. If I stab you. So the idea that 365 00:30:27,000 --> 00:30:30,839 facts can't be ultimate is just stupid. I don't know what to say, 366 00:30:30,839 --> 00:30:36,240 Like I've always found postmodernism to just be dumb. I mean, I don't 367 00:30:36,279 --> 00:30:38,680 really have a deep comment here. If I had to think, just sort 368 00:30:38,720 --> 00:30:41,640 of off the top of the head, as somebody's taken the grn L said 369 00:30:41,640 --> 00:30:45,720 and done quite well. There seem to be at least three obvious kinds of 370 00:30:45,720 --> 00:30:49,640 truth. There's demonstrable truth. Two plus two is four. I can pick 371 00:30:49,720 --> 00:30:52,799 up two rocks, throw them in a bin, two rocks, throw them 372 00:30:52,799 --> 00:30:56,240 at a bin. I have four rocks. There's necessary truth. If all 373 00:30:56,279 --> 00:31:00,480 snarks or snooks, and all snooks or snacks, then all snarks are acts. 374 00:31:00,400 --> 00:31:06,519 What I do methodological empirical research. There's also what you call statistically significant 375 00:31:06,519 --> 00:31:08,839 truth. So, for example, and I don't mean to be crude or 376 00:31:10,400 --> 00:31:14,880 disingenuous with this example, but if I'm testing the thesis people dislike being raped 377 00:31:14,880 --> 00:31:17,960 and beaten, I mean you're going to find that there are a few massachists 378 00:31:18,039 --> 00:31:22,039 that do not dislike being raped and beaten, but ninety nine point ninety nine 379 00:31:22,079 --> 00:31:26,920 percent of people do. What we call the P value would be point zero 380 00:31:26,079 --> 00:31:30,039 zero zero zero one. If you're tracking the chance of something being seen as 381 00:31:30,039 --> 00:31:34,119 a negative experience, so we would classify that as true. That's actually something 382 00:31:34,119 --> 00:31:38,440 people have looked at when it comes to how people report criminal experiences. That's 383 00:31:38,440 --> 00:31:42,559 why that was used as an example. So the comment that there are no 384 00:31:42,839 --> 00:31:48,559 shared human realities or no shared truth is just hidiotic. In fact, there's 385 00:31:48,559 --> 00:31:52,920 a whole literature that looks at this in psychology, like can you look at 386 00:31:52,920 --> 00:31:57,519 the facial expressions of people who have different racial backgrounds from you, or who 387 00:31:57,559 --> 00:32:02,200 are from different societies and tell whether they're pleased, you know, disgusted, 388 00:32:02,319 --> 00:32:06,839 that kind of thing, and it's you can do it almost perfectly. Humans 389 00:32:06,839 --> 00:32:08,640 can read the facial expressions of chimps and other great apes. It turns out 390 00:32:08,640 --> 00:32:13,119 we can do it with dogs, like any animals we're close to. So 391 00:32:13,720 --> 00:32:17,759 the whole my truth thing seems to just be a way to allow people to 392 00:32:17,920 --> 00:32:24,400 take unjustifiable personal opinions and claim that they are as valid as anything else. 393 00:32:25,119 --> 00:32:30,519 And in fact, this is a lot of what social science has been slanting 394 00:32:30,559 --> 00:32:34,680 torn over the past thirty or forty years, And to me, it's a 395 00:32:34,920 --> 00:32:37,839 it's a form of mental affirmative action, and I'm just I'm just sort of 396 00:32:37,920 --> 00:32:40,799 talking off the head here. But the idea of a lot of this stuff, 397 00:32:40,839 --> 00:32:46,119 like only black people can be racist, is that it compensates for the 398 00:32:46,200 --> 00:32:54,400 reality of unequal performance that we in fact find so occasionally, in fact, 399 00:32:54,640 --> 00:32:59,359 that's the sideline that occasionally we've gone into eras like the period when the bell 400 00:32:59,400 --> 00:33:02,759 curves and where there's been kind of an open window where you can discuss certain 401 00:33:02,799 --> 00:33:06,640 topics, and there's been a great deal of discussion that the window closes in 402 00:33:06,680 --> 00:33:12,079 Overton window, if you will. Anyway, leaving that aside, whenever we 403 00:33:12,240 --> 00:33:20,240 have done research on touchy issues, what we found is that the results of 404 00:33:20,279 --> 00:33:23,359 their research are not necessarily what would be good for quote unquote woke people. 405 00:33:23,880 --> 00:33:30,400 So, for example, all human beings tend to be about equally racist in 406 00:33:30,440 --> 00:33:34,079 the same country and across large groups. If anything, minorities in the USA 407 00:33:34,119 --> 00:33:37,559 are more racist than whites. So there's a lot of research on this. 408 00:33:37,680 --> 00:33:45,000 Zak Goldberg has done studies where he asks basic questions about in group affiliation to 409 00:33:45,079 --> 00:33:49,720 members of different racial populations. The standard result is that people like all their 410 00:33:49,720 --> 00:33:52,960 neighbors find in a fairly well run multi racial country, like this one, 411 00:33:52,960 --> 00:33:57,200 but they value their own group by say, ten plus points more than other 412 00:33:57,240 --> 00:34:02,359 groups. So for blacks it was plus fifteen plus fourteen, Asians plus fifteen 413 00:34:02,440 --> 00:34:07,480 or whatever, white conservatives plus twelve. The one exception was white liberals, 414 00:34:07,519 --> 00:34:12,079 by the way, who hate white people. Found that really interesting. I 415 00:34:12,079 --> 00:34:15,599 don't think it's surprises anyone, but I found it really interesting. But the 416 00:34:17,519 --> 00:34:22,840 reaction to that, when this work is performed, and this type of experiment 417 00:34:22,880 --> 00:34:27,360 has been done since the nineteen sixties, the reaction to this of leftists is 418 00:34:27,400 --> 00:34:31,440 simply to say, well, black people can't be racist. And what they're 419 00:34:31,480 --> 00:34:37,840 doing is not denying that black people actually score as the second most racist of 420 00:34:37,880 --> 00:34:44,559 all American groups. What they're doing is a verbal redefinition, wherein they say 421 00:34:44,599 --> 00:34:50,639 that racism requires not merely intensive prejudice, but also power. It's just sort 422 00:34:50,679 --> 00:34:54,320 of playing a word game. Similarly, if you're engaging one of these people 423 00:34:54,360 --> 00:35:00,280 and you say, well, using the typical standard of demonstrable or necessary statistically 424 00:35:00,360 --> 00:35:05,719 significant truth, what you're saying is just bullshit. What they'll say is, 425 00:35:05,840 --> 00:35:08,760 well, but I'm using my truth as a minoritized person, and you can't 426 00:35:08,800 --> 00:35:15,079 criticize me, And it's become more and more popular in the journals to allow 427 00:35:15,119 --> 00:35:19,840 in this kind of nonsense, to create sort of the facade of an argument. 428 00:35:19,960 --> 00:35:22,800 I guess to me, if you can read between the lines, it's 429 00:35:22,920 --> 00:35:27,920 very clear that kind of the old modernists, you could call it before postmodern. 430 00:35:28,440 --> 00:35:31,719 But the old modernist arguments, which were made awkwardly, often by like 431 00:35:32,239 --> 00:35:37,679 IQ, white guys who leaned a little to the right, are mostly correct, 432 00:35:37,519 --> 00:35:45,119 and that has a lot of implications. The Democrats are counting on your 433 00:35:45,199 --> 00:35:49,000 economic ignorance so they can get re elected. The Washed ont on Wall Street 434 00:35:49,039 --> 00:35:52,440 podcast with Chris Markowski. Every day Chris helps unpack the connection between politics and 435 00:35:52,480 --> 00:35:55,679 the economy and how it affects your wallet. The left wants you to think 436 00:35:55,719 --> 00:36:00,639 that oil companies and grocery stores are ripping American off. Meanwhile, they just 437 00:36:00,679 --> 00:36:05,599 want to get back into office to keep printing trillions of more dollars. Whether 438 00:36:05,639 --> 00:36:07,599 it's happening in DC or down on Wall Street, it's affecting you financially. 439 00:36:07,719 --> 00:36:12,119 Be informed. Check out the Watchdot on Wall Street podcast with Chris Markowski on 440 00:36:12,159 --> 00:36:17,519 Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. I think that that's 441 00:36:17,559 --> 00:36:23,360 a very interesting point because you're talking about what is happening in our schools. 442 00:36:23,400 --> 00:36:28,679 Your book is all about that, what's happened in our schools over the last 443 00:36:28,840 --> 00:36:32,679 many, many years in this country. And the problem is context. This 444 00:36:32,719 --> 00:36:38,679 wouldn't be an issue when we were talking before about can America survive? Well, 445 00:36:38,719 --> 00:36:43,239 in many ways it hasn't survived and its foundational values because of what you 446 00:36:43,360 --> 00:36:49,159 just mentioned. If you go against their truths, the lefts truths that you 447 00:36:49,159 --> 00:36:54,159 know, these ideas that are patently falls you are, you know, some 448 00:36:54,239 --> 00:36:59,679 sort of a racist, you are some you're silenced. Ultimately, is the 449 00:36:59,719 --> 00:37:02,960 alt your point of not just your point of view, but the facts are 450 00:37:04,039 --> 00:37:07,480 silence. So you already have the erosion of the First Amendment and many other 451 00:37:07,719 --> 00:37:14,719 of course inherent God given rights of course in this country. But that said, 452 00:37:15,199 --> 00:37:17,360 it would be one thing if the leftist were teaching this in our school. 453 00:37:19,119 --> 00:37:24,880 It's another thing, though, to have that alongside the facts, if 454 00:37:24,920 --> 00:37:31,000 you will, alongside the other side of this argument, so to speak. 455 00:37:31,119 --> 00:37:36,599 But that's not happening in America, and it is becoming rare and rare in 456 00:37:36,639 --> 00:37:42,440 our institutions of higher education where we are seeing the other side of the argument. 457 00:37:42,559 --> 00:37:46,800 How problematic is that it's extremely problematic. So I mean I just mentioned 458 00:37:46,800 --> 00:37:50,840 that there was a period of kind of detent around racial topics when the Bell 459 00:37:50,920 --> 00:37:52,199 Curve is written. I mean, I don't even agree with a lot of 460 00:37:52,239 --> 00:37:55,599 the Bell Curve. The point is just that you should be able to discuss 461 00:37:55,639 --> 00:37:59,480 these issues. I mean, that's also when Thomas soul was writing a little 462 00:37:59,480 --> 00:38:02,079 to the left, Wilson, That's when Murray, That's when Willam Julius Wilson 463 00:38:02,119 --> 00:38:06,159 was writing on the left. So yeah, the ideal point would be people 464 00:38:06,199 --> 00:38:09,039 writing on the left, right and center and discussing tough topics. I mean, 465 00:38:09,039 --> 00:38:10,960 when it comes to race and IQ, as you know, there's an 466 00:38:12,079 --> 00:38:17,800 entire paradigm or entire debate the crit cult red conversation where some people argue national 467 00:38:19,000 --> 00:38:22,880 which are much larger than racial, but national and racial gaps and test scoring 468 00:38:22,920 --> 00:38:24,719 are genetics. Some people argue their cultural, which where I fall. Some 469 00:38:24,760 --> 00:38:29,000 people argue they're doing entirely to racial bigotry, which is sort of the thing 470 00:38:29,039 --> 00:38:30,519 you're supposed to say right now, But that's ebra Kenny and all that. 471 00:38:31,239 --> 00:38:34,760 I personally think all three groups can argue and can find it out in the 472 00:38:34,840 --> 00:38:37,800 journals, and can debate each other. But right now, yeah, that 473 00:38:37,239 --> 00:38:43,239 does not seem to be the currently accepted position. I actually have a pretty 474 00:38:43,280 --> 00:38:45,440 short answer to this one. I mean, yeah, I think that shutting 475 00:38:45,440 --> 00:38:52,400 down speech as prejudiced is problematic. The only real question is whether anyone actually 476 00:38:52,440 --> 00:38:55,159 believes that all their opponents are bigots, or they just think they can't let 477 00:38:55,239 --> 00:39:00,719 them talk. I've wondered about this, like I've debated Ebram Candy online. 478 00:39:00,880 --> 00:39:06,280 Not nothing formal, but I mean, like he His position, as far 479 00:39:06,280 --> 00:39:09,079 as I can tell, is that any gap in performance between any two large 480 00:39:09,079 --> 00:39:14,360 groups has to be due to either like straight up genetic inferiority or racism. 481 00:39:15,039 --> 00:39:19,239 And it's difficult for me to imagine that any intelligent person can believe that. 482 00:39:20,679 --> 00:39:22,719 I mean, I like, I don't you know, I tease Kenny about 483 00:39:22,719 --> 00:39:25,119 his set scores from time to time, But this guy's got a PhD. 484 00:39:25,199 --> 00:39:30,159 I mean, he's not not a dumb guy. Like, that's not true. 485 00:39:30,679 --> 00:39:32,400 There are just to pick one obvious example. You don't need to hear 486 00:39:32,400 --> 00:39:37,360 my dinner speech, but there are. The modal average black man is twenty 487 00:39:37,400 --> 00:39:40,199 seven. The modal average white man is fifty eight. If you're looking at 488 00:39:40,280 --> 00:39:45,519 crime stats, on the right or wealth stats on the left. It's just 489 00:39:45,679 --> 00:39:50,440 asinine not to take that into account and to say, well, the resulting 490 00:39:50,480 --> 00:39:54,119 difference is due to either racism or genes, you know, And it's this 491 00:39:54,159 --> 00:39:59,880 sort of thing happens all the time. Like Hispanics recently have been scoring about 492 00:40:00,079 --> 00:40:04,599 par with Blecks on the SAT. Natives, which now includes more Meso American 493 00:40:04,639 --> 00:40:07,800 Indians have been scoring behind African Americans. The latest Native score so I was 494 00:40:07,880 --> 00:40:12,280 nine to twelve. Why are we seeing these very poor Latin American scores because 495 00:40:12,320 --> 00:40:15,280 a lot of Hispanics don't speak English. I mean, it's just bizarre not 496 00:40:15,480 --> 00:40:21,599 to adjust for something like this. So it's in reality, they're just these 497 00:40:21,679 --> 00:40:25,199 dozens of variables that come into play when you're looking at root performance. And 498 00:40:25,239 --> 00:40:29,280 I think that anyone who's denying that from the leftist or for that matter, 499 00:40:29,280 --> 00:40:34,239 from the old right side, my personal take is that they can't actually believe 500 00:40:34,280 --> 00:40:38,920 that the idea. The ideas are totally instrumental. And by instrumental, I 501 00:40:39,000 --> 00:40:45,159 mean you're saying this because you want something from it. At the most basic 502 00:40:45,280 --> 00:40:47,559 level, you might just want money from Whitey, but at a deeper level, 503 00:40:47,760 --> 00:40:52,760 you might you do want massive social change. You probably think you're owed 504 00:40:52,800 --> 00:40:57,880 massive social change if you're a feminist, radical woman who's also a minority and 505 00:40:57,880 --> 00:41:01,320 so on, And this is thevehicle that you're going to ride to massive social 506 00:41:01,400 --> 00:41:05,960 change. So the last thing you want is me and you two KACKI guys 507 00:41:06,000 --> 00:41:08,000 who often wear jackets, you know, throwing a bunch of numbers on a 508 00:41:08,039 --> 00:41:13,519 table and saying no, that's not true. It's like saying God's not real 509 00:41:13,719 --> 00:41:16,000 to a preacher. It's just impolite. That I think is how they feel 510 00:41:16,039 --> 00:41:22,840 about it. Interesting. One final question for you, I think I think 511 00:41:22,880 --> 00:41:27,920 I can see the connection certainly, But how much did your work on your 512 00:41:27,920 --> 00:41:30,239 other books, Hate Crime, Hoax, how the Left is selling a fake 513 00:41:30,360 --> 00:41:36,119 race war, and taboo ten facts you can't talk about? How much did 514 00:41:36,119 --> 00:41:42,599 that inform this latest book. Well, the underlying question is very similar, 515 00:41:42,599 --> 00:41:45,440 and it's just sort of how much of what's being said is actually true? 516 00:41:45,960 --> 00:41:50,000 I mean, I don't think I'm actually I do think I'm a unique and 517 00:41:50,000 --> 00:41:52,920 interesting right, otherwise it wouldn't write. But I don't think I'm some kind 518 00:41:52,920 --> 00:41:55,599 of one off genius that's discussed this topic. I'm in the Great tom Souls 519 00:41:55,639 --> 00:42:00,639 discussed it extensively. Barry glassner Man of the Left wrote The Culture of discussed 520 00:42:00,639 --> 00:42:06,400 it extensively. But one of my interest is excuse the language. Both like 521 00:42:06,440 --> 00:42:09,840 the extent to which members of the educated, intelligent, upper middle class are 522 00:42:09,880 --> 00:42:15,079 often driven to the point of frenzy by things that are not real. And 523 00:42:15,159 --> 00:42:19,199 if you look across media and social media, you see this all the time. 524 00:42:19,960 --> 00:42:22,800 I mean, like right now on Twitter, both black and white guys 525 00:42:22,800 --> 00:42:25,800 seem to be absolutely convinced that members of the other race are constantly ganging up 526 00:42:25,800 --> 00:42:30,880 in groups and beating them up. And I mean, like I isolated the 527 00:42:30,920 --> 00:42:32,599 total number of videos where this had happened that I had seen, like just 528 00:42:32,639 --> 00:42:37,480 different distinct videos, and I was like thirty black on white and like twelve 529 00:42:37,599 --> 00:42:38,760 white on black. I mean, it's too many of them, and there 530 00:42:38,800 --> 00:42:42,840 are more black guys, but like this is over the course of about a 531 00:42:42,920 --> 00:42:45,000 year, looking at the timestamps, like this is not a thing that's probably 532 00:42:45,039 --> 00:42:49,679 going to kill you. And there's a whole genre of things like this, 533 00:42:49,840 --> 00:42:54,519 from pit bull attacks to plane crashes COVID nineteen if you're under forty, I 534 00:42:54,519 --> 00:42:58,159 mean, just it goes on and on and on, and I'm always very 535 00:42:58,199 --> 00:43:01,239 curious about what the level of actual risk is versus perceived risk is in life, 536 00:43:01,559 --> 00:43:07,000 what the actual numbers are that underlie public phenomena. So in hate crime 537 00:43:07,039 --> 00:43:09,639 hoax, I mean, pitch the book for thirty seconds. I noticed that 538 00:43:09,719 --> 00:43:15,159 a very large number of these high profile racial incidents that were paralyzing the country 539 00:43:15,480 --> 00:43:20,480 Jusse Smollett, Covington, Catholic Yasminn Suite, Duke Lacrosse, Gaucher College, 540 00:43:20,559 --> 00:43:23,039 Air Force Academy. It has never happened. And this was mostly a phenomenon 541 00:43:23,039 --> 00:43:25,199 on the left. I've both sides of it a little bit recently. This 542 00:43:25,239 --> 00:43:30,159 is mostly a left wing thing, and I asked, why or why are 543 00:43:30,159 --> 00:43:35,039 we giving this value to victimization? Why are we making people think this way? 544 00:43:37,320 --> 00:43:38,320 Is there a way to punish people that are doing this? I mean 545 00:43:38,360 --> 00:43:42,079 some of like a fake rape accusation is very serious. The penalty for that 546 00:43:42,079 --> 00:43:45,760 should be somewhat similar to the penalty for the crime itself. So I put 547 00:43:45,760 --> 00:43:47,559 the book out there, and right now I have a data set that is 548 00:43:47,599 --> 00:43:52,039 at almost a thousand of these bizarre hate hoaxes, and it's just you can 549 00:43:52,039 --> 00:43:57,159 critique my methodology for the book, but the data set itself is is hard 550 00:43:57,280 --> 00:44:01,280 to disagree with. I mean, it's just hundreds of these cases over about 551 00:44:01,320 --> 00:44:07,599 five years of people publicly falsifying these high visibility incidents. Taboo was pretty similar. 552 00:44:07,679 --> 00:44:12,119 I took a look at ten of the most high profile stories that were 553 00:44:12,119 --> 00:44:15,840 being discussed in the news at that time. So the claims of black lives 554 00:44:15,960 --> 00:44:21,920 matter every day and unarmed African American is murdered, and I went beyond that 555 00:44:22,079 --> 00:44:25,760 to interracial crime claims from both whites and minorities. I went beyond that into 556 00:44:25,760 --> 00:44:30,760 the whole idea of cultural appropriation, white privileged systemic racism, and I looked 557 00:44:30,800 --> 00:44:36,480 at the realities underlying this, and I asked whether these are plausible ideas, 558 00:44:37,000 --> 00:44:40,400 and I found that most of them were stupid nonsense. I mean, in 559 00:44:40,519 --> 00:44:45,519 the Black Lives Matter claims were untrue to a degree that's rarely seen, something 560 00:44:45,559 --> 00:44:51,280 I find fairly often with a black activist movement. Specifically, I mean the 561 00:44:51,320 --> 00:44:54,400 total number of unarmed black men killed by the police in twenty twenty two, 562 00:44:54,440 --> 00:44:59,639 which is the last year I looked Washington Post database at the time, I 563 00:44:59,679 --> 00:45:04,199 looked twelve. So I mean, the average person on the left thinks it's 564 00:45:04,239 --> 00:45:07,519 something like a thousand. So this is something that really got out there in 565 00:45:07,519 --> 00:45:12,599 the zeitgeist, that really became very prevalent that it almost never happens at all. 566 00:45:12,639 --> 00:45:15,840 I mean, if you add all males together, it's under one hundred. 567 00:45:15,880 --> 00:45:21,639 That's with poor White's, Hispanics, everybody thrown in Natives and Indian reservations. 568 00:45:21,800 --> 00:45:24,440 So I mean that was notable. That's something they got the book noticed. 569 00:45:24,599 --> 00:45:30,400 But similarly, if you adjust for things like test score, the region 570 00:45:30,440 --> 00:45:35,840 you live in, there was no evidence for systemic racism. Really, incomes 571 00:45:35,880 --> 00:45:38,239 tend to equalize across racial groups if you do that. So that was the 572 00:45:38,280 --> 00:45:42,639 second book, and again you find that these things that are claimed very publicly 573 00:45:42,679 --> 00:45:45,360 are not real. So in this third book, I started looking at the 574 00:45:45,480 --> 00:45:50,320 educational curriculum and the question was what about this, Like were we the only 575 00:45:50,360 --> 00:45:52,840 country to have slaves and abused them? And the results were the same as 576 00:45:52,880 --> 00:45:57,840 they always are. No, it is amazing to me. I mean, 577 00:45:57,880 --> 00:46:02,519 as a journalist, the most intriguing question over my career has always been the 578 00:46:02,559 --> 00:46:07,599 why I know that there is We talk about many wars, and the left 579 00:46:07,719 --> 00:46:12,519 likes to talk about wars on this and war on that, but we do 580 00:46:12,559 --> 00:46:15,599 see and have seen a war on reality in this country that I think is 581 00:46:15,679 --> 00:46:20,840 at the core of your book, and I'm glad we had a chance to 582 00:46:20,880 --> 00:46:25,199 talk about that today. Wilfred Riley, political science professor at Kentucky State University, 583 00:46:25,239 --> 00:46:30,519 author of the new book Lies my liberal teacher told me debunking the false 584 00:46:30,599 --> 00:46:36,599 narratives defining America's school curricula. You can find that book wherever good books are 585 00:46:36,599 --> 00:46:39,079 sold, particularly on Amazon. Thank you so much, sir, for joining 586 00:46:39,119 --> 00:46:46,039 us today, Thanks for having me. Absolutely you will enjoy this book, 587 00:46:46,079 --> 00:46:52,639 I think immensely if you are here because you're here because you are a thinker 588 00:46:52,239 --> 00:46:57,719 and you enjoy being challenged, and that is what this book will, indeed. 589 00:46:57,760 --> 00:47:00,760 Do you've been listening to another edition of The Federalist Radio Hour. I'm 590 00:47:00,760 --> 00:47:05,679 Matt Kittle, senior correspondent at The Federalist. We'll be back soon with more. 591 00:47:05,800 --> 00:47:23,360 Until then, stay lovers of freedom and anxious for the Fray.