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do it there. Thank you. I want to welcome everyone

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back to the finale of my reading of Raizard Lagut

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Goes the Demon in Democracy. This is part ten and

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I want to remind you that Thomas and I watch

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movies and review them and comment on them, and the

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latest we did was the nineteen thirty five Lenny Riefenstahl

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classic Trying for the Will. If you go to Freeman

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Beyond the Wall dot com forward slash Movies, you can

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see where there is a link that you can get it,

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and you can also subscribe to our at least once

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a month movie reviews for the year. All right, let

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us start and get into this and finish us up.

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This is chapter five. It's called religion, and we're on

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part five. Hostility to Christianity and modern liberal democracies raises

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a question of how religion should manifest itself in public life.

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The simplest answer, close to what some Protestant movements embodied,

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is that religious life and political life should be separated.

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Religion is essentially a private matter, a family matter, and

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sometimes a community matter, but definitely not a state matter.

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There are quite a lot of people today who are

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public figures, professionals, politicians, and it is rarely that we

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know what religion, if any, they profess, and even if

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we knew, this would be irrelevant in the assessment of

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their public performance. Such a strict separation of the religious

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and the public realms is very much in tune with

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today's ideology of modernity, and it is all the more

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convincing that confirms the assumption considered obvious but in fact doubtful,

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that the freedom of religion is guaranteed in Western democracies,

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and that Christians, being denied a public presence, should have

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no reason to complain. This strategy, let us call it conciliatory,

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should be distinguished from another one, let's call it capitulatory.

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The difference between the first and the second is at

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the beginning of one degree, but ultimately one of essence.

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The aim of the conciliatory Christian has been to avoid

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conflicts with the liberal Democrats and to adapt themselves to

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the existing system which they thought. Let me start that again.

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The aim of the conciliatory Christians has been to avoid

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conflicts with the liberal Democrats and to adapt themselves to

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the existing system, which they thought sufficiently spacious and friendly

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to include Christianity together with other religions. The aim of

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the Christians who have capitulated is to be admitted to

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the liberal democratic club, and in order to do it,

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they are willing to accept any terms and concessions. Convinced

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that remaining outside the club or being refused entrance would

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bring infamy on them, One can, of course defend both

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strategies conciliation and capitulation, and the standard argument of defense

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is the following. An enormous part of the activities of

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churches and an enormous area of religion have nothing to

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do with politics, socialism, liberal democracy, or anything related. Religion

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and churches are about God, souls and salvation. Therefore, because

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we live in a civil society governed by the rule

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of law, waging big political battles against it is not

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only meaningless from the perspective of religion, but polls to

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churches away from the primary mission, which is that of evangelization.

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They always care so much about the purity of the

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church once the church starts, once a public face is

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put on, isn't that interesting? It's like, well, no, no,

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you can't. The church can't stay pure. If it touches

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the state, it will become dirty, something will. It'll go wrong,

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no doubt. The basic objectives of Christianity remain outside politics,

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and it is these objectives that the churches and the

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faithful should pursue. But This otherwise obvious statement fails to

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address one crucial fact, the growing infiltration of liberal democracy

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into religion. Liberal democracy, like socialism, has an overwhelming tendency

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to politicize and ideologe ideologize social life in all its aspects,

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including those that were once considered private. Hence, it is

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difficult for religion to find a place in a society

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where it would be free from the pressure from liberal

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democratic orthodoxy and where it would not risk a conflict

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with its commissars. Even the issues generally thought to be

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remote from politics become censured by the punctilious scrutiny of

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those who watch over ideological purity. To give an example,

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the Vatican declaration dominess aous sparked anger in many groups,

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many among secular and even atheists than Protestant, more among

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secular and even atheists than Protestant Orthodox, and the direct

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cause was the following sentence quote. Therefore, there exists a

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single Church of Christ, which subsists in the Catholic Church,

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governed by the successor of Peter and by the bishops

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and communion with him. Chapter four Claus seventeen. Those who

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protested claim to defend the non Catholics, who presumably could not,

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in light of the declaration, achieved salvation and thereby had

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their eschatological steps that is unfairly diminished in relations to

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the Catholics. So instead of just saying, well, you mean

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you can't say that, that's you're just you're saying you're

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the only way, It's like, no, no, Look what you're

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doing to the Protestants and the Orthodox by saying that.

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Why the atheists were so indignant about the fact that

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they would not achieve salvation in which they do not

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believe in God, through God whose existence they denied, can

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be explained only as a case of total subjugation of

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the mind by politics and ideology. They did not see

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salvation as a theological problem, but as the Catholic Church's

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political instrument, cleverly camouflaged by theological rhetoric to justify her

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domination over other groups and other religious and non religious groups.

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In addition, the sentence in question offended their egalitarian sensibility. Salvation,

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like anything people desire that is not required as a

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human and right and distributed equally, must have appeared to

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them to be ideologically suspect. The Church is bound to

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get into permanent conflicts with liberal democracy and matters of

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morality which this system has appropriated and subjected to the

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power of legislative bodies in the courts. Today it is

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the legislators and the judges who decide what is and

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is not permitted, what is right and what is wrong,

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what is good and what is evil in matters of

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life and death. Until recently, the family ethics was to

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a large degree shaped and with good results, by the Christians,

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who continued and developed the teachings of the classical thinkers.

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But during the last decades this ethics was taken away

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from them and incorporated into the liberal democratic mechanism. Dozens

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of legal decisions were taken directly affecting family and even

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sexual life, and those decisions blatantly diverging from Christian teachings.

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For example, about abortion, homosexuality, euthanasia became law. Christians were

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forced to accept the humiliating subordination to a law they

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thought immoral, but whose disobedience is penalized. Quite often, the

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grounds for these decisions have strong anti Christian overtones. Christian

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arguments are dismissed as merely religious, with the implication that

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as such they are irrational. Parochial, anachronistic, and unrepresentative. In

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many countries the conscience clauses protecting Christians were either scrapped

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or made invalid by the courts. There is virtually no

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area in which the influence of Christianity has not been challenged.

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Everything that Christianity imbued with its spirit, legacy and wisdom, education, morality, sensibility,

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human conduct, even diet, the liberal democratic order puts a

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question and in many cases eliminated. Sunday has become a

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day off from work, not a holy day. Organized actions

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have been taking place so far successfully to lift the

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band still existing in a few regions in Europe on

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public disco events on Good Friday. Ash Wednesday is no

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longer honored, and the Christmas season has become a commercial paradise,

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while Christmas Eve with friends over a beer is more

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and more encouraged as something chic. The laws and mindsets

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have been reconstructed in such a way that no custom

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or rule having its root in Christianity can withstand the

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onslaught of liberal democracy. If the old Communists live long

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enough to see the world of today, they would be

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devastated by the contrast between how little they themselves have

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managed to achieve in their anti religious war, and how

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successful the liberal Democrats have been. All the objectives the

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Communists set for themselves, in which they pursued with savage brutality,

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were achieved by the liberal Democrats, who, almost without any

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effort and simply by allowing people to drift along with

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the flow of modernity, succeeded in converting churches into museums,

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restaurants in public buildings, secularizing entire society, making secularism the

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militant ideology, pushing religion to the sidelines, pressing the clergy

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into docility, and inspiring powerful mass culture with a strong

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anti religious bias, in which a priest must be either

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a liberal challenging of the church or a disgusting villain

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is not. One may wonder this non religious and anti

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religious reality of today's Western world very close to the

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vision of the future without religion that Communists were so

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excited about, and which, despite the millions of human lives

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sacrifice on the altra, progress failed to materialize. The triumph

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of anti Christianity seems to favor the conciliatory strategy. A

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lot of Christian communities, overpowered by the March at time

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gave up any idea of head on confrontation with liberal

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democracy or even any energetic defense policy. Those who capitulated

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unconditionally had to perform theological acrobatics to justify their position,

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and in so doing agreed to suppress any formative ambitions

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of their own and remain silent when before their eyes

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the Christian practices and ideas were being destroyed. After making

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some timid gestures of resistance at the beginning, they soon

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agreed to recognize so called homosexual marriage, to condone abortion,

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or even to tolerate euthanasia. The ubiquity of liberal democratic

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rights and ethical permissiveness may have generated in a lot

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of Christians such a feeling of resignation that any vigorous

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resistance must have seemed to them futile. The only option

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left for Christians to maintain some respectability in a new

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world was to join the great progressive camp, so that

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occasionally they would have an opportunity to smuggle in something

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that could pass for a religious message. You can see

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this on Twitter. You can see this all the time.

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This is what like Woe and Corey from a Stone

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Choir fight against all the time, These quote unquote Christians

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most of the especially the Evangelicals, and a lot of

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a lot of Catholics and even some Orthodox are nothing

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more than liberals, nothing more. And you know, as somebody

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who remembers when like the Presbyterian Church of America PA

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was like heavily right wing, I mean not more Southern

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Baptist convention gone and it's you may find a dependent

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Baptist church out there that's doing something, and there are that.

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You know, there is a rising of traditionalism in the

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Catholic Church, with people looking for Catholic masses and wanting

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their parishes to do the looking for Latin masses and

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wanting their parishes to do the Latin Mass again. But

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for the most part, it seems like most people have

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given up and they've actually taken the stance that if

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you are against this modernity, the way they're doing things now,

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then you're a heretic, and you are you're a Nazi.

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I mean, they've just literally become leftists. But this conciliatory

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attitude on the part of Christians is certainly wrong if

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it is motivated by the conviction that the current hostility

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to religion as a result of a misunderstanding social contingencies

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unfortunate errors committed by the Christians, or some minor ailments

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of modern society. The truth is that all these phenomena,

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as well as other anti Christian developments, are the genuine

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consequences of the spirit of modernity on which the liberal

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democracy was founded. Modernity and anti Christianity cannot be separated

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because they stem from the same route, and since the

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beginning have been intertwined. There is nothing, and has never been,

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anything in this branch of the European tradition that would

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make it favorably predisposed to predisposed to Christianity. The waves

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of hostility appeared and disappeared, ranging from outward aggression to

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indifference mixed with contempt, but never did the tide turn

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into an open and sincere simple There have been several

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Christian authors of liberal persuasion who tried to find common

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elements between Christianity and liberalism, which occasionally produced interesting theoretical insights,

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but generally, the inexorable tendency to liberalize and democratize the

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world that we have witnessed over the last centuries always

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supported the forces of anti Christianity. Therefore, whoever advocates a

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conciliatory strategy today fails or refuses to see the conditions

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in which Christians have been living. It is utterly mistaken

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to take the position that many do, namely that the

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church should take over some liberal democratic ingredients, open up

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to modern ideas and preferences, and then, after having modernized herself,

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managed to overcome hostility and reach people with Christian teachings.

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One can see why this plan has gained considerable popularity,

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but whatever its merits, it cannot succeed. During the Second

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Vatican Council in the years that followed it, some Christians

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chose a similar path to be in tune and at

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least externally with the liberal democratic sensibilities, so that the

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enmity would become less acute and the anti Christian trend

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be reversed. The idea of agjornamento was far from self evident,

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and a lot of contra contradictory theories and strategies were

241
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put into it, but the long term effects, whether intended

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or not, were quite clear. The church architecture became community

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centered rather than monarchical. Liturgy was simplified so as not

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to be too absorbing to a modern man who is

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less and less has less and less time for religion. Latin,

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incomprehensible and unpleasantly elitist, was replaced with the vernacular languages

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that everybody could understand. The priests seemed to behave during

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the mass like leaders and commanders, and turned versus populum

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to make an impression of being an equal among equals.

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I will just say to you, Stormy and I have

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talked about this. Well, you think that Latin. There is

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power in Latin. There's a metaphysical power in Latin. And

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by getting rid of Latin, it takes power away. Notice

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where they still keep Latin. Where Latin is still alive

255
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in the law, in legal world, say have power over you.

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If you want to look and see who has power

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in the world, now look and see who's using Latin,

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still using Latin. Think about that. All these changes, however,

259
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did not blunt the anti Christian prejudices that the liberal

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democratic spirit had been feeding on, nor did they entice

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more people to enter the church to strengthen the already

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decimated army of the faithful. The good things that were

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expected to happen did not happen. They did not, let

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me say it again, because they could not, and a

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versions of Christianity run so deep in the culture of

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modernity that no blandishment or fawning on the part of

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the Church can change it. Going to far along this

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road actually threatens the very essence of Christianity. Since the

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Second Vatican Council, the tendency to obsequiousness has been increasing

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rather than diminishing. Also in Poland, despite the fact that

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liberal Democrats never made any conciliatory gestures and their demands

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paradoxically became more peremptory. The Catholic Church, it must be

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clearly emphasized, as more aware of the danger than other

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Christian communities. However, the priests and the bishops who have

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been subjected to tremendous pressure, especially in Western Europe and America,

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to ingratiate with the liberal democratic orthodoxy, and this pressure

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has sometimes been quite effective. The Vatican, ruled by John

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Paul the Second and Benedicta sixteenth, was outspoken in its

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fidelity to the fundamental teachings of the Church, but it

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is difficult to predict in which direction their successors will go. Well.

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Many fear that the next generation of cardinals may be

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more willing to compromise, especially as the fringe groups of

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the clergy loudly declare their readiness to flow with the

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liberal democrat democratic current. This may lure them into falling

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into falling again, only deeper, this time into the same

286
00:19:06,839 --> 00:19:10,599
erroneous belief that an affable demeanor will silence the enemies

287
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of Christianity and propel the new hosts of the faithful

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to a liberalized and democratized church. Best news I heard

289
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is that in survey has done in the past five years,

290
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new priests that are getting ordained are much more what

291
00:19:29,279 --> 00:19:37,440
we do would say conservative, more let's say traditional. But

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hostility will not subside and the new hosts of the

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faithful will not show up because the mechanism of de

294
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Christianization has its own dynamics that the concessions of the

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christian strengthen rather than weaken. If the Vatican Council, if

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the Vatican Council progresses were to be presented with what

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the liberal democrats of today demand the Church should do,

298
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they would be shattered and unceasing relentless. Us offensive to

299
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appropriate the entirety of our existence has made us complacently

300
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amenable to things that are otherwise outrageous. In order for

301
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the Church to be praised, or even to be spared

302
00:20:11,440 --> 00:20:13,640
the heaviest blows. It is no longer enough to make

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the sacral architecture less hierarchical and more democratic, or have

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the priests faced the faithful during the mass, or to

305
00:20:21,079 --> 00:20:25,319
consider the abolition of celibacy. Nowadays one must go further,

306
00:20:25,480 --> 00:20:28,319
prohibit the condemnation of anything other than what the liberal

307
00:20:28,359 --> 00:20:33,640
democratic orthodoxy mandates to condemn, and decree to praise everything

308
00:20:33,880 --> 00:20:37,519
that the orthodoxy mandates to praise. Today, the Christian's devotion,

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00:20:37,720 --> 00:20:41,079
or rather surrender, to liberal democracy is measured by their

310
00:20:41,200 --> 00:20:44,400
enthusiastic support of the claims of homosexual activists and by

311
00:20:44,400 --> 00:20:48,240
the acceptance of what the feminists call women's reproductive rights.

312
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One shudders at the thought that will be expected of

313
00:20:53,079 --> 00:20:55,839
the Christians in a few years time. Well we're here,

314
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Buddy Lanes. By the representatives of so called open Catholicism

315
00:21:02,799 --> 00:21:05,960
do a disservice to the cause of Christian religion. Their

316
00:21:06,000 --> 00:21:09,200
relationship with liberal democracy is reminiscent of the dialogue their

317
00:21:09,240 --> 00:21:14,720
older colleagues conducted with Marxism. Open Catholics effusively eulogize the

318
00:21:14,799 --> 00:21:19,359
political system and its ideology, categorically distanced themselves from closed

319
00:21:19,359 --> 00:21:23,079
and nonliberal Catholics, apparently in the hope that while cooperating

320
00:21:23,119 --> 00:21:26,640
creatively with the system, they will have an opportunity to

321
00:21:26,640 --> 00:21:30,359
put a few droplets of Catholicism into the liberal democratic vessels.

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Their interlocutors welcome the commitment to liberal democracy with satisfaction

323
00:21:36,319 --> 00:21:40,000
and emphatically approve of the great divide between the good

324
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Catholics and the bad Catholics, but are never tired of

325
00:21:42,680 --> 00:21:45,279
repeating that the divide should be deeper and should result

326
00:21:45,359 --> 00:21:49,839
in a sort of core centenaire around the bad breed.

327
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They make it clear, however, that although the initiative of

328
00:21:54,200 --> 00:21:58,839
the few progressive dissonance is not negligible, Christianity itself is

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00:21:58,839 --> 00:22:01,920
of little worth, and whatever is of value in it,

330
00:22:01,920 --> 00:22:08,559
it is better expressed and more forcefully implemented by liberal democracy.

331
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Not surprisingly, the open Catholics who decide to play this

332
00:22:12,319 --> 00:22:15,240
game have not gained much, but instead have been subjected

333
00:22:15,240 --> 00:22:17,839
to an endless series of humiliations to which they have

334
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grown so accustomed that they treat them as the natural

335
00:22:21,039 --> 00:22:24,599
order of things. With each new move against Christianity, be

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it in vitro fertilization, so called reproductive rights or a

337
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rehabilitation of a new sexual disorder. They are the first

338
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to defend it cheerfully, arguing that in fact, nothing harmful

339
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has happened, that it is the Catholic fundamentalists who are

340
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the guilty parties, and that are after the Liberal Democrats

341
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give the world a new push forward, things are in

342
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much better shape than before. Cardinal Wazinski, being under enormous pressure,

343
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was yielding to Communists, but finally said non possumous. Looking

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at the open Catholics, it is hard to imagine that

345
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they would be better to utter such words, let alone

346
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think about them. No matter how far Liberal democracy pushes

347
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its anti Christian campaign, one should rather think of the

348
00:23:09,039 --> 00:23:12,319
open Catholics as a group of cheerleaders with funny pom poms,

349
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similar to those that one can see at games in America,

350
00:23:15,599 --> 00:23:20,480
encouraging their favorites to fight for progress. The sad spectacle

351
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of what is most misleadingly called dialogue shows, as it

352
00:23:24,079 --> 00:23:26,519
did in the case of Christians conversing with the Marxists

353
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several decades ago, a dramatic asymmetry both in power and

354
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an ideology between the two sides. In terms of power,

355
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the liberal Democrats have practically a monopoly. They control the legislation,

356
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directly or indirectly, influenced court rulings, and of a powerful

357
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hold on public opinion. The Catholics are on the far margin.

358
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The most they can do is to beg favors from

359
00:23:48,799 --> 00:23:52,039
the rulers of today's world, provided those rulers happen to

360
00:23:52,039 --> 00:23:54,759
be in a good mood, but do not participate in

361
00:23:54,799 --> 00:23:58,960
its formation. They can only supplicate, and their supplications must

362
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not be expressed in their own language, but in the

363
00:24:01,319 --> 00:24:05,920
language of those who hold power. They ask for acceptance

364
00:24:05,920 --> 00:24:08,599
of Catholicism, not as Catholics, but as a group whose

365
00:24:08,640 --> 00:24:12,440
creed does not threaten liberal democracy, and can, even once

366
00:24:12,480 --> 00:24:15,119
they present their case with a sufficient skill and credibility,

367
00:24:15,480 --> 00:24:21,079
be considered as supportive of it. While submitting these supplications,

368
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they are occasionally graded well by the powers that be,

369
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But no matter how these good grades increase their self esteem,

370
00:24:28,680 --> 00:24:31,400
they usually lose sight of the essence of the general conflict.

371
00:24:31,640 --> 00:24:34,119
They mistake the favors bestowed on them every now and

372
00:24:34,160 --> 00:24:37,160
then with the actual position of Christianity in the world.

373
00:24:37,359 --> 00:24:39,839
They do not understand that the relationship between the two

374
00:24:39,920 --> 00:24:43,160
is inversely proportional that the more favors are granted to

375
00:24:43,200 --> 00:24:46,680
the open Catholics, the weaker the position of Catholicism, or

376
00:24:46,720 --> 00:24:53,480
of Christianity in general becomes. I believe Poland is something

377
00:24:53,519 --> 00:24:57,240
like ninety percent Catholic. Don't quote me on that, but

378
00:24:57,599 --> 00:24:59,400
I think it was the last time I look so.

379
00:25:00,920 --> 00:25:06,319
And considering they were they were under communism too, this

380
00:25:06,400 --> 00:25:09,759
is a great study to see just exactly how And

381
00:25:09,880 --> 00:25:13,160
I think any anyone who's a Protestant, anyone who can

382
00:25:13,200 --> 00:25:18,400
see it orthodox can see it in churches, and a

383
00:25:18,400 --> 00:25:21,599
lot of the churches. That's why a lot of people

384
00:25:21,599 --> 00:25:23,519
have to be we got to find a good church.

385
00:25:24,480 --> 00:25:26,759
How many times I get contacted by people and say,

386
00:25:26,920 --> 00:25:29,200
can you point me to a church where they're not

387
00:25:29,279 --> 00:25:40,519
going to talk about Israel? Part six. One can look

388
00:25:40,519 --> 00:25:43,119
at Christianity in the modern world, and in Europe in particular,

389
00:25:43,160 --> 00:25:45,640
from the vantage point of an insider or an outsider.

390
00:25:46,000 --> 00:25:47,960
The first is the Christians, to whom the presence of

391
00:25:48,000 --> 00:25:51,359
religion in the modern world is vitally important. He interprets,

392
00:25:51,359 --> 00:25:53,839
and with good reason, the war against Christianity is a

393
00:25:53,839 --> 00:25:56,319
process through which the West has been moving away from

394
00:25:56,359 --> 00:25:59,119
religion in the proper sense of the word towards some

395
00:25:59,160 --> 00:26:01,440
form of civil, real life religion, the type that Rousseau

396
00:26:01,519 --> 00:26:06,279
wrote about, supplemented with a few new ingredients. He fears

397
00:26:06,279 --> 00:26:08,759
that this new creed will turn into an idolatry of

398
00:26:08,799 --> 00:26:12,319
the existing system and its ideology, the creed according to

399
00:26:12,359 --> 00:26:15,519
which the ultimate criterion of being good Christian will be

400
00:26:15,559 --> 00:26:20,079
the enthusiasm with which one welcomes the progress of liberal

401
00:26:20,079 --> 00:26:23,880
democracy in politics and ideology, and the readiness with which

402
00:26:23,960 --> 00:26:28,119
one gives Christian legitimacy to the new acts of capitulation.

403
00:26:29,319 --> 00:26:34,599
Any Christian in America knows what this is. I don't

404
00:26:34,599 --> 00:26:44,680
care what your what church you go to. These fears

405
00:26:44,720 --> 00:26:47,200
alass are not unfounded. For instance, it has become a

406
00:26:47,240 --> 00:26:50,119
common practice at papal teachings as well as other fundamental

407
00:26:50,119 --> 00:26:53,079
documents of Christianity are being assessed in light of the

408
00:26:53,119 --> 00:26:57,039
liberal democratic ideology, as if this was the highest tribunal

409
00:26:57,039 --> 00:27:00,640
whose verdicts the Catholics must humbly respect. The case in

410
00:27:00,680 --> 00:27:04,559
point is the reception of the Sentissimus Enis John paul

411
00:27:04,640 --> 00:27:07,359
the Second's important and cyclical which has been praised or

412
00:27:07,400 --> 00:27:11,480
criticized from exactly the same perspective which is its attitudes

413
00:27:11,880 --> 00:27:17,039
attitude to democracy. Some praise to Pope for having spoken

414
00:27:17,119 --> 00:27:19,359
up in favor of democracy and of the free market,

415
00:27:19,599 --> 00:27:23,160
while others rebuke them for having been sufficiently committed to

416
00:27:23,319 --> 00:27:27,839
democracy and the market not sufficiently committed to democracy and

417
00:27:27,880 --> 00:27:31,279
the market economy. The former praised them as a good democrat,

418
00:27:31,279 --> 00:27:34,480
while the latter undermined his democratic and free market credibility.

419
00:27:35,119 --> 00:27:38,000
That's such an evaluation of the Pope's words is seriously flawed,

420
00:27:38,079 --> 00:27:41,079
is beyond the comprehension of modern men. Fewer and fewer

421
00:27:41,119 --> 00:27:43,799
people take seriously the notion that there may be some

422
00:27:44,400 --> 00:27:48,920
other criteria of assessment, not necessarily liberal democratic, and more

423
00:27:48,960 --> 00:27:52,119
important than these, and that perhaps it is in the

424
00:27:52,200 --> 00:27:54,960
light of as well as in the humble respect of

425
00:27:55,000 --> 00:27:58,599
the criteria, that the liberal Democrats should look critically at

426
00:27:58,640 --> 00:28:02,279
their own praise suppositions and at the political system they

427
00:28:02,279 --> 00:28:06,480
have been thoughtlessly defending. All Christians who believe that the

428
00:28:06,480 --> 00:28:10,160
liberal democratic ideology is like an ordinary coat, no different

429
00:28:10,160 --> 00:28:12,319
from any other, that they can put on to be

430
00:28:12,359 --> 00:28:15,200
able to move around more easily and comfortably, but inside

431
00:28:15,200 --> 00:28:18,279
which they will still remain the same Christians make a mistake,

432
00:28:18,839 --> 00:28:21,440
and a double one to boot. The first mistake is

433
00:28:21,440 --> 00:28:25,240
a wrong choice of strategy. The liberal democracy ideology uses

434
00:28:25,359 --> 00:28:28,599
no matter that it does, it does so fraudulently. The

435
00:28:28,720 --> 00:28:32,039
rhetoric of multiculturalism, which is supposed to give justice to

436
00:28:32,079 --> 00:28:36,240
the existence of different cultures, which precisely because they are different,

437
00:28:36,480 --> 00:28:40,480
are said to contribute to the richness and diversity of society.

438
00:28:40,839 --> 00:28:43,960
But if this were true, then Christians should compete with

439
00:28:44,079 --> 00:28:47,400
others for a visible presence and for influence. After all,

440
00:28:47,480 --> 00:28:49,680
that is what the coexistence of different groups in a

441
00:28:49,720 --> 00:28:52,440
liberal democracy should amount to, and in order to be

442
00:28:52,480 --> 00:28:55,640
a successful competitor, they should act as an energetic and

443
00:28:55,680 --> 00:28:59,200
full blooded group, strongly committed to their cause, openly determined

444
00:28:59,200 --> 00:29:03,519
to imprint their marek the world. The opposite strategy, obliterating

445
00:29:03,559 --> 00:29:07,480
the boundaries, diluting their message in liberal jargon, cajoling the

446
00:29:07,559 --> 00:29:14,319
ideas idols of modernity, paying homage to today's superstitions, self

447
00:29:14,319 --> 00:29:17,960
effacing their identity, condemns Christians to a sad defeat with

448
00:29:18,039 --> 00:29:23,680
no dignity and no progeny. The second mistake is to

449
00:29:23,680 --> 00:29:26,759
ignore the fact that liberal democratic ideology has long since

450
00:29:26,759 --> 00:29:29,160
ceased to be open if it ever was, and has

451
00:29:29,279 --> 00:29:34,160
entered a stage of rigid dogmatization. The more conquests it makes,

452
00:29:34,200 --> 00:29:37,039
the less the victors are willing to show clemency to

453
00:29:37,119 --> 00:29:40,319
anyone outside the winning forces. The Christians who put on

454
00:29:40,400 --> 00:29:42,799
humble faces and declare their readiness to seek a common

455
00:29:42,839 --> 00:29:45,920
ground of action for a better world stand no chance

456
00:29:45,960 --> 00:29:48,920
to survive, regardless of how far in their self repudiation

457
00:29:49,079 --> 00:29:52,279
they go. Sooner or later they will have to sign

458
00:29:52,319 --> 00:29:55,200
an unconditional surrender and to join the system with no

459
00:29:55,279 --> 00:29:59,480
opt out and no conscious clauses, or in the events

460
00:29:59,480 --> 00:30:03,240
of sudden death declaration of non possumus, they will be

461
00:30:03,400 --> 00:30:07,279
instantly degraded to the position of a condemptible, contemptible enemy

462
00:30:07,319 --> 00:30:10,839
of liberal democracy. So far, nothing indicates that the regime

463
00:30:10,880 --> 00:30:14,599
will lose its ideological momentum. But the fate of Christianity

464
00:30:14,599 --> 00:30:17,160
and a liberal democracy can only be viewed from an external,

465
00:30:17,240 --> 00:30:20,440
non Christian perspective. Those who are not Christians, and as

466
00:30:20,480 --> 00:30:24,279
sometimes happens, do not like Christianity, can feel shoden freud

467
00:30:24,359 --> 00:30:28,160
looking at the problems this religion encounters in the modern world,

468
00:30:28,279 --> 00:30:33,799
particularly a disturbing rapidity of secularization. However, such a reaction

469
00:30:33,920 --> 00:30:36,880
is short sighted. Christianity is not just a religion, but

470
00:30:36,920 --> 00:30:40,839
a vital spiritual element of Western identity, something that allowed

471
00:30:40,880 --> 00:30:44,079
Europe to maintain a strong sense of community, linking the

472
00:30:44,160 --> 00:30:48,240
ancient with the modern and absorbing into it itself a

473
00:30:48,319 --> 00:30:54,640
variety of intellectual inspirations. By rejecting Christianity, after having marginalized

474
00:30:54,640 --> 00:30:57,880
a classical heritage, Europe and indeed the entire West, not

475
00:30:57,920 --> 00:31:02,599
only slides into cultural aridity, a process noticeable for some time,

476
00:31:02,880 --> 00:31:06,759
but also falls under the smothering monopoly of one ideology,

477
00:31:06,799 --> 00:31:10,640
whose uniformity is being cleverly concealed by the deafening rhetoric

478
00:31:10,640 --> 00:31:13,960
of diversity that has been pouring into people's minds at

479
00:31:14,000 --> 00:31:19,480
all occasions and in all contexts. Christianity is the last

480
00:31:19,519 --> 00:31:22,720
great force that offers a viable alternative to the tediousness

481
00:31:22,720 --> 00:31:26,400
of liberal democratic anthropology in this respect, that is closer

482
00:31:26,440 --> 00:31:29,319
to the classical rather than the modern view of human nature.

483
00:31:30,240 --> 00:31:32,599
With Christianity being driven out of the main tract, the

484
00:31:32,640 --> 00:31:36,000
liberal democratic man, unchallenged and totally secure in his rule,

485
00:31:36,279 --> 00:31:42,920
will become a soul master of today's imagination, apidictically determining

486
00:31:42,960 --> 00:31:45,839
the boundaries of human nature, and at the very outset,

487
00:31:45,880 --> 00:31:49,519
disavowing everything that dares to reach beyond his narrow perspective.

488
00:31:50,160 --> 00:31:53,119
The only thing he will be capable of doing is occasional,

489
00:31:53,759 --> 00:31:59,599
albeit capricious generosity, and tolerating some form of dissonance at

490
00:31:59,599 --> 00:32:05,000
the far peripheries of his empire. Without a strong competitor,

491
00:32:05,000 --> 00:32:07,920
the liberal democratic man will reign over human aspirations like

492
00:32:07,960 --> 00:32:10,920
a tyrant. There will appear no one who would dare

493
00:32:11,039 --> 00:32:14,160
or be ready in compliance with the existing rules to

494
00:32:14,200 --> 00:32:16,839
call his reign into question. The rules that exist do

495
00:32:16,920 --> 00:32:20,359
not permit such extravagant acts, and a supposition that there

496
00:32:20,440 --> 00:32:25,839
might be other rules has long since been discarded as absurd.

497
00:32:26,240 --> 00:32:29,160
One can, of course, imagine that the liberal democratic monopoly

498
00:32:29,200 --> 00:32:32,000
will eventually begin to crack, and the new centrifugal forces

499
00:32:32,200 --> 00:32:36,359
from causes yet unfathomed, will be set in motion. Common

500
00:32:36,400 --> 00:32:39,000
sense and experience tell us that it is not possible

501
00:32:39,000 --> 00:32:41,839
for people to be lulled by one ideology forever and

502
00:32:41,920 --> 00:32:44,519
to have their emotions and thoughts organized always and in

503
00:32:44,559 --> 00:32:47,640
the same way. The war against the Christian heritage, however,

504
00:32:47,759 --> 00:32:51,640
may have that this unpleasant consequence. When the renewal comes,

505
00:32:51,640 --> 00:32:53,599
it will start from a much lower level. Than the

506
00:32:53,599 --> 00:32:59,359
one reached previously by European culture through Christianity. Liberal democratic

507
00:32:59,440 --> 00:33:03,519
man in order to shake out his habits, superstitions, prejudices,

508
00:33:03,599 --> 00:33:08,680
dogmas self mystification, hypocrisy, and many other faults inborn as

509
00:33:08,720 --> 00:33:13,400
well as those acquired through a prolonged period of monopolistic rule,

510
00:33:13,720 --> 00:33:16,599
will have before him a much harder road than did

511
00:33:16,640 --> 00:33:21,319
the previous rulers of the human imagination. He is more stubborn,

512
00:33:21,400 --> 00:33:24,480
more narrow minded, and clearly less willing to learn from others.

513
00:33:25,119 --> 00:33:29,160
The rediscovery of the revelation after denigrating that part of

514
00:33:29,279 --> 00:33:32,359
human nature that allowed its prior acceptance, will require new

515
00:33:32,440 --> 00:33:35,680
stimuli and a new surge of spiritual energy, of which

516
00:33:35,720 --> 00:33:39,559
we cannot, in the time of growing secularization, say anything

517
00:33:39,680 --> 00:33:43,440
definite or even whether they will be at all possible.

518
00:33:45,759 --> 00:33:50,319
That is the meat of the text. We are going

519
00:33:50,359 --> 00:33:59,440
to move on to the conclusion. Conclusion One can look

520
00:33:59,480 --> 00:34:02,519
at the affinity between communism and liberal democracy from both

521
00:34:02,519 --> 00:34:05,559
a narrow and a wider perspective. The narrow point of

522
00:34:05,640 --> 00:34:07,680
view may lead us to a sad conclusion that the

523
00:34:07,680 --> 00:34:11,719
modern Western world never really understood the communists experience quite correctly,

524
00:34:12,079 --> 00:34:14,480
and if it did, it never took seriously the lessons

525
00:34:14,519 --> 00:34:18,239
that followed from it. When looked at more broadly, the

526
00:34:18,280 --> 00:34:21,719
examination of these of those affinities may give grounds it

527
00:34:22,360 --> 00:34:25,840
for a conclusion more daring, namely, that the two regimes

528
00:34:25,840 --> 00:34:28,519
stem from the same root, or more precisely, from the

529
00:34:28,599 --> 00:34:33,239
same not particularly good inclination of modern men, persistently revealing

530
00:34:33,280 --> 00:34:39,360
itself under different political circumstances. This is assuredly not the

531
00:34:39,400 --> 00:34:44,199
only disquieting inclination that modern man has given into bearing

532
00:34:44,239 --> 00:34:46,320
in mind the bloody history of Europe and America in

533
00:34:46,320 --> 00:34:50,280
the last centuries, but the story of the relationship between

534
00:34:50,320 --> 00:34:54,039
communism and liberal democracy is of particular importance, as it

535
00:34:54,079 --> 00:34:57,079
is about the systems that were hailed and sincerely believed

536
00:34:57,079 --> 00:35:01,400
to be the greatest hopes of mankind. The story is

537
00:35:01,440 --> 00:35:05,119
thus not only about politics, but also indirectly about the

538
00:35:05,199 --> 00:35:12,440
aspirations and dreams of modern man. This book argued that

539
00:35:12,440 --> 00:35:14,719
the modern man, who was the inspiring force of the

540
00:35:14,719 --> 00:35:19,280
two political systems, was a mediocrity not by nature, but

541
00:35:19,320 --> 00:35:22,840
so to speak, by design, and from the beginning was

542
00:35:22,880 --> 00:35:26,199
expected to be indifferent to great moral challenges and unaware

543
00:35:26,239 --> 00:35:31,039
of the danger of a moral fall. Such was more

544
00:35:31,119 --> 00:35:34,519
or less the picture that the early modern thinkers created,

545
00:35:35,000 --> 00:35:37,920
mostly in oppositions to the classical and Christian views of

546
00:35:38,000 --> 00:35:41,719
human nature, which within a few centuries managed to overcome

547
00:35:41,840 --> 00:35:46,679
virtually all of its competitors. Both regimes imagine man as

548
00:35:46,719 --> 00:35:50,480
a creature of common qualities, whose commonness made him perceive

549
00:35:50,559 --> 00:35:53,639
the world through his own narrow vision, and was therefore

550
00:35:53,719 --> 00:35:57,440
naturally inclined to reduce art, ideas and education, contrary to

551
00:35:57,480 --> 00:36:01,320
the old view which had attributed them, and elevating power

552
00:36:01,639 --> 00:36:07,440
to his own dimensions. I cannot refrain from making a

553
00:36:07,480 --> 00:36:10,880
personal note. The Poles could see the communist man in

554
00:36:10,920 --> 00:36:13,800
his full splendor during the early stages of communism, when,

555
00:36:14,079 --> 00:36:17,000
after having arrived on the Soviet tanks, he was enforcing

556
00:36:17,039 --> 00:36:19,639
the construction of the new regime in a society that

557
00:36:19,719 --> 00:36:23,119
had already been decimated and terrorized by the German occupation.

558
00:36:24,159 --> 00:36:29,519
A homo novus, uneducated, vulgar, primitive, having nothing but contemporate

559
00:36:29,519 --> 00:36:36,559
tradition for the Polish, imponderables for history, culture, and anything subtle, genteel, elegant, beautiful,

560
00:36:36,639 --> 00:36:40,519
or spiritual. He was carrying out the destruction of social classes,

561
00:36:40,840 --> 00:36:44,119
the landed gentry, the middle class, to peasantry, the aristocracy,

562
00:36:44,119 --> 00:36:47,639
and even the working class, whose interests he pretended to impersonate.

563
00:36:48,760 --> 00:36:51,079
He gave the Communist Party his will and his soul,

564
00:36:51,440 --> 00:36:53,920
and in return, the party provided him with the formidable

565
00:36:53,960 --> 00:36:56,880
instruments of power, as well as with what seemed to

566
00:36:56,960 --> 00:36:59,960
him the complete knowledge of the world. He did it

567
00:37:00,159 --> 00:37:04,519
job with a ruthlessness unmitigated by any prohibitions. Polish society

568
00:37:04,559 --> 00:37:07,760
underwent a profound and largely irreversible process of the destruction

569
00:37:07,880 --> 00:37:11,960
of culture. Life became boorish, social norms lost their force,

570
00:37:12,400 --> 00:37:15,920
and ugliness replaced beauty. One had an impression that the

571
00:37:15,920 --> 00:37:19,000
country fell into the hands of the barbarians. Later on,

572
00:37:19,039 --> 00:37:21,800
the communist man acquired some polishing which did not touch

573
00:37:21,840 --> 00:37:26,760
his essence, but the damage could not be undone. The

574
00:37:26,800 --> 00:37:31,280
spectacular manifestation of Soviet barbarism, for which the Polish language

575
00:37:31,280 --> 00:37:34,920
had a lot of colorful expressions, was not a local phenomenon,

576
00:37:34,960 --> 00:37:37,639
but occurred in all the countries that came under a

577
00:37:37,679 --> 00:37:43,719
communist rule. When the communist order stabilized in the Soviet type,

578
00:37:43,760 --> 00:37:47,119
thugs retired or were pushed aside. There came a new

579
00:37:47,199 --> 00:37:50,679
generation of communists, no less vulgar than their predecessors, but

580
00:37:50,800 --> 00:37:55,239
definitely not so brutal, presumably because of a fairly long

581
00:37:55,280 --> 00:37:58,880
period of peace. They expressed their desires in the communist

582
00:37:58,960 --> 00:38:02,360
news speak that delineated the boundaries of their imagination and

583
00:38:02,400 --> 00:38:06,199
mental possibilities. Their lack of cultivation did not prevent them

584
00:38:06,199 --> 00:38:09,480
from having mastered a remarkable dexterity and moving within the

585
00:38:09,519 --> 00:38:16,039
intricate mechanisms of the communist bureaucracy, which was allotting privileges, benefits, property,

586
00:38:16,559 --> 00:38:20,400
and power. The second time we encountered a new wave

587
00:38:20,440 --> 00:38:26,159
of barbarism was immediately after the fall of communism. Naive

588
00:38:26,159 --> 00:38:28,559
people thought that after the disappearance of the old regime,

589
00:38:28,599 --> 00:38:31,199
a substantial part of the social fabric that had had

590
00:38:31,239 --> 00:38:34,000
destroyed would be restored, and that freely elected governments in

591
00:38:34,039 --> 00:38:36,840
a liberated society would make an attempt to do so,

592
00:38:37,039 --> 00:38:38,880
or at least that the opening of the free space

593
00:38:38,920 --> 00:38:42,079
would boost, as it did during the first Solidarity period

594
00:38:42,079 --> 00:38:45,119
in nineteen eighty nineteen eighty one, human energy to pursue

595
00:38:45,159 --> 00:38:48,679
the noble goals the old regime had debased. But whoever

596
00:38:48,719 --> 00:38:53,079
expected this was disappointed. Instead, we witnessed an invasion by

597
00:38:53,440 --> 00:38:57,960
another tribe of new men, boisterous and savage. The areas

598
00:38:58,000 --> 00:38:59,960
of freedom created by the crumbling of the old oil

599
00:39:00,280 --> 00:39:04,079
became almost immediately occupied by the people, coming, as it seemed,

600
00:39:04,360 --> 00:39:06,760
out of nowhere, in such great numbers that their victory

601
00:39:06,840 --> 00:39:12,440
was practically a blitzkrieg. Their strikingly loudish manners and course

602
00:39:12,519 --> 00:39:15,119
language did not have their origin in communism, but as

603
00:39:15,159 --> 00:39:18,880
many found astonishing in the patterns, or rather anti patterns,

604
00:39:18,880 --> 00:39:22,239
that developed in Western liberal democracies. Of course, the new

605
00:39:22,320 --> 00:39:25,519
order was different and had different mechanisms, but despite the differences,

606
00:39:25,519 --> 00:39:29,400
it was directed against the social forms, type of conduct, norms,

607
00:39:29,440 --> 00:39:33,400
and practices to which the old order had been Also hostile,

608
00:39:34,440 --> 00:39:38,480
life underwent further vulgarization. The few practices and social norms

609
00:39:38,480 --> 00:39:41,039
that survived the previous invasion were subject to attacks by

610
00:39:41,039 --> 00:39:44,719
the new forces of barbarism. The ugliness of communist Poland

611
00:39:44,719 --> 00:39:47,719
did not disappear, and beauty was as much a rarity

612
00:39:47,760 --> 00:39:51,599
as it had been before. The new barbarians could hardly

613
00:39:51,639 --> 00:39:55,079
be called Bolsheviks or Soviet thugs, but there was something

614
00:39:55,119 --> 00:39:59,519
in their attitude that led them led to seek to

615
00:39:59,559 --> 00:40:04,960
seeking similarities with their predecessors. Their vulgarity was so to

616
00:40:04,960 --> 00:40:07,920
speak of the second order, as opposed to that which

617
00:40:07,960 --> 00:40:11,079
had been seen in communist Poland, and which had been

618
00:40:11,119 --> 00:40:16,400
something primorial, which had had something primorial about primordial about it.

619
00:40:17,440 --> 00:40:19,920
What happened in the Liberal Democracy did not result from

620
00:40:19,960 --> 00:40:22,840
the absence of culture, and there was nothing natural about it,

621
00:40:23,039 --> 00:40:25,679
nor did it come from outside of the realm of civilization,

622
00:40:26,840 --> 00:40:29,639
in that it differed from the vulgarity of the Communists, who,

623
00:40:29,960 --> 00:40:33,559
before they captured power in Poland had lived in environments

624
00:40:34,000 --> 00:40:38,239
practically unaffected by Polish culture. Having been long exposed to

625
00:40:38,239 --> 00:40:42,639
the Soviet influence. They felt an intense instinctive at antipathy

626
00:40:42,960 --> 00:40:46,119
toward the West as such, not knowing exactly what it was,

627
00:40:46,159 --> 00:40:49,559
and in particular for all forms of civilized conduct and propriety,

628
00:40:50,079 --> 00:40:56,360
which they thought both decadent and perfidious. The new barbarians

629
00:40:56,400 --> 00:40:58,639
of the Liberal Democracy, on the other hand, were products

630
00:40:58,679 --> 00:41:01,159
of the West, which had a certain stage of its

631
00:41:01,199 --> 00:41:04,679
history turned against its own culture. The respect for its

632
00:41:04,679 --> 00:41:08,400
achievements was gone, replaced by contempt the rules of civility

633
00:41:08,440 --> 00:41:11,840
and propriety derided. To put it simply, the vulgarity of

634
00:41:11,840 --> 00:41:14,960
the communist system was pre cultural, while that of liberal

635
00:41:14,960 --> 00:41:22,000
democracy is post cultural. In both systems, man compensated for

636
00:41:22,039 --> 00:41:24,800
his communists with the image of a large, well functioning

637
00:41:24,840 --> 00:41:29,039
system communism in one case, in liberal democracy in the other, which,

638
00:41:29,280 --> 00:41:33,639
through the pursuits of collective goals equality for all, peace, prosperity, etc.

639
00:41:34,519 --> 00:41:37,920
Released them from a necessity to aspire to the ideals that,

640
00:41:37,960 --> 00:41:41,559
from the perspective of the political system might look redundant.

641
00:41:42,480 --> 00:41:46,199
It is therefore hardly surprising that just as communism or

642
00:41:46,280 --> 00:41:49,960
socialism was a favorite word of the communist man, democracy

643
00:41:50,000 --> 00:41:53,679
has been in such a word for the liberal democratic man.

644
00:41:54,400 --> 00:41:58,159
The former liked to say, But in communism, because in

645
00:41:58,199 --> 00:42:02,480
socialism and such life, and the argument of communism was

646
00:42:02,519 --> 00:42:06,960
always the ultimate argument and by definition irrefutable. The latter

647
00:42:07,039 --> 00:42:10,000
love saying always would do piety mixed with a touch

648
00:42:10,079 --> 00:42:14,280
of audacity. But in democracy, and because of democracy, and

649
00:42:14,719 --> 00:42:19,119
the argument of democracy refutes all others. The number and

650
00:42:19,199 --> 00:42:23,679
frequency of the words communism or socialism and communist or

651
00:42:23,719 --> 00:42:27,800
socialist in the enon regime are equal to the number

652
00:42:27,840 --> 00:42:31,000
and frequency of the words democracy and democratic in the

653
00:42:31,039 --> 00:42:35,039
new regime. The eagerness to use these words as Trump's

654
00:42:35,559 --> 00:42:38,239
what not thought by the users to be a symptom

655
00:42:38,280 --> 00:42:42,199
of intellectual and moral capitulation, but rather in quite sincerely

656
00:42:42,280 --> 00:42:48,800
a manifestation of independence, courage, assertiveness, and autonomy. To a

657
00:42:48,840 --> 00:42:53,639
mediocre man, an organic assimilation with the system was the

658
00:42:53,800 --> 00:43:00,159
easiest way to develop a conviction of being exceptional. Try

659
00:43:00,199 --> 00:43:02,880
to what many people think. The modern liberal democratic world

660
00:43:04,000 --> 00:43:07,280
does not deviate much in many important aspects from the

661
00:43:07,280 --> 00:43:10,559
world that the communist man dreamed about, and that, despite

662
00:43:10,559 --> 00:43:13,440
the enormous collective effort he could not build within the

663
00:43:13,480 --> 00:43:17,239
communist institutions. There are differences, to be sure, but they

664
00:43:17,280 --> 00:43:20,039
are not so vast that they could be gratefully and

665
00:43:20,159 --> 00:43:23,639
unconditionally accepted by someone who has had first and experience

666
00:43:23,719 --> 00:43:26,519
with both systems and then moved from one to the other.

667
00:43:28,159 --> 00:43:31,079
It would not be perhaps inaccurate to say that the

668
00:43:31,199 --> 00:43:34,599
essence of the modern man's dream has come true, or,

669
00:43:34,760 --> 00:43:38,960
more modestly, that this process is still in progress. He

670
00:43:39,039 --> 00:43:41,840
has managed to divest himself with the moral obligations that

671
00:43:41,960 --> 00:43:44,719
made his life difficult, and is apparently planning to get

672
00:43:44,800 --> 00:43:49,280
rid of those that still remain. The sad state of affairs, however,

673
00:43:49,480 --> 00:43:52,639
does not make him despair. He has troubled neither by

674
00:43:52,719 --> 00:43:57,199
raging ideology that paralyzes his mind through stultifying stereotypes, nor

675
00:43:57,199 --> 00:44:00,800
by politicization, nor by the sterility of culture and the

676
00:44:00,840 --> 00:44:06,719
triumph of vulgarity. Even if he can notice that all

677
00:44:06,760 --> 00:44:10,119
these regrettable developments and be sometimes annoyed by them, even

678
00:44:10,199 --> 00:44:13,239
if sometimes the thought passes through his mind similar the

679
00:44:13,360 --> 00:44:17,079
similar things happened in communism, he remains unperturbed and quickly

680
00:44:17,079 --> 00:44:20,519
convinces himself that replacing them with something else is impossible,

681
00:44:20,960 --> 00:44:23,360
and if it were possible, the results would be for

682
00:44:23,440 --> 00:44:26,679
the reasons he does not bother to reflect upon disastrous.

683
00:44:27,639 --> 00:44:30,840
So the liberal democrats orcrats are quite right when they

684
00:44:30,920 --> 00:44:33,159
keep suggesting that the world has come to an end,

685
00:44:33,519 --> 00:44:35,480
and that if it should continue to exist in a

686
00:44:35,519 --> 00:44:38,559
satisfactory way, it must be developed in the same vein.

687
00:44:39,079 --> 00:44:41,719
Of course, it is highly unlikely that some new rights

688
00:44:41,760 --> 00:44:44,719
will be invented to make everything yet more moral, that

689
00:44:44,800 --> 00:44:47,079
the feminist ideology and its spin offs will prove to

690
00:44:47,119 --> 00:44:50,280
be even more absurd than before, that people who so

691
00:44:50,400 --> 00:44:54,360
profoundly worship their intellectual independence will once again surprise everyone

692
00:44:54,800 --> 00:44:59,000
by meekly adopting it all. We can imagine a literature

693
00:44:59,320 --> 00:45:02,159
that will speak in increasingly about nothing, and the diversity

694
00:45:02,239 --> 00:45:07,239
rhetoric even more raucous and more masking of the expanding uniformity.

695
00:45:07,719 --> 00:45:11,079
But all this will yet will be yet another scene

696
00:45:11,119 --> 00:45:13,639
in the same final chapter of a long story that

697
00:45:13,800 --> 00:45:18,239
historically began in the early modern period, but that had

698
00:45:18,360 --> 00:45:28,119
its long vorgeschichte. That word is wow vorgeschichte. This chapter

699
00:45:28,159 --> 00:45:31,239
will include the fulfillment of what communism plan, but what

700
00:45:31,760 --> 00:45:35,639
to the immeasurable regrets of its adherents failed, namely man's

701
00:45:35,679 --> 00:45:39,679
integration with the regime and the regime with men. Whether

702
00:45:39,719 --> 00:45:42,159
the future of human history will add some new chapters,

703
00:45:42,159 --> 00:45:46,039
we cannot say, but such a scenario seems, upon the

704
00:45:46,079 --> 00:45:49,280
authority of common sense likely. But the issue is not

705
00:45:49,320 --> 00:45:53,519
that new impulses, fashions, mood swings, major events, and other

706
00:45:53,639 --> 00:45:56,480
unpredictable factors will always emerge to affect the course of

707
00:45:56,559 --> 00:46:02,880
history and people's perceptions of it. The real change will

708
00:46:02,920 --> 00:46:05,559
come only when the current view of man spends itself

709
00:46:05,599 --> 00:46:10,119
and is considered inadequate. Only then will other stories develop

710
00:46:10,239 --> 00:46:13,719
or be revived, the former as a result of new experiences,

711
00:46:13,960 --> 00:46:16,639
the latter as a result of reactivating the long dormant

712
00:46:16,679 --> 00:46:20,000
areas of collective memory, allowing a different look at human

713
00:46:20,039 --> 00:46:24,400
fate and the dreams through which individuals and communities express

714
00:46:24,440 --> 00:46:28,559
their aspirations. This course of events surely cannot be ruled out,

715
00:46:29,039 --> 00:46:32,400
although today the mere fact of considering it provokes anger

716
00:46:32,440 --> 00:46:34,760
and mockery by those who lost the habit of even

717
00:46:34,840 --> 00:46:41,960
contemplating such playful peregrinations of the human mind and feel

718
00:46:41,960 --> 00:46:46,000
a superstitious fear of leaving the secure territories of liberal

719
00:46:46,119 --> 00:46:51,960
democratic orthodoxy. But there exists yet another possibility. Perhaps the

720
00:46:52,039 --> 00:46:56,480
long story reaching denouement in its last chapter that modernity

721
00:46:56,519 --> 00:46:59,159
divulged to us is not just one of many stories

722
00:46:59,159 --> 00:47:02,079
that can be replaced by another, but a basic truth

723
00:47:02,119 --> 00:47:06,480
about modern man, who, after many adventures, downfalls, in a sense,

724
00:47:06,679 --> 00:47:11,440
exultations and tribulations, after following many cameras and surrendering to

725
00:47:11,519 --> 00:47:15,599
many temptations, finally arrives at the accurate recognition of who

726
00:47:15,639 --> 00:47:19,599
he is. If this indeed were the case, then further

727
00:47:19,679 --> 00:47:22,719
fundamental changes in human history would no longer be possible

728
00:47:23,039 --> 00:47:26,760
accept changes. For the worse, Such an eventuality would be

729
00:47:27,079 --> 00:47:31,199
for some a comforting testimony that man finally learned how

730
00:47:31,239 --> 00:47:35,159
to live in a sustainable harmony with his nature. For others,

731
00:47:35,199 --> 00:47:40,599
it will be a final confirmation that his mediocrity is inveterate.

732
00:47:45,079 --> 00:47:48,519
That is it. Let me go back and look at

733
00:47:48,519 --> 00:47:58,039
something real quick first yep twenty sixteen. This was published

734
00:47:58,079 --> 00:48:06,320
in two thousand seen first American edition. So this book

735
00:48:06,400 --> 00:48:10,280
was first published in Polish in twenty twelve under the

736
00:48:10,320 --> 00:48:14,760
title Triumph. I do not know what that says, but

737
00:48:15,559 --> 00:48:21,239
I will translate it when I disconnect. Thank you for

738
00:48:21,559 --> 00:48:25,119
joining me for another book reading. The next one will

739
00:48:25,159 --> 00:48:30,599
be something I think will gain a lot of interest,

740
00:48:31,760 --> 00:48:37,079
maybe even some widespread interests. So be on the lookout

741
00:48:38,039 --> 00:48:40,760
for the first episode dropping of the next book that

742
00:48:40,840 --> 00:48:42,960
I read. And now I'm not going to tell you

743
00:48:43,000 --> 00:48:47,000
what it is. Take care everyone. Thank you,