1 00:00:00,040 --> 00:00:02,120 Speaker 1: If you want to support the show and get the 2 00:00:02,160 --> 00:00:06,559 episodes early and ad free, head on over to Freemanbeyond 3 00:00:06,599 --> 00:00:10,359 the Wall dot com forward slash Support. I want to 4 00:00:10,400 --> 00:00:15,000 explain something right now. If you support me through substack 5 00:00:15,640 --> 00:00:19,719 or Patreon, you have access to an RSS feed that 6 00:00:19,760 --> 00:00:24,239 you can plug into any podcatcher, including Apple, and you'll 7 00:00:24,280 --> 00:00:27,239 be able to listen to the episodes through there. If 8 00:00:27,239 --> 00:00:31,120 you support me through subscribe, star gum Road, or on 9 00:00:31,199 --> 00:00:34,719 my website directly, I will send you a link where 10 00:00:34,759 --> 00:00:37,079 you can download the file and you can listen to 11 00:00:37,119 --> 00:00:41,439 it any way you wish. I really appreciate the support 12 00:00:41,520 --> 00:00:44,759 everyone gives me. It keeps a show going. It allows 13 00:00:44,799 --> 00:00:47,960 me to basically put out an episode every day now, 14 00:00:48,439 --> 00:00:51,119 and I'm not going to stop. I'm just going to accelerate. 15 00:00:51,640 --> 00:00:53,799 I think sometimes you see that I'm putting out two 16 00:00:54,600 --> 00:01:00,200 even three a day, and yeah, can't do it without you, 17 00:01:00,759 --> 00:01:02,880 So thank you for the support. Head on over to 18 00:01:02,920 --> 00:01:07,159 Freeman Beyond the Wall dot com, forward slash support and 19 00:01:07,280 --> 00:01:11,519 do it there. Thank you. I want to welcome everyone 20 00:01:11,599 --> 00:01:15,760 back to part two of my reading of Raizard Lagutco's 21 00:01:16,040 --> 00:01:21,040 The Demon in Democracy. We are up to section five 22 00:01:21,239 --> 00:01:23,760 of part one and we are just going to jump 23 00:01:23,920 --> 00:01:29,200 right back in. A third narrative remains regarding the transition 24 00:01:29,280 --> 00:01:32,319 to the new system, the one about mankind's reaching and 25 00:01:32,359 --> 00:01:37,120 developing its full creative potential. Although one strongly emphasized, this 26 00:01:37,200 --> 00:01:41,200 eventually lost its importance and virtually disappeared. Regardless of the 27 00:01:41,200 --> 00:01:43,840 fact that some socialist visionaries tried to revive it from 28 00:01:43,920 --> 00:01:48,480 time to time, it had no place in communist reality. 29 00:01:49,319 --> 00:01:53,200 The new regime fell into the trap of gigantic practical problems. 30 00:01:53,760 --> 00:01:57,239 Who and for what purpose would consider humanities achieving self 31 00:01:57,280 --> 00:01:59,959 knowledge at a time when the people were desperately grappling 32 00:02:00,079 --> 00:02:04,120 with chronic scarcity and their leaders were courageously struggling with 33 00:02:04,159 --> 00:02:08,680 the new problems they themselves had created. It is paradoxical 34 00:02:08,759 --> 00:02:13,120 that socialism, which began with a great humanistic message, not 35 00:02:13,159 --> 00:02:17,400 only quickly lowered its aspirations, but made them indistinguishable from 36 00:02:17,439 --> 00:02:21,439 the objectives that had already been realized with much more 37 00:02:21,479 --> 00:02:27,159 success by its main competitor, capitalism. The young Mark still 38 00:02:27,280 --> 00:02:30,240 used the language of Hegel to describe mankind's road to 39 00:02:30,319 --> 00:02:34,039 full flourishing, but the mature Marks chose to write about 40 00:02:34,080 --> 00:02:38,719 surplus value, which clearly referred to economic exploitation and the 41 00:02:38,719 --> 00:02:44,080 way to overcome it. It is therefore hardly surprising that 42 00:02:44,120 --> 00:02:48,080 from the very beginning the communistic the communist country focused 43 00:02:48,080 --> 00:02:51,800 on the problem of labor, which liberated from exploitation and 44 00:02:51,840 --> 00:02:55,759 the burden of surplus value, would bring an unprecedented increase 45 00:02:55,879 --> 00:02:59,800 in productivity. These countries and their governments fought a never ending, 46 00:02:59,800 --> 00:03:04,400 by unfortunately persistently unsuccessful battle to produce enough goods for 47 00:03:04,439 --> 00:03:07,719 their citizens, and the more they failed, the more they 48 00:03:07,800 --> 00:03:12,439 aspired to superiority over capitalist economies. That's one of the 49 00:03:12,439 --> 00:03:15,960 problems that you have with the state when the state 50 00:03:16,080 --> 00:03:20,960 is there to solve problems for you and not protect 51 00:03:21,039 --> 00:03:27,000 you and protect your culture and protect what you're If 52 00:03:27,000 --> 00:03:34,439 they're stepping in, well, if something fails, if their solution fails, 53 00:03:35,319 --> 00:03:37,960 they're not going to give it back to you so 54 00:03:38,080 --> 00:03:40,360 that you can figure it out. They're just going to 55 00:03:40,479 --> 00:03:45,159 try and keep correcting it and finding a solution themselves. 56 00:03:47,080 --> 00:03:49,719 And if there's no one there who knows how to 57 00:03:49,759 --> 00:03:52,639 do it or is willing to do it, or if 58 00:03:52,680 --> 00:03:58,039 they deliberately understand that the more problems that you have, 59 00:03:58,120 --> 00:04:01,080 the more problems a society has, the more you need 60 00:04:01,159 --> 00:04:06,439 them well eu up the creek. No matter how much 61 00:04:06,479 --> 00:04:10,199 they mobilized, mass production called for extra effort, designed ever 62 00:04:10,280 --> 00:04:14,520 more ambitious five year plans, the shortages of goods persisted, 63 00:04:14,960 --> 00:04:17,680 and the distance between the standard of living under capitalism 64 00:04:17,759 --> 00:04:23,079 and socialism steadily increased. No major economic problem was ever solved. 65 00:04:23,600 --> 00:04:26,199 All the riots and revolutions that broke out in communist 66 00:04:26,279 --> 00:04:30,000 countries had economic roots. This was not the only reason 67 00:04:30,040 --> 00:04:36,120 they occurred, but was nevertheless very important. The communists also 68 00:04:36,199 --> 00:04:39,560 sought to provide citizens with adequate servings of pleasure, to 69 00:04:39,600 --> 00:04:43,439 be enjoyed privately, but also, and more importantly, with their 70 00:04:43,480 --> 00:04:47,199 satisfaction showing for the world to see. At the beginning, 71 00:04:47,240 --> 00:04:50,360 the latter was confined to simple signs, usually by working 72 00:04:50,399 --> 00:04:53,800 men and women, who, after a day's hard work, danced 73 00:04:53,800 --> 00:04:56,759 and sang in the streets to the tune of propagandistic songs. 74 00:04:57,399 --> 00:05:02,639 Over time, with progressive stabilization, the communists discovered that pleasure 75 00:05:02,680 --> 00:05:06,839 and entertainment were an extremely serious political matter. They realized 76 00:05:06,839 --> 00:05:10,240 that if a communist society was to resist a capitalist sentation, 77 00:05:10,759 --> 00:05:13,800 it should secure a comparable level of consumer goods for 78 00:05:13,839 --> 00:05:18,680 its citizens. A model communist man was thus defined by 79 00:05:18,720 --> 00:05:26,639 three elements ideology, work, and leisure. Once these three objectives 80 00:05:26,639 --> 00:05:29,480 were fulfilled, it was to be expected that the communist 81 00:05:29,519 --> 00:05:33,560 citizen would internalize his deep commitment to the system, work 82 00:05:33,600 --> 00:05:37,079 efficiently and abandoned for good the idea of the revolt, 83 00:05:37,360 --> 00:05:41,279 because after work he would have sufficient access to enjoyable activities. 84 00:05:42,040 --> 00:05:44,759 When compared to the full pathos of the declarations of 85 00:05:44,800 --> 00:05:49,360 the classics of Marxism promising man's spectacular flourishing under the 86 00:05:49,360 --> 00:05:54,199 communist system, it is hard, indeed, not to marvel. It 87 00:05:54,240 --> 00:05:58,360 is hard, indeed, not to marvel about a dramatic reduction 88 00:05:58,759 --> 00:06:04,600 in expectation. Liberal and democratic thought has been from the 89 00:06:04,680 --> 00:06:08,279 very beginning, with few exceptions, minimalist when it comes to 90 00:06:08,319 --> 00:06:12,680 its image of the human being. The triumph of liberalism 91 00:06:12,720 --> 00:06:17,279 and democracy was supposed to be emancipatory, also in the 92 00:06:17,319 --> 00:06:20,360 sense that man was to become free from excessive demands 93 00:06:20,399 --> 00:06:24,319 imposed on him by unrealistic metaphysics invented by an aristocratic 94 00:06:24,399 --> 00:06:28,560 culture in antiquity and the Middle Ages. In other words, 95 00:06:28,560 --> 00:06:31,040 an important part of the message of modernity was to 96 00:06:31,120 --> 00:06:36,519 legitimize a lowering of human aspirations. Aspiring to great goals 97 00:06:36,600 --> 00:06:39,879 was not ruled out in particular cases, but greatness was 98 00:06:39,920 --> 00:06:43,800 no longer inscribed in the essence of humanity. The main 99 00:06:43,839 --> 00:06:48,759 principle behind the minimalist perspective was equality. From the point 100 00:06:48,800 --> 00:06:52,879 of view of a liberal order, one cannot prioritize human objectives. 101 00:06:53,439 --> 00:06:56,759 Only the means can be prioritized in terms of efficiency, 102 00:06:57,160 --> 00:07:00,720 provided this does not jeopardize the rules of peaceful cooperation. 103 00:07:02,600 --> 00:07:06,720 In parenthesis, it is neither less nor more rational to 104 00:07:06,800 --> 00:07:11,000 desire the wealth of Croesus than the poverty of a 105 00:07:11,000 --> 00:07:18,000 Buddhist monk, wrote the liberal economist Ludwig von Mises. There were, 106 00:07:18,079 --> 00:07:21,480 as I have said, exceptions to this view, few but 107 00:07:21,560 --> 00:07:25,759 worth noting. Among the eighteenth century authors, Kant, who defended 108 00:07:25,800 --> 00:07:29,480 liberalism set up high standards for humanity. In the nineteenth century, 109 00:07:29,560 --> 00:07:32,399 John Stuart Mill and T. H. Green had similar intentions. 110 00:07:33,079 --> 00:07:36,560 The last two aptly perceived the danger of mediocrity that 111 00:07:36,600 --> 00:07:41,439 the democratic role was inconspicuously imposing on modern societies. They 112 00:07:41,480 --> 00:07:45,800 both believed differences, notwithstanding that some form of liberalism, or 113 00:07:45,879 --> 00:07:49,279 rather a philosophy of liberty, was a possible remedy to 114 00:07:49,319 --> 00:07:55,040 the creeping disease of mediocrity. Mill remained under the partial, 115 00:07:55,279 --> 00:07:59,600 albeit indirect influence of German romanticism, and thus attributed a 116 00:07:59,600 --> 00:08:04,360 particular role to great creative individuals whose exceptionality or even 117 00:08:04,399 --> 00:08:08,240 eccentricity could, in a free environment pull men out of 118 00:08:08,279 --> 00:08:15,000 a democratic slumber. But these ideas did. But these ideas 119 00:08:15,000 --> 00:08:18,600 did not find followers, and liberal democratic thought and practice 120 00:08:18,680 --> 00:08:23,519 increasingly fell into the logic of minimalism. Lowering the requirements 121 00:08:23,639 --> 00:08:26,959 is a process that has no end. Once people became 122 00:08:27,560 --> 00:08:32,559 become used to disqualifying certain standards as too high, impractical, 123 00:08:32,720 --> 00:08:36,039 or unnecessary, is only a matter of time before inertia 124 00:08:36,120 --> 00:08:40,039 takes its course and even the new lowered standards are 125 00:08:40,080 --> 00:08:43,559 deemed unacceptable. One can look at the history of liberal 126 00:08:43,639 --> 00:08:46,759 democracy as a gradual sliding down from the high to 127 00:08:46,840 --> 00:08:51,360 the low, from the refined to the course. Quite often 128 00:08:51,399 --> 00:08:55,200 a step down has been welcomed as refreshing, natural, and healthy, 129 00:08:55,240 --> 00:08:58,720 and indeed it sometimes was. But whatever the merits of 130 00:08:58,759 --> 00:09:04,799 this process of simplify, it too often brought vulgarity to language, behavior, education, 131 00:09:05,080 --> 00:09:09,840 and moral rules. The growing vulgarity of form was particularly striking, 132 00:09:10,000 --> 00:09:14,879 especially in the last decades, moving away from sophistication and decorum. 133 00:09:15,559 --> 00:09:19,240 A liberal democratic man refused to learn these artificial and 134 00:09:19,320 --> 00:09:23,600 awkward arrangements, the usefulness of which seemed to him a 135 00:09:23,639 --> 00:09:27,759 first doubtful and soon null. He felt he had no 136 00:09:27,840 --> 00:09:30,519 time for them, apparently believing that their absence would make 137 00:09:30,559 --> 00:09:34,159 life easier and more enjoyable. In their place, he established 138 00:09:34,240 --> 00:09:40,480 new criteria ease, practicality, usefulness, pleasure, convenience, and immediate gratification, 139 00:09:41,159 --> 00:09:43,279 the combination of which turned out to be a deadly 140 00:09:43,320 --> 00:09:48,320 weapon against the old social forms. The old customs crumbled, 141 00:09:48,960 --> 00:09:52,759 and so did rules of propriety, a sense of decorum, 142 00:09:53,320 --> 00:10:05,840 a respect for hierarchy. So does what it is intended 143 00:10:05,879 --> 00:10:16,159 to do to destroy hierarchy, to destroy the past, to 144 00:10:16,600 --> 00:10:20,960 seek to put mankind on a new path, and a 145 00:10:21,000 --> 00:10:28,200 path that is permanent. So there's no stability, there's no order, 146 00:10:28,639 --> 00:10:34,559 it's constant change. These changes were often attributed to the 147 00:10:34,600 --> 00:10:38,120 deplorable influence of the bourgeoisie, the class that was said 148 00:10:38,159 --> 00:10:42,080 to embody the disappearance of forms and the vulgarity of 149 00:10:42,120 --> 00:10:46,679 the modern eraror. There was an immense output of creative 150 00:10:46,679 --> 00:10:51,440 works depicting the shallowness of the mercantile civilization. The antidotes 151 00:10:51,480 --> 00:10:55,039 of commerce was as evidenced by Thomas Mann's Budden Brooks 152 00:10:55,399 --> 00:11:01,080 and John Galsworthy's The Fourth Site Saga art as a 153 00:11:01,120 --> 00:11:05,799 disinterested expression of imagination in pursuit of the beautiful and 154 00:11:05,879 --> 00:11:11,159 the sublime. But over time it became clear that commerce 155 00:11:11,200 --> 00:11:14,639 and capitalism had been blamed somewhat hastily, and that the 156 00:11:14,639 --> 00:11:19,559 cause is laid deeper. More perspective thinkers soon realized that 157 00:11:19,600 --> 00:11:24,960 the very successive technology, productivity, and industry, that great achievement 158 00:11:25,039 --> 00:11:29,480 of the genius of modern man, was conducive, as Jose 159 00:11:29,679 --> 00:11:35,399 Ortega Gassett persuasively argued to the sterility of imagination and 160 00:11:35,480 --> 00:11:39,840 the triumph of self satisfied pettiness. There was and still 161 00:11:40,039 --> 00:11:43,919 is something paradoxical in the fact that the historically unprecedented 162 00:11:44,320 --> 00:11:48,279 explosion of technology and industry, which brought wealth and security 163 00:11:48,279 --> 00:11:51,000 to millions of people, and which would not have been 164 00:11:51,080 --> 00:11:54,320 possible without a high degree of creativity, was a major 165 00:11:54,399 --> 00:12:00,279 factor in reducing people's aspirations and astonishingly giving mediocrity a 166 00:12:00,360 --> 00:12:06,879 touch of respectability. Man, feeling secure and enjoying the increasingly 167 00:12:06,919 --> 00:12:11,600 abundant benefits of a modern civilization, was slowly releasing himself 168 00:12:11,639 --> 00:12:15,919 from the compelling pressure of strict and demanding rules derived 169 00:12:15,919 --> 00:12:20,480 from religion and classical ethics. Have to leave those things, 170 00:12:20,519 --> 00:12:25,000 those antiquated things behind. Can have progress if you have 171 00:12:25,120 --> 00:12:30,000 those right. He was no longer in the mood to 172 00:12:30,080 --> 00:12:33,320 embark on a painful and uncertain journey to higher goals, 173 00:12:33,440 --> 00:12:36,759 on which John Stuart Mill elaborated with such hope, and 174 00:12:36,799 --> 00:12:41,159 his hopes were high. In a famous passage of his utilitarianism, 175 00:12:41,519 --> 00:12:44,679 he said that although man aspires to satisfy his drive 176 00:12:44,759 --> 00:12:48,840 for pleasure, he will always prefer to be unsatisfied Socrates 177 00:12:49,000 --> 00:12:53,360 rather than a satisfied pig. Why the argument was the 178 00:12:53,440 --> 00:12:57,519 following man is cognizant of both states, the Socratic and 179 00:12:57,600 --> 00:13:01,159 the Swinish, and there is no way that reason and 180 00:13:01,240 --> 00:13:04,200 conscious will allow him to opt for being a pig. 181 00:13:05,039 --> 00:13:08,799 The argument thus assumes, in an unequivocable way, that some 182 00:13:08,960 --> 00:13:12,279 ways of life are objectively better than others, that the 183 00:13:12,279 --> 00:13:16,000 Socratic model is clearly superior to that of common man, 184 00:13:16,200 --> 00:13:18,360 and that there is nothing in human nature that can 185 00:13:18,399 --> 00:13:24,679 make people oblivious to this fact. This last assumption, however, 186 00:13:24,720 --> 00:13:27,600 has been challenged since the very beginning of modern times. 187 00:13:28,080 --> 00:13:32,320 In liberal democracy, especially in recent decades, A generally acknowledge 188 00:13:32,440 --> 00:13:36,480 moral directive for bids looking down on people's moral priorities, 189 00:13:36,799 --> 00:13:40,200 because in the present society equality is the norm, not 190 00:13:40,320 --> 00:13:46,639 the hierarchy. But equality as always has its limitations. Mediocrity 191 00:13:46,679 --> 00:13:51,720 has been generally though tacitly acknowledged as a non controversial, 192 00:13:52,440 --> 00:13:56,600 if not preferred model, whereas the Socratic model, though nominally 193 00:13:56,720 --> 00:13:59,759 viewed as equal among others, has lost its appeal and 194 00:13:59,799 --> 00:14:04,240 so report from the democratic mainstream as too aristocratic and elitist. 195 00:14:04,960 --> 00:14:07,759 In theory, the Socratic way is as good as any other. 196 00:14:08,320 --> 00:14:11,600 In practice, that is hopelessly at odds with modern preferences. 197 00:14:12,000 --> 00:14:15,320 From a new perspective, the pig would seem, on reflection, 198 00:14:15,799 --> 00:14:26,360 a stronger competitor. If you're following you see this path, 199 00:14:26,919 --> 00:14:33,080 where this path has brought us the gradual process in 200 00:14:33,120 --> 00:14:36,080 which to higher aspirations were being replaced by the lower 201 00:14:36,159 --> 00:14:40,360 tell us no doubt something about human nature, namely that 202 00:14:40,519 --> 00:14:44,120 unless met with strong resistance or an attractive inspiration, it 203 00:14:44,159 --> 00:14:47,000 shows a powerful tendency to be lured by the common 204 00:14:47,240 --> 00:14:50,919 and the mediocre. Common indeed has ceased to be a 205 00:14:50,919 --> 00:14:54,960 word of disapproval in a liberal democratic rhetoric, or rather 206 00:14:55,360 --> 00:14:58,240 has ceased to be used at all, When so much 207 00:14:58,320 --> 00:15:01,759 is common, nothing really is. This change is but a 208 00:15:01,799 --> 00:15:04,960 small signal of a corruption of basic categories by which, 209 00:15:05,000 --> 00:15:11,960 for centuries people described and evaluated their conduct. Especially striking 210 00:15:12,080 --> 00:15:14,159 is a change in the meaning of the word dignity, 211 00:15:14,519 --> 00:15:17,080 which since antiquity has been used as a term of 212 00:15:17,240 --> 00:15:24,039 obligation obliege. If one was presumed to have dignity, one 213 00:15:24,120 --> 00:15:26,759 was expected to behave in a proper way, as required 214 00:15:26,799 --> 00:15:31,480 by his elevated status. Dignity was something to be earned, deserved, 215 00:15:31,559 --> 00:15:35,240 and confirmed by acting in accordance with the higher standards 216 00:15:35,240 --> 00:15:39,039 imposed by a community or religion, for instance, by empowering 217 00:15:39,039 --> 00:15:42,600 a certain person with higher responsibilities, or by claiming that 218 00:15:42,679 --> 00:15:46,720 man was created in God's image. Dignity was an attribute 219 00:15:46,720 --> 00:15:50,679 that ennobled those who acquired it as no bless obliege. 220 00:15:51,200 --> 00:15:55,120 Dignity was an obligation to seek some form of self improvement, 221 00:15:55,399 --> 00:15:59,000 however vaguely understood, but certainly closer to the Socratic way 222 00:15:59,320 --> 00:16:02,759 and further away from its opposite. The attribute was not 223 00:16:02,799 --> 00:16:06,120 bestowed forever. One could always lose it when acting in 224 00:16:06,960 --> 00:16:12,840 an undignified way. At some point, the concept of dignity 225 00:16:12,919 --> 00:16:16,159 was given a different meaning contrary to the original. This 226 00:16:16,240 --> 00:16:20,000 happened mainly through the intercession of the language of human rights, 227 00:16:20,159 --> 00:16:24,879 especially after the nineteen forty eight Universal Declaration. The idea 228 00:16:24,919 --> 00:16:29,279 of human beings having inalienable rights is counterintuitive and extremely 229 00:16:29,360 --> 00:16:34,080 difficult to justify. It may make some philosophical sense if 230 00:16:34,120 --> 00:16:36,679 derived from a strong theory of human nature, such as 231 00:16:36,759 --> 00:16:41,399 one finds in classical metaphysics. However, when we accept the 232 00:16:41,480 --> 00:16:45,799 weak theory, attributing to human beings only elementary qualities and 233 00:16:45,879 --> 00:16:51,840 deliberately disregarding strong metaphysical assumptions, then the idea of rights loss. 234 00:16:52,039 --> 00:16:56,519 Then the idea of rights loses its plausibility. It may 235 00:16:56,559 --> 00:16:59,320 of course be sanctioned as a mere product of legislation 236 00:16:59,360 --> 00:17:02,679 through a parliament entry or court ruling which entitles people 237 00:17:02,679 --> 00:17:06,079 to make various claims called rights, but these claims will 238 00:17:06,119 --> 00:17:09,559 be no more than arbitrary decisions by particular groups of 239 00:17:09,599 --> 00:17:13,119 politicians or judges who choose to do this, rather than 240 00:17:13,200 --> 00:17:19,079 due to circumstances, ideology, or individual predilections, or under pressure 241 00:17:19,119 --> 00:17:22,599 from interest groups. In other words, they're not It's not 242 00:17:22,680 --> 00:17:26,640 going to happen organically. It will be imposed from top down, 243 00:17:29,240 --> 00:17:32,440 and the way it should be when you properly understand 244 00:17:32,480 --> 00:17:40,039 top down is the top is to protect you and 245 00:17:40,079 --> 00:17:43,720 your beliefs and your predilections and your ideology and what 246 00:17:43,960 --> 00:17:48,200 you stand for. It would indeed be silly to call 247 00:17:48,240 --> 00:17:55,279 such claims inalienable, because inalienability, by definition, cannot be legislated. Thus, 248 00:17:55,319 --> 00:17:59,599 in order to strengthen the unjustified end within the accepted 249 00:17:59,599 --> 00:18:04,440 concept victual framework unjustifiable notion of human rights, the concept 250 00:18:04,519 --> 00:18:07,680 of dignity was invoked, but in a peculiar way so 251 00:18:07,799 --> 00:18:10,000 as to make it seem to imply more than it 252 00:18:10,039 --> 00:18:14,200 actually did. The concept created an illusion of a strong 253 00:18:14,279 --> 00:18:17,759 view of human nature and of endowing this nature with 254 00:18:17,920 --> 00:18:22,880 qualities nowhere explicitly specified, by implying something noble being in 255 00:18:22,920 --> 00:18:27,960 an immortal soul and innate desire for good, etc. But, 256 00:18:28,039 --> 00:18:31,359 on the other hand, in using this concept unaccompanied by 257 00:18:31,359 --> 00:18:35,440 other qualifications, the framers of the human rights documents apparently 258 00:18:35,519 --> 00:18:39,079 felt exempted from any need to present an explicit and 259 00:18:39,200 --> 00:18:43,559 serious philosophical interpretation of human nature and to explain the 260 00:18:43,559 --> 00:18:46,920 grounds and the conditions on which one could conceive of 261 00:18:46,960 --> 00:18:52,119 its dignity. This operation, and more precisely, sleight of hand 262 00:18:52,519 --> 00:18:55,799 and not very fair to boot led to a sudden 263 00:18:55,880 --> 00:18:58,960 revival of the concept of human dignity, but with a 264 00:18:59,119 --> 00:19:07,480 radically different meaning, one that politicians and especially in the 265 00:19:07,519 --> 00:19:15,119 democratic framework, could now enforce, giving them increasing their power, 266 00:19:16,279 --> 00:19:24,160 increasing their importance. Since the issue of universal declaration, dignity 267 00:19:24,200 --> 00:19:28,920 has no longer been about obligation but about claims and entitlements. 268 00:19:29,519 --> 00:19:32,480 The new dignity did not oblige people to strive for 269 00:19:32,559 --> 00:19:36,839 any moral merits or desert or deserts. It allowed them 270 00:19:36,920 --> 00:19:41,440 to submit whatever claims they wished, and to justify these 271 00:19:41,480 --> 00:19:44,799 claims by referring to a dignity that they possessed by 272 00:19:44,799 --> 00:19:48,680 the mere fact of being born, without any moral achievement 273 00:19:49,000 --> 00:19:52,160 or effort. In other words, they could just make shit 274 00:19:52,279 --> 00:19:57,200 up and say I deserve this, can't You can't criticize 275 00:19:57,240 --> 00:19:59,960 me because I was born with a penis and I'm 276 00:20:00,079 --> 00:20:02,720 want to cut it off or I'm going to keep 277 00:20:02,759 --> 00:20:06,319 it and you have to call me a woman, or 278 00:20:06,359 --> 00:20:08,039 I'm gonna cut it off and you have to call 279 00:20:08,119 --> 00:20:12,359 me a woman. Just to use an example from the Zeitghost, 280 00:20:15,359 --> 00:20:17,920 a person who desired to achieve the satisfaction of a 281 00:20:17,960 --> 00:20:21,480 pig was thus equally entitled to appeal to dignity to 282 00:20:21,680 --> 00:20:24,839 justify his goals, as another who tried to follow the 283 00:20:24,880 --> 00:20:28,160 path of Socrates, and each time for a pig, and 284 00:20:28,279 --> 00:20:32,519 for Socrates, this was the same dignity. A right to 285 00:20:32,559 --> 00:20:34,680 be a pig and a right to be a Socrates 286 00:20:34,759 --> 00:20:38,039 weren't in fact equal and stem from the same moral 287 00:20:38,480 --> 00:20:41,680 or rather non moral as a new dignity practically broke 288 00:20:41,759 --> 00:20:47,359 off with morality source. Having armed himself with rights, modern 289 00:20:47,400 --> 00:20:51,160 man found himself in a most comfortable situation. With no precedent. 290 00:20:51,640 --> 00:20:54,119 He no longer had to justify his claims and actions 291 00:20:54,200 --> 00:20:58,680 as long as he qualified them as rights, regardless of 292 00:20:58,720 --> 00:21:01,279 what demands he would make on the basis of those 293 00:21:01,359 --> 00:21:04,160 rights and for what purpose he would use them, He 294 00:21:04,279 --> 00:21:07,880 did not end, in fact, could not lose his dignity, 295 00:21:08,079 --> 00:21:11,640 which he had acquired for life simply by being born human, 296 00:21:13,200 --> 00:21:19,559 in some cases barely. And since having this dignity carried 297 00:21:19,599 --> 00:21:22,960 no obligation to do anything particularly good or worthy, he could, 298 00:21:23,240 --> 00:21:26,519 while constantly invoking it, make claims that were increasingly more 299 00:21:26,559 --> 00:21:33,039 absurd in demand justification, forever more questionable activities, sinking more 300 00:21:33,079 --> 00:21:35,920 and more into arrogant vulgarity. He could argue that the 301 00:21:36,000 --> 00:21:39,759 vulgarity not only did not contradict his inborn dignity, but 302 00:21:39,839 --> 00:21:42,559 it could, even by a stretch of the imagination, be 303 00:21:42,680 --> 00:21:48,319 treated as some sort of an achievement. After all, can 304 00:21:48,359 --> 00:21:51,319 a dignity that is inborn and constitutes the essence of 305 00:21:51,400 --> 00:21:55,559 humanness generate anything that would be essentially undignified or non human. 306 00:21:56,880 --> 00:21:59,799 The dignity based notion of human rights was thus both 307 00:21:59,799 --> 00:22:03,680 a powerful factor to legitimize a minimalist concept of human 308 00:22:03,759 --> 00:22:09,240 nature and its legitimate child. Moreover, it equipped modern anthropological 309 00:22:09,319 --> 00:22:14,039 minimalism with the instruments of self perpetuation, the most efficient 310 00:22:14,119 --> 00:22:17,000 instruments of this kind ever devised in the history of 311 00:22:17,039 --> 00:22:24,240 the Western societies. Six work in entertainment plus, as we 312 00:22:24,240 --> 00:22:27,519 shall see later, ideology that shaped the human existence in 313 00:22:27,559 --> 00:22:31,240 communism and gave basic content to people's lives more or 314 00:22:31,319 --> 00:22:35,119 less reflected but also caricatured what was happening to modern 315 00:22:35,160 --> 00:22:42,079 man in the capitalist civilization. In modern times, work became 316 00:22:42,319 --> 00:22:46,519 something more than earning means for survival and material security. 317 00:22:46,839 --> 00:22:50,359 It was a vocation which gave human life, discipline, meaning, 318 00:22:50,400 --> 00:22:54,559 and order. If we are to believe Max Weber, the 319 00:22:54,640 --> 00:22:58,440 first stirrings of this epoch, making change had a religious character. 320 00:22:59,039 --> 00:23:02,240 His argument was the following. The initiating factor was an 321 00:23:02,240 --> 00:23:06,880 acute and unbearable awareness typical of early Protestantism, of the 322 00:23:06,920 --> 00:23:13,119 sinfulness of human nature. Turned this turned men's minds to work, 323 00:23:13,559 --> 00:23:16,440 which they began to treat as an expression of piety, 324 00:23:16,799 --> 00:23:23,039 imposing on human sinfulness some form of discipline. But because 325 00:23:23,079 --> 00:23:26,119 the fruits of work could not be enjoyed, such enjoyment 326 00:23:26,160 --> 00:23:29,799 would be sinful, one could not consume them. And because 327 00:23:29,839 --> 00:23:32,720 they could not be consumed, then, and this is where 328 00:23:32,759 --> 00:23:37,400 the actual civilizational revolution happened, they had to be invested. 329 00:23:39,599 --> 00:23:43,079 This was a fundamental change. What it meant was that, 330 00:23:43,119 --> 00:23:45,759 for the first time on such a scale in their history, 331 00:23:45,799 --> 00:23:49,960 people abandoned a deeply embedded desire to seek wealthy, to 332 00:23:50,039 --> 00:23:53,599 seek wealth simply as a means to indulge in expensive 333 00:23:54,000 --> 00:23:59,759 and extravagant whims. Work still produced wealth, as it was 334 00:23:59,799 --> 00:24:03,559 always hoped it would, but was no longer valued primarily 335 00:24:03,599 --> 00:24:08,240 as a means to consumption discipline. Work became its own 336 00:24:08,400 --> 00:24:14,039 proper reward, devoid of dreams about future joys and satisfied temptations, 337 00:24:14,079 --> 00:24:17,440 being completely rationalized and subordinated to a long term plan 338 00:24:17,519 --> 00:24:21,799 of action. In Weber's view, this new approach to consumption 339 00:24:22,200 --> 00:24:25,240 as being separated from pleasure and postponed to an indefinite 340 00:24:25,319 --> 00:24:29,000 future was at the root of an unprecedented economic growth 341 00:24:29,000 --> 00:24:35,440 that was brought about by capitalism. Faber's analysis give us 342 00:24:35,480 --> 00:24:39,279 a Abor's analyzes gives us a good insight into why 343 00:24:39,319 --> 00:24:43,599 and how modern thinking justified the lowering of aspirations. A 344 00:24:43,640 --> 00:24:47,359 minimalist view of human nature, initially apparent first and foremost 345 00:24:47,359 --> 00:24:50,920 in Protestantism, but later on expanding to other areas of 346 00:24:50,920 --> 00:24:54,839 the Western world, had a specific nature. The basic cause 347 00:24:54,880 --> 00:24:58,960 of the change was purely religious. A new doctrine of predestination, 348 00:24:59,480 --> 00:25:03,400 as well as as fundamental weight attributed to the original sin, 349 00:25:03,599 --> 00:25:09,119 precluded any form of moral and spiritual perfectibility. Big plans 350 00:25:09,160 --> 00:25:12,279 for man were no longer feasible. But at the same time, 351 00:25:12,359 --> 00:25:15,960 the low level to which human aspirations were reduced acquired 352 00:25:16,440 --> 00:25:20,519 a noble, sometimes even heroic trait, which, let us add 353 00:25:20,920 --> 00:25:25,599 completely disappeared together with the liberalization of the Protestant doctrine. 354 00:25:25,680 --> 00:25:30,200 It is true that man acknowledged his powerlessness vi visavi 355 00:25:31,240 --> 00:25:35,359 the great plans, those plans that in the past were 356 00:25:35,359 --> 00:25:38,799 said to lead him into vanity, but he put all 357 00:25:38,839 --> 00:25:41,519 his energy and will into doing as best he could 358 00:25:41,599 --> 00:25:44,559 in the lower realm, the only one accessible to him 359 00:25:44,599 --> 00:25:49,240 because of his corrupted nature, and this realm was work. 360 00:25:51,400 --> 00:25:56,000 You see this in politics nowadays, with the we lose 361 00:25:56,160 --> 00:26:01,759 down here form of Christianity. Who's like, oh, no, we're 362 00:26:01,359 --> 00:26:05,480 we're not supposed to be involved in politics. You know, 363 00:26:05,559 --> 00:26:10,640 we have original sin and no God. You know, Jesus 364 00:26:10,640 --> 00:26:14,079 told us to love our enemies. He didn't tell you 365 00:26:14,119 --> 00:26:19,839 to love his enemies. I swear some people, some I 366 00:26:19,920 --> 00:26:22,799 have to assume. Some look at the Spanish Civil War 367 00:26:23,720 --> 00:26:28,279 and the nationalist side, which was you know, probably what 368 00:26:28,400 --> 00:26:32,039 ninety percent Catholic, and just assumed that those people were 369 00:26:32,079 --> 00:26:36,000 complete sinners, that they were wrong, that they should have 370 00:26:36,160 --> 00:26:40,920 let their country be handed over to communists and anarchists, 371 00:26:40,960 --> 00:26:44,480 and that you know, their plans to kill half the 372 00:26:44,519 --> 00:26:49,599 country so that they could institute their new communist order, 373 00:26:49,680 --> 00:26:52,960 their new socialist order, that they should have just allowed 374 00:26:52,960 --> 00:26:57,839 that to happen, because you know who cares this para 375 00:26:58,279 --> 00:27:00,839 this paradoxical view of human nature, sure brought about by 376 00:27:00,839 --> 00:27:04,720 the Protestant revolution. Man belittled his status while at the 377 00:27:04,759 --> 00:27:09,279 same time drastically increasing his requirements within the lower realm 378 00:27:09,640 --> 00:27:13,839 could not for too long retain its viability. The natural 379 00:27:13,920 --> 00:27:17,240 downward pull of minimalism turned out to be stronger, as 380 00:27:17,240 --> 00:27:21,279 the initial discipline had to become less and less compelling. 381 00:27:22,039 --> 00:27:25,599 At some point, the old capitalism, which had rejected consumerism 382 00:27:25,680 --> 00:27:29,279 and owned and owed its success precisely to this rejection, 383 00:27:29,839 --> 00:27:32,720 was transformed into a system in which consumption not only 384 00:27:32,759 --> 00:27:35,559 came to be accepted, but in fact took control of 385 00:27:35,599 --> 00:27:40,960 the entire economic mechanism and gradually marginized most human incentives, 386 00:27:41,279 --> 00:27:44,519 eventually to become the single most powerful source of motivation. 387 00:27:46,400 --> 00:27:48,960 The roads to this stage was complex, and getting there 388 00:27:49,119 --> 00:27:52,319 took a long time. But before this happened, the modern 389 00:27:52,400 --> 00:27:56,240 bourgeois civilization had its long period of glory, when, by 390 00:27:56,279 --> 00:27:59,880 having espoused the classic concept of human nature and releasing 391 00:28:00,039 --> 00:28:03,839 all channels of human creativity through the capitalist revolution, it 392 00:28:03,880 --> 00:28:08,960 managed to transform spectacularly our civilization into accomplished, extraordinary things 393 00:28:09,440 --> 00:28:13,839 in all areas of life. The consumerist change was, of 394 00:28:13,880 --> 00:28:16,759 course to be expected by some and welcomed by many. 395 00:28:18,559 --> 00:28:23,960 Gradgrind of Dickens's hard times, a strict fanatically disciplined modern men, 396 00:28:24,200 --> 00:28:29,279 mercilessly attempted to eradicate human weakness. Is a despicable figure, 397 00:28:29,359 --> 00:28:33,000 and as such perfectly illustrates a negative perception of a 398 00:28:33,039 --> 00:28:38,559 classical capitalist by the humanist critics of a modern society. 399 00:28:39,160 --> 00:28:43,400 Mister gradgrind is deaf to temptations, unresponsive to warm emotions 400 00:28:43,920 --> 00:28:48,400 and simple pleasures, motivated purely by new rationality and by 401 00:28:48,440 --> 00:28:53,839 nothing else. His callousness seems almost inhuman. But capitalism finally 402 00:28:53,960 --> 00:28:59,119 changed in the severity of the world's gradgrinds disappeared. The 403 00:28:59,240 --> 00:29:03,559 religious back ground of the new economy, so persuasively described 404 00:29:03,559 --> 00:29:07,799 by Weber, evaporated, and the capitalism itself, while continuing the 405 00:29:07,799 --> 00:29:11,039 ethic of the discipline of work and pushing productivity to 406 00:29:11,119 --> 00:29:15,599 new records of efficiency and inventiveness, liberated itself completely from 407 00:29:15,599 --> 00:29:20,920 the Protestant gloom. The liberal democratic society abandoned the old 408 00:29:20,960 --> 00:29:24,559 time rigor without regret. The discipline of work and high 409 00:29:24,640 --> 00:29:28,519 requirements of productivity persisted in the new times, but in 410 00:29:28,559 --> 00:29:31,720 other matters man refused to go back to his previous self. 411 00:29:32,440 --> 00:29:35,839 Once having made a decision about having his aspirations reduced, 412 00:29:36,160 --> 00:29:40,400 he unabashedly enjoyed this new situation and compensated the strict 413 00:29:40,440 --> 00:29:47,119 work imperatives by his ever increasing indulgence in entertainment. But 414 00:29:47,240 --> 00:29:51,240 this new predilection, so different from his previous somberness, had 415 00:29:51,279 --> 00:29:57,559 consequences unanticipated and even unfathomed by Weber. Naturally, entertainment always 416 00:29:57,599 --> 00:30:00,880 constituted a strong inclination of human being existence, but for 417 00:30:00,920 --> 00:30:05,039 centuries it was regorsly separated from the serious component of 418 00:30:05,119 --> 00:30:11,200 man's life. Lent and Carnival could not be confused, because 419 00:30:11,240 --> 00:30:15,240 each of them responded to different needs and performed different functions. 420 00:30:15,880 --> 00:30:19,440 But when the minimalist anthropology took hold, the barrier separating 421 00:30:19,519 --> 00:30:22,480 one from the other weakened, and the temptations to give 422 00:30:22,599 --> 00:30:27,680 entertainment more and more prominence became irresistible, particularly in societies 423 00:30:27,720 --> 00:30:31,359 in which the fear of sin had lost its deterring power. 424 00:30:34,359 --> 00:30:37,160 In today's world, entertainment is not just a pastime or 425 00:30:37,200 --> 00:30:41,759 a style, but a substance that permeates everything schools and universities, 426 00:30:41,839 --> 00:30:46,839 upbringing of children, intellectual life, art, morality, and religion. It 427 00:30:46,880 --> 00:30:53,079 has become dear to the hearts of students, professors, entrepreneurs, journalists, engineers, scientists, writers, 428 00:30:53,319 --> 00:30:59,960 even priests. Entertainment imposes itself psychologically, intellectually, socially, and also 429 00:31:00,000 --> 00:31:03,880 so strange as it may sound, spiritually. A failure to 430 00:31:03,920 --> 00:31:07,359 provide human endeavors even the most noble ones, with an 431 00:31:07,519 --> 00:31:16,839 entertaining rapping is today unthinkable and borders on sin. It's 432 00:31:17,319 --> 00:31:20,319 I mean, think about everything. It's like, well, how are 433 00:31:20,319 --> 00:31:23,079 you gonna sell this? I mean, you're not going to 434 00:31:23,160 --> 00:31:25,160 get anybody to go to your church unless it's a 435 00:31:25,200 --> 00:31:35,839 freaking Coldplay concert, right, I mean everything is entertainment. Advertising 436 00:31:36,519 --> 00:31:44,519 has the commerce, super Bowl commercials, it's all entertainment. People 437 00:31:44,559 --> 00:31:47,319 make fun of people who play video games, make fun 438 00:31:47,359 --> 00:31:53,359 of people who watch sports ball. The modern sense of 439 00:31:53,480 --> 00:31:59,359 entertainment increasingly resembles what Pascal long ago called divertisement. That is, 440 00:31:59,480 --> 00:32:02,960 an activitvity, as he wrote in his Thoughts, that separates 441 00:32:03,039 --> 00:32:06,440 us from seriousness of existence and fills this existence with 442 00:32:06,599 --> 00:32:12,400 false content. Divertissement is thus not only being entertained in 443 00:32:12,440 --> 00:32:15,359 the ordinary sense of the word, but living and acting 444 00:32:15,440 --> 00:32:19,480 within artificial rules that organize our lives, setting conventional and 445 00:32:19,519 --> 00:32:24,160 mostly trivial goals which we pursue, getting involved in disputes 446 00:32:24,200 --> 00:32:28,599 and competition, aspiring to honors, making careers, and doing everything 447 00:32:28,640 --> 00:32:32,160 that would turn our thoughts away from fundamental existence matter 448 00:32:32,359 --> 00:32:38,200 existential matters. By escaping the questions of the ultimate meaning 449 00:32:38,279 --> 00:32:41,359 of our own lives or of human life in general, 450 00:32:41,759 --> 00:32:45,759 our minds slowly get used used to that fictitious reality 451 00:32:46,279 --> 00:32:49,599 which we take for the real one and our in 452 00:32:49,680 --> 00:32:54,759 our lord by its attractions. The difference between Pascal's divertisement 453 00:32:55,119 --> 00:32:58,519 and today's entertainment, or rather having fun, as it has 454 00:32:58,920 --> 00:33:01,839 become customary to say say, is that the modern man, 455 00:33:02,079 --> 00:33:04,079 no matter how much a desire to have fun has 456 00:33:04,119 --> 00:33:07,160 captured his soul, knows very well that it is an 457 00:33:07,319 --> 00:33:12,039 artificial construction, not the real thing. Whether some other more 458 00:33:12,039 --> 00:33:15,880 objective reality exists is to him a matter of indifference, 459 00:33:16,240 --> 00:33:19,000 and if told there is not, he would probably still 460 00:33:19,039 --> 00:33:26,440 remain probably still remained unmoved. Having neutralized all musings about objectivity, 461 00:33:26,519 --> 00:33:30,480 the modern man takes pride in his deep involvement and entertainment, which, 462 00:33:30,559 --> 00:33:34,799 in the absence of other objective references, he considers natural. 463 00:33:37,480 --> 00:33:41,000 This aspect of entertainment and disturbing consequences of its present 464 00:33:41,039 --> 00:33:44,960 reign come under scrutiny. Scrutiny nearly a cent came under 465 00:33:44,960 --> 00:33:48,799 scrutiny nearly a century ago. Since its absorbing presence and 466 00:33:48,839 --> 00:33:52,559 its impact on human life have increased immeasurably. It is 467 00:33:52,559 --> 00:33:55,799 interesting that both the conservatives defending the classical view of 468 00:33:55,880 --> 00:33:58,920 human nature and some of the sociologists of the Frankfurt School, 469 00:33:59,319 --> 00:34:02,880 while having fun ndamental disagreements, described this new phenomenon in 470 00:34:03,000 --> 00:34:06,440 similar terms and were equally alarmed by the extent to 471 00:34:06,480 --> 00:34:09,400 which the human mind was degraded and enslaved by what 472 00:34:09,480 --> 00:34:14,480 was claimed to be an extremely pleasant, un unproblematic, but 473 00:34:14,599 --> 00:34:20,800 somehow superior form of freedom. Both groups feared that the hedge, 474 00:34:20,840 --> 00:34:26,119 money and the omnipresence of entertainment might effectively dilute a 475 00:34:26,199 --> 00:34:28,599 sense of the seriousness of existence, as well as the 476 00:34:28,639 --> 00:34:31,440 type of mindset that gives this seriousness a proper role 477 00:34:32,000 --> 00:34:35,000 in thought and action. For the first time in the 478 00:34:35,159 --> 00:34:39,039 entire history of mankind, in the entire history of mankind, 479 00:34:39,400 --> 00:34:41,760 there appeared a type of human being who thought not 480 00:34:42,320 --> 00:34:45,360 having been surrounded by entertainment from cradle to grave in 481 00:34:45,400 --> 00:34:51,480 all areas of life was an anomaly. Of course, liberal 482 00:34:51,559 --> 00:34:54,119 democracy should not be singled out as the only cause 483 00:34:54,119 --> 00:34:59,639 of this mental revolution. There were other causes, capitalism, secularism, technology, 484 00:35:00,400 --> 00:35:05,119 and other equally important factors. The fact is, however, that 485 00:35:05,159 --> 00:35:09,039 for the important reasons, liberal democracy and entertainment found enthusiastic 486 00:35:09,119 --> 00:35:14,400 allies in each other. Entertainment became the most obvious and 487 00:35:14,480 --> 00:35:18,519 direct manifestation of freedom that liberalism offered humanity, and at 488 00:35:18,559 --> 00:35:21,400 the same time the most tangible confirmation of the dominant 489 00:35:21,440 --> 00:35:26,000 status of the democratic man and his tastes. To be sure, 490 00:35:26,079 --> 00:35:29,760 his dominance was larger, deeper, and more consequential, and by 491 00:35:29,760 --> 00:35:34,039 no means exhausted itself in an inner necessity to have fun. 492 00:35:34,880 --> 00:35:38,199 And yet the omnipresence of entertainment was something by which 493 00:35:38,239 --> 00:35:42,679 the democratic man became easily recognized. It was his trademark, 494 00:35:42,719 --> 00:35:46,800 his coat of arms, his so to speak, symbolic identity 495 00:35:46,920 --> 00:35:52,719 card maasically, want to break out my Florida Panthers jersey 496 00:35:52,800 --> 00:35:56,559 or my New York Yankees hat? Are you getting it? 497 00:36:01,840 --> 00:36:06,480 Once we assume anthropological minimalism is to be a key 498 00:36:06,519 --> 00:36:10,440 to understanding today's liberal democracy, it becomes clear why the 499 00:36:10,480 --> 00:36:15,599 liberal Democrats wholeheartedly embraced a belief in the inevitability of history. 500 00:36:16,239 --> 00:36:19,039 This belief was, of course, a legitimate offspring of the 501 00:36:19,119 --> 00:36:22,840 Enlightenment faith in progress, to which the liberal Democrats are 502 00:36:22,920 --> 00:36:28,480 even more committed than the socialists themselves, also partly the 503 00:36:28,480 --> 00:36:31,840 disciples of the Enlightenment dogmas. In view of the fact 504 00:36:31,880 --> 00:36:37,400 that liberal democratic civilization brought a spectacular development of technology 505 00:36:37,440 --> 00:36:40,199 and succeeded in providing millions of people with the benefits 506 00:36:40,239 --> 00:36:45,280 of modernity, the belief in the inexorability of progress is 507 00:36:45,599 --> 00:36:49,000 at least within the limits delineated by the liberal democratic mind, 508 00:36:49,559 --> 00:36:55,719 not without rational foundations. The primary source of the belief 509 00:36:55,800 --> 00:37:00,800 in unidirectional history is thus man himself. A remark correlation 510 00:37:00,960 --> 00:37:03,960 exists between the regime and the man, one that had 511 00:37:04,239 --> 00:37:07,360 never in history been achieved on a similar scale. The 512 00:37:07,400 --> 00:37:10,079 communists attempted to mold the communist man to fit the 513 00:37:10,079 --> 00:37:14,360 institution and logic of the communist system, but suffered defeat. 514 00:37:15,199 --> 00:37:19,000 But where they failed, the liberal Democrats proved successful. If 515 00:37:19,079 --> 00:37:22,440 ever any system existed that was perfectly tailored to the 516 00:37:22,480 --> 00:37:25,880 aspirations of the people inhabiting it, it was liberal democracy. 517 00:37:26,119 --> 00:37:29,159 And if ever any human model existed that was perfectly 518 00:37:29,159 --> 00:37:32,679 tailored to opportunities offered by the political system and of 519 00:37:32,719 --> 00:37:38,920 the aspirations enhanced by it it was a liberal democratic man. 520 00:37:40,440 --> 00:37:44,199 Alternative political models have not been drawn or even seriously considered, 521 00:37:44,280 --> 00:37:48,800 and the effectiveness of the regime is still impressively high. Therefore, 522 00:37:48,800 --> 00:37:52,519 an expansion of liberal democracy will probably continue, and the 523 00:37:52,559 --> 00:37:55,679 system will continue to confirm the set of beliefs that 524 00:37:55,760 --> 00:38:00,639 the inhabitant of the regime not only claims to live by, 525 00:38:01,119 --> 00:38:03,719 but also holds to be the only set of beliefs 526 00:38:03,719 --> 00:38:10,599 that are worth living by. He feels privileged and lucky 527 00:38:10,679 --> 00:38:13,440 not to be like those unfortunate fools or rascals who 528 00:38:13,480 --> 00:38:17,760 have failed to accept the obvious. All these factors, taken together, 529 00:38:17,880 --> 00:38:20,400 reinforce his belief that if the world is to survive 530 00:38:20,440 --> 00:38:23,519 and develop, it must move on in one and only 531 00:38:23,599 --> 00:38:29,639 one direction. His own. This view has become contagious, and 532 00:38:29,679 --> 00:38:32,320 it quickly spread to the communist countries at the time 533 00:38:32,719 --> 00:38:35,960 when they face fundamental future choices. After having parted with 534 00:38:36,039 --> 00:38:40,280 the old regime, one would think the fall of an unpopular, coercive, 535 00:38:40,280 --> 00:38:43,280 and evil regime would provide a unique opportunity for the 536 00:38:43,360 --> 00:38:47,000 nation to develop its own institutions at every level of 537 00:38:47,039 --> 00:38:50,639 social and political life, the institutions that would be responsive 538 00:38:50,679 --> 00:38:53,840 to its own needs, bearing witness to its own historical 539 00:38:53,880 --> 00:38:57,599 experience and reinforcing a sense of a newly gained freedom 540 00:38:57,679 --> 00:39:01,679 and autonomy. This was the time when the creative potential 541 00:39:01,679 --> 00:39:04,159 of the nation released from a long period of enslavement 542 00:39:04,519 --> 00:39:09,239 should have manifested itself fully and most enthusiastically. But in 543 00:39:09,280 --> 00:39:12,280 Eastern Europe this was not the case. As if charmed 544 00:39:12,280 --> 00:39:16,960 by powerful but invisible political magicians, the East Europeans immediately 545 00:39:17,039 --> 00:39:19,679 succumbed to what they considered to be the imperative of 546 00:39:19,719 --> 00:39:25,400 the historical development of Western civilization. The required attitude of 547 00:39:25,400 --> 00:39:29,920 a newly liberated nation was not that of creativity, but conformity. 548 00:39:32,159 --> 00:39:34,679 The events that took place after nineteen eighty nine shattered 549 00:39:34,679 --> 00:39:38,079 the illusions many people harbored, which in the recent past 550 00:39:38,119 --> 00:39:41,239 had not seemed illusions at all, but had possessed some 551 00:39:41,360 --> 00:39:45,159 degree of credibility. Poland may be a case in point. 552 00:39:45,599 --> 00:39:50,360 Everything indicated that dramatic and painful historical experiences should make 553 00:39:50,400 --> 00:39:54,280 the polls particularly suspicious of the new, grandiose political projects 554 00:39:54,320 --> 00:39:59,239 aimed at restructuring the entire social substance. The riots that 555 00:39:59,400 --> 00:40:02,599 erupted more or less once per decade since nineteen forty five, 556 00:40:02,639 --> 00:40:05,280 when the Soviet Union imposed the Communist system on Polish 557 00:40:05,280 --> 00:40:11,880 society were read as an expression of such suspicions. There 558 00:40:11,960 --> 00:40:14,400 was no better illustration of the desire than the period 559 00:40:14,400 --> 00:40:17,320 of the so called First Solidarity in nineteen eighty nineteen 560 00:40:17,360 --> 00:40:20,639 eighty one. In July and August of nineteen eighty, workers 561 00:40:20,679 --> 00:40:25,119 held massive strikes against lawlessness and economic chaos, which led 562 00:40:25,159 --> 00:40:27,880 to the establishment of a powerful trade union in Poland, 563 00:40:28,199 --> 00:40:31,960 the first such big independent organization in the Soviet Bloc. 564 00:40:32,920 --> 00:40:35,639 But the First Solidarity was not just a trade union, 565 00:40:35,719 --> 00:40:38,000 and the demands it raised were not simply about the 566 00:40:38,840 --> 00:40:43,800 distribution of wealth, increases in wages and benefits, and workers guarantees. 567 00:40:44,880 --> 00:40:48,280 The union's program also included more general demands, far exceeding 568 00:40:48,320 --> 00:40:51,559 those ordinary human aspirations that seemed all but natural in 569 00:40:51,639 --> 00:40:56,760 a permanently inefficient economy with humiliatingly low wages and notorious 570 00:40:56,800 --> 00:41:01,960 shortages of goodsready stood up in front in defense of 571 00:41:02,039 --> 00:41:06,400 human dignity in its original and not the corrupted sense, 572 00:41:07,039 --> 00:41:10,000 access to culture, respect for truth and science, and for 573 00:41:10,119 --> 00:41:13,360 nobility and art, and a proper role given to Christian 574 00:41:13,440 --> 00:41:19,559 heritage and Christian religion. It seemed that suddenly those great 575 00:41:19,599 --> 00:41:23,320 ideas at the root of Western civilization, which this civilization 576 00:41:23,400 --> 00:41:26,760 had slowly begun to forget, were again brought to life 577 00:41:26,840 --> 00:41:29,000 and ignited like a fire in the minds of the 578 00:41:29,000 --> 00:41:32,440 members of a trade union. This was probably one of 579 00:41:32,440 --> 00:41:35,519 the reasons why Solidarity met with such widespread, though short 580 00:41:35,559 --> 00:41:40,119 lived admiration. Suddenly, in this god forsaken place there emerged 581 00:41:40,159 --> 00:41:44,000 a movement that not only challenged evil empire, but reminded 582 00:41:44,039 --> 00:41:49,079 everyone of the spiritual dimension of human existence, of truth, god, heroism, 583 00:41:49,159 --> 00:41:53,320 nobility of culture, the importance of historical and religious heritage, 584 00:41:53,559 --> 00:41:59,840 and other high moral principles. During the period of the 585 00:41:59,840 --> 00:42:03,639 Second Solidarity in nineteen eighty eight nineteen eighty nine, the 586 00:42:03,679 --> 00:42:06,840 final chapter of the Communist rule in Poland, this mood 587 00:42:06,880 --> 00:42:09,880 disappeared almost without a trace, and although the possibility of 588 00:42:09,880 --> 00:42:13,039 political victory was nearer than ever, the big ideas and 589 00:42:13,119 --> 00:42:17,000 ambitious plans lost their appeal. This change of attitude was 590 00:42:17,039 --> 00:42:20,559 somewhat understandable, considering the pressure of circumstances and after the 591 00:42:20,599 --> 00:42:24,440 Communists lost their monopoly, an urgent need to resolve vast 592 00:42:24,559 --> 00:42:28,159 numbers of practical problems. But the fact remains that the 593 00:42:28,199 --> 00:42:33,119 new Poland, like other countries in the region quickly discarded 594 00:42:33,119 --> 00:42:36,480 the higher concerns expressed by the first Solidarity and almost 595 00:42:36,559 --> 00:42:40,199 immediately adopted a minimalist perspective in order to conform to 596 00:42:40,239 --> 00:42:45,159 the atmosphere and practice of Western liberal democracy. Once big 597 00:42:45,199 --> 00:42:50,119 ideas were gone, working entertainment seized the imagination of the 598 00:42:50,159 --> 00:42:53,360 people and turned them into copies of a standard liberal 599 00:42:53,599 --> 00:43:00,880 democratic model. Poland shook off the communist yoke at a 600 00:43:00,960 --> 00:43:03,679 time when the Western world had already reached a phase 601 00:43:03,719 --> 00:43:08,400 of considerable homogeneity and standardization. Therefore, as soon as the 602 00:43:08,400 --> 00:43:11,599 Poles liberated themselves and started aspiring to be to the 603 00:43:11,639 --> 00:43:15,559 liberal democratic world, Poland lost his previous exotic charm as 604 00:43:15,559 --> 00:43:19,199 a country in which workers, intellectuals and priests defied communism, 605 00:43:19,280 --> 00:43:22,719 prayed to God, and risked their freedom in defense of truth, 606 00:43:22,880 --> 00:43:28,800 good and beauty. The liberal democratic world did not want 607 00:43:28,840 --> 00:43:33,599 such exoticism in their midst and would have been embarrassed 608 00:43:33,599 --> 00:43:36,800 if the Poles had persisted in their initial ambitions. It 609 00:43:36,880 --> 00:43:40,239 expected a different Poland, the one that was indistinguishable from 610 00:43:40,280 --> 00:43:44,320 other nations following this or that pattern of liberal democratic order, 611 00:43:44,719 --> 00:43:49,280 provided it covered all areas of social life. The Poles 612 00:43:49,360 --> 00:43:52,280 grasped this quickly, and the majority of them adapted to 613 00:43:52,320 --> 00:43:56,760 the expectations without protests and without regret. There was, of course, 614 00:43:56,840 --> 00:44:00,920 an unpleasant side to it. The societies that liberated themselves 615 00:44:00,960 --> 00:44:04,400 from the old rules adopted new ones, but were unaware 616 00:44:04,480 --> 00:44:07,679 that new rules gave them less liberty and fewer opportunities 617 00:44:07,719 --> 00:44:10,960 than they had naively hoped. Being blinded by the radiant 618 00:44:11,039 --> 00:44:16,239 vision of the free world, many East Europeans were ready 619 00:44:16,280 --> 00:44:19,079 to admit that although the world was not moving inexorbally 620 00:44:19,199 --> 00:44:22,440 toward communism, as the communists had tried to convince them 621 00:44:22,480 --> 00:44:25,719 for a long time and with relatively good results, it 622 00:44:25,880 --> 00:44:30,320 still moved inevitably in another direction. Just as the Soviet 623 00:44:30,400 --> 00:44:33,440 Union had been the vanguard of progress before, so now 624 00:44:33,480 --> 00:44:36,320 it was the West, which often meant the United States 625 00:44:36,360 --> 00:44:40,519 and sometimes the European Union. The East Europeans were supposed 626 00:44:40,559 --> 00:44:44,199 to follow in their footsteps. The metaphors of catching up 627 00:44:44,440 --> 00:44:48,679 and a race were often used to describe the situation 628 00:44:48,800 --> 00:44:51,679 of the societies that joined the world in liberal democracy. 629 00:44:52,480 --> 00:44:55,400 They were somewhere in front of us, rushing fast forward, 630 00:44:55,679 --> 00:44:58,039 while we remained in the back, trying to make up 631 00:44:58,079 --> 00:45:00,599 for lost time by doing all the things that they did, 632 00:45:00,880 --> 00:45:06,079 but in a shorter period of time. The result was 633 00:45:06,079 --> 00:45:10,079 that innovation and inventiveness, so much talked about, praised and 634 00:45:10,159 --> 00:45:13,719 encouraged by all and sundry and paid homage to it 635 00:45:13,800 --> 00:45:18,159 in words, could not be taken seriously as challenges and 636 00:45:18,239 --> 00:45:22,159 never became a really respected attitude. The deeper wisdom was 637 00:45:22,199 --> 00:45:25,800 to copy and to imitate. The more we copied and imitated, 638 00:45:26,039 --> 00:45:32,920 the more we were glad of ourselves. Institutions, education, customs, law, media, language, 639 00:45:32,960 --> 00:45:36,239 almost everything became all of a sudden imperfect copies of 640 00:45:36,280 --> 00:45:40,039 the originals that were in the line of progress ahead 641 00:45:40,079 --> 00:45:44,199 of us. All right, that's the end of chapter one. 642 00:45:44,239 --> 00:45:48,400 I'm going to finish right there. I hope you're enjoying this. 643 00:45:48,400 --> 00:45:51,960 This really explains a lot and really starts to get 644 00:45:51,960 --> 00:45:58,880 down into the minutia of modernity and also you know, 645 00:45:59,079 --> 00:46:03,840 tracing the ideas of modernity, but really laying out and 646 00:46:03,880 --> 00:46:14,800 getting down into the weeds of dignity and what dignity 647 00:46:14,880 --> 00:46:20,559 used to mean and what dignity means today, which is 648 00:46:20,840 --> 00:46:24,519 one of the most important things that we've forgot. Chapter 649 00:46:24,559 --> 00:46:27,239 two is called Utopia. We'll be back with that one 650 00:46:27,360 --> 00:46:29,480 in a couple of days. Thank you.