 Adam says the interview was good, but he made way too many straw man argument. You and Malus was better, but still good to see more of your discussions. I mean, you have to be careful about this issue of straw manning. Yes. It feels like everybody straw manns my arguments. Even Malus often straw manns the objective position on ethics. He often straw manns I invent. But what do we mean by straw manning? Do we mean that people don't understand the position and therefore are attacking a false understanding? Do we mean that they are purposefully misrepresenting the ideas? I think most people are not doing it on purpose. And I don't think Yoram Hazone is doing it on purpose. I think that these ideas are different. They're hard. They're hard because they're completely outside the framework of what anybody else thinks and anybody else presents. It's very hard for them to grasp individualism in the context of egoism, in the context of the traitor principle. I mean, this is the genius of Ayn Rand. Ayn Rand is the first thinker to put all this together. So the fact that most intellectuals out there in the world don't understand her, don't get it, don't integrate it, and therefore come to the debate with a lack of understanding of her ideas is not surprising. And it's straw manning looking from the outside, but I don't think it's straw manning on purpose, is my point. I don't think people do it on purpose. I think it's people don't understand and therefore they present your position in a false way. Not because, again, they're doing it on purpose, but because I don't think they understand your position. This is the best they can do. So while I think that opposition is often misrepresented, opposition is often argued against from the assuming we believe X when we believe Y, but I think most of it is benevolent in the sense that most of it just comes from a lack of the other side understanding and knowing. Scott says, Hazone isn't the enemy. Hazone's ideas are definitely the enemy. There's no question, Hazone's ideas are the end of America as we know it. They are the end of freedom. They're the end of capitalism. They're the end of liberty, the end of the vision of the founding fathers for the country. So those ideas, the ideas of national conservatism, which Hazone is at the forefront of that movement are absolutely the enemy, the enemy, and I think a potent enemy. Yeah, he knows, I think that, and you know, I know he thinks I'm the enemy. That's OK, right? I mean, I think both Yom and I are honest enough to know that we fundamentally disagree about the world of the state, the world of government, the purpose of life, the purpose of individual action, the moral purpose of life, what the good is and what evil is, where we get our authority from. I'm all authority. Here's this from God. It's unequivocally from God. His source is the Old Testament. Mine's not. So absolutely, we know that from an ideological perspective, we are the enemies. Doesn't mean we can't be friendly. I like him, but his ideas are destructive, and he thinks my ideas are destructive, and that makes complete sense. There is no one common enemy. I mean, that is how you get, that's how you get the communist takeover of Russia. The Tsar is the enemy, so it's all unite. Yes, it's all unite to fight the Tsar, and you forget who you're uniting with. Let's all unite to fight the communists, and you get Hitler. No, there is no one enemy. There are lots of enemies. And the oversimplification of this one enemy, even in a particular time context, the oversimplification of that is the death of your actual cause. Wilkism is dying already. Wilkism is already dying. It's on his death knell. All right, Adam says, agree the strawman arguments weren't on purpose. Lack of family and outlaw shrugged argument was a good example. He didn't understand it's just a book and not the guide for all objectives, philosophy, or for all living. But lots of people use the family argument about outlaw shrugged. I see it all the time. And I don't think it's necessarily dishonest, particularly from coming from the perspective of somebody who believes that family is the be all end all of everything. And Micah says, I don't think objectivism is hard. People who don't get it are either intellectually dishonest or unthinking. I don't think that's right. I don't think that's true. There's a sense in which objectivism is not hard, but there's a sense in which objectivism is very hard. In the sense in which objectivism goes against everything else in the culture. The sense in which objectivism is turning the moral code that has been drilled into people for the last 2,000 years on its head to the extent that objectivism demands of you. A certain metaphysics and epistemology of reality, of reason. When everything you are taught and everything in the culture, or at least a lot of it as opposed to that, that's the sense in which it's hard. It's hard to adopt. It's hard to understand. It's hard to comprehend because your whole framework, your whole way of thinking, your whole way of thinking is conditioned by a completely different ideology, different set of beliefs, different ideas. Once you accept reality and you accept epistemology and you're willing to challenge conventional wisdom in terms of morality, once you have that, then yes, then I don't think it's hard. But if it wasn't hard, is it true that the millions and millions of people who read Atlas Shrugged are just dishonest? I don't think so. I mean, there's a sense in which they're dishonest in that they're not willing to challenge all their previous beliefs or their cowards not to question their beliefs. But I think it's more likely that the cowards or that they just can't think outside of the box. They just can't go there. I don't think that's immorality necessarily. Somebody says they'd be interested in all the policies Azoni would have, I mean, would implement. I mean, I've heard other places where I think Azoni would do things like ban pornography, bring Christianity into the schools, institute school prayer, generally integrate religion into governments and abandon the idea of separation of state from church, which he doesn't believe was the intention of the fathers anyway. I think he would be willing to convene in the economy. For example, in the debate I did with him at the University of Texas, he said things like to save jobs in America, he'd be willing to convene in the economy, I think to incentivize people to have more children will get to that. He'd be willing to intervene in the economy to achieve what he or people like him or would believe is for the common good. Things like that. I mean, in that sense, he'd be willing to do what the left does just for whitewing causes. So I mean, he'd be willing to have a national industrial policy, which is what the national conservatives advocate for at their conferences, which again are his conferences, in order to combat the economic threat from China, which means government favors investments, subsidies, tariffs, trade restrictions and all of that stuff in order to favor certain industries and penalize exports from other places and generally manage the economy in a way that is perceived to be, again, in the so-called common good. Todd, thank you. He says, Hazzoni is fighting. I mean, Hazzoni's not fighting. He's a nice guy. But his ideas are frightening. His ideas are frightening. They should be frightening. To anybody who values their freedom, to anybody who values your individualism, your ability to live your life by your standards and anybody who believes that the purpose of government is to protect you and generally to leave you alone, even if we disagree on the details, on the nuances of it, to everybody who believes in individualism, the ideas of national cativitism, the ideas of the new right more broadly, are frightening, scary. They are, in my view today, the enemy. The enemy on the right, there's plenty of enemies on the left and there are plenty of enemies on the right and you can't take your eyes off of any one of the enemies. Because once you take, and you can't not align with your enemies. It is a massive mistake to align with your enemies. Inrand warned us against it and we should heed her warning. We need to fight on all fronts. We need to fight on all fronts. We can align on particular issues, on a particular narrow thing, while clearly expressing the fact, expressing the fact that we disagree on everything else, but it has to be, has to be narrow. Has to be narrow. Charlie says, nice podcast with legs, any headway with debate with Yuval Harari? No, I mean, as far as I know, nobody is trying to get me a debate with Yuval Harari. I doubt we could afford him and I don't know what venue would do it, but yeah, that would be amazing. To do that, that would be a whole different level. Maybe Lex, maybe we can ask Lex to put it together. The nice thing here is we had to debate at Texas and then Lex capitalize on that. So what I need to do is more debates at the University of Texas that Lex can then capitalize on for these purposes. All right, Mike. All right, let me just take this, Michael, point because I think it's an interesting one that leads us into a good, into where I want to take this. He says, Arizona does a lot of mental gymnastics that justifies academic collectivism. I don't think it's collectivism's academic at all. As a Jew, no nationalism never ends while faced people. But on the other hand, what does it mean to even say his people? Is a nationalism the only solution for his people? Is it not the perception? Didn't his people in some sense, invent nationalism? Is it a Jewish nation as a chosen people by God? The first nation clearly defined with clearly defined borders given to them by God, less linking nationalism with religion and with God? I mean, you could argue Egypt was a nation before, but did it have the same kind of unity? The same kind of ethnic, religious unity and exclusivity. And this is important. Brad, thank you. This is great. Brad says great talk with. Hazone very excited to see more debates with others in the future. Passion is admirable. That's worth 100 bucks. Thank you, Brad, really appreciate it. So this is the thing about Hazone coming from a Jewish context. If you take a Jewish context, nationalism, you can argue, is the only solution for Jews as a response to anti-Semitism on the one hand. Nationalism is what, combined with religion, is what kept the Jews a whole, a unit, while they were sped all over the world, little communities everywhere. It wasn't just the religion. As part of the prayers, the Jewish prayers, one says often, maybe even every Friday night, if I remember right, when you're not living in Israel, as part of the Jewish prayers the last 2000 years, you say next year in Jerusalem. And the idea here is not, yeah, I'll take a trip. The idea here is that next year, we will reestablish our state, our nation. In Jerusalem, Judaism has always been a combination of religion with a nation, a nation that has been dispersed, a nation that was kicked out of its homeland, but a nation that is always striven to go back to its homeland. And indeed, again, if you go back to the Old Testament, God views the Jews, God called the story, right? You know me, I'm an atheist. God views the Jews as a nation, a nation that's gonna occupy a particular space, a nation dedicated to him. So nationalism and Judaism has always gone hand in hand. And again, in many respects, that kind of nationhood, nationalism, maybe the Jews are the first ones to have it. Every time the Jews are defeated and scattered even in the Old Testament, they always come back to a particular place, a particular piece of land, a particular people. Jews are also very particular about who can join their nation. So, and this is the big difference, and we'll get to this in a minute between a significant difference between myself and Yoram, and this relates to both rates. Jews are not, Judaism is not a universalist religion. And it is not a universalist culture. And it is not a universalist nation. Only certain people are Jews. Only certain people can become Jews and becoming a Jew is very difficult. You can't become a Jew by marrying a Jew. You can't become a Jew by just dipping yourself into a bunch of water and baptizing yourself or whatever. You can't become a Jew just by declaring yourself a Jew or just by studying the Old Testament or just by wearing a yarmulke. Becoming a Jew officially requires real study, passing tests, being anointed as a Jew by a rabbi, by an official. Indeed, there's a whole question in Israel and among Jews. Who indeed is a Jew? But if you're born a Jew, you are a Jew, whether you believe in God or not. So it's not exactly a religion. And the very religious Jews still consider you a Jew even if you're an atheist. If you were born to a Jewish mother. And by the way, you're not a Jew if your mother was Christian. So the whole point, the whole thing about Judaism is it's a select small number of people who are unique and special and have their own state. And you know, it's, Yom HaZon talks about a nation is a combination of tribes. I mean, where does he get that? He gets that from the Old Testament because the Jews were 12 tribes and they united under one king and formed the Israelites, Israel, which was the original nation. But it's a nation of 12 tribes. And what Yom is doing is he's extrapolating from Judaism to everybody. And he's saying, well, the Jews have a nation. The Jews are a combination of tribes. So this is what nationalism is and this is good. And what Yom cannot do, I don't think, is ask the question, well, is it good? Is it good for the Jews? A lot of them have died for this. What value is it in preserving this Jewish thing? This Jewish culture, this Jewish entity, this Jewish nation? Why? What for? And of course, if you want to preserve the Jewish nation, then you have to be super concerned about birth rates because you can't have immigrants. Well, they went through hell for what? That's a good question. For what? What did they go through hell for? To preserve their collectivistic identity. Wouldn't the world be a better place if they hadn't? Or, you know, preserve that collectiv identity but preserve their individual identity? Now, you could argue there are a lot of good things about Jewish culture, but let's take the good things about Jewish culture and universalize them. And this is the point. I'm a universalist, universalist. This is one big disagreement between myself and Yom Chazoni. I believe there are certain values, virtues, principles, ideas, philosophies that apply to everybody, every human being on planet Earth. Everybody has the capacity to reason. Everybody has a right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Everybody should be left free to pursue their own values using their own minds. So, I am, and objectivism is universalist philosophy. It's not a philosophy for a particular people, in a particular place. It's a philosophy for all people anyway, if they choose to adopt it and they're willing to take on the responsibility to live it. It's not linked to particular history or to particular genetics. Daisy says, no one came out of the Holocaust and said, I'm not at you. Many people did. Many people did. Come out of the Holocaust and say, I'm not a Jew. I'm an individual. They labeled me a Jew. And that's, you know, Iron Man said, I'm only a Jew in the face of anti-Semitism. I'm only a Jew in the face of anti-Semitism. So yes, come any of the Holocaust in the face of anti-Semitism, I'm a Jew. But many of those people then became completely secular and completely non-Jewish. Yeah, I know, I get, you know, I've talked about why I think Israel is a legitimate country and why I think anti-Semitism makes the nationalism, you know, kind of in a sense necessary, but it's only necessary because we live in an irrational world. In a rational world, in a rational world, you wouldn't need the state of Israel. What was I saying? I was on a rant and it went away. Yes, I'm a universalist. So I don't care about birth rates. I have zero concern about birth rates. I don't care if a country is shrinking or not. Why? Why am I not concerned about the disappearance of Western civilization because of birth rates? Because Western civilization is not a particular number of people in a particular place at a particular time. And if those people die, and those people, if they don't reproduce enough, first of all, they can reproduce and the civilization will go away anyway because civilization doesn't get transferred in your genes. But because I know that those ideas can influence people who come in. I believe immigrants can be converted into your civilization. That the civilization can be exported to foreign lands. That the civilization itself does not depend on the genetic makeup of the people. That the civilization itself does not depend on the color of the skin. That the civilization itself, if it's a strong civilization, if it's a bold civilization, if it's a civilization of self-esteem, and if it's a civilization of truth, then it will convince others to adopt it. So you're not gonna shrink, you don't worry about birth rates because anybody exposed to your civilization if it's got the right self-esteem and it's got the right confidence and it's strong enough, will convert others. And this is a big difference, for example, between Islam, Christianity and Judaism. Christians are not worried about birth rates because Christians intend to convert. Everybody's not a Christian, into Christian. That's the plan. Mormons are not concerned about birth rates. They're concerned about going out and preaching and converting people to Mormonism. Muslims are not concerned about birth rates, even though birth rates in the Muslim world are plummeting because their goal is to convert everybody to Islam. So it's a constant expansion. Judaism is concerned about birth rates, has to be concerned about birth rates because it's not universalist. It doesn't, it's not trying to convert anybody. It doesn't wanna convert anybody. So it's self-perpetuating or it's gone. And indeed they believe that the only way to self-perpetuate it is through the genes, through babies, through having babies. I believe the way to perpetuate good ideas is through argument, it's through debate, it's through discussion, not through genes. Your children are not necessarily gonna agree with you. Somebody wrote me, you're gonna lose because the religionists are having more babies than you. Yeah, but I'm not gonna win based on babies and based on genetics. The only way for me to win is to convert those religionists to my position. I'm already a minority. And how did the Christians get so many people? Did they have just more babies than anybody else around them? No, they converted and converted and converted and converted and my job is to convert people using reason to reason, to a life of reason, to a life of rationality. And they can have as many kids as they want. I don't care. Am I worried about the decline of Western civilization? Absolutely, why? Because Western civilization has lost its self-esteem. It's lost its confidence. It's lost its ability to convert people. It's surrendered, it's given up. Not because of genes, not because of immigration. Am I worried about Western civilization? Not because Westerners are not having enough babies. I'm worried about Western civilization because we don't believe in it strongly enough and are not willing enough to argue for it and to insist on people assimilating to it. Like, I have no concern about the United States being overrun by another civilization. If, if, and this is a big if, if we believed in what America stands for, if we were willing to advocate for what America stands for, if we were willing to demand that people assimilate into what America stands for. It's, and this is why I did an event with Douglas Murray a while ago and of course he's concerned about immigration into Europe and I said, the problem with Europe is that it's committing suicide. Not that it's being moated from the outside. The immigrants are weak. They've got a stupid Middle Ages ideology. We should be able to overcome that like this. Within a generation or two, they should all be advocates of Western civilization and they would be if we stood up for it, if we advocated for it, if we declared it to be universally good for everybody. If we taught it, if we tried to convert them, we need to become evangelical, evangelists in our beliefs in Western civilization or in a case of objectivism and objectivism. We need to go out there and convert, not by the sword, by the mind. As we said in previous shows, one mind at a time. Ideas shape history. Bad ideas win when good ideas are unwilling to fight, have given up on themselves and in that sense, Rome committed suicide. The West is committing suicide. Don't blame the barbarians. They're just being barbarians. Blame the people who matter, blame our intellectuals and blame people on the right who are worried about growth rates, who are worried about the commitment to the nation rather than the commitment to ideas. And this is the thing about nationalism. I'm not against nations. I think nations are great. I said that on the show. I want quite a few of them. I think there are too many today, but I want quite a few of them. I want competition. I want to be able to leave my nation and go somewhere else if I don't like it. I want nations. I want strong nations. I also want free nations. And that's much more important to me than the ethnic characteristics or the history or the shared culture or shared religion. What I want is freedom. That's the most important cultural phenomena. And if you had a bunch of free nations, then I'd believe in free immigration and let people move to where they feel most at home at, where they, what they like the best and compete on the culture, try to convince people, try to convert people, evangelize to people, sign for nations. But I'm against nationalism because what is nationalism? Nationalism is the placement of the nation above the individual. It's the placement of the common good of the nation as more important than the good of the individual. Nationalism makes the individual, the servant of the state, ultimately the slave of the state. The state is the standard. The common good is the standard. The public welfare is the standard. And common good and public welfare, not as I understand it, which is individualism, individual rights, but as collectivists understand it, as some kind of adding up of utility functions or more accurately, what the philosopher kings believe is good for society. And this now is the dominant view on the right. I talked about Vermeul at Harvard, Patrick DeNeen, Sahab Amari, and Yom Khazani, the whole national conservative movement, the whole new right, the whole, the other term they are using, not me, illiberal right. Illiberal means anti-freedom, individual liberty rights, anti-individual liberty rights. That's the new right. They wanna place the state above you. They wanna be in enough position of authority to dictate to you what your value should be. There's, I just read an article by Vermeul, the Harvard law professor who's about common good conservatism, who says, who should decide about questions of, I don't know, whether alcohol should be served, whether the store should be open on Sunday, things like that. Who is the authority? Should individuals decide? And clearly his answer is no. Then it's a question of should the legislature decide, should the executive decide? But it's one thing he opposes is individuals making decisions for themselves about how to live their lives. Thank you for listening or watching the Iran book show. If you'd like to support the show, we make it as easy as possible for you to trade with me. You get value from listening, you get value from watching. Show your appreciation. You can do that by going to iranbookshow.com slash support by going to Patreon, subscribe star locals and just making a appropriate contribution on any one of those, any one of those channels. 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