 G'day mate 40 here So I've been listening to some talks by Leah Greenfield. She's a sociologist and Professor of political science and She's written a bunch of books on nationalism and I found them quite so all-provoking and so I'm thinking about I've got extensive background in religion, right? I was raised a seventh-day Adventist son of a preacher man end up converting to orthodox Judaism and I noticed in religion that there are some There are some unbalanced people with an unbalanced passion and attachment to to their religion that's just you know kind of out of whack and what's going on here and often is people who are losing in the rest of life and By embracing their religion 100% they get to be a winner, right? They get to Really have things going on They get to get to be much more impressive and so Joining a religion can shore up someone with a weak sense of self. I converted to orthodox Judaism. It gave me more clear sense of self In that many of my choices are now determined for me if I live by the the precepts of orthodox Judaism But you see this in our religions people who are losing in the rest of life But the very hardcore in their religious commitment Then I also notice many racial nationalists We're also devoid of accomplishments in other areas of life. So if you're an accomplished architect, right? You'll get a sense of Feeling good about yourself from your accomplishments in architecture And if you're an accomplished architect, you probably have other reasons to feel good about yourself. You probably have a family and friends and community and Education right so you have all these different reasons to feel good about yourself And if you're an accomplished dentist, all right, you're gonna feel proud of your dental accomplishments your education Probably have a family They probably have a steam in the community. You probably pay taxes donate money So you have all these different reasons to feel good about yourself. So you notice with people who are Very passionate about their racial nationalism, whether it's white or black or Mexican Whatever the variety of nationalism that the of racial nationalism that they're very much into It's 99% of the time is people devoid of accomplishment so people looking to shore up their self-esteem and if you don't have any objective reasons to feel good about yourself then you'll have to Make something up So it can be a story you tell yourself about your religion You can go join a cult where people celebrate you just for joining their cult or You can say look, you know, what makes me so awesome are these things that you can't see all right I don't have any visible accomplishments but my blood Makes me special my attachment to my soil makes me special So Leah Greenfield makes this point in the 19th century when you had nationalism rising throughout Europe that Nations like France that a lot to be proud of and nations like Spain that a lot to be proud of But there are other nations like Germany and Russia at the time beginning in the 19th century. They didn't have any objective Reasons to be proud of their nation and so when you don't have any objective reasons to be proud of your nation Then it makes sense to develop. Oh, I'm proud of my my nation for reasons. You can't see it's because of my blood It's because of my race. It's because of my attachment to my soil So when you had these nations such as Germany and Russia that had no objective reason to take pride in their national Identity in the early 19th century That's where blood and soil nationalism developed and you see that's where blood and soil nationalism still thrives It's among people with very little accomplishment now Some level of attachment to to blood and to soil it makes sense. All right But if it's the primary thing that you're about then there's probably some big Keeping gap in your soul in your psyche like what the hell man? What's going on? so Having a look at the chat Jim Balan says Luke it's Friday 10 45 p.m. Here in Sydney. I'm still working mate. What are you doing and streaming? What is the time in LA? Yes coming up on 6 a.m. So I woke up at 5 0 6 a.m. And And last night I was preparing to do this stream and I just got sleepy and tired about at about What 8 30 9 p.m. I was all planning to do this stream and then I just got too tired went to bed And then I woke up and it's still on my mind. So I wanted to talk about this so I Like the the books on nationalism by Leah Greenfield She says that nationalism is simply a national consciousness Right and you almost can't help developing a national consciousness So you almost can't help being a nationalist but you probably won't want to call it nationalist because Nationalist got a dirty name after World War two and She also makes the argument that the Nazis were not fascist because fascism is not racial So fascism is a collective national identity That's her definition of fascism Which is interesting and Nazism. She says it's something completely different from fascism Because Nazism was based on racial identity So of course we're going to feel more in common with people who are more similar to us, but if your Primary attachment in life is to your race, then there's probably something missing in your life. You probably lacking coherent sense of family Career education community all these other things that normally make up somebody's self-esteem Judas says haven't slept in 24 hours once or twice a month having insomnia attack and I stay stay awake all night Not at minion because it's very early and I shouldn't leave the house at such an early hour in case I get attacked Yeah, it's a much more dangerous life in In LA and New York City and Chicago San Francisco these days compared to just three years ago so The Greenfield says that England was the first Nation to develop a sense of itself and as a result of the War of the Roses much of the aristocracy got wiped out So prior to nationalism in in Christian Europe People were born into a certain order. You're born into the nobility. You're born into The plebs right just the the regular people and then there was also a priestly class and Your lot in life was largely determined for you then after the Black Death Right when a third of Europe died there was much more need for workers real wages rose In England the War of the Roses wiped out much the nobility so all these people who weren't nobles became nobles and Then you had the development of this national consciousness. So until 16th 17th century the word people meant plebs It meant the scum of the earth essentially and you still see this kind of attitude Among say the Ken Browns and the Richard Spencers that the people that they're just plebs that They're just stupid stupid masses Who need to be bossed around and told what to do by an elite but in England in the 16th century they developed the sense of nation Right and people change meaning so it used to be that a nation was governed by its elites And only the elites really had dignity only the elites really had choice only the elites could Determine national direction, but in 16th century England you had the rise of the sense of nation So people weren't just members of orders. They also for the first time felt themselves part of the English nation And so the English took tremendous pride in their nation and They began exploring they became the most powerful nation on earth And they got filled with a competitive fire and along with this growing national sense of consciousness So Leah Greenfield defines nationalism as a sense of consciousness the year that you're aware of your nation and then when you're aware of your nation you can't help Caring about your nation and taking pride in your nation's accomplishments. So England got fired up By a sense of its nation became competitive with other nations So exploring and dominating the globe becoming more and more fired up or more competitive more and more accomplished at the same time And then this had spillover effects so that the French in the 18th century They looked at what was going on with England and said hey We want some of that and so nationalism as a term was first used by the French in the 18th century So nationalism began in the 16th century it didn't become though a term to the 18th century But you got the term nation that began to be used in the 16th century and the term people began Changing meaning from people meaning just the plebs to people meaning all members of the nation and therefore Possessing dignity and once you get that taste of dignity What comes with it is a sense of freedom and a certain measure of equality And so this swept through England and then the English took this with them where if they went in the world It rubbed off on the French and so you would not have had a French Revolution without this growing sense of peoplehood and of nation Now the English and the French and the Spanish Develop this nationalism and they had plenty to be proud of from their history but when it gets to nations without accomplishment such as Russia and Germany then people say well, we're proud of things that you can't see We're proud of our race what's going on in our blood and that's where you get the rise of collectivist ethnic blood and soil nationalism and Then when the people of Europe dominated the globe they brought with them the sense of nationalism Which then rubbed off on the Arab world so the Arab world was ruled for Thousands of years by by the Turks they were not Arabs and no sense of nationalism developed But in the 20th century there was this growing pan-Arab sense of nationalism because it was inherited from their colonialist overseers the the English and the French in particular and so It was the English and the French who carved off these different nation states in in the Arab world such as Syria and Iraq and Because though those identities don't really have a lot of historical resonance the earliest Arab nationalists developed pan-Arab nationalism and and the Indians the Indians were ruled for For a long time by Muslims and they never developed a sense of national identity But when they were ruled by the English, right? They they inherited their sense of of growing nationalism from the English it got transmitted from the English to the Indians and so the first time Indians said hey We're a people We're a nation we deserve to be sovereign free and dignified and So wherever the English and the French went in particular their sense of nationalism rubbed off on their colonies Women at mr. Ford Shover's table are always enthralled by lavy's pontifications So I was listening to Tucker Carlson last night He made made some interesting points that I don't think I've seen so clearly made the point that the Democrats in Their push for gun control. It's it's really Republicans guns that they want to take away because Democrats when they run big cities they're not Intent on punishing their voters who are court-possessing guns So Democrats at the same time they are pushing to decrease the number of people who get incarcerated They are choosing overwhelmingly in places like Los Angeles and San Francisco and Philadelphia where you've got these radical left-wing District attorneys so in Los Angeles it's gas gone They're buying large dismissing gun charges against Democratic voters Because they don't want to send more Democrats to prison So they want to take rifles away from Republicans That's their their push at the same time They want to not prosecute gun crimes by their voters So I thought that was that was an interesting perspective that I'm not sure I'd seen so clearly before Then had Ben Carson on talking about the racial wealth gap in America that apparently White and Asian homes have said ten times the wealth of black homes and Ben Carson knows that noted that Ghanaian Nigerian immigrants to America have about the same wealth per household as as whites and so I would think that the Immigration from from Africa to the United States the only people who could Who could successfully pull off something like that would be people with way above average IQs and way way above average determination and personality personalities that are more effective certain personalities are more effective personalities that are agreeable conscientious outgoing low in neuroticism and high in openness that those are personalities that make for more success in the world So if you combine that with an above-average IQ should be doing pretty well in life Bye-bye