 Good day. May 40 here. So I'm back on Manly Beach. I just can't resist the cheap public transportation prices here in Sydney. So I've been all around Sydney and I'm spending on average 67 cents a day, like one Australian dollar. For one Australian dollar, I'm riding light rail to Circular Quay, the Sydney Opera House in the Central Business District of Sydney. And then I'm getting on the ferry to Manly, riding the ferry to Manly, which I used to think was like $8, $10, $12, $15 Australian. Somehow I'm only spending $1 Australian, 67 cents American, like all day. All day transportation needs. I could just ride on the Sydney ferry through Sydney Harbour, like all day. Such a joy. It's a very windy day today. So we'll see how the wind affects the sound quality. You can tell me if the sound quality is just too bad. I've been traveling around Sydney, listening to Dr. Mark Shapiro as a professor at Dr. Bruce Knight at a Jesuit University. And here he is, talking about word culture. He's not very happy about word culture. I'm going to show you what annoys me very much, because when you come on the trips, I take you to great places. I show you great things. In fact, those who will be with me in Italy, we're going to be entering the vent. So I'm telling you about the sound quality, because a tremendous amount of wind and I won't persist if the sound quality is too bad. Let's get some Uncle Mark Shapiro here. Anyway, the point about Mark Shapiro is his father is Edward Shapiro, an historian of Jews in America. And Edward Shapiro went to school in Washington, D.C. with Werner Wolf. Werner Wolf, the sportscaster, used to do the morning show on CBS back in the 1980s with Diane Sawyer. And his catchphrase was, let's go to the video tape. So, okay, so far the sound is fine. So Werner Wolf went to school with Mark Shapiro's dad, Edward Shapiro. No one's allowed in here, and the Jews are not allowed to leave, and they have to be here at night, So the whole idea of a ghetto for Jews, right, sounds absolutely horrible from a 21st century perspective. But, I mean, is not Orthodox Judaism a form of a Torah ghetto? I mean, I'm sure there are traditional Jews who believe that Hashem gave the Jews a Torah written in oral so that they may be fenced in and protect the Gentokoyim of creation, because the Jews would be fenced in by other restrictions of the Torah written in oral. Also, better to live in a ghetto than to get slaughtered outside the ghetto, or to have a dramatic increase in social tension, resentment, hatred, fear of Jews. So, if living in a ghetto made it easier for non-Jews to accept the presence of Jews in their midst, then now at that time and place, I can think of a lot worse options. You come with me to Vienna. It's not in the middle of the main square, right at the top there, you have a terrible anti-Semitic thing, and all throughout Europe you see these things. And these are important, I think, to see, to show into the Venice ghetto what it says about Jews. But when you eat a Torah, this is what you want to see, and this is important stuff. The number of churches, you have, many of the churches have this, I'll show you something here. So anyway, how are you feeling about the magnificent Dallas Cowboys victory today? 40 to 3 of the Minnesota Vikings. This is the biggest road victory in Dallas Cowboys history. And so I'm feeling good. The Cowboys are now 7 and 3, looking strong to make the playoffs. And it helps me to get over the pain of yesterday's 48-45 USC victory over UCLA. I'm a Bruin, went to UCLA back in the 1980s to study economics, and I'm walking around manly, right on Sydney's North Shore, like checking in with my phone on every play. What a heartbreaking loss. DTR Dorian Thompson Robinson, the UCLA quarterback threw three interceptions and lost a fumble. So four turnovers, thanks to DTR. He was driving for what would have been the winning touchdown against USC, and in the last minute throws an interception. And I was just thinking about that, like I was very intensely into the game, but I get no social reinforcement. Right in Sydney for my sporting allegiances. So without social reinforcement, your allegiances tend to wane, whether it's to Judaism, to sports, to your culture, whatever it is that's important to you. If you're not getting social reinforcement from other people, your passions and commitments are going to attenuate. They're going to get weaker. We need other people. We need community to build up a feeling of connection. So one of the great things about sports is there's a connection with other people. It's funny how this went. But without people to bond with, there's no shared sense of creating a common reality and no shared unity and synchronicity with other people and no bond. Does your passion for sports ball impede your spiritual progress? Well, it can. I'll have to leave it to you to judge whether or not it's impeding my spiritual progress. Like, I like to start the day out with about an hour of cross step work, get on the phone with sponsors on a meeting, listening to a talk. But after that, I feel free to explore my sports ball interests. So the World Cup has already started. So 6am tomorrow, America plays. It's the first game in the World Cup of Soccer. And then Wednesday morning at 6am, Australia plays France in its first game. So part of me wants to go to a sports bar. So I was asking about one of the best sports bars around here. So I could have that shared communal experience, that shared sense of excitement and emotional energy that comes from participating in an event together. But I found out in sports bars like a glass of seltzer costs $12. Whether it's a glass of beer, glass of seltzer, glass of coke, it's $12. So maybe I'll just stay home and I'll watch the sports ball, but I'll watch it with the sound off so I can listen to a 12 step lecture. So I can be spiritually edified on the one hand while indulging my base physical, base physical inclinations simultaneously. I think this is the best solution. Sports ball for the eyes, 12 step talk for the soul. You're hitting on all cylinders. And yeah, why do guys love sports? And I think the reason why guys love sports is it's a simulation of war. And guys are just naturally built to be prepared to go into war. You feel the need to build up and betting on all European teams because of their superior endurance. You've been reading a lot of Steve Saylor. So I think it's natural for men to want to band together to defend your in-group or to make war on an out-group. And so banding together for war, preparing for war, or having substitution rituals for war, I think is the most natural normal male thing. And so the excitement and thrill of sports is it is a vicarious way of waging war, which is just totally part of male nature. And I think every man knows you have to be prepared to either take a life or to sacrifice your life. I mean, that's what it means to be a man. You have to be prepared to stand up for some things. You have to be prepared to fight and defend people. You have to be prepared to make the ultimate sacrifice of your life for the people, community, things that you believe in. And so by watching some sports ball, we get to re-enact those rituals. Prepare for a sports ball turning into the real war. BD for fun and profit. So Elliot Blatt, have you wagered some money? So what team are you wagering on to win the World Cup? I think maybe this year Australia will do it. Is this the year that the Aussie's fair dinkum take the World Cup? Sure. I'll speak again. Asia and Senegaldo. So this is the big one in Strasbourg, the famous one. Although now it's in a museum that's replaced by Replicas, but you had it various churches. I definitely can't bet on sports ball. That's a form of excitement. It's just too potent for me. I went crazy betting on sports ball. And one guy took me to the cleaners. Somehow he knew about horse racing. I ended up owing him thousands of dollars in high school and just settled with him for like 200. Because there was one point where he owed me over a thousand. You know, allowed him to settle for pennies on the dollar. Germany. Hell, hell people. Okay. This is Dr. Mike Shapiro, scholar of modern Jewish thought. Churches, you have examples of this. So you have on the left the church standing triumphant. Down to right the synagogue, you know, blindfolded because the Jews are blinded to the truth. And she's, I guess, true. Looks a little wanton, usually it's described. And this is important. And I don't think anyone today going into a church, it looks at that it is influenced by this. But it's important. Now you have the Jew south. This is another common image of the Jews suckling on a pig, because of course you don't eat pig. And you have this in woodcuts. And here you have it in Wittenberg, which is Martin Luther's church. So as a historian, this is the sort of thing which really brings to light what, you know, for hundreds of years people walking into a church saw how it turned them against the Jews. Now, of course, today in a place in Germany, no one's going to church in all of Europe. They don't go to church anymore. But no one who's anti-Semitic is being anti-Semitic because of an image of, which I don't even know what it means anymore. I mean, but this is important historically. So then you have, I think, in the year of cancel culture, you have a, where is it, the description of a Jewish individual who's been suing for years, I think it's described here. The plaintiff, since 2018, to have the sculpture removed, just like they removed Confederate statues, to remove this sculpture. Yeah, so I blame that Schmendrich, that Schmuck, who's going around suing churches and public institutions for maintaining this artwork. But I also blame the legal system for allowing it. Like, how did we end the culture for encouraging this kind of sense of victimization and outrage and wanting to activate cancel culture. So individuals don't act in a vacuum, right? I'm a UCLA Bruins fan, but the longer I spend in Australia, the weaker my attachments with UCLA Bruins because I'm getting no social reinforcement. How much cottageing is going on in Manly? This is a wholesome Manly place. There's no cottageing going on in Manly. This is not Beverly Hills, mate. This is not San Francisco. This is not New York City. There's no cottageing going on here. And I'm panning around. Do you see any cottageing going on? No, no cottageing. This is a cottageing free zone. This is not pure because it's anti-Semitic. It shouldn't be on now. Despite the fact that the Jewish community, as it says here, created a site of remembrance incorporating this culture, I don't know what to say. It always needs to know when a Jewish person wants to remove the historical evidence of the anti-Semitism in Martin Luther in his own church. And it's not only a violation against history. It's a violation against the history of anti-Semitism. And it hurts my chores because when I go to these places, I want to be on a point to it. And I don't want to... And it annoys me. It's a do-gooder. And I don't like these do-gooders. Because no one's going to the church anyway. They don't go to churches anymore. So what can I say? If they ever took them down, I'd be very, very annoyed. But in terms of tours, since a number of you asked, I would just briefly share something with you. And I do want to make a correction. I spoke a lot about Europe. I took my son. It was a nice trip. And I'm just going to show you a couple pictures here. You might recall when I told you a number of times how the women don't go... All this tearing down of statues. It's just crazy. Destroying the remembrances of our history is insane. Someone should mount a march in Virginia or Charlottesville to protest the tearing down of these Civil War statues. It's a shawnda. Here you can find strong support from the Torah for the preservation of history. We shouldn't treat history so casually. Traditionally, Orthodox women didn't go to synagogue. But in Anglo countries, it's more common that women go to synagogue. But if you're single, you're looking to mingle or meet an Orthodox Jewish woman, you're not so likely to meet one at synagogue. So doing a synagogue is more of an obligation on the men and on the women. Oops. Trying to get everything cuter up here. And a number of them go to this here so far. But that's the only time also that it worked. In fact, I... I'll show you something. This is a new show, a newer show, but they even built an Ezra snushery. Here it is, about 15 years ago. You see, even in Jerba, there's been some changes going on. But just briefly, here are some pictures I've shown, I think you might find interesting. The children, you've got to be there on Shabbos to see hundreds of children. I was interested mostly in the Yashivas. There's a couple of Yashivas. So here's a picture in one of the Yashivas. Look at all these young kids. By the way, they don't wear suits, this side is very hot. Back to your table. Every single day, 12 months a year. No, uh... That down is because that is wearing shorts. This is June 20th, 2022. Not for their election. The rise of reform and their rabbinic response. I'll show you what's here. Come on, get past the pictures. It's harder for me to fast forward on my iPhone. They don't divide it by grades. They divide it by order levels of worry. And interestingly enough, they publicize... I don't know if I've told you this ever. They publicize, watch twice a year, all the grades of all the students. Yeah, a lot of Jewish girls do this. They publicize everybody's grades. At least your price. But there, you know, they feel that if... you've got a 60 or something in Gomorrah that's going to embarrass you and you'll do better. So yes, how could you do this? It's a roll found, so it's okay. So here's another ready. This is Spain. So Germany, not Spain. 14 schools in Germany. Oh, yeah, Bart says I've been spending a lot of time listening to interviews with scammers. Right? Who've gone to prison. So why are you doing that? I'm going to Sydney time, which is... Oh, yeah, 5%. Yeah, 5 p.m. Pacific. Well, isn't that basically what I'm doing? It's just 1.52 p.m. here in Sydney right now. It was starting on Monday. I don't know what to say. We're just merging with, you know... but not really, I'm laughing. So who can argue with that? Yeah, why are you listening to all these interviews with wicked people? Shouldn't you be listening to interviews in a gedolin? You know, the great rabbis? Yeah, I mean, Bart says feelings of emptiness leads to drug use, out of control drug use leads to crime. Okay, so... plug this show into your emptiness and we'll forestall the descent into drug use and crime. Yeah, Bart says I try to understand things that seem irrational on the surface. Yeah, so do I. I think that's one of the many things that bombs us. Because I just don't like that explanation. Oh, people are just stupid or people are irrational. I think if you put a little effort in, you can understand why people do what they do around the surface. It seems absolutely inexplicable. Hey, listen to this story. harassment. Have you ever suffered from textual harassment? This is a June 20, 2022 Machu Picchu lecture on the rise of reformed Judaism, the rabbinic response. And this is just a day before the Roe v. Wade decision is handed down by the US Supreme Court. Bart says modern life is low effort, low enchantment. So, Elliot, what do you think about what I was listening to yesterday? It says that psychedelics can have an integrating effect. So, it helps to give you distance, helps you to see connections between things that you would not otherwise see. Oh, yeah, I heard this on the Parrot Room on Mickey Carlson's annual weekly talk with Robert Wright. So, have you experienced the integrated power of psychedelics helping you to see connections between things that you previously didn't see, helping you to get needed distance from your life or decisions? So, I want to get you, but I'll do this next class including the Rumbom, and I was writing my memory and not teaching a child illness. Okay, the chat says psychedelics were overrated, you've done them dozens of times and you are unchanged. I know people have taken ketamine as part of an overall therapeutic regimen, so it's not just ketamine on its own, it's ketamine plus psychotherapy. So, it's like liberalism, liberalism can never survive on its own. Yeah, you get a distance from your own often we need distance from our own stories. But, I know people who've gotten benefit from ketamine regimen, you need ketamine plus therapy, just like with liberalism, you need liberalism plus nationalism, or liberalism plus socialism, like liberalism always demands, you know, a plus element for it to work. Liberalism is just a set of principles, it's not really a system of governance. Things are relatively easy and I also want to get to that as well. But it's already telling, so I want to pick up now where we left off. Ellie, you don't believe in chemical shortcuts but bro, you haven't tried medaffinil. I mean, wow, medaffinil just makes you happy, fills you with confidence with a sense of energy, intellectual curiosity. I mean, it's one thing to be generally against chemical shortcuts, but medaffinil, bro. Wow. I'm feeling this morning, feeling great, full of confidence. So Abraham Geiger was a little bit like Martin Luther for Christians. So Abraham Geiger was one of the leading founding rabbis of the reformed Judaism movement. You said there must be fantasy deep within us. Yeah, that's true. Whenever Jews have had a choice generally the majority of them have chosen not to be orthodox. Right? Jews given a choice, the majority of them choose not to be orthodox Jews. What's the fuck you're saying? That's the fact that you need the best knowledge about the significant sex. What do you think? Right, you see yourself as a good representative of the efficacy of medaffinil. Yes, I do, but maybe I suffer from misapprehensions, maybe I'm out of touch with reality, maybe I'm missing part of the story here. I'm logging about 10 miles a day meaning most days I'm doing between 12 and 15 miles but I'm also taking three days off since I've been here. Three days off with no exercise on those days. And I'm feeling much stronger much better than I did when I arrived. So initially 10 miles a day absolutely ran me out but now 10 miles not such a big deal. I haven't been doing as much swimming as I need to. I notice when I'm out there swimming I just get out of breath. I just can't get enough breath very quickly. That usually takes me a couple of weeks of swimming to get in the shape and the walking doesn't translate into swimming shape. So you could call Abraham Geiger, a founder of reformed Judaism. You could call Samson Raphael Hersch, founder of modern Orthodox Judaism and you can call Zaharia Franco the founder of conservative Judaism. These are all nice and cool and we're going to be talking about the future of the world. So you could call Abraham Geiger the founder of reformed Judaism, you could call Samson Raphael Hersch, founder of modern Orthodox Judaism and you can call Zaharia Franco the founder of conservative Judaism. These are all 19th century German Jewish intellectuals. Today I obtained mushrooms in Australia if I were inclined to. Probably could. I haven't heard anyone talk about mushrooms. I haven't smelled marijuana since I've been here. Marijuana is illegal here. So I haven't seen very few drug addicts, drunks, homeless, those side cases. It's absolutely magnificent Dallas Cowboys victory today. I was watching the whole thing live. It's a live KO sports man. It's a great streaming sports subscription here in Australia. Just $28 a month and pretty much all the live streaming sports that you need. Australia won the first two of its three one day matches with England and Cricket. Saturday night the match was going on in the Sydney Cricket Ground and when I'd hear screams around me I'd know that Australia had taken another wicket from England. Sydney Cricket Ground is about four miles from where I'm staying. Now I don't want to go to the Sydney Cricket Ground it costs like $50 for a ticket. It just seems too much money. I'm not spending much money on this trip. Probably spend a total of $200 American dollars since I've been here maybe $250 American dollars in my 17 days. This is day 17 of my journey down under. I have a lot of spare time, a lot of freedom in exchange I need to restrict any needless spending of money. So you found a copy of Matt Forney's confessions of an online wrestler, $10 paperback edition on Amazon. I believe that you can get it for free. It's going next to my record books. I believe you can get a virtual copy of that for free and just sign up to one of the Matt Forney email lists. So I wonder how much of that book, which I think was published 10 years ago, was still relevant and useful today. Anyway it gets, Mark Shapiro starts to talk here about the Orthodox Jewish response to Roe V. Wade. I'll put up a photo where I actually put this first and that first, but it's a dialectic. We'll be here, and remember where it comes from, some of my guys around here in Britskow and it's going to be his understanding of the ancient Jewish history of Britskow and the Pharisees and Sadducees to focus on them. Wow physical copies of Matt Forney's book are normally going for $50 to $100. Wow. I don't think that my books are selling for that much money. Way to go, Mark. The Tagumim are rabbinic commentaries of about 2,000 years old and he's also talking about a Greek, the Septuagint is a Greek translation of the Bible of the Hebrew Bible. I believe the media is trying to protect Caroline Eliasson and Sam Bankman freed, certainly. So when you look at that puff piece in the New York Times they're also getting a lot of critical scrutiny. But yeah, I think they got so much positive press because they echoed the media's left wing orientation. So if you echo the values that the media upholds you're much more likely to get positive press. I mean if they've been right wing and donating to Vidaire they would have gotten destroyed. Sam Bankman freed. So, yeah. We have a ruling class and they're predominantly on the left and so there's simply a way of speaking if you generally want to get along with elites elites in the professions, elites in the media elites in non-governmental organizations all right there's a certain left wing way of speaking and Sam Bankman freed and Caroline Eliasson said that. Now I really think if only Caroline got to know me I could make a mind. That's my brave prediction. Caroline, if you're listening to this, now please reach out I'm here for you. So these are two thousand year old for binning commentaries on the Bible. So these are two thousand year old for binning commentaries on the Bible. So these are two thousand year old for binning commentaries on the Bible. So there are two Talmuds the Babylonian Talmud which was produced in Iraq about 1500 to 2000 years ago and there is the Jerusalem Talmud which was produced in Jerusalem the Babylonian Talmud is the dominant one in Jewish life it gets 100 times hundred times as much attention as the Jerusalem Talmud left us aware that their hysterical reactions to benign events such as Trump on Twitter only serve to feed their enemies. Yeah, but it doesn't just serve their enemies, they're also whipping up enthusiasm and fundraising and emotional fervor on their own side. So when you have one side of the political spectrum getting hysterical, yeah, one question to ask is what reaction is this creating from their enemies? Another question to ask what reaction is this creating from people who are in the middle? And then the next question to ask is what reaction is this creating among members of your own team? So if you can fire up your base, right, and fire up the other party's base, right, then on the face of it you're dealing with kind of an even reaction. So the main thing is do you fire up your base more than you fire up the opposition? That seems to be the formula for winning, but to fire up your base more than you fire up the opposition and you also want to increase the odds of people who are undecided moving into your camp. Okay, you say today's leftism and today's leftism so lacking in self-awareness it's unsustainable. Well, they're incredibly successful, so maybe because they control almost all of our major institutions, because they dominate the cultural means of production, maybe that has allowed them to become more slovenly and lazy and self-indulgent, so that's one possible answer. Another is maybe they're so dominant in today's America because they are sufficiently self-aware to be effective. I mean it's hard to say that the center left and the left have not been effective. They dominate most of our institutions. The anti-defamation league are aware that their actions actually jeopardize Jews. I don't think they are, but I don't think they believe that. But the ADL used to be always on the left, but much less partisan than it's been since Jonathan Grimblatt took over. So now it's just overwhelmingly a leftist institution and their hysterical responses to people like Kanye West and Carrie Irving don't think they're doing Jews or non-Jews any favors. So there's going to be a blowback to this ADL overreach. But how severe the blowback and the very good of fundraising and money is power. So I'm not clear that they're completely blowing it. I certainly don't like what they're doing, but they keep raising money. They keep getting heard in important places. They seem to have tremendous institutional and personal power. They met with a long mosque. They seem to be able to meet with anyone they want. They seem to be able to meet with anyone they want, but Donald Trump. Donald Trump doesn't seem to pay the ADL any mind. Who is writing these checks to the ADL or some of its old Jews who are afraid that the Cossacks are coming. A lot of it is secular Jews who don't really practice Judaism but still want some kind of purpose or meaning in their lives. So fighting bigotry and anti-Semitism kind of fills that hole, that lack of meaning in their life. I think that's that's part of it. And then it's a way to pee them off so that you carry favor with the right people. Okay halakha means the way or Torah law, Jewish law is halakha. So halakit means abiding by Jewish law. So in traditional Judaism is the rabbi seen as a scholar or a mystic. A rabbi just means you passed a test. So if you talk about a congregational rabbi, you're talking about someone who kind of ministers to the needs of the congregation like Lajpat is social worker. So most Jewish congregations don't look for a rabbi who is a Torah scholar. They look at someone who's going to remember their name, is a seam-able, friendly, uplifting person to be around, someone who can help you out, provide wisdom and guidance. CNN is calling the location controversial. Wonder why does someone involves a certain transphobic? What location? What are you talking about there with regard to CNN? So very few congregations seek a rabbi who's a mystic. That's more of a very particular orientation. So there'll probably be 50 times as many congregations that seek a rabbi who's a Torah scholar as opposed to a mystic. Then there are probably 10 times as many congregations who seek a rabbi who provides excellent pastoral care. That's even more important than being a Torah scholar. Ah, with regards to the more Catholic Kata, you're telling me that Kata is not on board with the trans revolution. It's very sad to hear. That's why it's sad. I know a lot about the issue. As long as I know there's not going to be a post-sacrifice matter of life or death, there's going to be a lot of these other concerns. I have to worship the iPhone. What do I think of anti-natalism? As put forward by David Benatar, I don't know David Benatar. I'm opposed to anti-natalism. I particularly want good, smart, successful people having children. And I want, you know, criminal, criminally inclined types, you know, parasitic types, types that have been on welfare for generations, stupid types, all right, people with massive health problems, I'd prefer that they don't reproduce. CNN, only now learning of Islam's deep abiding commitment to LGBT plus communities. What do I make of the anti-natalism of the book of Clasiasities? Well, everything occurs within a context. And so Judaism overall is so pro-natalist that you have to have one book of despair in your canon, not so bad, not so important. So despair is part of life. And Clasiasities gives voice to this very common phenomenon of despair. And I don't think many people live their lives by Clasiasities. But, you know, at times of places, you know, people are going to resonate with it. So I don't think that Clasiasities co-hella just had a huge effect on Jews who tend to reproduce. Okay, let me, apparently some of the construction workers in Qatar were legalists from Nepal. They were jailed or not allowed to buy tickets for the World Cup. That's very sad. Very, very sad. Let me find some more highlights here from If you don't have traditional religion, you need to fill it with something that you might need. So there's been a lot. The university Jewish concern is I think I'm frustrated with the Jews. Those Jews were everyone. But we, because we had this connection to God, that we got spoke to us that we felt a sense of spirituality, a sense of an existence of God. And through the use of our reason, we were able to be for others. This is going to be part of the idea of the mission of Islam, to come up with important ideas that any civilized society needs. So now I'm on to the June 27th lecture here, the rise of reform and the rabbinic response. So talking about largely 19th century Germany. Reason and revelation, because although God could put stress on reason, there are many reform readers who actually believed in revelation at all. There were plenty of reform readers who were in contrast to Geiger were complete believers that the Torah was revealed in its entirety. However, they believe that So I see a lot of things in your news media kind of bemoaning how many construction workers died or injured in building other stadiums. Well, none of them are slaves. None of them were forced to go there. Like workers went to Qatar because among all their options, this was the best option they saw for making money. So yeah, it was working in extreme heat. But it's not like they had a flat for opportunities or they could just work from home producing legal documents. All right. So everything comes with a risk poverty comes with some pretty big life and death risks. That the Torah was also understood. So when you live on like altars and pagans that the Torah itself doesn't wish to leave the moral law was so much so that Isaac may or wise refuse to hire Louis Ginsburg teaching in Cincinnati at the evening in college because he suspected that Louis Ginsburg wasn't adherent to the higher criticism. And I said, may or wise, the reform leader believed in Torah and you see, I mean, it's entirely So that's interesting. Isaac may or wise was one of the probably the most important American Jewish reform rabbi in the 19th century. And he wouldn't hire Louis Ginsburg because he Louis Ginsburg believed in the higher criticism. So so may or wise, you know, believed in the divine origins of the Torah, and yet still was still was a reformed Jew, because you can believe that God gave every single word of the Pentateuch and still hold that it's not binding upon us today. So yeah, God did this 30 200 years ago. It was, you know, appropriate for them. But times have changed. It's no longer binding. So you can still believe in the divine nature of the Pentateuch and still hold that it's not binding on us today. I think that the poor people in Nepal should reproduce. They don't have an opinion. How comparable is today's USA to Weimar Germany? I don't think it's very comparable at all. Yeah, my father believed in, you know, except the biblical criticism and the documentary hypothesis. And he would often say the Bible is perfect for its purpose that the Bible was, you know, a work of man inspired by God, but the fullest divine revelation was in the person of Jesus. So Christians have Jesus. That's the divine hook. Jews don't have Jesus. So it's much more important from a Jewish perspective that you regard the Torah as divine. My father, yeah, probably a little more theologically conservative, but he was kind of center, center right theologically. Another question there from John Smith. Did my dad believe in evolution? Yeah, he believed that God guided evolution. He didn't think that evolution was a sufficient explanation for the glory and wonders of life. And so he'd ride against evolution and speak against evolution, but perhaps privately, if you spoke to him, he would admit that there was evolution within species. I think he was much more skeptical of one species evolving into another species. But I don't think he would have had a big problem with the finely guided evolution. Pleasiesties and Joe were President Eisenhower's favorite retestment books, but they're both in the Old Testament. Obviously, this is what we call the ceremony of laws. But none of this is eternal. It was valuable. It had its place. We moved beyond it. It's very different than Mendelssohn. As we saw from Mendelssohn, the original laws are eternal. They're binding. You can never get rid of that. You know what's binding? It's a moral law. It's binding. In Geiger's day, everyone knew what the moral law was. As we've seen in recent years, it used to be thought to be moral. Today, in morals, they... Yeah, my father definitely did not believe that the world was 6,000 years old. He thought that was ridiculous. He accepted scientific explanations of the world with brilliance of years old. Today, he's often regarded as not immoral. So, even based on morality, we have no understanding of this. But for Geiger, they hadn't reached that point. So, the moral law is by the ceremonial laws made by people. And it can change over time. It's based on customs and traditions. If they remain meaningful, fine. If they are not meaningful, no. Is the anti-Christian historicism a negative or a net positive? I didn't know anything about Richard Carrier. I have no idea whether it's a net negative or a net positive. I mean, I'm very much a historicist. I believe that you can only understand everything within its historical context. So, everything I say today, it takes place within a particular historical contest. What's radical, you know, one day is normal and action is the law of another type. So, I don't think you can understand anything without understanding it in its situation. So, a big believer in the power of situation. Now, for some people, I guess, reading Richard Carrier, like, it would damage their Christian faith and so it would have a negative effect on their lives. So, some people lead Christianity and they become better, happier, more effective people. Other people lead Christianity and they become degenerates. So, some people lead Judaism, become happy, healthier, more effective and nicer people. Other people lead Judaism and become degenerates. So, it's not clear. We know what's eternal and what's not eternal. And we also see that what the John says, I think, on the whole religion does more harm than good, sense social progress. I think that some people in some societies, sometimes in history, does more harm than good. But given that it's virtually universal, the need for religion seems like a biological necessity. You can't live without a hero system. And religion is just one form of hero system. So, John Smith, you have a hero system. You tie yourself into some something transcendent. You believe that you're aligning with, you know, the forces of history or the forces of good or true or righteousness, right? Everyone has a hero system, which is based on a substantial leap of faith. Yeah, but even as a nihilist, I'm sure that there are still things that you believe in. Everyone, everyone needs a hero system. Everyone needs some way of believing that their life has meaning and that their decisions have meaning, their actions have meaning. It's conscious, but this doesn't mean that everything is reasonable. No, I would say that, remember, Judaism is a religion. It's not just, well, some sort of Aristotelian understanding of how to it. And every generation is going to express itself in ways that are spiritual. But every generation has to find it. Every generation will find ceremonies and seek to them. So Geiger is not saying, get rid of ceremonies. Rather, we find ceremonies that speak to us. And every generation will find it. But the job of the ceremonies is simply to give us religious inspiration. But they're like the chronology. They can be changed. It is true that there were some reformers, even color reformers, who were almost carrots, and that they wanted to get rid of the Talmud, and they wanted to go back just to the Bible, but this is not going to work Geiger's way. Geiger saw the important stage, and it's an authentic stage, but we've moved beyond it. And any Geiger speaks about how we are contemporary strivings, we will listen to the voices of the inches and to discover the genugers' spirit in the Talmud. But the point is that there's a spirit in the Bible and a spirit in the Talmud. Every generation moves on. What is the essence? Yeah, I mean, if that says I find people without a link to the transcendent boring. So, some kind of link to the transcendent seems to be almost a biological necessity. But everybody has some sort of code that they live by. Everybody subscribes to some sort of hero system to give their life transcendent meaning, whether they're religious or secular. If you can point to an essence for Geiger. And Geiger points to the prophets. If you want to know what the essence is, in a spiritual sense. We know, as I said, the 10 commandments, things like that. But if you want to see how it plays out in action, look to the prophets. The prophets, for Geiger, may recognize that the rituals were secondary. And there's all sorts of Sukhi, where the prophets speak about, the prophets say, you know, you weren't commanded on sacrifice, or to know what they needed, but when you weren't commanded, the terrorists are all full of these commandments. So, it seems to be that they're saying that these are not the essential commands, the most important commands. So, for Geiger, if you look at the prophets, what do they have? They have concerns for the board, they have concerns for the way it works, and for the officials that help with their usefulness and standard opposition to Geiger. Okay, what is a hero system exactly? So, most people are scared to death of insignificance. Most people are scared to death of the idea that their life has no meaning or purpose, and that when they're gone, they won't make any difference. So, to ward off this feeling of insignificance, people subscribe to some sort of hero system. So, for some people, it's science. The pursuit of scientific truth, whatever virtues they ascribe to science, that's what gives their life meaning. So, they will slave all day and all night, they're in the service of science, because that gives their life meaning. Other people get their meaning in life from their sports team. So, they kind of merge their identity into that of their sports team. And, you know, their sports team serves the role of, you know, heroes and prophets and teachers and people who walk the true and the good path in life. So, hero system is some sort of system that transcends yourself, and that by attaching yourself to it, you get meaning. So, for a Jewish hero system, by performing the commandments of Judaism, following the dictates of Judaism, participating in Judaism, you connect yourself to like a 4000 year old tradition. And so, you're part of something that goes way back in history and will go, you know, far forward in history. So, you're not insignificant, you're part of, you know, an eternal people that will last thousands of years forward. John says, I found embracing the meaningless of life, particularly my life, has been a relief and not a burden psychologically. And then, other people get meaning in life out of God in it, all right? They feel themselves part of nature, part of the cultivation of nature, the beautification of nature, you know, horticulture, just absolutely absorbs them. And so, by absorbing themselves into horticulture, they feel attached to something that transcends their original life. Other people transcend their life quite along into a 12-step program, so helping people with a particular addiction. That gives their life long-lasting meaning that goes beyond them, because they've been able to help other people, and these people help others, you know, a long chain of people that they've been able to help. Other people get their meaning in life from fishing, from, you know, pursuing hobbies, woodworking, you know, creating beautiful things, and showing other people how to create beautiful things, the pursuit of beauty, and that, and the aesthetic, right? This becomes something that transcends their own individual self, and goes on down through history, and that gives their life meaning. The true spirituality they can genocin them up, today we call this social justice, and they believed in God. They believed in the One God, obviously, and they believed in a bright future of humanity. We're moving to a better place. I have to point to the fact that 19th century Germany was more civilized and more advanced than medieval times. Obviously that was the case, and the source of the ideals of the prophets is God, because they were inspired by God's search, and to come up with these ideas. So I believe it is the intellectual honest Becker who talked about hero systems and how we have a need for hero systems. I think it may have been in his book, The Fear of Death, but our greatest fear with death, with regard to death, is being insignificant, Ernest Becker held, and so to ward off this feeling of insignificance, we create hero systems. Yeah, via YouTube live streams I can be immortal, and nationalism is another way many people feel the need for significance. You attach yourself to something that's longer lasting than yourself. So therefore, China sees now individuals if they have meaning. I think I come from a culture. It might surprise you, Geiger kept kosher. Does that mean that he was not good on all the things now, but he would not eat pork, things like that. He was, because he had vowed, he gave spirituality to realize, he added holiness to realize. On the other hand, because it's up to Geiger to decide what kind of spirituality, he also decided that circumcision was quote barbaric, a barbaric and bloody act. That's what he said, Geiger. As I recall, he says this is a private event, a private letter, so I don't believe he ever publicly advocated to get him into circumcision later. He never formally, which definitely got him into circumcision. As far as I recall, he never publicly spoke about this privately. If I was a barbaric why is it barbaric? Because it's not a, in his mind, it's not a representation, I guess you could say, of the Jewish spirit. He didn't, he went fast on Tish above. He fasted on Geiger as far as I know he did, but we know he didn't fast on Tish, but he tells us he didn't fast, because today for Geiger, we're not the morning over the temple in the country. It's truly a show that the destruction of the temple was a positive thing, because it led to a different type of Judaism and more advanced type of Judaism was not focused on sacrifices in the temple. Geiger is often being criticized for being an advocate of this idea of the Germans of a mosaic persuasion, although as far as I know he never used that expression. And there is some truth to this. During the 1840 Damascus Affair, there was an Catholic monk or friar at his Muslim servant in Damascus who were killed, and the story was that the Germans applied to make Mansa, and Geiger didn't get involved with this. He said that in fact all the sacrifices were on this, yeah, actually they disappeared, and it's a favorite family, and they didn't disappear, so of course you know, whenever people disappeared, it was a French consulate, we believe nothing about the consulate was called, it was pushing this, but it created a big problem. I relate to them like I relate to many humans who are being a progressive, where had any particularism, and that God forbid that you'd be more concerned about Jews than anyone else, because then that shows that you're particularistic and you're a nation, and we can't have that during life when Jews were being persecuted in Romania, he did try to get the Prussian government to intervene. So at this viewpoint of his is not by just a consistent one, but if you... So if you're an intellectual should you interrupt your work to try to help out individuals, well sometimes you should, sometimes you should, but sometimes your intellectual work is more important than helping out individuals, maybe you're not going to be particularly effective at helping out individuals, so there are always many ways to distract yourself, but I think it helps in life to have some sort of primary mission, and to put your primary energy into that primary mission. Do you read his essay, or his letter, explaining why he doesn't intervene, or why he doesn't want to intervene in the Damascus Affair, it's really, I can't even have it here. It's really pathetic. He says that which goes on among the Jews living in the uncivilized country is of trifling importance. He says the only thing that interests him in the universal Jewish concern is the upper straight into the Jews. There's those Jews who are advanced intellectually and spiritually, so it's really it's a reflection, it's no different, I think, than how the the German Jews related to many of the Eastern European Jews as well, that they looked at them almost as different species. He said it's a good humanitarian deed to take it to cause, but it's not a Jewish problem, per se. Kenny, you see this with Paul Gottfried, right? Paul Gottfried and his ancestors are from Germany, so there's been tendency in Jewish life for Jews from Western Europe and Central Europe to look down on Eastern European Jews as uncultured and fanatical and barbaric and as a tiny different species, even just wild-eyed and fanatical. So Jews of Western European origins, like Paul Gottfried, okay, Hungarian, yeah. So Jews from Western Central European origins, right, they tend to come from hundreds of years with generally positive views of non-Jews, respect and admiration for the accomplishments of non-Jews, while Jews from Eastern European backgrounds, their ancestors who for hundreds of years lived in an atmosphere of mutual, you know, fear and loathing of non-Jews. So Jews of Western European origins tended to be more affluent, tended to be the first Jews to the United States, they tended to look down on their wild-eyed, you know, uncultured Eastern European brothers as, you know, different species. So Jews of Eastern European origins tend to be much more radical in their politics, you know, whether radical right or left. Jews of Western European origins tend to be much more centrist, tend to right, tend to be Republicans. This, you have to say, that he was a proud Jew because, like I said, in his own way, he didn't believe in reform to talk about what it was about. And he also didn't believe in a radical break with tradition that so many other reformers wanted it, and he was honest enough to acknowledge that Jews didn't still help him. And it's hard to know where in the end it would end up. He supported reform, obviously, but it had to be historical. And that revolution from Coltide was engaged in revolution. He wasn't. So really, when you look at reformers, Geiger is not the most radical on the contrary. In fact, earlier, he, first, he thought that the right-bys could push, I suppose I might go mine, that the right-bys could push the reform. But later, he sort of back off and said that the people would push the reform and the right-bys go along with all these analogies in Western Europe. Geiger's a proud Jew. But what's valuable about being Jewish? Why the Jewish? What does Jew, Jew need to add to the 19th century in Germany? So it's an advanced culture, advanced Protestant culture, great philosophers. Okay, any comment on the signification of Sydney? Well, the Chinese communist party is definitely trying to use money and bribery and everything they can to influence training politics. You have Australian politicians who have been convicted of taking bribe from the Chinese communist. Chinese have bought a ton of real estate in Australia in general and in Sydney in particular. But Australia's working up to the Chinese threat. Australia's been pretty tough against China the past three years. So I don't see Australia as just a bunch of dupes that don't see Australia just lying on the bed getting screwed by China. As for the shooting up of that gay nightclub, notice how the news media is really eager to portray these brave patrons fighting back. And they may indeed be super brave and amazing fantastic altruistic people. But I think part of the reason for the news media wanting to highlight that is that they want to fight against stereotypes in gay cowardice and gay passivity. So I don't know if they're overreacting to negative stereotypes about gays and gay clubs and going out of their way to say how heroic these people are or they're reflecting something that's real. And why should it be you that is equal to Christiane? And speaking of... China and the general society what are we even needed for? Well, can I do an answer in the top of your list? Well, you're the first. So speaking of what happened at that nightclub there's an interesting article in The Atlantic by Juliette Kayem. She's a lefty and she says we may need to rethink the advice we give rethink run hide fight. So our mass shooting guidance may be woefully out of date. So last night these five people killed 25 injured were shooting at an LGBTQ nightclub in Colorado Springs, Colorado. And it comes against the backdrop of continuing threats and vilification of the LGBTQ community Other reports say the suspect who was alive was in possession of a long gun might have cured many more people as they find space about the actions that were going to place at least two heroic people inside the club that lead to a confront with the government and stop the in progress massacre. So run hide fight has been the guiding principle in the security profession. For decades they're running especially your preferred response to a mass shooting hiding is the only responsible choice. If you can't run and then if you can't run and you can't hide then you should fight back. That's what people get taught for you know see to try to run can't run try to hide can't run or hide then no other option then fight back. But uh given that 70% of active shooter situations and before these five maybe we need a new approach maybe when it comes to general safety maybe we need to put more priority on fighting instead of instead of hiding maybe we need to encourage people to not not primarily look to run then primarily look to hide maybe we need to encourage people to look to fight and yeah maybe we need more concealed carry as well it's a lot easier to fight when you have a gun. So a lot of mass shooting have been ended by people fighting a gunman and they've often sacrificed their lives but they've prevented you know much wider loss of life. Sometimes these mass shootings have been prevented by good people carrying guns. That's a much important answer all the order for us after this question and they coined this expression which we know in English as the mission of Israel. And now what is any mission of Israel? Mission is I know two missionaries like going out and hurting people. We have not done that in a long long time although if you look in the New Testament there's a passage there that sticks about Jews looking to get converts and we know about this Herod Herod's so forefathers grandparents great-grandparents forget now we're forced to be converted so there have been times that Jews were interested in converts but that's not what it means the mission of Israel as Geiger and other reform leaders see it is that Jews have a mission to disseminate the world teachings of Judaism to the rest of the world not by converting them but by bringing them in their own religions to knowledge of these doctrines that we Jews possess we have. So is the reform in the 19th century who started advocating for ethical monotheism there's one God his primary demand of his creatures is ethical behavior and I think we'll ever have concealed carry legislation in Australia no not right now there seems to be absolutely no impetus of Australians are absolutely convinced that the reason they're so safe is because they make it next to impossible to you know legally own and even carry a God so right now I don't see any significant public sentiment concealed carry in Australia all the doctrines that you see in the Ten Commandments and doctrines that are helping the poor and they don't all these things doctrines of a pure God this is going to be one of your issues because they do believe in a pure idea of God so Jesus is going to be a problem so I don't want to run about that's our mission we're going to we're going to teach you not just through doctrines but through our life we live a moral life Jews are not involved in war Jews are involved in immorality much less than everyone else so we've preserved a moral pure way of life an effort and we're going to model for the world sound ethnocentric it was and we should have that's the reason why of all the reform doctrines today reform Jews this is the one they want you not to do it because it makes it seem like we're better than other people or that we have something special no no that's that's going to be something that modern reformers don't want modeling this to be Israel the world to the messianic era no what's the messianic era the messianic era it has nothing to do with the offense or supernatural interventions or anything like that the messianic era or personal aside for that matter the messianic era is in gyro when the world like Isaiah says there's no more war when people respect one another when they live in peace that is the messianic era that's what God wants earlier generations couldn't appreciate because they could only imagine a time because they were living on pagans and barbarians they could only imagine a time when they'd have to leave these pagans and barbarians and make their way from the four corners of the earth to the land of Israel where they could create a world society that's why they imagine this messianic vision of returning to Israel building the temple but today we live among civilized people dignified people so therefore we have no desire and God doesn't have a desire for us to return to the land of Israel and start worshiping in an old fashioned way no the messianic era will take place in every civilized society and that's what God wants so it's monotheism it's personal morality and it's joined either early on with what we would call social justice and this the social although the ethical monotheism has been jettisoned for reformed Judaism today because it seems too ethnic centric and to Haughti I guess that makes us too special social justice not only has it not been jettisoned social justice for reformed Judaism became the central feature of reformed Judaism so this message that like Jews had a divine mission to teach the world about ethical monotheism this is what got me so excited in the early 1990s Dennis Prager's presentation Judaism as the embodiment the quintessence of ethical monotheism this has got my motor going during my conversion to Judaism from Judaism up where everyone is called to so now I've changed my thinking I don't think people have primarily changed ethically morally by instructions such as ethical monotheism and people have primarily morally improved by improving the quality of their connections first of all with themselves second of all with other people so people are at ease with themselves and their friends, family, community tend to be at ease with others and tend to generally act in a pro-social and ethical way people who are alienated from themselves alienated from other people alienated from the community people who lack close connections these are the most dangerous people and so far more important than inculcating people in ethical monotheism is anything you can do to help people come to terms with themselves with their own flaws their own reality their own history and come to terms with the flawed nature of other people around them so that they can then move on to have better relations with themselves first of all and with others and then people tend to behave much more ethical help improve social welfare of society is a hallmark it's a defining characteristic today now they term it tikkun olam tikkun olam it's only right from the 1960s that tikkun olam comes to mean social justice tikkun olam it has organic connotations and if you go back to the Talmud the tikkun olam repairing the world is in the Elena prayer which goes back approximately 2000 years but that's repairing the world under the rule of God it's not repairing the world under left wing socialist politics so this notion that tikkun olam means left wing social justice politics but that's only about 50 years old we can have some more type of expressions to talk about you know making good decrees so that the society functions but tikkun olam in the second it's a great expression and I don't know who was the first to go in it but I believe it's from the 60s certainly not in the 50s but the other even 50s you had people speaking about civil rights things like that so you had this notion well if you get rid of Jewish law if you don't have a ha you need to fill it with something else so what do you fill it with you fill it with something which is part and parcel of the Judaism social justice I hate to say it but if you start reading passages today from Isaiah people think you're reformed you you go to orthodoxy and you start doing it then I think you're reformed with the left wing so I don't have a question to say here if I can quickly so I never met Puttachovsky I always wanted to he dies in 1991 so so in 1998 he was under reagan that uh justice board Judge Bork was the one that dominated him yeah it was after it was Judge President Reagan so Puttachovsky wrote an essay and when she said he walked into a reform synagogue and he was a religious reform thinker and eventually as he walked in on the right there was petitions there to send to your senator to oppose Judge Bork being raised to the Supreme Court and he conformed to what Puttachovsky's point was that it's fine to be liberal but it has to be Judaism and to reform Judaism uh it's before I go on uh inside I don't know it's it's tough sometimes I think before conservative with a small C Jew to be reformed because the movement itself is so tied to social justice and uh but it's not just a reformer we see this um in the world at large as well yeah if you go to a reform synagogue right at most five percent of the congregation will be on the right and 99 percent of rabbis perform rabbis on the left conservative congregation probably more than 90 percent will be on the left fewer than 10 percent will be on the right modern orthodox congregation probably 60 percent will be republicans they're 40 percent democrats and then traditional orthodox will be 80 90 percent republicans to 10 20 percent republicans and I um you know people need something they need something to come they need some professional life if your wife needs it so there's been a lot and you're solving well don't worry makes this case because world racism how a new religion has betrayed um black america but this point is that in fact he has this I mean I'll just tell you something here um uh because I think what you're seeing in reforming is no social justice one issue is that anti-racism is currently configured has gone a long way from what used to be concerned and I don't mean that as a rhetorical faint I mean that it actually is what any naïve anthropologist quite easily and so for example the idea that the responsible white person is supposed to attest to their white privilege and realize that it can never go away eternally there is gonna be a day when america comes to terms with race whether there could be what does that even mean what is the meaning of the coming to terms what would that consist of what date would this be the only reason that anybody says that is because it corresponds to our conception of judgment especially since about 2008 or nine what we're really saying is blasphemous it's really the exact reduced to playing some rigid Spencer here and haus was also mentioning this concept it's actually a russian word called the narod there's actually a russian social movement that called the narodnik now narod I am not a russian speaker but to the degree that I understand it narod is comfortable to the word populist or in the german language that I'm much more familiar with the adjective folkisch or das folk I would remind you in during the fall of the soviet union when there were protests in east germany in which the original protest line was the view isn't das folk which means we are the people and it was basically a call for a better version of communism a communism that listens to the people that is able to change and is able to at least recognize some of the obvious problems of the regime maybe a communism that's more democratic and say if you're zed das folk we are the people that eventually started to change and transform as the collapse of the soviet union progressed to if you're zed ein folk which means we are a people in other words it transformed into a call for the reunification of the entire country of germany and it was a populist call but of course the word folkisch or folk could also be translated as race or not just people or ethnic group I guess although that's a less punchy translation it is a call to a people in the same way that trumps mention of the wall whatever might have been by it whatever its intention is was a folkish call it was a defining of a people in just a single word and so haas was evoking this idea of the world which means populist there was an interesting controversy in the early 20th century this morning I actually read Vladimir Linden's a short article the proletariat and the peasantry and it actually gets to this issue with Marxism in the sense of what do you do with the peasants and Russia now as you probably know there is this kind of contradiction or at least something that's rather interesting and kind of unpredictable about the fact that a Marxist revolution occurred in Russia and not say in Paris or London according to a certain orthodox Marxism any kind of proletariat revolution would have occurred in London or Paris or Berlin or New York or something that is precisely where the urban proletariat is found that's where it is most advanced and thus most likely to spill over into a new stage of history Russia Russia's backwards the peasants were only liberated in the 1860s and obviously Marxist would look at that as a kind of false liberation you weren't literally bound to the land but you're still susceptible to capital you haven't reached human emancipation which is what a Marxist was you've simply reached a kind of political emancipation and maybe an emancipation in name only so what do you do with Russia it's seemingly a hundred years behind Germany or England or the United States it's just it's a different it's a different world and what do you do with this well Lenin was arguing explicitly that this is a unique situation but this doesn't mean that the peasants as well can't be a revolutionary subject and he called upon that Naruto sentiment of the people and in Russia's case the peasants so Haas was kind of trying to connect this I think with the American little being a kind of revolutionary subject now that doesn't mean that the people who support Maga are impoverished proletarian workers in fact many of them are truck drivers they might even own their own truck many of them might be the little bosses of capitalism they might have a sandwich shop in some town and have employees they might be a sole proprietor they might own their own toil tools and be a plumber they might even be a bit wealthy you can make a lot of money if you're a successful plumber and if you're a successful electrician you're certainly little class if you succeed at those things but he sees them as revolutionary in the sense that they are totally alienated from mainstream institutions in the way that right so if the left dominates almost all our institutions that people feel alienated who aren't on the left and they want to they're overthrow our current elites that seems normal natural healthy depends how you go about it you can go about it in a stupid destructive illegal in a criminal idiotic way or you can do it in a smart productive way at other proletarian forces are not and so you know he was using the metaphor of a barista it's like a girl who works at a coffee shop and who has a undergraduate degree from NYU and is working as a barista and votes for Joe Biden she's in a way not alienated from the institutions even if she makes $25,000 a year and an electrician in Nebraska makes $90,000 a year but he's kind of again alienated from contemporary American institutions so obviously someone who's say working on Lowell street or is a professor okay so anyone who's right-wing is going to be alienated from our dominant institutions today which you're assuming potential by the left or a public or private institution or even a public school teacher or someone in corporate America they have so much to lose by a social transformation a social transformation that would jeopardize the system that they ultimately benefit from in big ways in the case of the Lowell street executive and in small ways mostly in the case of a public school teacher but nevertheless they are tied to the system they wanted to succeed and they might even protect it with their life because it gives them their livelihood you can say now in the case of the Fulcash American proletariat they are alienated from these institutions they see taxes as just simply a cost to them that they can't really bear they don't see any benefit yet yeah I think you see Trump voters feeling increasingly any need of from America and its institutions that's why they want to take back the country they feel the country slipping away out of their grasp to be becoming something unrecognizable in financial or academic or civic institutions all of these things are just cost to them or a club to which they're not invited to join and thus they become a kind of revolutionary subject they have nothing to lose but their chains they are exactly the type of population that would attack existing institutions and seek to transform society now again I am not a Marxist as I'm sure you know but I do why would you admire Marx like what is so admirable about Marx that I don't get like what are the insights that are unique to Marx like I don't get why would anyone admire Karl Marx I just don't know anything that he was right about I don't know anything he said that was new that was true or anything true that he said that was that was new I don't get this I don't also think that you should associate Marx or equate Marx with Soviet Union so every time people try to implement Marxism it's been absolutely horrible but Marx is great really he was a remarkable 19th century thinker in line with Nietzsche or even Freud I guess in the 20th century okay so Marx and Freud I think Paul Johnson wrote a book called The Enemies of the People right yeah I think listening Marx with Freud is telling because Freud was overwhelmingly a you know journey the wrong direction right I think Freudianism has overwhelmingly been a force for ill Marxism has overwhelmingly been a force for ill so thinking Marx and Freud they're absolutely agree with Richard Spencer I just disagree that these are great thinkers important intellectuals people are showing us the way these were remarkable intellectuals who did turn thought on his head so we do it Myron and I yeah they turn thought on its head in the wrong direction that they led us in the wrong direction they did far more harm than good I see the Marxism just because there might be this association fair or otherwise with you know communism and all these things that I generally don't like doesn't mean that you can't find insights in this work doesn't mean like every time Marxism was tried it was awful absolutely awful right when Freudianism has been put into practice but it's being at best a waste of time that's being a a mass delusion so I don't sympathize with this praise for Karl Marx and Sigmund Freud to mean that he isn't kind of telling you something and yeah I think every every person should be and every writer should be judged by the merits and not necessarily by their associations but anyway what I I think it's fair to judge writers by the product of their writing and their thinking that if you're leading people down a dark tunnel if every time your thought is implemented it makes the water worse place yeah I think it's fair to judge you for that I would say to this is that I do find this theory compelling but in a way we've already seen what could possibly come from a revolutionary American proletariat and what we saw of that was something like January 6th now you could say that January 6th it was all about QAnon this crazy conspiracy it was all about the big why that is Donald Trump's insistence that he didn't lose the 2020 election which might very well be motivated by his I think January sex was a rude explosion by people who are unwilling to give power to processes that they didn't understand that they thought were illegitimate and so they rose up and said enough and I want them prosecuted to the full extent of the law but I have some sympathy for the energy his obviously malignant narcissism just this his refusal to accept any sort of defeat because he doesn't have a stable sense of self and losing would mean breaking his person and that's just something he couldn't abide and he just spread this lie this narcissistic lie among his followers and they had to pay the price they were the ones who got arrested we'll see if Trump does get arrested but at least for now he's got away scot-free from January 6th even though he was obviously involved in it and all of that is true I actually don't deny any of that as you can probably tell but was there something more about it even if those people who invaded the Capitol and at least came to the Capitol on January 6th and I don't know I've seen estimates I don't quite know how many there are tens of thousands at the very least it was a huge amount of people and for every one person who came to the Capitol on January 6th there were probably a hundred or a thousand more who wanted to be there or who were following it closely or who sympathized was exactly what they were doing and they were revolutionary I mean you really can't deny it and this is why I really can't stand yeah they were revolutionary and what they did seem absolutely idiotic and criminal but it may galvanize it may create you know a winning movement at January 6th and in and of itself was a loser of an event created tremendous backlash but it may catalyze energy it may develop a movement that down the road wins so on its face January 6th was just a loser but January 6th didn't just occur in a vacuum it also influenced people catalyzed people that helped to grow a movement damned a lot of the conservative apologist you could say about January 6th so they're like oh well you know things got out of hand there were a few bad apples but you know it was just a lawful protest or people who say it didn't get out of hand it was all anti-fog or something like that or the guards opened up the doors and encouraged people to go in all of that is a total misrepresentation there are videos of the guards by the way kind of opening up the doors but there are also videos of dramatic violent confrontations with police so you you have to balance both of those things anyway I can't stand any of that apologist that you see from Tucker Carlson or from you know American Greatness or something at the vlog or that you that you'll sometimes hear on you know more outlandish podcasts about how anti-funded and I think MTG might actually believe that but I can't stand all of that stuff it's all a bunch of lies and in many ways it misrepresents and demeans the sincerity of the January 6th protesters and I am not on their side I was totally out of the loop of that stuff I did not support it I found it laughable at the footage but I won't denel I won't doubt their sincerity the their feeling that they were part of something bigger than themselves that they were okay so they had a hero system right sometimes your hero system leads you down a dark criminal corridor which appears to be the case here sincerity doesn't really count for anything right sincerity doesn't make you any more likely to be productive efficient effective righteous sincerity is not a positive virtue in and of itself they were actually engaging in a kind of revolution they wanted to hang like this that was a novelty yellow as you can say but there were some funny videos of the one woman who was interviewed by okay so we'll follow the revolution to be continued bye bye