 Thank you all. I know not all of you here from your own free will so I apologize for that But glad to have you anyway, and it's it's a real pleasure to be back at Radley I had a really good time last last year in the video we took of last year's talk has done very well on YouTube So that is that is excellent As I think everybody knows and I know you've had a series here of speakers on the issue of free will free will has become a major Issue particularly in the United States, and I think slowly the United States once in a while exports something It's been exporting this these new ideas with regard to free will To the rest of the world and certainly to the UK in in the US today Many universities have free speech zones Areas in which you can go and actually speak your mind with nobody censoring you I always thought an entire university was a free speech zone It turns out no that only certain places within universities. You can say that Some universities have created what are called safe spaces Where you can go after you've maybe heard a lecture like from somebody like me that hasn't set you a little bit And maybe there'll be some teddy bears and soft music and something You know somebody to ease your mind and and to just just calm you down I am actually speaking. I'm doing an event next week actually a week from today at Kings College London and The student union there has demanded as a condition for doing the event that safe space Marshals attend the event these are people who are paid by the student union paid fairly well I understand by the student union to make sure that I and the other participants in this event don't say anything that might really offend the audience and They have an authority to shut the event down if they believe we are offending people Now This has become quite prevalent in the United States now I don't want to exaggerate the cause because there's a lot of exaggeration about these things it It particularly has infected the best universities so the further away you get from Harvard and From Princeton and particularly from Brown University the less impact these kind of ideas have but certainly the top universities in the United States these ideas have real Credence they have real force With somebody like Ben Shapiro a Conservative commentator who with whom I agree with on some issues and disagree passionately on other issues But fairly mainstream conservative spokesman goes to some college campuses They are literally riots in the streets where people get beaten up and pepper sprayed and Where the police stand by and let this happen and he is basically prevented from speaking on campuses Many speakers even people like Condoleezza Rice again a conservative But nobody particularly radical served in the Bush administration gets invited to speak on campuses There is a demand to have her withdrawn and many university administrations have succumbed to those demands and They have not had the benefit of having a speak I and her see Ali Well, I don't know if you guys here know who I and her see Ali is but she is a brave Woman raised under Islam Was forced into a marriage or arranged marriage. She escaped before the marriage happened She landed up in the Netherlands. She she is an outspoken critic of Islamism of radical Islam of fundamentalist Islam A very courageous brave woman. She speaks up a lot about issues related to the Islamic religion. She is now Persona non grata on many American campuses Because of her views because of what she says might offend certain people in the audience Now I believe this might be The most important issue that we face today This is the issue on which Will determine whether Western civilization in my view will survive or not Whether our quality of life our standard of living the freedoms that we take for granted will survive This is not a trivial issue at the boundaries as some issues are this goes to the heart of What freedom means it goes to the heart of what Western civilization is So let's start maybe before we get to really the core of what free speech is and why it's such an important issue Let's talk a little bit about Western civilization because one of the questions asked Well, are we on the rise are we in decline? But there's a previous question that has to be asked What is Western civilization? What do we mean when we say Western civilization because this has become a real contentious issue is Western civilization determined by the color of our skin Is it determined by our religion? Is it determined by our ethnic background? What makes Western civilization? Western civilization and until we we can define that until we can explain what's Westernization actually is in coherence to sync terms It is hard to talk about a rise or decline of this thing that I think was somewhat afraid To define and certainly those who believe that it is the color of the skin that determines Western civilization They are very vocal So if we don't believe its color of skin as I don't I believe its ideas Then we better speak up because otherwise they will be the ones to dominate the conversation Those who believe its religion that determines Western civilization again are very vocal Those of us like myself who don't necessarily believe its religion need to speak up and define So I think the first thing that needs to be done and this is already going to be controversial and contentious is what is Western civilization? Now I believe the Western civilization is rooted in two fundamental ideas One a derivative of the other but without which Western civilization is meaningless Both ideas are ideas that come out of Greece of ancient Greece of ancient Greek philosophers primarily Aristotle and I embraced by what I consider the most important period in European history on global history for that matter Which is the enlightenment the enlightenment was when? When was the enlightenment just to check if you awake? Now no, it's cheating. You're not supposed to answer 18th century so You can take Approximately the entire 18th century it ends a little before the end of the 18th century and begins maybe even in the end of the 17th century Depending on how you define it, but it's basically that period of the 18th century and one of the what is the core idea of the Enlightenment and Partially you can think of this as who is the first thinker of the Enlightenment? What is the enlightenment kind of come from and to me in many regards the first Figure of the Enlightenment. It's not a philosopher, but a scientist the first real figure of the Enlightenment is Isaac Newton Because what does Isaac Newton? Teach us Isaac Newton was a real revolutionary in many respects because he taught us Though we can explain the physical world Not for reading ancient books Not from people telling us what the truth is But we can explain it using logic using mathematics using observation using experimentation He taught us that science was efficacious science could explain the world the human mind by itself Could explain what's going on in the world reason Was this incredibly powerful tool and that's the first and most crucial idea of the Enlightenment It's the efficacy of individual human reason We do not need philosopher kings to tell us what the truth is We do not need authoritarian dictators to tell us what is right and what is wrong we do not need preachers and popes and mystics To explain reality to us Reality is available to every single individual as Aristotle explained through our senses and our minds We can discover the truth and If we can understand how objects relate to one another how force works in the world which It's not that hard in physics now You know, I know some of you're probably taking physics right now and think Newtonian physics is nuts But it's relatively easy the mathematics and explanations are not that difficult most people get it Yes, I can see what's going on here And if we can understand the physical world around us people started thinking in the 18th century, huh? Maybe we can make other decisions for ourselves as well if reason is efficacious then maybe Maybe we can make our own political decisions Maybe we can decide what profession we should Have not be committed to a guild not be committed to what our fathers and grandfathers did but actually choose for ourselves What we should be doing Maybe you could choose our own leaders And it's not an accident that lock right is writing at about the same time But the rights of individuals and individuals have rights because they can take care of themselves Because they can think because they have reason They have the capacity to understand the world and make decisions for themselves. They don't need Other people they don't need mother government. They don't need authoritarians To tell them how to live their lives now We all take all this stuff for granted today because we're the great beneficiaries of the Enlightenment Now I know this is always tricky to a British audience, but probably the greatest achievement of the Enlightenment politically Was the establishment of the United States of America Because what does the Declaration of Independence of the United States of America declare to the all? That every individual Every individual has a right to his own life his own liberty and his own pursuit of happiness Why because he has the capacity to think for himself and this is the second principle that comes out of the Enlightenment That makes Western civilization Western civilization and that is Individualism again coming out of Locke and coming out of the Declaration of Independence the idea that what's of value Is the individual not the tribe not the group not the ethnic relationship, but who you are as an individual? That is what a sacred That is the moral unit of importance So two ideas make the Enlightenment reason and individualism that's Western civilization People who adopt the ideas of reason and individualism in that sense are Western People who don't and they might live in the West are not advocates of Western civilization is Reason and individualism on the rise in some places in the world and they're in decline Where they were born in? Western Europe in England and in the United States of America and That's what we're fighting we're fighting for the idea not an ethnic group not for color of a skin not for religion But for these two ideas these twin ideas of reason and individualism the sanctity of the individual and the competence Of his mind of his ability to know reality Now how is this related a free speech? Why is this related to free speech because if you have the right if you can think if you can create Then that thinking in that creation is meaningless unless you can express That creation as you can express yourself in writing in speaking Galileo could have discovered the truth about Right the earth going around the Sun not the other way round But it gave it value and meaning to all of us and to everybody is the fact that he could express it now He couldn't right because there was no free speech back then so what happened to Galileo is put in house arrest and Of course he didn't produce much after that because he knew the consequences The only way to discover truth is to argue for it. It's to argue against it. It's the debate. It's discuss now So the only way for us to discover truth The only way for this to discover what's good for human being what leads the human beings flourishing what leads to human Being success is to use our reason to look out into the world to try to understand it and to debate it with other people Trying to understand it and to figure out what is right and what is wrong what is true and what is false So during this enlightenment one of the Principles that they all agreed on all the enlightenment thinkers agreed on is wait a minute if we are going to debate and Think and try to discover the truth what we don't want a limits on what is allowed to be debated and how we should debate Now it's true a lot of people say stuff That has nothing to do with the truth that has nothing to do with the pursuit of the truth But then the question is who gets to decide What is in pursuit of truth? What is a debate that's going to lead to positive outcomes? And what's the debate that's going to leave the negative outcomes who? gets to be the arbitrator of what speech is okay, and what speech is not okay what speech is going to lead to some great achievement and What speech is just wasted? Because a lot of stuff people say is a waste of time a Lot of stuff people say is just to insult a lot of stuff that people say is just stupid I mean you might think that I might think that but who gets to actually decide and Who gets to actually shut the person up one of the One of the understandings that come out was out of the idea that reason is so important so crucial for human survival It's the idea that the enemy of reason the enemy of reason is force What prevents you from thinking what stops you in your tracks? I? mean You can think out of most conditions You can advance the truth under most conditions But there's one thing I can do to you that shuts down your mind that stops you from thinking Let's put a gun to your head Tell you if you think these thoughts you're going to jail Or if you don't do what I tell you if you don't mouth what I tell you I'm gonna shoot you You're just gonna do what you're told because nobody wants to die Force is the enemy of reason and therefore force Locke argues and many of the thinkers they don't like to argue must be extracted from human society We don't deal each other with force. How do we deal with each other? With argument with reason with debate with discussion. We're not gonna agree. That's okay as long as we don't punch each other As long as we don't pull out guns on each other. It's okay to disagree Disagreement is part of life and Again, who is to decide who is right or wrong? Except for you and me and everybody each one of us has to make decisions about what's right and what's wrong What's true and what's false? there is no Force in terms of making those decisions is Wrong it shuts down the mind It prevents the discovery of truth. So the idea of reason is undercut When we try to limit the scope of truth Or the scope of speech the scope of expressing one's thoughts Now think about it. So people say yeah, but some speech is offensive Yeah Almost every truth New truth is offensive And now a lot of falsehoods are offensive too, but also truth. You know Galileo Really offended the Catholic Church. They were really upset Every new truth every new discovery every new anything is offensive to somebody Like uber everybody know uber really offense taxi drivers any Advancement the automobile offended people who are building buggies Anything new is going to be offensive to somebody Does that give that somebody the right to shut you down because their emotions were hooked so reason our belief in reason a Dedication of reason the idea of the efficaciousness of reason demands That we be allowed to speak and that force That force be banned from human relationships that you not be allowed to silence people because you don't like What they have to say so what do you do with people you don't like what they have to say? You can argue with them Or you can walk away. You don't have to listen to them But you don't have a right to shut them up You cannot use force against them in order to shut them up if you do Then now you're setting yourself as an authority over what is right and what is wrong what is true What is good and you're now limiting the scope of what is it? You're allowed to think what you're allowed to speak what you're allowed to write You're limiting the scope of where we can seek truth Seek what is right and what is wrong you're limiting the scope of human thinking you're limiting the scope of human reasoning and you're saying I Whoever the I is the government The University administrators whoever they are and now saying we know What's good for you? We can now run your life We can now make decisions for you You're undercutting the very foundation of freedom and liberty which is the individual's ability and right to think for themselves and therefore to express Themselves one other thing that's happening in our modern culture Whereas we used to Regard reason is our means for knowing reality We still got reason as the way in which we arbitrate disputes and discover the truth It seems like over the last few decades We have elevated emotions above reason So now it doesn't matter whether what you're saying is true or false Right or wrong what matters is what kind of emotion it invokes in me if you say something that upsets me Then you're not supposed to say it We've elevated emotions as our guide to what is true and what is not But what are emotions where the emotions come from and can we trust our emotions? To tell us what is right and what is wrong what is good and what is bad what is true? What is not true? Right. I emotions don't want to understand Newtonian physics. It's too hard What emotions come from? We're just there. How do we where do we get them from? What's that? Chemicals in the brain, but is it just random chemicals? So, you know, you just happen to have a certain emotion It's just whatever whatever chemicals happen to be in the brain at that point in time What's that you're subconscious again So in a sense it's something that you're not in control of that is absolutely true But what why is it that you have a particular emotion from a particular cause? What is it I don't know that you feel fear when you see a dog bark some of us feel fear I'm afraid of dogs. So you might not be right, but I might be and you might not be what is it? We have different chemicals in our brains. Why is my subconscious reacting in one way and your subconscious reacting in a different way? Genetics, so some would say it's genetics We're determined by a certain genetic code in our minds and that determines what emotions we will have It turns out that many of these emotions we don't have when we're little that we kind of develop them as we grow up Where the emotions come from? Yeah, what's that? We've been brought up that way. So we've been brought up To have certain emotions now. That's there's a lot of truth to them. I Believe emotions come from conclusions. We've already made in our mind So we've come to certain conclusions because we were brought up that way because a dog scared us when we were three Because of whatever conclusions we've come to some conclusions in our mind and it's automatized. So it's in our subconscious So now when something trigger it it just happens does it mean it's right? No, it just means that our subconscious is feeding us this emotion right now in response How do I know if something's right or wrong whether the dog is really scary or not? I look at it. Is it, you know, what's it's behaving? How is it behaving? I think about it. Is this a type of dog that's dangerous or isn't it a little poodle, right? It was in a is it a dog that's not dangerous. I use my mind. I use my senses I use my reason to discover the truth the emotion is just telling me based on past things that have happened to you This is how you are responding right now. So what? Like I mean you guys are too young for this, but you know you fall in love you love this girl or Almost all boys here, right? You love this girl and you're in love right hot beating really powerful emotion Because you believe certain things about her and then you discover something negative. She's cheated on you Your emotion you reason that you know, she's no good You don't have anything to do with it. It takes a while for your emotions to catch up Because emotions tend to lack That's why we hold on to things that we know are not good for us anymore right up We know certain foods are bad for us, but emotionally it's hard to give up now I'll tell you if you actually convince yourself that some foods are bad for you and You take it seriously and you think about it enough. You stop desiring those foods. I gave up on dessert tonight, right? Quite easily it was no temptation because I don't do desserts anymore. I used to be hard I used to have to work at it right really have a have a mental effort around it, but you automatize it What should guide your life is your reason not your emotion if you're getting upset because somebody says something So grow a spine Is it what they said true or is it false if it's true? You should thank them if somebody criticizes you then It turns out the criticism is true Then you grow because you've discovered something new about yourself. You didn't know before you should say thank you I didn't know I was doing XYZ, right? If it's false if somebody criticized you and they're wrong Why the hell do you care? It's their problem that they're wrong not you If you hold something that's wrong, it's your problem If somebody else holds something it's wrong. It's their problem So if somebody comes up here and says something out something outrageous that you find a fencer Then it's the speaker's problem If what they said is false and it's your problem if you're getting offended by something the speaker said that's true If something they said is true, then you should think about it. You should consider it You should change your mind But the silence the speaker is the silence thought the silence the speaker is the silence reason to silence the speaker is Ultimately to silence everything that's made Western civilization a success, which is the ongoing constant pursuit of truth the ongoing constant acceptance that the Evaluator of what's right for me and what's right for you is you I get to decide for myself and you get to decide for yourself There is no authority Right and right now you're in school So there is an authority it's called your teacher and you better you better you know answer the exam questions, right? But in life, there is no authority. There's you that's it You get to decide what's right and you get to suffer the consequences when you're wrong you or your final authority and The person on stage whoever it is There they won't find no authority and if they're wrong and they might be wrong. That's their problem. That's their issue So my view is freedom of speech should be absolute As long as it doesn't turn into action, right as long as it's not inciting violence Right as long as it's not involved in committing fraud But all of those in a sense are actions They're meant to act on other people to get other people to do something they wouldn't otherwise do But if you're not inciting violence, and if you're not committing fraud Then you should be able to say whatever the hell you want to say Nobody should be forced to listen. I I guess you guys are forced to listen to me tonight, but nobody should be forced to listen People should be able to walk out people should be able to boo people see a subject I have no problems. I've been I've had it plenty of times of audience is booing me great You're expressing your opinions just like people clapping right you should be able to you ever you have the right to express your opinions Just as I do but you don't shut me down any more than I shut you down in a sense of the ability to speak If people are too sensitive to hear certain ideas Then I think we've got a real problem in controlling our emotions again We've elevated emotions above reason emotions are not tools for discovering truth Emotions are not tools of cognition. I mean emotions are great. Don't get me wrong. You want to feel right? But you don't want to be guided in your life by your feelings. You should be guided in your life by your reason by your mind So Western civilization is reason and individualism Reason depends relies on our ability to express ourselves Ability to convey what we believe is true and right to other people Nobody has the obligation to believe us. Nobody has the obligation to listen to us But all of us have the obligation to leave people alone to not use violence not use force against them If we value Western civilization if we want Western civilization to continue To continue its march towards progress and its march towards truth. We must allow Freedom of speech. Thank you all The question is the questions. This is where things can light up a bit. Yeah when you take issue And doubtless, Dr. Brooks got some examples that he wants to advocate that you may not agree with So any questions, please? Let's start with Yeah, you said that's we our own final authority Surely the government is our final authority imposing rules and laws on us and we have to act within those bounds Are there limits to what we can and can't do in relation to those laws? Because surely if we if we can say anything we want You know in racism and homophobia shouldn't be an issue in what you're saying effectively Yeah, God help us if the government is our final authority That is the end of Western civilization That is that is what government was before you know The 1776 and the changes politically that have happened in the world since then no government is our agent Government is our servant Governor is that you are not the government servant the government is your servant and It is there to do one thing and one thing only in my view and that is protect you from people using force against you That's it It's not there to tell you what the truth is and when it does we all get into trouble You know, we were just talking over dinner about in America the food pyramid So there's a food pyramid the government tells you what's good food and what's bad food and it turns out they've been wrong for like 40 years So Americans all fat and obese why because they take government as an authority and government's not an authority Government shouldn't have a food pyramid. It's not a government's business. What do you eat or don't eat? The doctor should tell you based on science what's good and what's bad for you to eat not government Government is a gun. It's force. It's corrosion. The only reason to use a gun is in self-defense The only reason to use corrosion is to protect us. It's not to impose They will on us. So my old perspective on government is government is Supposed to do one thing is to protect me otherwise it leaves me alone and it's certainly not my authority on anything Now it exerts authority on all of us, unfortunately But that's where I think we get into trouble is we've given way too much authority to government now is Is homophobic speech? Okay, is racist speech. Okay. Well, it depends what you mean by okay. It's disgusting It's it's morally offensive. It's horrible You have a right to be morally offensive and morally horrible and an awful human being You have a right to express yourself in any way And nobody has to listen to you and if it's a private institution like like this is a private school They certainly have a right to limit what you say to what's acceptable to the private organization But you can go out there on your property in your newspaper and your radio show on your whatever and express whatever views you like if you think about If you think about free speech in Europe the first remember I was born in Israel, right? So the first offense against freedom of speech in Europe post-World War two with laws in Germany that banned what anybody know? banned Holocaust denial Now Holocaust denial is stupid evil wrong Disgusting everything right and I certainly know because I had relatives who died in a Holocaust it happened and people I know who are there, right? But you have a right to deny anything It doesn't offend me that you're denying the Holocaust. It just makes you stupid and even if it offends me so it offends me That's not the standard by which you should articulate your speech if you want to be wrong Then be wrong It's the best thing to do with people who racists and people who are homophobic or people who are Holocaust denies is to ignore them Because when they're ignored when they have no audience with people are not all hysterical about them They go away and they tend to shut up most of them are doing it because they want the attention If you're an example of that think Milo, right? He wants attention, right? So he's offensive and he tries to offend anybody he can because it drives attention towards him It's not there's no real content there. There's mostly just offense But you know you don't have to offend people in order to convey truths purposefully the two big Upsets in the last few years For the liberal narrative that you seem to rail against are obviously the election of Donald Trump and Brexit From a free speech point of view Do you see those as net gains because they have upset the liberal consensus? I can't I can't think of how the election of Donald Trump could be pro free speech Given that he that he spent so much time As president of the United States not as a private citizen I think there's a big difference between when you are private citizen And you complain about certain things and when you're president and you complain about certain things because when you're president There's an implicit gun in your hand. There's an implicit threat So when he says things like and he said this he says things like I really don't like the Washington Post And I don't like what they write to me and maybe we'll look at Amazon and see if they violated antitrust When I don't know if you know, but the guy who owns Amazon the CEO of Amazon Jeff Bezos owns the Washington Post Basically saying either Shut up You know be nice to the government be nice to the authority or we will go after you that is Incredibly dangerous for free speech when he constantly berates the mainstream media Now I'm a huge critic of the mainstream media I think almost all media in in the West is tilted dramatically left and it's all biased And if you read it carefully, you see the bias constantly the BBC is unbelievably biased, right? But okay, so you can recognize the bias. There's a difference between that and calling what they do fake news there's a difference between that and Berating them in a way that suggests they should be shut down. They should disappear They should go away, which I think is what he does again from the position of government You can do that as a private citizen free speech, but once you're in the government, you've got that implicit threat It's very dangerous. I view I view Donald Trump's election actually as a move against free speech It kind of today you've got two threats to free speech on the left You've got the whole we got to be sensitive. You can't offend anybody and on the right We cannot accept views that That are anti the nation. There's a good example now in Poland. I don't know if you Poland just passed a law That it is illegal to say the words Polish concentration camp Because they won't Polish concentration camps. They were German concentration camps that happen to be in Poland now even if historically that is correct Really you're making illegal Somebody saying something that you be just frozen. That's from the right, right? So you see threats on both sides to free speech I think most of the threats right now in the United States are from the left and most of threats in Europe seem to be You know particularly in Eastern Europe on the right and in the rest of you are from both sides So I think it's a danger that's coming in from both sides. Oh Brexit I Don't know if Brexit has an impact on free speech. I haven't really thought about that You know Brexit Good or bad depending on what you guys do with it. It looks like you're gonna mess it up and screw it up completely So it's probably a bad thing You know, there's a possibility something good will come of it if the back benches get their way and not the people in government But it's unlikely. I think you're gonna mess it up You talk of the ideas of freedom and the pursuit of truthfulness, but um You could say that through the conditioning in the way we're brought up that these Freedoms and the pursuit of truth are limited to the bounds of your own like mind and the way you're brought up So how can you expect to? Pursue true happiness when the freedoms and the decisions you make are pretty much inside a little bubble of your own Bringing up. Yeah, so there's a massive debate in psychology We've heard two sides of it here a little bit Which say that we're basically determined by two factors There's one party that says we're really determined by how we're brought up and we're conditioned by how we're brought up And everything is determined by how we brought up and then there's other facts and that somebody mentioned earlier They were really conditioned by our genes and we're completely determined by evolution to behave in particular ways And that's the bubble is whatever genes we have conditioning our perspective and then the real radicals It seems right now are the people who think oh, it's a bit a little bit of both Now I think they're all full of it. I Think there's a third reason that shapes who we aren't what you are That has nothing to do with the environment and has nothing to do with your genes And that's who who gets a shape who you are who gets to really shape your character? You do you actually make choices. I believe in free will I think it's almost impossible to stand up here and advocate for anything If you don't believe in free will what be the point right? I believe that you shape your own character I say yes, you grow up in a bubble of your own environment One of the reasons to have free speech is so you can break out of that bubble You can be exposed to new ideas You can even be exposed to something that your parents or your or your school didn't expose it to you one of the beauties of a university a university that really has free speech is you get exposed to Radicals from this perspective and radicals from that perspective and people that are right in the middle and all kinds of things in between and You get to shape Your own Experiences you get to shape your own ideas based on all these facts that you are learning You don't have to accept this professor's view or that professor's view or this students view You get to decide which one of those if we limit free speech then we're limiting ourselves to the bubble Then we're saying oh You guys were raised in a middle-class household and you're way too sensitive to be exposed to these ideas So just keep the bubble that you have. I want to prick the bubble. I Want to expose you to new ideas. I want to expose you to something you've never heard before So that you who are ultimately in control of your own destiny Get to consider all these different ideas and make decisions based on all these ideas Based on what you think is good for you what you think is true what you think is right I want you to use your reason to escape Your environment to escape your upbringing. Hey, my parents think I'm crazy Because I've rejected what I grew up with I've ejected everything that they try to teach me You know and I don't say you should as well But you should at least be exposed to ideas that are different than what you were brought up with and you get to Decide what kind of ideas you want you and you're at exactly the age right somewhere between 16 and 30 after 30 you're not going to reconsider ideas. Nobody changes their mind about anything important after the age of 30 Nobody is an exaggeration very few people It's life becomes routine. You have a family. You have a job. You do your work You're busy The mind calcifies a little bit. You're just at the age where you're starting to think for yourself You're just at the age where you're discovering new knowledge where you're integrating that knowledge where you get To look out in the world with your own eyes not your parents eyes not your teacher's eyes, but your eyes You now get to shape who you are going to become this a this Time in high school and in college might be the most important time of your life And now you want to create an artificial bubble around it and not expose yourself to ideas that might offend you is To guaranteeing that you stay in the bubble that you were trained to stay in And that would be sad No, go out then experiment go out then think new thoughts read authors that that are new and different and exciting and Figure it out for yourself. Use your reason to decide what is true and what is not as an advocate for free speech I was wondering what you thought about how in many places and in fact places like this It's frowned upon to talk about or argue for the ridiculousness of religion And how that can sort of be overcome and how it you can argue for argue against many things But religion sort of is safeguarded and how I can overcome Well, I mean, I don't think obviously I don't think religions should be safeguarded. It is true that in history Religion has been the number one oppressive free speech Because religion doesn't want and doesn't believe anything should question I mean, this is the premise of the Enlightenment the Enlightenment turns religion upside down Because what happens until the Enlightenment until the Enlightenment where does knowledge come from? Where does knowledge come from? Oh God and his and his missionaries and his people who communicate with God because not all of us can communicate God At least not until the the reformation and even then since there is no God nobody got to communicate with him Sorry if I offended anybody, but that's okay Nobody actually communicate with God so the authorities Dictated to you what was true and what was not what was right and what was wrong And if you wanted that stand the movement of the planets you went to an old book written 2000 years earlier and looked it up and there it said that the earth that the Sun goes around the earth and That was the truth and if you suggest that something otherwise that was offensive and that was anti because the truth came from above It was platonic right so if you read Plato in the metaphor of the cave Plato says that we all live in a cave and what we see with our senses are just shadows. We don't see reality Real reality only the philosopher kings go out into the sunlight and they can see the true world the world of forms right that none of us Ordinary people can see so we need philosophers to guide our lives every authoritarian regime ultimately is platonic Right that the communists why did the communists need a dictator? They have to have a dictator because how do we know what the Poletarian needs somebody has to commune Through some kind of mystical way with the Poletarian the spirit of the Poletarian to know what's good And what's just and what's right and convey it to all of us and of course forces to behave that way Right. How does how does the arian race in Germany know what's right? Well, you need somebody Hitler to be able to commune with the arian race and behave all of these Plato's kings in one form or another Catholic Church is exactly the same way. How do we know what God wants? We need a pope who can commune with God and let us all know so we need that authority and anybody who challenges that authority is a threat So free speech is a threat free speech is a threat to the whole notion of Religion which says truth comes from above. It doesn't come from our mind Interacting with reality doesn't come from our senses learning Scientifically about the world out there. So yes Religion has always been a threat to free speech and has to be the more fundamentalist you are The enlightenment says no the enlightenment says no individual human beings using their reason can discover the truth They don't need to commune with the spirits any kind of spirits all they need is the scientific method to discover truth And that's what they rely on and that overturns and it's not an accident I mean Locke has to escape England right because he's worried that the Catholic King is a Charles Who's the last you know is going to prosecute him because of what's he you know what he's writing right so? It's always been a threat Voltaire has to escape Paris. They all go to the Amsterdam as them even back then was a place where you escaped to right there was more freedom there than anywhere else, so It's always been a constant threat and you know the religion like any other set of ideas Religion is a view of the world should be debated should be discussed and the Mechanism to evaluate its truth of falsehood is the same mechanism we should use for everything else, which is what? human reason Then then you could evaluate you can discuss You spoke about reason and individualism as definitions for the Western civilization The surely the purpose of reason is to as you said prick someone's bubble I would argue, you know stop them from From living in their own thoughts and challenge them I'd argue that to do that individually isn't as effective as to do it with a background of supporters and a background of help So so therefore I would argue that individualism and and reason Kind of contradict each other as a as a basis for a Western civilization. Do you not do not think that they're they're well could you? Explain to me your your choices of yeah, so it's not that individualism mean You're an island and should live as an island and not interact with other people obviously, there's enormous benefit to interacting with other people and You learn from an Isaac Newton about physics and you learn from people all the time and that Relationship with other people is incredibly valuable. So individualism doesn't mean living on a desert island that that would be Anti-individualistic because if you're individualist and you want your own happiness You want to be with other people other people incredible value to you What individualism means as an ism as a theory, right? It means that the individual is the unit of value It's not the group. It's not what ethnic group you belong to. It's not the color of your skin. It's not who you hang out with People should be evaluated as individuals and they should be treated as individuals That's and the reason for that is is You know kind of simple once we discover reason If we can all think who does the thinking who thinks we do is I do and you do right? We don't who does the eating right? Do we have a collective stomach? No Right, you have to eat for yourself We don't have a collective brain. There's no collective consciousness floating over above us doing the thinking for us as a group Each one of us has to do is thinking now we can debate we can discuss we can improve each other's thinking through Discussion and debate but at the end of the day you are Responsible for your thinking because only you can do your thinking nobody else can do it for you That's the sense of which individualism comes from reason once we understand that that is see if the truth comes from over there Then we as a group might be able to receive that truth in some Collectivistic way right because our minds are not important. It's some kind of acceptance. That's important But once you acknowledge the truth comes from the human mind from its understanding of reality, which is real out there Then only you can do that as an individual Nobody else can do it for you That's the sense in which it's individualistic and the consequence of that politically are that Under the law we treat people we don't we don't punish you for the sins of your father You don't punish you for the sins of your class or for the sins of your ethnic group I mean ideally right because we do unfortunately punish you sometimes for the color of your skin and things like that But ideally we punish you only for the sins that you commit and the same thing with rewards You have to earn your rewards as an individual you don't get special benefits for being an aristocrat for having the right Family name for for for having something that has nothing to do with you and what you are as an individual So politically it becomes very important. You know each have a vote we each have Have a view politically and the job of government is to protect us as individuals not as members of groups And I think again Western civilization in my view today is breaking apart To a large extent because we're reverting to tribalism. We're going back to Who belongs to which tribe who belongs to you know, whether it's a color of our skin or whether it's our ethnic group or whether it's You know that the belief system that we have in terms of religion. We're clustering around little tribes Right and that to me is the breakup. That's pre-enlightenment West, but that's not civilization. That's anti civilization Civilizations when we try to start treating people individuals as individuals and not as members of groups Oh This is less so to do with freedom of speech for more of government Sure, what is your opinion on having a flat tax rate and also a negative income tax? I Mean I don't like taxes period Any taxes flat not flat doesn't matter, but I think a progressive income tax That is you pay more income taxes a percentage higher as you make more money is downright offensive and evil, right? So the more you produce the more you create the more you build the harder you work The more value you produce the more they take away from you That to me is is ridiculous if anything it should be an inverted tax rate because the more you produce the less you owe, right? How do you how do you become a billionaire? How do you become a billionaire? How do you become really really really rich in a free market now without manipulating government and stealing and stuff like that? How do you in a free market? How do you become a billionaire? By creating good that services that people want creating good that services that millions and millions and millions of people want The only way to become a billionaire is by making the world a better place to live for millions of people And now you owe them 50% of your income because you you've made the world a better place. They penalize you for that So a flat tax is a huge improvement Generally if you tax what if you tax something do you think you get more of it or less of it? If I tax you on some behavior, do you think I get more of that behavior less of that behavior? So I take away stuff from you every time you engage in particular behavior. Are you gonna do that more? You're gonna do that less Less if I subsidize something do you get more of it or less of it? I give you money every time you do something you give more so if I tax work Do you think you get more work or less work? less if I subsidize Not working do you think I get more not working or less not working more not working? So, you know the incentive structure is completely messed up in the welfare state completely upside down We shouldn't be taxing income at all if anything economically if you want to tax if you have to tax anything you tax consumption you don't tax production and Yeah, so a flat tax is better than the alternative, but and and but it's impossible today I mean we love to vilify the rich I mean they are one of these little collectives that we can blame everything all our problems on and and And and then squeeze them for more money You know whenever whenever we we need we think we need more so we go off them We particularly love vilifying bankers. I mean financiers are like at the top of the list of people to hate unjust You said that if we remove force then people are free to think reason out and we'll get closer to the truth Yeah in that process Would it be even better if we force people to listen to those ideas? No, because you can't force people to think you can force people to listen, but you can't force people to think and And There's no value in Giving somebody what you believe is something positive if you're forcing them to do it The value to actually benefit from it. I have to be voluntarily engaged in it I mean even the kids who are forced to be here are going to be getting left from this then the kids were not forced to be here because just mentally their whole attitude towards the lecture is going to be different right if you do something voluntary you Relationship to that material is different now There's a sense in which we do force people by sending to school right and they get exposed to these ideas the parents force them in a Sense whether they like it or not they hear to get exposed to it But I think once you're an adult it's it's your more responsibility as an individual to expose yourself to two ideas and to engage With those ideas and I think I think forcing people to do anything as well I think there is a contradiction in your argument to begin with you said that We are We don't trust anyone to set the limits and free speech right here We are yet later on you said that we should all be free From violence and somebody pointing again at our head and then you backed it up by saying we should never incite violence I'd use the inside violence inside violence and then use the example of the Holocaust denial But then arguably with reason and evidence I can prove to you that the people that deny the Holocaust also Commit crimes against Jews and anti-semitism. So why is that not allowed if that makes if you can show me that somebody commits crimes against Jews Then they should go to jail for committing the crimes against Jews But being a Holocaust denier is not a crime against anybody. It's just stupid It's just wrong, but it's not a crime and then an exciting violence now if they say Let's all go outside and kill some Jews. That's inciting to violence and that's wrong But if I say the Holocaust didn't happen and all in and here's I've written books about all these things that prove that the Holocaust didn't It's all garbage, but that's not inciting violence. It's not a crime It hasn't punched anybody in the fist in the face. It hasn't stolen anybody anything for anything It's upset people emotionally But but we get upset from things that have nothing to do with Holocaust denier We get upset for when people say all kinds of things to us So is all being upset now the standard for what is what should be allowed to be said and what shouldn't be allowed to stay is Have we now elevated our emotions above? Everything else so you're upset get over it. I mean I get I'm incredibly upset when people deny the Holocaust I think it's absurd. It's ridiculous. My family members died in the Holocaust But so what if I get upset it doesn't if I silence them the next point is going to be you're on You upset kids when you advocate for capitalism Because you know what they're not taught capitalism and it's it's controversial and it's upsetting and some people get offended when I say government Shouldn't be the authority, right? Where's the limit if Emotions of the standard then speech is dead all speech is dead They were back in the days of authoritarian's ruling our lives and Determining what is true and what is not I don't want that you you don't want to I know I would never go to listen to a Holocaust than I I don't buy their books I don't engage with them, but if they want to talk let them talk if Reason is so valued and the capacity for reason therefore is so value Why is it not justified for a government to provide and fund? Facilities that nurture the best possible capacity for that reason I taxation to fund state schools Because the government is the wrong institution to do that The essence of government is coercion the essence of government is force and a gun Everything the government does is backed up by if you don't do what we say you go to jail That's the essence of government. It's the ability to curse you, right? Reason is the opposite Reason is about exploring and discovering truth without limits so Bring a gun into a school is wrong Relate to something that just happened. I don't mean it in that sense But for the government then to start running school what happens? Well, the government then decides what is true and what is false what should be taught and what shouldn't be taught What is good history and what is bad history? What is good mathematics and what is bad mathematics? The government has no Ability to do that the government has no standards by which to do that the government knows a gun It knows coercion What I want is I want real competition in schools. I want innovation. I want people to be able to Choose the school that their children go to instead of being dictated by a government official Which school they should go to and therefore what curriculum they should study? I don't think the government should be involved in ideas at all. I don't think the government should have any position or any idea except What is fraud? What is murder? What you know what are crimes so they can defend us against them? But other than that it shouldn't have a position. What is the right history and what is the wrong thing? This is Poland Poland says no the Poles weren't anti-semites. They they you know, it's just the Nazis It's just the Germans it should all be blamed on the Germans read Poles a great This is government policy. They're dictating history. No history should be debated History faculty meetings and people can disagree and let the facts pan out in terms of what really happened during World War two in Poland But now because the schools are run by the government, right? You're gonna get a particular version of history taught to all students That's not induce of a reason What's induced of a reason is schools that are private that are competing that are innovative that are trying to trying to actually Educate not propagandize and my problem with public public education is reversed in the UK my problem with government schools is It's it's they get a pop propagandize Government has no business and ideas and they don't do a good job running schools. I mean I asked audiences in the United States. I mean I mean two questions right one. What would this look like if the government designed it? What would it look like if a government committee built this? right horrible dysfunctional Nobody believes that the government should do what Apple does right or Samsung or any of these companies. They can't do it They're not competent, but the brains of our children reason That's so insignificant. We'll give to the government Or the post office anybody anybody wants to mail a letter and make sure it gets to the other side within a day How many people use the post office versus FedEx or UPS everybody uses FedEx or UPS if they really care about the letter But our children's minds are less important than our mail That will now your parents obviously are spending a lot of money to send you here because they care right so honor We'll leave the public schools those awful place the government schools those awful places just for poor kids Because we don't care about them. That's awful. I want poor kids to have the same quality education you guys do and Only a private school could provide that and only real competition can provide that I want to create a system by which all children go to private schools that are good that are competing that Partially they're competing to get kids because that's how they make money So I think education is way too important to give to the government and Way too important to give to a government whose job is a gun. That's their central characteristic Force and coercion should not be part of school Yeah, you are talking about how the breakup of society into tribalism saying it's a major reason why the West is in decline But surely by unlimiting freedom of speech you're marginalizing these groups and just making this it's making the situation worse for these groups and pushing the West further into decline quite the contrary quite the contrary so If the standard is if the standard for free speech is insult, right then Everybody's being insulted all the time by all kinds of groups, right? I you know, I've often Claimed that I'm just a child of privilege Right, that's pretty insulting. I don't think I'm a child of privilege I think I own everything that I've got and I'm insulted by that So should we ban people being able to say that I'm a child of privilege, right? It works in both directions, right? It doesn't just work at those groups those groups have the ability to defend themselves They have as individuals the ability to speak up and and and challenge anything that is said against them You don't protect people by coddling them if if what they if what they represent is is good Then they will win out in the in the debate that has to happen, right? So I don't I don't feel safer as a Jew because Holocaust deniers go to jail I actually I feel worse Because it worries me that we give them so much importance so much credence that we put them in jail They I think they gain no variety as a consequence I think they disappear from the world if we actually let them say what they say if people around us a racist and say racist things Then ostracize them, you know treat them like they deserve to be treated You can argue against them for a while, but if they're not convinced about then ignore them That's much more effective than saying you're not allowed to say what you say can still stay a racist You're still gonna still be a racist, but just you can't say it No group is better off because of that I can't think of a single so-called marginalized group that is better off by silencing its so-called critics Quite the opposite. It gives those critics much more credence than they deserve. Do you think opinions are? Just emotions and if so, then do you think some are superior to others? So no, I don't think opinions are just emotions. I think opinions shouldn't be emotions I think opinions should be a product of your reasoning opinions should be a product of logic and thinking and As such yes, some opinions are better than others because some opinions are true and some opinions are false Opinions that are based on emotions are not opinions that they're just Something floating in your mind, and they're usually untrue or they're not true to you because you haven't grounded them in facts and in reality So if you hold an opinion about anything if you come out of this speech and say oh, yeah, I agree with your on I agree with what the speaker said today That means nothing unless you can explain it to yourself grounded in some facts in Reality right and the same if you disagree with me, you know if you disagree with me You should be able to ground it in particular facts. This is why this is the logic of my opinion So my goal here is not to get you to agree with me Although that would be nice my goal is to get you thinking properly about these topics What is the logic of the argument? Do I accept that logic? Do I think it's flawed? Do I think it's wrong and where do I think it's wrong emotions have nothing to do with it? Emotions a relevant to logic Ben Shapiro has a night little quote Facts facts don't care about your emotions The question is what are the facts the question is what is the truth not how you feel about it? How you feel is nice and important, but not the end game I'd just like to a little bit more of an explanation on your libertarian stance against government My what your libertarian stance against government? So you say you know government is a coercive force with a gun and you don't like how that How it is the one funding state school education and it is the one that decides what we learn as students But do you not accept that government not only being there to defend us against people who might use violence against us? is also there as a Body again as you said in your own words servants of the people are there to ensure that we get Tasteful and well-rounded education and other such things whereas if you perhaps gave matters like those off to independent places You may not get Such a broader thing and for example by the way This is a private school not run by the government. We are a charity, but we all take exams That are funded by the government And therefore the curriculum is set by the government Regardless of the fact that we are private. Yeah, I think that's awful I think that's terrible because it forces your teachers to teach to an exam set by some bureaucrat who considers it self an Expert on the field. What if your teacher disagrees with the expert? What if your teacher doesn't think that that expert is right? What if that expert? What if that expert now is an agent is is is as a particular political agenda and is teaching you in a particular Political way, which I think they are by the way a particular political way about what is true and what is not because they happen to come from a Catholic background a Marxist background a free market background It doesn't matter whatever the particular background they came from is now What is being dictated as your curriculum and not just your curriculum because you are going to be influenced by your teachers one Every child in England has to think about this particular issue exactly the same even though your professors all disagree Right if I if I take you've got you've got professors who think about history about facts of history You've got some professors who think X other professors think Y We just had a conversation over dinner about the virtues of World War one and we had one professor saying World War one was a Complete waste of time should have never happened and another another teacher saying oh, no, no There was something really important issues relating to World War one. Well. What's the truth? Oh? The government should decide what the truth is between those that's the agency that we want Decide what you should be taught. No, I Don't want the government to have one uniform curriculum. I want there to be schools teaching different things I want there to be schools to teach in some cases. Unfortunately falsehoods like Again not to insult anybody religious schools. They're gonna be teaching falsehoods But people have a right to learn falsehoods and parents have a right to decide their children should be raised under a certain type of falsehood So yes, they should be Islamic schools and Jewish schools and Catholic schools and Protestant schools and secular schools and Let parents make those decisions not a government bureaucrat in terms of what the curriculum is going to be and what is considered well-rounded And what isn't considered well-rounded and I bet you what is considered well-rounded But when a conservative government is different than what's considered well-rounded in a leftist government And what's considered well-rounded today is very different what was considered 30 years ago and who gets to decide which one of them Right. I don't want to give anybody that kind of authority over knowledge over what is true I Want individuals to make their minds up and the only way for individuals to make their minds up is for Teachers to feel free to teach what they think is right and for parents to be able to decide and then for you to go to University and be exposed to a wide array of views and then make your own choices Luckily the government doesn't yet set curriculum for universities because if they did then then we'd really be all all Homogenized all exactly the same and that would be a horrible world. I don't want us all to be the same So while there is such a thing as the truth, I think there is such a thing as the truth. It's not an issue of opinion It's not the government's job to decide what that truth is because government. I mean particularly government today I'll take the United States not because I don't know enough about the politics here If if a Republican is in power, then it turns out that evolution is false. It doesn't exist and and You know, that's that's bad stuff. If a Democrat in power, then it turns out that I don't know Free markets have never worked and it would always create a disaster throughout human history. I mean, what's the truth and? What are they how do they come to their conclusions? Most of the conclusions they come to based on the pressure groups that are putting pressure on them the political process Who how they gain votes you a Republican if you're a Republican and you admit that evolution is actually a science and true Then the evangelicals are not going to vote for you and that's what determines what position you take not the truth It's politics politics and the truth if you haven't figured this out This this is an important real-world fact politics and the truth have nothing to do with one another Indeed politics today more than ever is about the art of lying just look at Donald Trump It's about the art of deception It's not about it's not about seeking and finding the truth not in the political world We go but those same politicians those same politicians who lie about Brexit and who lie about the economy and who lie about Bankers and who lie about all this stuff. They're gonna get the truth right when it comes to your education and it's setting the exams Just right to get the truth just the way it should be Sorry, I can't trust them and I don't trust them and what I trust is the kind of marketplace that builds this. That's beautiful That's really cool And you know what created this freedom Innovation entrepreneurship and competition. I want freedom Innovation entrepreneurship and competition in schools. I want your teachers to Compete for your minds. I don't want it to just be automatic and and again you guys Have the the great benefit of having parents who could afford to send you to a relatively competitive To school that they're striving to please you because they want your parents money, right? I know you're not profit, but still right Poor kids don't have that advantage Poor kids don't have that advantage and that's sad I'd like them to compete and there are plenty of examples And I would recommend a book by the name of a beautiful tree by James Tullia a British scholar Who looks at private schools in the slums of Calcutta in Nigeria and finds that in the slums of Calcutta Parents send it would far better prefer to send their kids to private schools and the public schools They prefer to pay rather than to get something for free For a variety of reasons he explains in the book, but there are hundreds of little private schools in these slums Poor parents can afford to send their kids to private schools as well when there's real competition real freedom Real innovation in that sector and that's that's the kind of stuff That's what inspires me is progress not the The stagnation of that is produced by bureaucracies, which is what which is what government produces All right. Thank you