WEBVTT - The Karol Markowicz Show: The Cultural Problem of Attribution and Intersectionality with Noah Rothman 0:00:04.760 --> 0:00:08.400 Hi, and welcome back to Carol Markowitz Show on iHeartRadio. 0:00:08.680 --> 0:00:12.560 There was a story over the weekend about the singer 0:00:12.760 --> 0:00:18.800 Macklmore saying fuck America at his show and the crowd cheering. Now, 0:00:19.200 --> 0:00:23.680 Macklmore is well known for trashing Israel and for dressing 0:00:23.760 --> 0:00:28.040 up in a Jewish costume complete with prosthetic nose. I 0:00:28.080 --> 0:00:31.600 think it's a very easy leap from jew hater, Israel 0:00:31.680 --> 0:00:35.400 hater to America hater. These things go hand in hand. 0:00:35.840 --> 0:00:37.680 That's not what I want to talk about here. This 0:00:37.800 --> 0:00:41.800 is a man who has made riches beyond our wildest 0:00:41.800 --> 0:00:46.880 imaginations because of this country. He is among the absolute 0:00:46.960 --> 0:00:51.160 luckiest people in history because of his accident of birth. 0:00:51.520 --> 0:00:54.640 And he doesn't get it. He has no idea. Much 0:00:54.720 --> 0:00:58.560 is made of how kids don't learn civics and certainly 0:00:58.600 --> 0:01:02.200 don't have patriotism instilled in them at school. Of course 0:01:02.200 --> 0:01:05.200 that's true. I had to push my kids Brooklyn Public 0:01:05.200 --> 0:01:07.640 School when they were little to say the Pledge of 0:01:07.680 --> 0:01:10.880 Allegiance despite it being state law to say it daily. 0:01:11.400 --> 0:01:13.800 They told me the school has a lot of immigrants 0:01:13.840 --> 0:01:16.400 and we're trying to cater to that. I informed them 0:01:16.440 --> 0:01:19.200 that both my husband and I are immigrants, and we 0:01:19.319 --> 0:01:22.400 came here to be American, not to be some side 0:01:22.520 --> 0:01:25.919 nationality that never quite adjusts and doesn't get to pledge 0:01:25.959 --> 0:01:30.160 loyalty in this country. I think our decline in patriotism 0:01:30.440 --> 0:01:34.280 is by design, that we're pushed to pretend that we 0:01:34.360 --> 0:01:37.240 didn't all wake up on third base just by getting 0:01:37.240 --> 0:01:41.440 to be American, that America is not that great. Without 0:01:41.600 --> 0:01:45.000 getting too much into politics, Kamala Harris is trying to 0:01:45.120 --> 0:01:50.200 run a patriotic campaign because people do want that. Democrats 0:01:50.280 --> 0:01:53.280 get why this country is so great, but largely have 0:01:53.360 --> 0:01:58.680 to pretend otherwise to appease their leftist's flight. That's a problem. 0:01:58.720 --> 0:02:02.200 Fixing it in schools only be a first step. Think 0:02:02.240 --> 0:02:05.920 about how many generations have already been through an American 0:02:06.000 --> 0:02:09.000 hating system. They've been just seeped in it. I'm not 0:02:09.040 --> 0:02:11.240 sure what to do about that. I always think a 0:02:11.240 --> 0:02:14.760 lot of important conversations start in the home. Anyway. Are 0:02:14.760 --> 0:02:17.760 you raising your kids to understand their sheer luck of 0:02:17.840 --> 0:02:21.520 being American? Are you telling them what makes this country 0:02:21.560 --> 0:02:24.480 the best country in history? Don't be embarrassed to say 0:02:24.480 --> 0:02:28.080 that it's true, we have something special here. It's okay 0:02:28.080 --> 0:02:31.160 to say it out loud. We have to challenge the 0:02:31.200 --> 0:02:34.920 Macalmors of the world who have no problem saying their 0:02:34.960 --> 0:02:38.600 thoughts out loud. Thanks for listening. Launching tomorrow, I'm going 0:02:38.680 --> 0:02:42.200 to have a second podcast. This one is about politics, 0:02:42.320 --> 0:02:45.280 and I'll be co hosting it with my good friend 0:02:45.400 --> 0:02:48.720 Mary Catherine Ham. I'm still going to continue doing this show, 0:02:48.760 --> 0:02:52.240 which is, as you know, largely not about politics, but 0:02:52.840 --> 0:02:55.960 I needed a political outlet too, and MK and I 0:02:56.120 --> 0:02:59.840 have very similar world views. We hope to be funny 0:03:00.080 --> 0:03:03.200 and to bring you perspectives you don't hear anywhere else. 0:03:04.080 --> 0:03:06.680 The show is called Normally. It will run on the 0:03:06.680 --> 0:03:10.959 Clay Travis and Buck Sexton podcast network on iHeartRadio. It'll 0:03:10.960 --> 0:03:14.400 be posted on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and just like this show, 0:03:14.520 --> 0:03:17.440 you can hear it anywhere you get your podcasts. You 0:03:17.440 --> 0:03:21.040 could subscribe starting today. We talk about balance a lot 0:03:21.080 --> 0:03:23.680 on this show. I think it's important to take breaks 0:03:23.680 --> 0:03:26.040 from politics, as I try to do with the Carol 0:03:26.080 --> 0:03:29.240 Markowitz Show. But look, there's also a time to talk 0:03:29.280 --> 0:03:33.000 about important issues, the election, horse race, and so much more. 0:03:33.240 --> 0:03:36.040 We'll be doing that at the Normally podcast. Please go 0:03:36.120 --> 0:03:38.760 subscribe right now. Thank you so much. For listening, and 0:03:38.800 --> 0:03:41.640 I appreciate you all so much. Coming up next and 0:03:41.800 --> 0:03:44.440 interview with Noah Rothman. Join us after the break. 0:03:47.680 --> 0:03:51.200 Welcome back to the Carol Markowitz Show on iHeartRadio. My 0:03:51.280 --> 0:03:54.600 guest today is Noah Rothman. Noah is a senior writer 0:03:54.720 --> 0:03:57.680 at National Review and the author of the excellent book 0:03:57.800 --> 0:04:00.280 The Rise of the New Puritans. 0:04:00.280 --> 0:04:02.000 So nice to have you on, girl. 0:04:02.000 --> 0:04:03.560 Thank you so much for having me. It's a pleasure. 0:04:03.880 --> 0:04:05.360 So who are the New Puritans? 0:04:05.520 --> 0:04:09.360 Just out of curiosity, Well, the New Puritans as distinct 0:04:09.720 --> 0:04:14.280 from the old Puritans, both, by the way, the misconception 0:04:14.840 --> 0:04:20.800 of Puritanism as Victorianism, as sort of staid, blue nosed, 0:04:21.000 --> 0:04:28.720 condescending prudishness versus big p Puritans, you know, the sixteen hundred, 0:04:28.800 --> 0:04:32.880 seventeen hundreds mainline Protestant New England or Congregationalist New England. 0:04:33.120 --> 0:04:35.480 There's a lot of definitional. 0:04:34.880 --> 0:04:35.920 Mix up here. 0:04:36.400 --> 0:04:40.640 So the New Puritans, as I define them, are really 0:04:40.680 --> 0:04:43.680 an intellectual tradition that dates back to the old Puritanism, 0:04:44.080 --> 0:04:50.000 and its home is in progressivism. Properly understood. Progressivism arose 0:04:50.040 --> 0:04:53.080 from the ashes of the Puritan experiment in mainline New 0:04:53.080 --> 0:04:55.520 England and it was a moral crusade as as much 0:04:55.520 --> 0:04:58.560 as it was a public policy endeavor, and it had 0:04:58.760 --> 0:05:01.200 a moral element to quite quite a few of the 0:05:01.520 --> 0:05:06.800 of the public policy preferences that this movement pursued. And 0:05:07.000 --> 0:05:11.080 it was typified by an idea that all of society's 0:05:11.080 --> 0:05:15.799 engines must be harnessed to all drive in the same direction. 0:05:15.960 --> 0:05:19.640 So there could not be anything that exists outside politics. Right, 0:05:20.800 --> 0:05:24.800 every every every facet of the social contract had to 0:05:24.839 --> 0:05:30.640 be reflective of this overarching moral desire familiar. So you 0:05:30.640 --> 0:05:33.520 couldn't have entertainment products that didn't, for example, serve a 0:05:33.600 --> 0:05:36.680 useful purpose. That everything had to have a utilitarian aspect 0:05:36.760 --> 0:05:39.640 to it. Athletics had to have a martial dimension. You 0:05:39.640 --> 0:05:42.040 couldn't you couldn't have art for art's sake. You could 0:05:42.080 --> 0:05:47.320 have furniture makers or headstone designers, or people who were 0:05:47.680 --> 0:05:50.839 skilled at portraiture, because these were useful. You were leaving 0:05:50.920 --> 0:05:54.400 a record for posterity. Anything else was idle and illness 0:05:54.400 --> 0:05:58.719 as a sin. And you see this throughout the modern 0:05:58.760 --> 0:06:02.520 progressive ethos, which and part of the book maintains that 0:06:02.760 --> 0:06:07.119 on the left, the sort of the licentiousness and libertinism 0:06:07.200 --> 0:06:11.359 that typified the sexual revolution, and that left leaning tradition 0:06:11.760 --> 0:06:16.039 was an aberration and a departure really from their otherwise 0:06:16.800 --> 0:06:20.440 moralistic framework when you start to see this moralistic framework 0:06:20.520 --> 0:06:24.120 arise in this progressive left. So the book breaks this 0:06:24.200 --> 0:06:26.520 down because there is a moral dimension to this is 0:06:26.560 --> 0:06:30.279 not necessarily worth criticizing. The excesses of it are, but 0:06:30.360 --> 0:06:34.200 the remoralization of society, as Gertrude Himmelfarb would have called it, 0:06:34.240 --> 0:06:37.719 isn't necessarily something to look askance upon. So the chapters 0:06:37.760 --> 0:06:43.039 are organized in virtues, piety, prudence, austerity, temperance, harmony, and 0:06:43.200 --> 0:06:46.040 order of the fear of God. All these things are 0:06:46.080 --> 0:06:51.799 good in their properly understood dimensions. It's when they become 0:06:52.320 --> 0:06:57.080 expanded to apply to every aspect of society, even innocuous 0:06:57.120 --> 0:06:59.120 stuff like the fashion you wear in the sports you 0:06:59.200 --> 0:07:02.600 watch in your hobb these decoration and knitting and fishing 0:07:02.640 --> 0:07:06.160 and gardening and all that stuff has become adulterated so 0:07:06.200 --> 0:07:09.200 that a particular cast of people can peel back the 0:07:09.240 --> 0:07:13.000 curtain and see the hideous hidden workings of the world 0:07:13.040 --> 0:07:17.000 that they, with their exclusive sense of propriety, can see, 0:07:17.000 --> 0:07:21.400 but you can't. It's a very psychologically satisfying outlook, but 0:07:21.480 --> 0:07:25.480 it also leads you to madness. And this book identifies 0:07:25.520 --> 0:07:30.200 the madness and tries to identify ways in which you 0:07:30.280 --> 0:07:33.480 can mute the tendency that you, maybe as a progressive 0:07:33.480 --> 0:07:37.840 puritan yourself, feel to impose your moral framework on the 0:07:37.840 --> 0:07:38.480 world around you. 0:07:39.040 --> 0:07:40.240 How did you get interested in this? 0:07:40.360 --> 0:07:40.440 Like? 0:07:40.480 --> 0:07:41.360 What was the spark? 0:07:42.400 --> 0:07:47.000 So the origins of this book date back to early 0:07:47.040 --> 0:07:50.120 twenty twenty, and it was the height of the pandemic 0:07:50.200 --> 0:07:54.800 and I was just miserable. And so my job is 0:07:55.440 --> 0:08:01.200 consuming the headlines and trying to tease out, you know, 0:08:01.320 --> 0:08:03.840 thoughts and takes and what have you and publish them. 0:08:03.880 --> 0:08:06.200 We're in the same business, you know, And that was 0:08:06.240 --> 0:08:10.120 a really unsatisfying time to be doing that. So I'm 0:08:10.120 --> 0:08:12.640 sitting in the bath of my wife and we're just 0:08:12.720 --> 0:08:14.600 and I'm I'm commiserating because I'm miserable. 0:08:14.680 --> 0:08:17.240 Are you sitting in the bath with your life bathtub? 0:08:17.360 --> 0:08:17.520 Oh? 0:08:17.560 --> 0:08:18.080 With your wife? 0:08:18.160 --> 0:08:18.800 With my wife? 0:08:18.880 --> 0:08:21.720 Okayy's it. 0:08:21.840 --> 0:08:24.680 Trust me, It's not as sallacious as it sounds, because 0:08:24.720 --> 0:08:26.280 I'm just having a glass of wine and I'm miserable. 0:08:27.040 --> 0:08:29.920 And she's like, she asks me, I think you know 0:08:29.960 --> 0:08:34.160 what what would you do to make yourself happy and 0:08:34.240 --> 0:08:36.079 also drive some income in out of it so we 0:08:36.120 --> 0:08:36.880 can pay the mortgage. 0:08:37.559 --> 0:08:39.360 It's like, well, you know, if I had my. 0:08:39.440 --> 0:08:43.160 Brothers, I would spend a lot of my time talking 0:08:43.200 --> 0:08:49.240 to work in comics, professional stand ups, maybe screenwriters, and 0:08:49.280 --> 0:08:51.679 maybe people who make food for a living or talk 0:08:51.720 --> 0:08:54.000 about sports for a living. You know, stuff that is 0:08:54.040 --> 0:08:58.320 supposed to, you know, be outside the political arena. But no, no, no, no, 0:08:58.559 --> 0:09:02.280 you can't because nothing outside the political arena anymore. Everything 0:09:02.960 --> 0:09:06.000 is hyper politicized. Everything has a political dimension to it. 0:09:06.040 --> 0:09:08.880 So even that wouldn't be very fun. And she says, well, 0:09:08.880 --> 0:09:11.199 that's that's the book, isn't it. Like you go out 0:09:11.240 --> 0:09:14.040 and you talk to all these all these people who 0:09:14.080 --> 0:09:16.680 you want to talk to and about the ways in 0:09:16.720 --> 0:09:21.640 which they're a political vocation has been politicized and why 0:09:21.679 --> 0:09:23.080 it's making them miserable too. 0:09:23.559 --> 0:09:24.640 Ah, that's a good idea. 0:09:25.559 --> 0:09:27.319 So the so I spent a lot of time talking 0:09:27.320 --> 0:09:30.360 to comics when I was researching the book. Many of 0:09:30.360 --> 0:09:33.280 them don't necessarily want to be named because they're contributing 0:09:33.280 --> 0:09:36.400 to a political product. But you know, I was talking 0:09:36.400 --> 0:09:38.959 to Nolan Dorman at the Comedy Seller, who plugged me 0:09:39.000 --> 0:09:41.319 into a lot of people, Shane Gillis, who was at 0:09:41.320 --> 0:09:44.439 the time on the Ropes and it was very dimished 0:09:44.480 --> 0:09:46.839 with his time. Yeah, very generous to me, and you 0:09:46.840 --> 0:09:50.920 know a variety of others, you know, chefs and screenwriters 0:09:51.040 --> 0:09:53.880 and people in the business. But it was that was 0:09:54.000 --> 0:09:56.160 just the war on fund. The subtitle of the book 0:09:56.280 --> 0:10:00.160 is Fighting Back against Progressives, War on Fun, and so 0:10:00.200 --> 0:10:02.120 it was a litany of all the ways in which 0:10:02.120 --> 0:10:05.440 progressives are adulterating the things that you enjoy and making 0:10:05.480 --> 0:10:08.360 the political and sapping them of their enjoyment. It was 0:10:08.400 --> 0:10:13.400 my editor at HarperCollins, Eric Nelson, who helped identify the 0:10:13.440 --> 0:10:18.160 intellectual tradition of Puritanism in the book. And the thing is, 0:10:17.880 --> 0:10:19.760 this is something my dad told me a long time 0:10:19.760 --> 0:10:21.800 ago that always stuck with me, is that when the 0:10:21.920 --> 0:10:25.160 universe gives you a good idea, you can assume that 0:10:25.240 --> 0:10:28.760 it's given it to fifty thousand other people and it's 0:10:28.840 --> 0:10:30.280 just a race to get it to market. 0:10:30.559 --> 0:10:32.160 That is your job. Just get it to market as 0:10:32.160 --> 0:10:32.880 fast as possible. 0:10:33.600 --> 0:10:36.880 And there was another book almost by the same title 0:10:36.880 --> 0:10:41.120 called The New Puritans published in the UK, I think 0:10:41.120 --> 0:10:42.520 about a month after. 0:10:42.280 --> 0:10:45.080 I published my book You Real Happy. 0:10:45.400 --> 0:10:48.679 Oh that's just thrilling. I haven't finished it all the way. 0:10:48.679 --> 0:10:51.000 It's a fine book, and we all touch on very 0:10:51.000 --> 0:10:56.839 similar subjects. The competition has a little more sour note 0:10:56.840 --> 0:10:59.000 to it, like this is, you know, all depressing and 0:10:59.080 --> 0:11:00.720 awful and things are going on in the wrong direction, 0:11:01.000 --> 0:11:03.760 and my book takes a slightly different approach. It's supposed 0:11:03.760 --> 0:11:06.240 to be fun, supposed to be supposed to be humorous, 0:11:07.000 --> 0:11:09.520 because that was the mood I was in. I was 0:11:09.679 --> 0:11:13.080 the sentiment I was trying to channel for myself. This 0:11:13.240 --> 0:11:15.880 was all a very self indulgent effort to try to 0:11:15.960 --> 0:11:19.040 pick myself up out of the dulgrums of the pandemic 0:11:19.080 --> 0:11:21.360 and write about something fun and funny and make fun 0:11:21.360 --> 0:11:23.600 of these people because they are parodic. 0:11:24.440 --> 0:11:24.920 It's funny. 0:11:24.960 --> 0:11:29.200 So it struck a different tone and maybe didn't meet 0:11:29.240 --> 0:11:32.800 the moment in so far as people didn't really want 0:11:32.840 --> 0:11:35.600 to be happy, right, they were miserable like me and 0:11:35.720 --> 0:11:40.200 wanted to have their sense of fatalism confirmed. Perhaps. I 0:11:40.200 --> 0:11:42.640 mean that's something you and I think encounter very far. 0:11:43.280 --> 0:11:47.640 Yes, So it's interesting. Dave Marcus, you know, also a writer. 0:11:48.040 --> 0:11:50.120 He and I disagree on lots and lots of things, 0:11:50.120 --> 0:11:52.480 but he once said this thing that I really agree with, 0:11:52.720 --> 0:11:58.400 that comedy kind of has to be outside of woke influence. 0:11:58.679 --> 0:12:00.480 It's sort of one of the few air is that 0:12:00.880 --> 0:12:03.280 just really can't be that influenced by wokeness. 0:12:03.320 --> 0:12:06.800 I mean they try, obviously, but you know, it's either 0:12:06.840 --> 0:12:07.800 we laugh or we don't. 0:12:08.040 --> 0:12:09.880 So what do you think of that? 0:12:10.600 --> 0:12:11.720 Yeah, there's another. 0:12:12.120 --> 0:12:15.040 It dovetails with something that I once heard in I 0:12:15.080 --> 0:12:18.600 think the mid two thousands when I was working in 0:12:18.640 --> 0:12:21.880 and around comedy talk radio at the time, which is 0:12:21.920 --> 0:12:26.959 that funny and sexy can't coexist. 0:12:27.880 --> 0:12:28.160 Really. 0:12:28.679 --> 0:12:33.240 Yeah, like you, there's a self seriousness associated with the 0:12:33.280 --> 0:12:37.760 effort to seduce and seduction and pursuing a partner boldly, 0:12:37.800 --> 0:12:45.240 aggressively assertively that steals from you self deprecation and makes 0:12:45.240 --> 0:12:48.800 you a much more serious person. And serious isn't necessarily funny. 0:12:48.840 --> 0:12:52.360 In fact, it's generally not funny, not a stand up myself. 0:12:53.080 --> 0:12:57.240 When I write comedy, it's you know, it's for particular tastes. 0:12:57.440 --> 0:13:00.199 So I can't say that I have an especially a 0:13:00.240 --> 0:13:04.520 finally at tuned sense of what constitutes universally you know, 0:13:04.720 --> 0:13:08.760 universally accepted humor or something that actually appeals to a 0:13:08.800 --> 0:13:10.319 mass market when it comes to humor. 0:13:10.600 --> 0:13:13.320 But Dave's observation sounds sounds right to me. 0:13:14.800 --> 0:13:18.480 There's an element to wokeism, and we would probably have 0:13:18.480 --> 0:13:20.439 to define our terms, but let's just assume you. 0:13:20.440 --> 0:13:21.800 All know I feel like that. 0:13:21.880 --> 0:13:27.640 Yeah, yeah, there's an element of that that is very severe, 0:13:27.880 --> 0:13:35.160 very harsh, and its members fancy themselves particularly moral, righteous, 0:13:35.240 --> 0:13:39.560 upstanding people, especially in contrast to the world around them, 0:13:39.600 --> 0:13:42.840 the society around them, which just does not. And this 0:13:42.960 --> 0:13:45.520 is a very puritanical outlook too big p puritan like 0:13:45.600 --> 0:13:51.240 original Puritans, is that the mark of a morally virtuous 0:13:51.240 --> 0:13:56.160 person is someone who devotes themselves holy to addressing the 0:13:56.200 --> 0:13:59.240 ills of the world around them. If you're spending any 0:13:59.240 --> 0:14:03.800 waking moment not thinking about the ways in which other 0:14:03.840 --> 0:14:06.760 people are suffering and what you can do to alleviate 0:14:06.760 --> 0:14:09.520 that suffering, which is again in the abstract and noble philosophy, 0:14:10.360 --> 0:14:17.600 then you're indulging in a sinful almost a distance from 0:14:17.640 --> 0:14:20.960 the world around you. You've you've isolated yourself, and you've 0:14:20.960 --> 0:14:24.920 removed yourself from the existence that you should be as 0:14:24.960 --> 0:14:27.840 a as a virtuous person working to improve. 0:14:27.920 --> 0:14:29.320 Sounds very communist. 0:14:29.400 --> 0:14:31.920 Actually like you should be thinking about the party at 0:14:31.960 --> 0:14:34.920 all times, and how you can support the party and 0:14:34.960 --> 0:14:37.560 improve the party and spread the gospel of the party. 0:14:38.680 --> 0:14:42.720 And everything exists within an inside inside of party politics 0:14:43.240 --> 0:14:46.960 and nothing outside of it, because anything outside of it 0:14:47.040 --> 0:14:52.120 is uncontrolled and wild and natural, and that's dangerous. And 0:14:52.120 --> 0:14:54.840 one of the chapters in the book is about comedy. 0:14:54.920 --> 0:14:58.080 It's about stand up comedy and food. There's two things 0:14:58.080 --> 0:15:00.320 you wouldn't think would go together, save for the fact 0:15:00.320 --> 0:15:01.880 that you need you need people to buy a meal 0:15:01.880 --> 0:15:02.840 and two drinks to get out. 0:15:02.760 --> 0:15:03.120 Of the club. 0:15:04.360 --> 0:15:09.640 But the the tethering element is that these two conditions, 0:15:09.840 --> 0:15:16.400 too to to two vocations evoke in you natural reactions 0:15:16.480 --> 0:15:20.120 that are not intellectual exercises. Right when the laugh escapes 0:15:20.160 --> 0:15:26.600 your gut, right exactly when you enjoy a meal that 0:15:26.640 --> 0:15:30.600 has been culturally appropriated from natural indigenous peoples of x 0:15:30.720 --> 0:15:33.800 y z I love you just enjoyed that meal you have, 0:15:34.040 --> 0:15:35.920 you'll release a sigh of relief because you liked it, 0:15:35.960 --> 0:15:38.240 not because it's an intellectual exercise. In fact, the intellect 0:15:38.280 --> 0:15:41.680 has to intervene after you laugh, after you sigh, to say, 0:15:41.720 --> 0:15:42.479 oh maybe. 0:15:42.200 --> 0:15:44.800 I maybe maybe I shouldn't have right. 0:15:44.840 --> 0:15:47.200 And that's so, and that's why it's threatening to a 0:15:47.200 --> 0:15:53.320 particular sort of totalitarian not authoritarian totalitarian. Interesting that you 0:15:53.360 --> 0:15:56.880 know that that sort of uh, your body betrays you 0:15:56.960 --> 0:16:00.640 in those moments, and that's threatening if you intend to 0:16:00.640 --> 0:16:04.960 control people's conduct, behavior, outlook, and even what they think. Yeah, 0:16:04.960 --> 0:16:07.760 because that is that is nature intervening, right, and you. 0:16:07.760 --> 0:16:10.440 Can't do anything about that. Yeah. So what do you 0:16:10.480 --> 0:16:11.920 worry about societally? 0:16:12.000 --> 0:16:15.240 Like, what do you think is our largest cultural problem? 0:16:15.680 --> 0:16:15.880 Yes? 0:16:16.120 --> 0:16:18.160 So I've done a fair amount of thinking on this, 0:16:18.360 --> 0:16:21.000 and it's hard to narrow down, but I would say, 0:16:21.040 --> 0:16:24.840 if I had to identify one, if not the largest, 0:16:24.920 --> 0:16:29.400 but this is the largest social societal problem cultural problem, 0:16:29.760 --> 0:16:35.080 I would settle on the increase in cultural cachet that 0:16:35.120 --> 0:16:42.320 we attribute to persecution complexes. It is and conservatives properly 0:16:42.400 --> 0:16:46.000 understood the right from the intellectual tradition from which I hail, 0:16:46.000 --> 0:16:49.600 which has been under some renovation in recent years, is 0:16:49.640 --> 0:16:54.840 the victimization has a has currency to it, and it's 0:16:54.840 --> 0:16:56.840 a sort of way in which you can paper over 0:16:57.040 --> 0:17:02.480 your individual deficiencies and prop yourself up on the backs 0:17:03.000 --> 0:17:07.200 of those who have genuinely suffered or endured something resembling 0:17:07.400 --> 0:17:11.960 persecutorial conduct that gets you over the hump, that advances 0:17:12.080 --> 0:17:17.639 your career objectives, your interpersonal objectives, and it creates a 0:17:17.640 --> 0:17:24.000 popular front mentality or at least incentivizees ones which and that. 0:17:24.400 --> 0:17:27.320 So you if you all have this persecution complex, and 0:17:27.359 --> 0:17:29.879 you can paper over the problems that you as an 0:17:29.920 --> 0:17:32.960 individual have because you can lay claim to some sort 0:17:32.960 --> 0:17:37.600 of persecution narrative, then you compel somebody who would otherwise 0:17:37.600 --> 0:17:42.720 engage in basic social hygiene to subordinate that impulse, to say, Okay, well, 0:17:42.720 --> 0:17:46.120 I guess you're part of the team too, because you've 0:17:46.119 --> 0:17:48.879 got that same persecution story, and we can contribute to 0:17:48.920 --> 0:17:53.520 that persecution story by shunning you or criticizing you or 0:17:53.520 --> 0:17:57.639 correcting you. All these things steal agency both from the 0:17:57.680 --> 0:18:01.480 individual who suffers from this outlook and from the people 0:18:01.520 --> 0:18:04.720 around them who believe they have to genuflect before it 0:18:04.760 --> 0:18:08.560 and declear fealty to it. If no one is responsible 0:18:08.600 --> 0:18:10.720 for their own lots in life, then a lot of 0:18:10.720 --> 0:18:13.480 people who have made very poor decisions, who are reckless 0:18:13.680 --> 0:18:18.520 or irresponsible to created circumstances. Yeah for themselves and others. 0:18:18.680 --> 0:18:23.160 They're they're sympathetic. Now they're not they're not the authors 0:18:23.200 --> 0:18:25.680 of their own lots in life. Things have been done 0:18:25.760 --> 0:18:30.320 to them by omniscient, unseen forces we can't even really define, 0:18:30.359 --> 0:18:33.040 but you know they're out there and they're working to steal. 0:18:33.200 --> 0:18:34.440 That which is your due. 0:18:35.280 --> 0:18:41.240 It's a it's superficially empowering. People feel empowered by this outlook, 0:18:41.320 --> 0:18:45.919 but it is debilitating, robs you of your capacity to 0:18:46.760 --> 0:18:49.920 mold your environment, to navigate your environment. 0:18:51.000 --> 0:18:53.600 It's a sort of control of your destiny, really, the 0:18:53.600 --> 0:18:54.560 control of your destiny. 0:18:54.560 --> 0:18:58.919 Absolutely, it's available. It's obvious across the political spectrum on 0:18:58.960 --> 0:19:03.320 the left. I think intersectionality has has done a lot 0:19:03.680 --> 0:19:08.400 of the leg work here because it's that intersectionality, which 0:19:08.440 --> 0:19:10.960 is just this as a thought experiment, is not actually 0:19:11.240 --> 0:19:15.080 wholly invalid, just to define the terms it. Essentially, it's 0:19:15.080 --> 0:19:19.920 an academic theory posited by Kimberly Crenshaw Williams, which posits 0:19:20.000 --> 0:19:23.920 that everybody experiences different prejudices in their life, so those 0:19:23.920 --> 0:19:28.919 prejudices intersect and overlap if you are multiple things. So 0:19:29.000 --> 0:19:32.080 if you're a gay black woman, you will experience more 0:19:32.080 --> 0:19:35.359 prejudice in your life than a gay black man, because 0:19:35.400 --> 0:19:38.080 women experience more prejudice than men, et cetera. So it's 0:19:38.119 --> 0:19:41.280 just something that makes you think in stereotypes, so that 0:19:41.560 --> 0:19:44.760 ostensibly you can navigate those stereotypes. But in the end 0:19:44.760 --> 0:19:47.440 of that, at the end, if you're just thinking in stereotypes, 0:19:47.760 --> 0:19:51.400 you're still a bigot. You're you're just doing it for 0:19:51.480 --> 0:19:53.440 what you believe to be noble services, which, by the way, 0:19:53.440 --> 0:19:54.359 all bigots. 0:19:53.960 --> 0:19:55.080 Believe that, of course they do. 0:19:55.200 --> 0:19:57.199 Yeah, and there's never been a bigot who thinks that 0:19:57.240 --> 0:19:58.960 they are bad. 0:19:58.880 --> 0:20:01.360 Right, They're always trying to do good, they're always trying 0:20:01.400 --> 0:20:01.760 to help. 0:20:02.040 --> 0:20:06.040 Yeah, but this is just layering a superficial academic gloss 0:20:06.080 --> 0:20:09.919 over whether it's basically ancient tribal instincts, tribal impulses. 0:20:10.800 --> 0:20:11.639 And you see that there is. 0:20:11.640 --> 0:20:13.719 Something similar on the Trump right, the pro Trump right, 0:20:13.800 --> 0:20:16.359 where Donald Trump who has argued that he is not 0:20:16.400 --> 0:20:18.720 a conservative, that the Republican Party is not a conservative 0:20:18.720 --> 0:20:23.320 party straightforward in those terms I'm not even paraphrasing. Yeah, 0:20:23.680 --> 0:20:26.960 he has replaced that philosophy, a limited government philosophy which 0:20:26.960 --> 0:20:31.600 emphasizes individual agency and individual responsibility both for your circumstances 0:20:31.600 --> 0:20:34.199 and those around you, and replaced it with something of 0:20:34.240 --> 0:20:37.720 resembling a persecution complex that all these things are being 0:20:37.800 --> 0:20:41.320 done to us. There are all these forces around us 0:20:41.400 --> 0:20:44.280 that we can't really define, but you know they're there 0:20:44.600 --> 0:20:46.359 and they need to be crushed. There needs to be 0:20:46.400 --> 0:20:49.040 some sort of vengeance, after which we will ascend to 0:20:49.080 --> 0:20:51.560 the sunlit uplands of a world in which we can 0:20:51.560 --> 0:20:54.800 finally resume control over our lives. But you'll never get there. 0:20:55.280 --> 0:20:57.760 You'll never get to that place. You've already sacrificed the 0:20:57.800 --> 0:20:58.600 agency you need. 0:20:58.480 --> 0:20:58.960 To get there. 0:20:59.080 --> 0:21:01.000 We're going to take a quick break and be right 0:21:01.040 --> 0:21:02.560 back on the Carol Marcowitch Show. 0:21:06.320 --> 0:21:08.800 Is this solvable on either the right or the left. 0:21:09.560 --> 0:21:12.480 Yeah, it's a new innovation relatively. I mean, it's the 0:21:12.520 --> 0:21:16.360 thing is that it's an intellectual exercise. Liberalism, classical liberalism, 0:21:16.440 --> 0:21:20.199 is an intellectual exercise. It's the you know, it's it's 0:21:20.240 --> 0:21:24.240 an effort that we engage in to subordinate what these 0:21:24.280 --> 0:21:29.960 tribal instincts in order to pursue a more galitarian social compact. 0:21:30.359 --> 0:21:33.920 And if you're beholden to the egalitarian social compact, most postliberals, 0:21:33.920 --> 0:21:38.159 which are really preliberals, do not don't necessarily believe in 0:21:38.280 --> 0:21:43.080 universal egalitarianism, and they have they have their own problems 0:21:43.080 --> 0:21:45.000 with it. But if you do, if you do subscribe 0:21:45.040 --> 0:21:48.320 to that ideal as an ideal, then yeah, you've got 0:21:48.359 --> 0:21:51.080 to do a lot of thinking around it. There is 0:21:51.160 --> 0:21:55.960 a robust enterprise on both sides of the aisle dedicated 0:21:56.040 --> 0:22:03.000 to giving you license to not do that intellectual exercise, 0:22:03.040 --> 0:22:08.000 to not engage in that it is a fruitless pursuit, 0:22:08.040 --> 0:22:11.880 a flawed pursuit, something that is the sort of thing 0:22:11.960 --> 0:22:15.320 that only point the eggheads would really care about, and 0:22:15.359 --> 0:22:17.720 look at the circumstances that we're in, and all these 0:22:17.720 --> 0:22:22.320 people have delivered us to this wholly undesirable place. It 0:22:22.520 --> 0:22:24.159 is also something we're going to talk more about this 0:22:24.200 --> 0:22:27.400 because this is very There's a lot of incentives towards 0:22:27.440 --> 0:22:30.560 this line of thinking on social media, which is itself 0:22:30.560 --> 0:22:35.280 a tribal enterprise of course, but if you commit yourself 0:22:35.359 --> 0:22:38.960 to that line of thinking, you know you also risk 0:22:39.080 --> 0:22:44.520 divorcing yourself from the rest of American civilization that does 0:22:44.600 --> 0:22:47.919 not believe we have entered into the worst place we 0:22:47.960 --> 0:22:49.960 have ever been in. People who are responding to polls 0:22:50.000 --> 0:22:53.200 are very likely to say, I'm upset with my circumstances. 0:22:53.200 --> 0:22:55.159 I'm upset with the economy. I think the country is 0:22:55.160 --> 0:22:59.280 on the wrong track. These are close to universal propositions 0:22:59.280 --> 0:23:02.200