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Speaker 1: Welcome to the Tutor Dixon Podcast. We are so happy

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Speaker 1: to welcome back Robert P. George. He is one of

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Speaker 1: America's leading conservative legal scholars and the founder of the

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Speaker 1: James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions at Princeton University.

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Speaker 1: Also happens to be friends with a progressive Cornell West,

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Speaker 1: which seems impossible, but that's kind of what we're going

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Speaker 1: to talk about today, because you have co authored a

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Speaker 1: joint op ed in The Washington Post about cultivating civic

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Speaker 1: friendship at universities, which I totally love. Welcome back, Thank you,

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Speaker 1: it's great to be back with you, Tutor. I say

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Speaker 1: that it's interesting that you are friends because that's kind

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Speaker 1: of the conversation that you continue to have, is that

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Speaker 1: because we disagree with someone on certain points does not

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Speaker 1: mean we should never speak to them or have feelings

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Speaker 1: of anger toward them.

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Speaker 2: Absolutely right. Look, we're all together in this veil of tears,

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Speaker 2: doing the best we can. Every single one of us

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Speaker 2: is a frail, fallen, fallible human being. All of us

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Speaker 2: know this much that we aren't right about everything. There's

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Speaker 2: some things we're wrong about. We just don't know which

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Speaker 2: things those are. You know, we believe what we believe,

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Speaker 2: knowing that some of our beliefs are can't they can't

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Speaker 2: all be correct, So some of our beliefs are going

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Speaker 2: to be incorrect. Now, how are we ever going to

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Speaker 2: make some progress? Will ever perfectly get into a situation

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Speaker 2: where we only have true beliefs in our head? But

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Speaker 2: how can we get to a situation where we can

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Speaker 2: swap out as many false beliefs as we can and

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Speaker 2: replace them with true beliefs. We're certainly not going to

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Speaker 2: get there if you only talk to people who already

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Speaker 2: agree with you and who confirm you in everything you say.

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Speaker 2: What Brother Cornell West and I have in common, despite

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Speaker 2: our vast political differences, is a desire to get at

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Speaker 2: the truth of things, and a willingness to be challenged,

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Speaker 2: to be criticized, to subject our views to rational scrutiny

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Speaker 2: by intelligent people on the other side, all in the

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Speaker 2: hope that we can swamp out the beliefs that are false,

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Speaker 2: at least some of them, and replace them with beliefs

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Speaker 2: that are that are true. Anybody who recognizes their own

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Speaker 2: fallibility has very good reasons to be open to engaging

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Speaker 2: with people you disagree with even on the most profound issues,

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Speaker 2: even on the issues that you care most about. If

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Speaker 2: you have in common that you're truth seekers, then you've

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Speaker 2: got something more fundamental uniting you. Then whatever it is

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Speaker 2: that divides you over politics or religion, of morality or

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Speaker 2: whatever it is. Well.

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Speaker 1: But if you're in a university where there is, as

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Speaker 1: you've pointed out, a lack of viewpoint diversity, and you

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Speaker 1: have not only professors but suitents across campus that are saying,

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Speaker 1: if you don't fit into this box, we don't want

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Speaker 1: you to come anywhere near the box, then how do

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Speaker 1: you how do you do that? And you've pointed out

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Speaker 1: that universities should increase their viewpoint diversity, which I thought

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Speaker 1: was interesting because we've talked about these programs with affirmative

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Speaker 1: acts and DEI and all of this that was supposed

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Speaker 1: to create diversity at these universities, but it actually ended

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Speaker 1: up kicking people to the side who actually deserved a

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Speaker 1: spot there. But viewpoint diversity is something different, and that's

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Speaker 1: it's a conversation I don't think many people have had

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Speaker 1: that If you look at these universities, there really isn't

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Speaker 1: a diverse group of thinkers there. It's really one way

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Speaker 1: in our way or the highway, and that's that's kind

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Speaker 1: of leading these kids to the point where they don't

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Speaker 1: try to be true seekers.

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Speaker 2: Well, that's exactly right, and Cornell West, who's on the

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Speaker 2: progressive side, joins me in pointing that out and saying

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Speaker 2: that we've got to do something about it. We say

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Speaker 2: that in our new book Truth Matters, and we say

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Speaker 2: that in our recent op ed piece in the Washington Post.

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Speaker 2: Although Cornell's on the progressive side, he sees every bit

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Speaker 2: as much as I do that there's a big problem

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Speaker 2: when you have a faculty like the Harvard faculty that

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Speaker 2: has only three percent of its members who identify as conservative.

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Speaker 2: When you have that kind of an ideological imbalance, the

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Speaker 2: bottom line is that the students who are there to

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Speaker 2: educate are basically going to be hearing one side. Even

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Speaker 2: if you have some professors who are doing their best

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Speaker 2: to represent to fairly views that they themselves disagree with,

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Speaker 2: you're going to end up with one sided education. You're

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Speaker 2: going to end up with something much closer. I hate

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Speaker 2: to say this, tutor, but it's true, something much closer

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Speaker 2: to indoctrination than education.

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Speaker 1: So you pointed out that indoctrination is the opposite of education.

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Speaker 1: There's no education there.

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Speaker 2: At allthesis, it's the very antithesis of education. And I

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Speaker 2: often say, tutor, I'd much rather that my students be

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Speaker 2: ignorant than that they'd be indoctrinated. If they're ignorant, well,

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Speaker 2: then maybe I can teach them something, get them thinking

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Speaker 2: about something, expose them to some ideas, get them in

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Speaker 2: a position to gain some knowledge. But if they're indoctrinated,

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Speaker 2: then before I can ever start teaching them anything, I've

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Speaker 2: got to try open their minds as if I were

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Speaker 2: doing it with a crowbar. And that's a big step.

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Speaker 2: When you've got somebody who's steeped in ideology, whose mind

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Speaker 2: has been shut down by conformism and group think. Before

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Speaker 2: you can ever get to actually educating them, you've got

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Speaker 2: to get their minds open. So give me ignorance anytime

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Speaker 2: over in doctrination. I can work with ignorance in doctrination

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Speaker 2: makes it triply difficult.

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Speaker 1: It's interesting because obviously a big part of Donald Trump

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Speaker 1: his campaign and becoming president was saying, we don't want

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Speaker 1: this indoctrination. We don't want these programs that are keeping

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Speaker 1: certain students out of places, and he kind of shut

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Speaker 1: down DEI across the country. But just in the past

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Speaker 1: couple of weeks, some of I don't know if you've

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Speaker 1: seen some of these videos that have been coming out

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Speaker 1: where universities actually continue to have their DEI programs and

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Speaker 1: there's undercover journalists that are going in and saying, well,

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Speaker 1: tell me about what your program is like now that

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Speaker 1: DEI has been shut down, And they said, oh, don't worry,

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Speaker 1: we're just rebranding it. But this isn't going over well

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Speaker 1: with this administration. So what is university life like with

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Speaker 1: Donald Trump as president?

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Speaker 2: Well, first of all, let me say a word about DEI.

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Speaker 2: Whatever good intentions people might have had in trying to

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Speaker 2: increase on university campuses, diversity, equity and inclusion. That's what

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Speaker 2: DEI stands for, diversity, equity and inclusion. The net result

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Speaker 2: was the opposite of those things. Instead of diversity, we

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Speaker 2: got conformism instead of equity, we got unfair treatment. Instead

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Speaker 2: of inclusion, we got the exclusion of people who dissented

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Speaker 2: from the dominant orthodoxies the ideologies on the campus. So

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Speaker 2: if it was an experiment, it is a failed experiment.

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Speaker 2: And the way to deal with a failure is not

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Speaker 2: to rebrand it, it's to get rid of it and

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Speaker 2: replace it with something valuable. Now, what would be valuable,

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Speaker 2: What would be valuable, is making sure that you have

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Speaker 2: such a diversity of views represented on your faculty and

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Speaker 2: in your student body that everybody on campus, faculty members

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Speaker 2: and students alike, can never rest comfortably in their opinions.

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Speaker 2: Their opinions will always be challenged because there's because there

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Speaker 2: are going to be lots of people on the campus

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Speaker 2: who will challenge their opinions. And that's the way we

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Speaker 2: break out of groupthink and conformism. That's the way we

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Speaker 2: advance knowledge. Most of the great advances of knowledge of

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Speaker 2: history have come when people were willing to question what

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Speaker 2: up until that point was a kind of dogma, a

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Speaker 2: kind of a ste abolished view. That's every bit is true,

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Speaker 2: by the way, titor in the sciences, as it is

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Speaker 2: in the other fields and the humanities and the social sciences.

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Speaker 2: So we really need to go for aim for viewpoint diversity. Now,

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Speaker 2: does that mean we should do affirmative action for conservatives. No,

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Speaker 2: what we should do is maintain the highest standards, but

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Speaker 2: treat people fairly. The reason Harvard is only three percent

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Speaker 2: conservative on its faculty. Only three percent of the faculty

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Speaker 2: identifies conservatives. Is simply and straightforwardly discrimination over many years, now,

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Speaker 2: many decades against people who dissent from the progressive orthodoxies

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Speaker 2: on campuses like Harvard. Will end it with a discrimination.

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Speaker 2: Enough with that, and then let's look out around the country.

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Speaker 2: This is my advice to the Harvard leadership, or to

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Speaker 2: the Princeton leadership, or the leadership of the University of

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Speaker 2: Illinois or any other university. My advice is this, look

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Speaker 2: up throughout the country, and you'll see scholars out there

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Speaker 2: who your institution has passed over for ideological reasons, or

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Speaker 2: that have been passed over by your peer institutions for

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Speaker 2: ideological reasons, and then say we're sorry about that. We

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Speaker 2: want you to come join our faculty. That's not affirmative action.

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Speaker 2: That's not lowering standards for conservatives. That's not special treatment.

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Speaker 2: That's writing some old wrongs in order to give the

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Speaker 2: university really what it needs if it's to fulfill its

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Speaker 2: educational mission, and giving it what it needs means making

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Speaker 2: sure that there is a robust dialogue, a robust exchange

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Speaker 2: of ideas on the campus, so everybody is thinking and

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Speaker 2: nobody is resting content and conformism and group thing.

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Speaker 1: So let me ask you this, how do we what

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Speaker 1: do we do with about all the students that have

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Speaker 1: gone through this and they have an attitude of of

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Speaker 1: I'm superior and therefore I am right. And I say

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Speaker 1: that because I've had so many people who have experienced

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Speaker 1: this in their lives. You know, you go to undergrad

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Speaker 1: with friends, and then they go to one of the

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Speaker 1: IVY graduate schools and they come back to you and

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Speaker 1: they say, I've been educated more than you at a

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Speaker 1: better university than you. I am now in an elite class.

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Speaker 1: And because of that, I can tell you you are

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Speaker 1: wrong and you're bad. And those are people who I

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Speaker 1: believe the way they speak is in doctrination. They come

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Speaker 1: out with this, you know, all white people are bad,

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Speaker 1: and we have to fix the wrongs of the past,

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Speaker 1: and you know, you have to have an open border,

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Speaker 1: and you have to have all these things. And like

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Speaker 1: you said, I mean, we can disagree, but they're not disagreeing.

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Speaker 1: And they are now in the workplace and they are

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Speaker 1: now running campaigns and they're putting their voting for people

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Speaker 1: who they believe believe in this in doctrine status. And

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Speaker 1: I am concerned about that period, which seems like it's

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Speaker 1: like a ten year period of graduates who fall into that.

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Speaker 1: Maybe more well, Tutor, let me tell you a little

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Speaker 1: personal story.

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Speaker 2: My father did not complete high school. He got a diploma.

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Speaker 2: It was sent to his parents while he was off

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Speaker 2: fighting in Normandy and Brittany in World War Two. When

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Speaker 2: he turned eighteen, they shipped him off to Europe to

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Speaker 2: fight before he'd even finished his high school, sent his

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Speaker 2: parents a diploma, and then when he came back. His

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Speaker 2: father had been a coal miner. When he came back,

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Speaker 2: fortunately he didn't have to go into the mines because

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Speaker 2: he had some training from the military. And of course

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Speaker 2: we had a booming economy after the war. But he is,

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Speaker 2: I say, didn't even complete high school. Now I have.

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Speaker 2: I have a graduate degree from Swarthmore. I've got a

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Speaker 2: lot of greater master's degree from Harvard, and I have

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Speaker 2: three doctorates from Oxford. Okay, I'm supposed to be really

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Speaker 2: smart guy, right, I got all these credentials. I wish

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Speaker 2: I had half the wisdom of my father. Joseph M. George.

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Speaker 2: I don't if you wanted to. If somebody came to me, say,

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Speaker 2: one of my own children came to me and said,

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Speaker 2: I've got a really tough personal, existential ethical question here.

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Speaker 2: I need your advice. I'd say, well, I'm going to

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Speaker 2: give you the best advice I can. But I also

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Speaker 2: want you to talk to your granddad because he's wiser

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Speaker 2: than I am. And this is what young people have

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Speaker 2: to learn today. Fancy degrees and fancy education doesn't necessarily

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Speaker 2: equal wisdom. And you can have wisdom if you haven't

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Speaker 2: even been to college. My father, we just lost him

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Speaker 2: last year at age ninety eight. He had it in spades.

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Speaker 2: And that's just one example of countless examples that you

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Speaker 2: and I and everybody else could give of profoundly wise

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Speaker 2: people to his people, good people who don't have fancy degrees.

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Speaker 2: And I'll tell you what fancy degrees also don't make

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Speaker 2: you virtuous. I can tell you about a lot of

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Speaker 2: people who are really lacking in virtue. But have you know,

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Speaker 2: doctorates from Yale and a lot of degrees from Stanford

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Speaker 2: and medical degrees from Harvard and all of that stuff.

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Speaker 2: So I think we just need to straighten people out

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Speaker 2: about that.

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Speaker 1: Let's take a quick commercial break. We'll continue next on

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Speaker 1: the Tutor Dixon Podcast. It's interesting because my great grandfather

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Speaker 1: actually he ran away at sixteen to join the navy.

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Speaker 1: He was a child coal miner in Pennsylvania, so they

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Speaker 1: had in common. He had gone into the coal mines

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Speaker 1: when he was eight years old and started working. And

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Speaker 1: because they were tiny back then, they sent the tiny

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Speaker 1: kids into the tiny veins of the mine and they

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Speaker 1: would they would mine with their hands, they would dig

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Speaker 1: with their hands, so his fingernails were always gone. And

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Speaker 1: he told us these stories, you know, and it just

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Speaker 1: it's interesting to me because those were the things that

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Speaker 1: we wanted to learn when we were little. The school

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Speaker 1: was not nearly as interesting as going and sitting with

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Speaker 1: Grandpap and having him tell us about how horrible that was,

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Speaker 1: and that that caused him to join the navy at sixteen.

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Speaker 1: Li about his age. Join at sixteen, he became a

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Speaker 1: navy diver, which was one of the most dangerous jobs.

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Speaker 1: And then when he returned to Pittsburgh, he became a

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Speaker 1: diver for the government and he would fix the bridges,

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Speaker 1: go down and weld the bridges in the river, which

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Speaker 1: was also incredibly dangerous. Became an alcoholic, and then one

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Speaker 1: day woke up after not returning home and found the

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Speaker 1: Lord and from that day on read the Bible every year,

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Speaker 1: all the way through and never took another drink. And

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Speaker 1: those were the stories that created this sense of like,

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Speaker 1: I can do great things because look at what he did.

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Speaker 2: Exactly right. Those heroes are inspiring. My dad was like that,

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Speaker 2: your grandpat. We have so much to learn from them.

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Speaker 2: And it's so idiotic of people to think that we

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Speaker 2: today are better than those people, or wiser, or we're

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Speaker 2: more virtuous. We're not. We really should be their students.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely absolutely, I mean there's just there's so many

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Speaker 1: there's so much that you can learn from history, and

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Speaker 1: yet we're not. We don't seem to be you talk

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Speaker 1: about bringing civics back, but there is there are true

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Speaker 1: historical learnings that we seem to be missing out on.

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Speaker 1: I know you've commented on Mamdanie. I've seen it on

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Speaker 1: your ex account. There are things that he has come

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Speaker 1: out and said that sound wonderful. They sound so great,

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Speaker 1: but they've been done before and they don't work. But

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Speaker 1: how do you convince people that these plans are not

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Speaker 1: real plans?

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Speaker 2: Well, there are lessons to history. I'll take mom Donnie's

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Speaker 2: idea that we should have publicly owned, city owned grocery stores.

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Speaker 2: We have plenty of people in our country today, people

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Speaker 2: like Gary Kasparov, the great tennis, tennis, chess chess champion,

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Speaker 2: brilliant man. We have people like Casparov who can tell

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Speaker 2: you exactly what life was like in the Soviet Union

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Speaker 2: with government run grocery stores. There was very little food

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Speaker 2: in the grocery stores, and you had to line up

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Speaker 2: from here to Tuesday in order to have a shot

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Speaker 2: at getting a morsel or two from the little food

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Speaker 2: that was available in the stores. If there's something that

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Speaker 2: we have now tested, if there's an experiment that we've

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Speaker 2: done and we've proven that it doesn't work, that is

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Speaker 2: the experiment with collectivism or social where that form of

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Speaker 2: socialism called communism, where the government owns the means of production,

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Speaker 2: or owns the shops, or owns the stores, it doesn't work.

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Speaker 2: By contrast, the market system has lifted millions of people

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Speaker 2: from Chile to India and all over the world where

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Speaker 2: markets have been introduced, lifted millions of people out of poverty.

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Speaker 2: So it's not as if we have to start from

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Speaker 2: scratch here with no knowledge we have knowledge. The experiment

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Speaker 2: has been run time and time again. Socialism in the

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Speaker 2: Soviet Union, socialism in Korea, socialism in Vietnam, socialism in China,

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Speaker 2: socialism in Cuba, socialism now in Venezuela. You can't find

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Speaker 2: a time when it worked. Now, we need to draw

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Speaker 2: the lessons from that, and we can't leave our young

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Speaker 2: people in ignorance about those things. They should be studying

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Speaker 2: the period in Russia from say nineteen seventeen the Bolshevik

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Speaker 2: Revolution to the collapse in the late nineteen eighties and

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Speaker 2: early ninety ten nineties of the Soviet Empire. We don't

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Speaker 2: want our kids to be ignorant of that history.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, that's another thing that I think, even when

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Speaker 1: we see this increase in anti Semitism in the United

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Speaker 1: States and even in Europe, I mean, it's been somewhat shocking.

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Speaker 1: I think how quickly it took hold. I've told this

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Speaker 1: story before, but in twenty eighteen, I interviewed Holocaust survivors

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Speaker 1: and the one woman didn't speak the entire time, just

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Speaker 1: her husband spoke. But she was also in a concentration camp.

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Speaker 1: And when I went to leave the room, she grabbed

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Speaker 1: my arm and looked at me and in a very

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Speaker 1: nasty tone, she said, they hate the Jews, and they'll

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Speaker 1: do it again. And I remember thinking, gosh, that would

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Speaker 1: never happen again, naively, you know, naively, thinking that time

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Speaker 1: is done and there is not that hatred out there.

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Speaker 1: And then you know, you hear heard these rumblings for

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Speaker 1: years about anti Semitism, but not until October seventh do

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Speaker 1: I think we really went whoa, my gosh, this is

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Speaker 1: very this is running rampant, and it's at our universities.

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Speaker 1: I mean, we saw all the protests last year, and

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Speaker 1: that to me was an outside effort organized to go

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Speaker 1: into our universities and see that there was a weakness there,

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Speaker 1: go in there and start to teach one of those untruths.

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Speaker 1: And when you were speaking up against it, you were

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Speaker 1: the one that was silenced. If you were speaking to say,

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Speaker 1: you know, stop the hatred, you were the one that

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Speaker 1: was silence, as opposed to the people who were out

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Speaker 1: there saying, you know, globalize the Intifada. And now you

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Speaker 1: have even this situation in New York where that conversation

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Speaker 1: has come up and this man has not said he

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Speaker 1: condemns that. He said, people think of the definition differently,

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Speaker 1: but there is no different definition if you know history,

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Speaker 1: isn't that right?

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Speaker 2: Yeah? I mean we know what the antifada is. It's

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Speaker 2: the effort to destroy the Jewish state, effort to destroy Israel,

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Speaker 2: to create a situation from the so called river to

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Speaker 2: the sea, although most of the protesters can't tell you

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Speaker 2: which river and which see degree, a situation from the

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Speaker 2: river to the sea that is non Jewish, where the

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Speaker 2: Jews are erased from that part of the world. So yes,

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Speaker 2: I mean anti Semitism is one of those ancient curses

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Speaker 2: that never remains in the grave. It's like a vampire.

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Speaker 2: You think you've killed it, you think you've stigmatized it,

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Speaker 2: you think you've put it on the margins, but then

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Speaker 2: it comes back again, you know, out of the coffin,

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Speaker 2: and here it is, and we have it again. And

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Speaker 2: you know what frightens me, Tutors, is we have it

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Speaker 2: today both on the extreme fringe of the right and

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Speaker 2: on the left.

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Speaker 1: Yes, yes, it's.

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Speaker 2: Not just in one on one side of the of

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Speaker 2: the political spectrum. You know. In addition to the book

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Speaker 2: that Cornell West and I have out Truth Matter, so

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Speaker 2: I have a new book of my I own out

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Speaker 2: called Seeking Truth and Speaking Truth. And one of the

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Speaker 2: chapters in the book I devote to a prophecy, a

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Speaker 2: prediction that was made in eighteen thirty by the German

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Speaker 2: Jewish Christian poet Heinrich Heine. Heine looked at his situation

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Speaker 2: there in Germany in the eighteen thirty, one hundred years

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Speaker 2: before Hitler, and he said, what I see is Biblical faith,

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Speaker 2: Biblical principles collapsing in the minds and hearts of our people.

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Speaker 2: They're being pushed out, and that's being replaced with a

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Speaker 2: kind of almost revival of the pagan the Teutonic paganism

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Speaker 2: of pre Christian Germany. And he predicted, he prophesied that

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Speaker 2: as a result of this loss of faith, is collapse

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Speaker 2: of biblical faith. There will come a time when tyrannical forces,

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Speaker 2: secular tyrannical forces, will take control in Germany. And as

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Speaker 2: he and this is a near quote, a situation will

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Speaker 2: arise that will make the bloody French Revolution look like

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Speaker 2: an innocent Idel, like an innocent walk in the park.

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Speaker 2: And sure enough, one hundred years later, what he predicted

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Speaker 2: happened to Nazis, the Holocaust, the mass killings of the

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Speaker 2: Second World war. All of it came true. Now, how

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Speaker 2: did he foresee it? How did he prophesy it? He

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Speaker 2: himself explained it, even back in his own time before

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Speaker 2: it actually played out. He said, thought precedes action as

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Speaker 2: lightning precedes thunder. When you see the lightning, the thunder's

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Speaker 2: going to come. What's the lightning? What he saw was

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Speaker 2: the collapse of biblical faith, and he knew as a

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Speaker 2: result of that violence and evil, a return to the

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Speaker 2: warlike pagan traditions of pre Christian harmony would be back.

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Speaker 2: And it's exactly what happened.

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Speaker 1: But that's what we see right now. I would say

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Speaker 1: in New York with the massive numbers that came out

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Speaker 1: for the idea of defunding the police, having the government

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Speaker 1: take over all of these I mean, they've openly branded

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Speaker 1: it as socialism, but he said sees the means of production, which,

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Speaker 1: as you pointed out, as communism. This is I think

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Speaker 1: a combination of ignorance and indoctrination. I mean, I think

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Speaker 1: that there are a lot of people out there who

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Speaker 1: are very ignorant to how impactful their vote is when

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Speaker 1: they put somebody in power who wants to change that.

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Speaker 1: The way the country has run from the time of

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Speaker 1: its founding, and these are changes that are radical changes.

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Speaker 1: And what I argue is the most important city in

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Speaker 1: the world because it's the financial hub of the world, right,

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Speaker 1: and so you have somebody.

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Speaker 2: You know, that's why it was attacked on nine to eleven.

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Speaker 2: It wasn't attacked because it happened to be on the

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Speaker 2: East Coast or you know, on the Atlantic seaboard or

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Speaker 2: anything like that. I mean, it was attacked because it

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Speaker 2: was the financial hub of the United States and of

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Speaker 2: the world. That's exactly right, and that.

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Speaker 1: Is very scary that that's the target.

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Speaker 2: Very scary, and it'll be targeted again, I fear. But

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Speaker 2: back to the point you were making about anti semitism

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Speaker 2: and the revival of anti Semitism. I saw this and

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Speaker 2: I spoke out against this in the universities fifteen years ago.

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Speaker 2: It wasn't yesterday that it started. I told people, it's here.

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Speaker 2: I see it. It's maybe just barely below the surface,

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Speaker 2: but just barely. On the day after that horrible attack

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Speaker 2: by Hamas on those innocent children and others on October

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Speaker 2: the seventh, a day after thirty three student groups at Harvard,

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Speaker 2: thirty three left wing student groups put out a statement

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Speaker 2: blaming the rapes and murders and kidnappings on Israel, on

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Speaker 2: the Jewish state. Can you believe that they said that?

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Speaker 1: I mean, sadly I can today.

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Speaker 2: With Israel for babies being murdered, for women, girls being raped.

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Speaker 2: This shows you how drained the situation was, how deep

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Speaker 2: the anti Semitism was even before yesterday.

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Speaker 1: M hmm, yeah, because how could you convince people to

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Speaker 1: sign that if it hadn't already been there?

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Speaker 2: Well, exactly right, its October eighth. You would think that

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Speaker 2: that on that day, of all days, people would be

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Speaker 2: having sympathy for the people of Israel, sympathy for the

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Speaker 2: Jewish people, people who were killed for no reason other

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Speaker 2: than they were Jewish or thought to be Jewish. Some

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Speaker 2: people who were killed there weren't even Jewish, but they

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Speaker 2: were killed because they were either Jewish or thought to

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Speaker 2: be Jewish. Of all days, there should be sympathy on

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Speaker 2: that day, surely, But no, there wasn't sympathy. There was

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Speaker 2: anti semitism thirty three student groups at Harvard.

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Speaker 1: Let's take a quick commercial break. We'll continue next on

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Speaker 1: a Tutor Dixon podcast. So can this be reversed? Because

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Speaker 1: yesterday we posted something on DEI in Universities, and I

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Speaker 1: noticed that one of the comments was it's too late,

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Speaker 1: There's nothing we can do now, And I just thought,

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Speaker 1: I can't believe that.

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Speaker 2: No, we can turn this thing around. We really can't.

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Speaker 2: I mean, good stuff is happening now. Most people don't

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Speaker 2: know about this, but there are programs and institutes and

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Speaker 2: centers being built at universities now across the country that

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00:26:44,560 --> 00:26:49,760
Speaker 2: are providing within these universities, even indeed Harvard certainly my

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Speaker 2: own institution here at Princeton, but also University of Florida,

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Speaker 2: and University of Texas and University of North Carolina Chapel Hill,

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00:26:56,000 --> 00:26:58,240
Speaker 2: and University of Tennessee and Arizona State, University of the

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00:26:58,240 --> 00:27:02,879
Speaker 2: Ohio State University programs and institutes being built that are

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Speaker 2: really modeling for the entire university. What a genuine deep

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00:27:08,280 --> 00:27:11,640
Speaker 2: liberal arts education is all about. Wrestling with the big questions,

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Speaker 2: wrestling with the questions of what it means to be human,

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Speaker 2: having complete free speech so you can challenge any orthodoxy

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Speaker 2: requiring only that you do business in the proper currency

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Speaker 2: of intellectual discourse by giving reasons and making arguments and

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Speaker 2: marshaling evidence. Where students are genuinely educated and not indoctrinated.

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00:27:30,280 --> 00:27:36,480
Speaker 2: And these programs tutor are attracting terrific enrollments and majors.

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Speaker 2: There's a big student market for genuine, deep, real education

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Speaker 2: that is not indoctrination, and our job is to provide it.

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Speaker 2: And we're starting to see it all over the country.

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Speaker 2: My program here at Princeton, the James Madison Program in

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Speaker 2: American Ideals and Institutions does that. The program in Human

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00:27:52,359 --> 00:27:55,840
Speaker 2: Flourishing at Harvard does that. The Hamilton School at the

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00:27:55,920 --> 00:27:58,879
Speaker 2: University of Florida does that. The Civitas Program at the

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00:27:58,960 --> 00:28:02,160
Speaker 2: University of Texas does that. The Salmon P. Chase Center

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00:28:02,200 --> 00:28:05,280
Speaker 2: at the Ohio State University. These are all things that

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Speaker 2: we should know about and that we should be cheering on.

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Speaker 1: And that's what I was going to say. Having the

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Speaker 1: support of people out there, because people have been suddenly

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Speaker 1: speaking up about this, and you see a lot of folks,

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Speaker 1: a lot of parents saying, we don't want to send

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Speaker 1: our kids to an indoctrination camp. You see a lot

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Speaker 1: of conservatives speaking up against it, and even on the

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00:28:23,440 --> 00:28:25,919
Speaker 1: news you see people speaking up against it. Does that

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Speaker 1: help to push these programs forward?

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Speaker 2: It certainly does it, certainly does. We need the support

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Speaker 2: of everyone we can get on this. I mean, I'll

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Speaker 2: give you the example again of my own university and

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Speaker 2: the program that I founded twenty five years ago now

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Speaker 2: was the first of these programs. It's been the model

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Speaker 2: for so many others. Princeton is not a large university.

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Speaker 2: We're actually a liberal arts college kind of masquerading as

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00:28:49,360 --> 00:28:52,760
Speaker 2: a big university. We only have about seventy five hundred students,

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00:28:52,800 --> 00:28:55,479
Speaker 2: including our graduate students, so we're a third the solace

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00:28:55,520 --> 00:28:58,800
Speaker 2: at Harvard or Yale or Stanford, and I don't know,

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Speaker 2: maybe a fifth or even less the size of big

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Speaker 2: state universities like Ohio State or University of Florida or

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Speaker 2: University of Texas. And yet, in this very small university,

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Speaker 2: my program, the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions,

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Speaker 2: had last year three hundred and twenty five undergraduate fellows

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Speaker 2: of the program, three hundred and twenty five Princeton students

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Speaker 2: who were eager to get an education that was not

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Speaker 2: in doctrination, where they were free to dissent from campus orthodoxies,

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Speaker 2: to question the dogmas that are dominant on the campus,

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Speaker 2: to really be challenged and to challenge others. There's a

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Speaker 2: tremendous student market for the good stuff. Well let's just

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Speaker 2: give them the good stuff.

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Speaker 1: Good's that is exactly what we need to hear. So

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Speaker 1: I for everybody out there listening, what you're doing is working.

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Speaker 1: There is a chance that you can send your kids

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Speaker 1: to universities and get them back. And yeah, I was

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Speaker 1: just saying, I said the other day on this program.

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Speaker 1: Her the other night, I was putting her to bed

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Speaker 1: and she said, my friend, her friend, she's going into

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Speaker 1: her freshman year in high school and her friend is

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Speaker 1: going into her senior year. And she said, my friend said,

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Speaker 1: it goes so fast. And she said, and then you

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Speaker 1: go to college. And she said, but the kids that

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Speaker 1: go to college, they don't come back as Christian. Mom.

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Speaker 1: And I was like, that doesn't have to be the case.

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Speaker 1: But it's interesting to me that a senior in high

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Speaker 1: school was talking about that concern with a freshman in

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Speaker 1: high school, Like they are really genuinely saying, what's going

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Speaker 1: to happen. We have to be particular about what we

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Speaker 1: choose and where we go because we don't want somebody

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Speaker 1: to change who we are. I think that's interesting.

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Speaker 2: That's kind of a prescient comment on the part of

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Speaker 2: that high school senior. But here again I can tell

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Speaker 2: you about my own university. We have a thriving Catholic chaplaincy.

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Speaker 2: We have several thriving Evangelical chaplaincies. We have a thriving

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Speaker 2: Orthodox Jewish chapel. And see for there are chaplaincies Jewish

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Speaker 2: and Christian, both Catholic and Protestant within the Christian community

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00:31:09,240 --> 00:31:13,520
Speaker 2: that really represent an alternative to the kind of secular,

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00:31:13,560 --> 00:31:18,360
Speaker 2: progressive orthodoxy. And again they're attracting hundreds and hundreds of students.

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00:31:19,040 --> 00:31:20,200
Speaker 2: That's super encouraging.

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Speaker 1: It is absolutely okay. So tell us where to get

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00:31:23,200 --> 00:31:24,719
Speaker 1: the new book, give us the name again, and tell

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Speaker 1: us where to get it.

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Speaker 2: Well, the book that Cornell West and I have out

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Speaker 2: is called Truth Matters. Truth Matters Cornell West and Robert George,

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00:31:32,680 --> 00:31:36,480
Speaker 2: and that's available from all the online booksellers. It's available

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00:31:36,520 --> 00:31:40,680
Speaker 2: in a very inexpensive paperback and a pretty well priced,

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00:31:41,480 --> 00:31:45,480
Speaker 2: fairly priced hardcover as well. So Truth Matters by Robert

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00:31:45,480 --> 00:31:48,600
Speaker 2: George and Cornell West. And then my own book, which

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00:31:48,640 --> 00:31:52,520
Speaker 2: is just out a few days ago, is called Seeking

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Speaker 2: Truth and Speaking Truth. And you can acquire Seeking Truth

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00:31:56,400 --> 00:32:00,840
Speaker 2: and Speaking Truth at any of the online bookseller Amazon,

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00:32:00,960 --> 00:32:03,960
Speaker 2: Barnes and Noble, any of the others, or from the

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00:32:04,000 --> 00:32:06,640
Speaker 2: publisher which is in Counter Books, which is offering the

535
00:32:06,640 --> 00:32:10,200
Speaker 2: book at a very nice discount right now. And both

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00:32:10,200 --> 00:32:13,840
Speaker 2: of these books tutor truth matters and seeking truth. In

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00:32:13,840 --> 00:32:17,560
Speaker 2: Speaking Truth, we have written my case, my book in

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00:32:17,600 --> 00:32:20,680
Speaker 2: Cornell's the other case, the book Cornell and I did together.

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00:32:21,280 --> 00:32:24,680
Speaker 2: We have really written these books not for our fellow academics,

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00:32:24,840 --> 00:32:28,640
Speaker 2: not for scholars, but for general audiences. This is for

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Speaker 2: anybody who's interested in ideas, anybody who's interested in how

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00:32:32,320 --> 00:32:35,320
Speaker 2: we can turn things around in academic life, how we

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00:32:35,360 --> 00:32:38,160
Speaker 2: can bring up our young people to be determined truth

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00:32:38,160 --> 00:32:43,560
Speaker 2: seekers and courageous truth speakers. And I'd especially encourage parents

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00:32:43,560 --> 00:32:47,080
Speaker 2: and grandparents to get these books into the hands of

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00:32:47,120 --> 00:32:51,760
Speaker 2: your high school or college age children and grandchildren. These

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00:32:51,800 --> 00:32:55,320
Speaker 2: books are really written, above all for them, for the

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00:32:55,400 --> 00:32:58,160
Speaker 2: kinds of kids who are now tempted to say things like, well,

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00:32:58,200 --> 00:33:00,080
Speaker 2: you have your truth and I have my truth, but

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00:33:00,120 --> 00:33:03,040
Speaker 2: there's no such thing as the truth. That's a very

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00:33:03,040 --> 00:33:07,080
Speaker 2: pernicious idea. There really is a truth. We never get

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00:33:07,120 --> 00:33:11,239
Speaker 2: at it perfectly, we never get at it fully, but

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00:33:11,360 --> 00:33:13,800
Speaker 2: we can make progress, and we can get nearer and

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00:33:13,880 --> 00:33:16,960
Speaker 2: nearer to the fullness of truth, and we can correct

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00:33:17,000 --> 00:33:19,960
Speaker 2: our errors. But only if we think carefully, think critically,

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00:33:20,040 --> 00:33:25,120
Speaker 2: think well, think logically, think precisely. Question. These dogmatic orthodoxies

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00:33:25,520 --> 00:33:30,200
Speaker 2: resist in doctrination. And that's the message that we're bringing

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00:33:30,240 --> 00:33:32,640
Speaker 2: in these books to our young people. And they're written

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00:33:32,640 --> 00:33:34,680
Speaker 2: for young people to be able to read. So if

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00:33:34,720 --> 00:33:37,320
Speaker 2: you have a grandchild, if you have a child who's

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00:33:37,320 --> 00:33:39,400
Speaker 2: in high school or in college, get one or both

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00:33:39,440 --> 00:33:41,440
Speaker 2: of these books and get them into their hands.

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00:33:42,080 --> 00:33:43,640
Speaker 1: So I haven't read the new one yet, I have

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00:33:43,680 --> 00:33:46,600
Speaker 1: to get that one. The Truth Matters is really it's

565
00:33:46,680 --> 00:33:49,240
Speaker 1: great because it's from your perspective, and it's from Cornell

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00:33:49,280 --> 00:33:52,600
Speaker 1: Wells West's perspective, and every chapter is going back and

567
00:33:52,640 --> 00:33:57,000
Speaker 1: forth and just the conversation and the interview style of

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00:33:57,120 --> 00:34:01,360
Speaker 1: what you both, how you both respond to these questions,

569
00:34:02,080 --> 00:34:07,959
Speaker 1: and the conversation that you're having together of truth and

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00:34:08,160 --> 00:34:11,040
Speaker 1: seeking truth, and how you both individually do it. I

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00:34:11,040 --> 00:34:13,520
Speaker 1: think that's the beauty of it, is that you're seeing

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00:34:13,640 --> 00:34:17,200
Speaker 1: the fact that two people who have very different viewpoints

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00:34:17,239 --> 00:34:19,480
Speaker 1: on things are able to sit down and have a

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00:34:19,719 --> 00:34:24,799
Speaker 1: really thriving friendship in these discussions, even if the discussions

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00:34:24,800 --> 00:34:28,440
Speaker 1: are that you disagree on certain things. To me, that

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00:34:28,560 --> 00:34:31,200
Speaker 1: is so critical for students to see right now, Like

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00:34:31,239 --> 00:34:33,319
Speaker 1: if you have a kid that's in high school. I

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00:34:33,360 --> 00:34:35,359
Speaker 1: have one that, like I said, is going into high

579
00:34:35,360 --> 00:34:37,879
Speaker 1: school and one that's going into her junior year, and

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00:34:38,280 --> 00:34:40,719
Speaker 1: I want them to read that so that they can

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00:34:40,840 --> 00:34:44,080
Speaker 1: understand as they're kind of learning that there's going to

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00:34:44,120 --> 00:34:47,880
Speaker 1: be discourse in universities and colleges and they're planning to

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00:34:47,960 --> 00:34:50,560
Speaker 1: go there, prepare them. This is the best way for

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00:34:50,640 --> 00:34:53,279
Speaker 1: them to be prepared. Read this and they're going to

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00:34:53,320 --> 00:34:56,719
Speaker 1: be ready. They'll have an understanding before they go. And

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00:34:57,200 --> 00:34:58,960
Speaker 1: I think it's great. So I'll get the new one

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00:34:59,360 --> 00:35:02,560
Speaker 1: Truth Matters. I loved and Robert P. George. I always

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00:35:02,560 --> 00:35:04,520
Speaker 1: love having you on. Thank you so much for being here.

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00:35:04,640 --> 00:35:05,520
Speaker 2: Well, it's my pleasure.

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00:35:05,560 --> 00:35:08,560
Speaker 1: Thank you, tutor absolutely, and thank you all for joining

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00:35:08,640 --> 00:35:11,319
Speaker 1: us on the Tutor Dixon Podcast. For this episode and others,

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00:35:11,360 --> 00:35:14,439
Speaker 1: go to Tutor Dixon podcast dot com, the iHeartRadio app,

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00:35:14,480 --> 00:35:17,440
Speaker 1: Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts, and you

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00:35:17,480 --> 00:35:20,560
Speaker 1: can watch the video on Rumble or YouTube at Tutor Dixon.

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Speaker 1: Have a blessed Day