0:01

Hey

0:08

everyone,

0:15

it's Andrew Klavan with this week's interview with

0:17

Jay Burton. You may not have heard of

0:20

Jay Burton, but he is a young right-wing

0:22

writer and interviewer. And I'll tell you why

0:24

I wanted to talk to him. I've

0:27

been talking on my show on the

0:29

Friday podcast about the fact that

0:31

I think that we're coming to the end of

0:33

something. It's really the end of the boomer generation,

0:36

which has dominated the mindset of America for

0:38

as long as I've been around, because I am a boomer.

0:41

And I think when we look at the people who are probably

0:43

going to be running for president, we see Joe Biden,

0:46

who represents the end, I think, of the great

0:48

society. I think wokeness is the end of the

0:50

great society. It's become basic

0:52

madness because it failed. It failed to do the

0:54

things that they promised it was going to do,

0:57

and yet it did give power and money into

0:59

the hands of politicians so they don't want to

1:01

give it up. And so instead of giving it

1:03

up, they keep calling us names for disagreeing with

1:05

it. And now they're just saying,

1:07

well, we'll just hire people according to race. They've

1:09

come basically full circle. And that's the end of

1:12

that. And Donald Trump, I feel, is also the

1:14

end of something. He sounds like a

1:16

conservative. He has the anger and the

1:18

gestures of a conservative, and he has

1:20

the bluntness of conservatism, but he's not

1:22

actually a conservative. He doesn't actually believe

1:25

in the project of returning America to

1:27

a pre-welfare state freedom or at least

1:29

a pre-great society freedom, if not a

1:31

pre-New Deal freedom. And so that project,

1:34

which was the conservative project for most of

1:36

my lifetime, has also failed. And

1:38

so when I see something passing away, and I

1:40

know that there's going to be, that means there's

1:42

going to be turbulence ahead. I hope it doesn't

1:45

get violent, but we don't know. I

1:47

know something new is going to come along. And

1:49

so I started listening to some of the younger

1:51

right-wingers, because I'm not really interested in how the

1:53

left wants, what kind of power the left wants

1:56

to seize for me. And I am interested in

1:58

what the right-wingers are saying. different

2:00

ones, but the one that really appealed

2:02

to me was Jay Burden. He has

2:04

an interview show. He says he's focused

2:06

on reconnecting to tradition and challenging the

2:08

myths of modernity. I found

2:10

him very intelligent and earnest, which matters to

2:12

me because I don't want to dodge around

2:15

with some guy who won't tell me what

2:17

he thinks, and I want to

2:19

emphasize always that when I do interviews, I'm not

2:21

trying to defeat anybody. I'm not trying to debate

2:23

anybody. This is not how I owned him or

2:25

I destroyed him. I'm not agreeing with him either.

2:27

I just want to hear what he has to

2:30

say. So this is hopefully will

2:32

let us know what Gen Z and Gen

2:34

Z right-wingers are thinking about. Jay, thank you

2:36

so much for coming on. I appreciate it.

2:38

Yeah, thank you so much, Andrew. Very kind

2:40

words, and I look forward to our conversation.

2:43

Yeah, no, I've been listening to the show and

2:45

really interesting, mostly an interview show. First of all,

2:47

let me start out. But before we started, I

2:49

was trying to think of the name of the

2:51

novel. Jay Burden is obviously a pseudonym

2:54

that was taken from All the King's Men,

2:56

that was the name, which is an excellent

2:58

novel by Robert Penn Warren, which

3:00

I haven't read for many, many years. But

3:03

why did you pick that name? I do remember

3:05

the character. Why did you pick that name? So

3:08

actually for a very deliberate reason, you

3:10

know, you mentioned that I present as

3:12

very earnest on my show, and that's

3:15

something I do very deliberately because

3:17

it's not natural to me. You know,

3:19

I think for a lot of people, it's

3:21

very easy to drop into a type

3:23

of low cynicism,

3:26

you know, particularly when you look at a system

3:28

that is very obviously run by cynical

3:31

people, right, that treats genuine

3:33

belief as something kind of embarrassing or as

3:36

a, you know, a shield for something else.

3:38

And so in the novel All the King's Men,

3:41

which is Robert Penn Warren, a southern agrarian writer,

3:44

that book has sort of two main

3:46

plots. The B plot in the background

3:49

is sort of the rise and fall of this

3:51

man Willy Stark, who's sort of a rough

3:54

analogy for, you know, the famous

3:56

Louisiana progressive, Huey Long. But

4:00

that's in the background, right? And so we see

4:02

the fall of this great man, you know, where

4:04

he kind of destroys himself through his love for

4:06

power. But at the same time, the other side

4:08

of the chiasmus, the ex, is

4:11

the rise of this character, Jay Burton,

4:13

who goes from being this kind of

4:15

like cynical, hard-bitten, kind of

4:19

like yellow journalist, and he sort of

4:21

redeems himself through the course of the

4:23

novel, and our characters kind of overlap

4:25

in the middle. And the

4:27

way that he does that, and this is something that I find

4:30

in my work, is by sort of understanding

4:35

his relation to his tradition, to

4:38

his parentage, to the people he comes from

4:40

and making peace with that. And

4:43

there's a certain way to look at it, which is

4:45

a tragic novel, right? Both in the case that, you

4:47

know, Governor Stark is killed. And

4:49

also because, you know, when he does

4:51

reconcile with

4:53

his past, not everything

4:55

comes back. Not everything is made whole

4:57

fully. And I

5:00

both see myself in that character for personal reasons

5:02

I won't get into, but also

5:04

because I think that's a position that a

5:06

lot of young people find themselves in. They

5:08

see, they find themselves very cynical. They find

5:10

themselves disconnected. And

5:13

the way to heal from

5:15

that is to recognize

5:17

your relation to your

5:20

patrimony, to your tradition, the things that came

5:22

before you. And again, it will never

5:24

be as good as if there was no gap in the

5:26

first place, but it is the only way I think to

5:28

heal that gap. And so that's why I picked that as

5:30

my pseudonym. Fair enough.

5:33

Before we get into the details of

5:35

your thinking, one thing

5:37

I've noticed across the board, and you

5:40

sound to me, when I've listened to you, you

5:42

sound to me like you're somewhere between 25 and 30. Is

5:45

that about right? Almost, I'm 24

5:47

years old. Okay, 24. So

5:51

one of the things I've noticed when I listen to

5:53

people your age is that the

5:55

year 2020, which is the

5:58

lockdown year, the COVID year, and the... riot

6:00

year, the year of the riots, that seems

6:02

to be a sort of turning point. It

6:04

seems to be the hinge of

6:06

your philosophy. Is that true of you and

6:08

can you describe it? Why it is? So

6:11

definitely. And I think that for a lot of

6:13

people, 2020 was a very

6:15

important kind of litmus test because it

6:18

was sort of a time where a

6:20

lot of ideology, right, ideas that had

6:22

flown, that had kind of floated around

6:24

in the mental space got tested, right?

6:27

So for instance, 2020 effectively blew up

6:29

the libertarian sphere, right? Like the libertarian

6:31

party is split, it's in shambles, kind

6:33

of the best and brightest have moved

6:35

on to other things. And that's basically

6:37

because if you're a libertarian, you

6:39

know, the moment where there's a ton of government overreach,

6:42

well, that's when libertarians should rise to the front, you

6:44

know, everyone should look at them and say, Oh, they're

6:46

the ones who have the best way to fix it.

6:48

And let's be honest, that didn't happen.

6:50

Right? We saw that, in fact, quite a

6:52

lot of people really liked it, you know,

6:55

and so that sort of shown showed that

6:57

that ideology couldn't stand up

6:59

to kind of the harsh light of reality.

7:01

But for people who aren't libertarians who have

7:04

other kind of political thoughts, I think

7:06

it showed that, you know, politics

7:08

is a real game, right? That

7:10

the our enemies, right, are

7:12

quite comfortable, ruining your

7:14

life. You know, we see that

7:16

roughly 60% of small business is

7:18

closed. And that's not a problem

7:21

for the people in power, because their constituents,

7:23

their real constituents aren't small business owners. You

7:26

see that the idea that these people are

7:28

in any way insistent, that also flew out

7:30

the window, right? We're at the

7:32

same time we're being told like, Oh, you can't

7:34

go to church, you know, that that's too dangerous,

7:36

you know, you have to wear the mask, you

7:38

know, you have to, you know, test

7:41

1000 times a week. Well,

7:44

Floyd riots are okay, you know, in fact,

7:46

those those reduce COVID. And so

7:49

I point that out not to just say,

7:51

Oh, the left is inconsistent.

7:53

That's very obviously the case.

7:55

But that effectively

7:58

shows that they don't care. Because they them

8:00

it is all about power. They don't care that

8:02

it's inconsistent and they don't have to because they're

8:04

in charge. And so looking at

8:06

that, that's sort of a harsh realization, but

8:09

I consider myself a realist. And that means

8:11

that I look at the world how it

8:13

is and not how I want it to

8:15

be. Like, believe me, I'd love to exist

8:17

in a world, you know, where you could

8:19

go up to your liberal opponent and say,

8:21

your policy doesn't make sense. And they'd say,

8:23

you know what, you're right. The data shakes

8:25

out, we'll do something different, but that's manifestly

8:27

untrue. And so I think that's why 2020

8:30

was such an important year because it

8:32

showed us very much, one, where the

8:35

cards lie, and two, it

8:38

showed us that, you know, it

8:40

doesn't really matter how perfect your

8:42

mental model is because the

8:44

government can say you're not allowed to go

8:46

outside and at least a minority of your

8:49

fellow citizens will turn you in if you

8:51

disobey that order. Yeah,

8:53

you know, I have to say that I

8:56

really feel that the establishment

8:59

press on both sides

9:01

has not taken stock of

9:03

the trauma of that event because you

9:05

describe it really accurately and you describe

9:07

it, you know, basically

9:10

the way it was, the indifference and the,

9:12

it wasn't incompetence, it was actually power seizing

9:14

and it was based on something totally other

9:16

than they were telling us. And I can

9:19

understand if you're, you know, in your 20s

9:21

and that happens to you, it actually is

9:23

gonna change your trajectory. So let's

9:26

talk about what you believe because you don't

9:28

actually talk about that much

9:30

on your show, you let other people talk.

9:34

What do you want the world to look

9:36

like? And I'd also like to know when

9:38

you say libertarian, do you mean people who

9:40

believe in liberty or do you mean people

9:42

who just think, you know, who think liberty

9:44

is all in all? That's

9:46

mostly what I meant, you know, the kind of people, and

9:48

I meant that in the strict party

9:50

line sense, right? People who would describe

9:53

themselves as libertarians, you know, look

9:55

like I don't wanna live in a police

9:57

state, but that doesn't necessarily make me the

9:59

kind of person. that you see at these

10:01

sort of libertarian conferences that has a boot

10:03

on his head or demands the right to

10:06

speak naked in front of a crowd, right?

10:08

Those people are patently ridiculous and I feel

10:10

comfortable criticizing them on the internet. I

10:12

got it, okay. So what

10:15

is it you want the world to look like

10:17

or America to look like? If you were, I

10:19

mean, at the end of William F. Buckley's life,

10:21

he said, I accomplished everything I set out to

10:24

accomplish. If you could say that, what would America

10:26

look like? Well, quite simply,

10:28

I want a ruling class who doesn't hate

10:30

us, right? I'm under no,

10:33

and again, that sounds silly, but

10:35

it's a pretty simple request. You

10:37

know, we talk a lot about the kind of

10:40

malice the government has for traditional

10:42

religious people, people like us, deplorable.

10:45

And when I look back in history, I'm

10:47

under no illusions that we can create kind

10:49

of the kingdom of heaven on earth, right?

10:52

There will always be poverty, there will always be

10:54

suffering and there will always

10:56

be government tyranny, right? It's just

10:59

how it works. Now we can minimize that,

11:01

right? We can have a well-run society. And

11:04

really, that's what I look for, you know,

11:06

a society where there is spontaneous order.

11:08

And what that means is order,

11:10

right, things working without there having to

11:13

be, you know, a jack boot

11:15

on your neck, right? Without there having to be

11:17

a police state. And now what we have currently

11:19

is sort of the worst of both worlds. We

11:21

have a police state and nothing works, right?

11:24

I can't go to the airport and, you know,

11:26

count on the fact that my flight will be

11:28

there by the time I, you know, I won't

11:30

get, you know, my flight changed around. I can't

11:32

count on the fact that, you know, if someone

11:34

breaks into my house, the police will find that

11:36

person. And at the same time,

11:39

right, if I do a little bit of investigative

11:41

journalism that the FBI doesn't like, I'm

11:43

going to jail, right? And so essentially

11:46

what I'm looking for is a return to kind

11:49

of good governance, right? And again, when

11:51

I say that I'm a political realist,

11:53

I'm not particularly ideological about how we

11:55

get there. You know, I don't

11:57

necessarily say I am a monarchist or. You

12:00

know, I am a constitutional

12:02

Republican conservative. Because

12:04

to be honest, I think we're in a really bad way

12:06

as a country. Things are falling apart.

12:09

And you mentioned that the baby boomers are on their

12:11

way out. And there are certain

12:13

things that the baby boomers have done to America

12:15

that have been very, very negative. But

12:18

we also have to acknowledge something that the baby boomers

12:20

are, in certain instances, very

12:22

competent people. And their

12:24

replacements are not. And so

12:26

you hear these stories all the

12:28

time about, oh, GM needed to

12:30

rehire their retired engineers because they

12:32

didn't know how some system worked.

12:35

And to be honest, that works when the

12:37

engineer is 70 and is just sitting with

12:40

his seat kicked up, but it's basically still

12:42

functional. But

12:44

if he's dead, where do you get

12:46

that competence from? And obviously,

12:48

look, my grandparents are boomers. I have a great

12:50

number of friends who are. I'm not saying that

12:52

I look forward to that time, but it is

12:54

something that is approaching. And I

12:56

think that what we're seeing now

12:58

is the kind of ideas that

13:00

began to percolate in the 1960s

13:03

really appearing in the flesh, so to speak.

13:05

So things like hiring

13:08

based off of your immutable characteristics instead

13:10

of competence has now resulted in a

13:12

world where you cannot count on the

13:14

fact that your doctor is a particularly

13:18

intelligent person. And so

13:20

really, like I said, I'm looking

13:22

for a society in which there is good

13:24

government. I think that there are certain ways

13:27

to do that. They're kind of informed by

13:29

human nature, especially when it comes to things

13:31

like crime punishment. You need

13:33

to punish people for certain crimes. I think there

13:35

are other ways to do that when it comes

13:38

to political corruption. But I

13:40

really consider myself non-ideological.

13:42

I'm interested in specific

13:45

solutions. I will also

13:47

say in general, I'm not particularly interested in

13:49

the nuts and bolts of politics. I

13:52

kind of see us as

13:54

a society in a crisis state. I

13:58

see that we're sort of going through a crisis. a

14:00

bottleneck of that. And I take this

14:02

analogy from the Black Death, right, which

14:04

is a situation that happened in the

14:07

Middle Ages when roughly one third of

14:09

all genetic lines in Europe were ended

14:11

due to disease, right? It was effectively

14:13

a checkpoint. And if your

14:15

genes were strong enough to resist that

14:17

physical virus, you get to keep going.

14:20

And I think we're in a very similar

14:22

thing, but instead of physical viruses, it's from

14:24

a medic virus, a mind virus, and

14:27

woke, right, progressivism, whatever you want

14:29

to call this, this philosophy that says, you

14:31

know, be useless and cut off

14:34

your genitals. That's effectively

14:36

the virus, you know, and even if it doesn't take

14:38

you to that point where you're actually doing it, look

14:40

at our elite, right? I

14:42

have a friend of mine, a very interesting guy,

14:44

he's about 50 years old graduated from Harvard, right?

14:47

He told me the TFR, the

14:49

total fecundity rate, basically how many children

14:52

are born for women of his graduating

14:54

class is 0.6, which is,

14:57

for those unfamiliar, very, very bad. That

14:59

means that that group of people is

15:01

not reproducing. And I would argue

15:04

that's because that virus has taken hold. And

15:06

so, you know, maybe I look at this at kind

15:08

of too abstract a level, but I look at my

15:10

mission is effectively getting through that bottleneck,

15:13

right, making through that kind of

15:15

civilizational checkpoint. And I view in

15:18

the vast majority of progressives, you know, even, you

15:20

know, some people who are describing themselves as

15:23

conservatives is not clearing that goal. And so

15:25

really, I look at the problems affecting us

15:27

as obviously they're political,

15:29

but at a deeper level,

15:31

they seem to be civilization. So

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K-L-A-V-A-N. I

17:10

do want to go back for just a minute though you

17:12

are being a little abstract in the sense that a

17:14

lot of the the younger people I listen

17:16

to seem to have given up on the

17:18

idea of small r republicanism the

17:20

the notion that the people are sovereign

17:23

the notion that you can elect people

17:25

who will rule they they

17:27

think that they are attracted

17:29

to monarchy they're attracted to strongman

17:32

politics I hear a lot about

17:34

you Kelly obviously in Salvador who

17:36

is who is on the one

17:38

hand doing good things on the other hand I

17:40

sometimes worry that the people who are admire

17:42

the good things he's doing really admire the

17:44

fact that he shut down their constitution for

17:46

a period of time you know in other

17:49

words I'm not sure which of those two

17:51

things they're attracted to do

17:53

you have ideas of what the best way for it

17:55

is do you think republicanism

17:57

is a good per se that

17:59

do you think that monarchy

18:02

is good per se, or do you not care at all? So

18:05

there is something, and like I said,

18:08

I'm a political realist, and there's this

18:10

idea of the iron law of

18:12

oligarchy, that effectively every system of government,

18:14

if you really dig deep into it

18:17

enough, becomes an oligarchy, right? A rule

18:19

of plus or minus

18:21

30 men, right? And the sort

18:24

of legitimating structure you put around that, right, the

18:26

wrapping is relatively

18:28

inconsequential. So look

18:30

at our situation, right? We

18:32

describe ourselves as a constitutional republic.

18:34

But if we look at that

18:36

concept of sovereignty, right, it comes

18:39

from, at least in my mind,

18:41

who decides, right? When something comes

18:43

into question, who is the deciding

18:45

vote? And so

18:47

effectively, sovereignty in the US is

18:49

held in the Supreme Court, right? Which

18:51

is, is it democratic? It's

18:53

like, okay, down a kind of

18:56

long winding series of paths. Yes, you know,

18:58

I vote for people who have a say

19:00

in who is selected as Supreme Court. And

19:03

okay, I see you're a little skeptical. So

19:05

I'll justify that, right? If we

19:07

have some kind of big controversy,

19:09

right, and the left loves to

19:11

use this seat of sovereignty, as

19:13

they have basically from FDR to

19:15

about the Trump era, right,

19:17

what they would do is they take something like, let's

19:20

use birth control, right? That's far enough in

19:22

the past that we can talk about comfortably,

19:24

right? They would say, okay, well,

19:27

this is a big question, right? We can't,

19:29

it is not being passed

19:31

on the legislative level, right? In a few

19:33

states, I believe it was Massachusetts, it happened,

19:35

we will take it up to the seat

19:37

of sovereignty, the Supreme Court, they will decide,

19:39

and now it is law in the land.

19:42

And so to me, right, are

19:44

we living in a republic? Yes, technically on

19:46

paper, right? That how the system was set up.

19:49

But when it comes down to one of those special,

19:52

like outside situations, right, something

19:54

that is a big controversy,

19:56

we're effectively already living in Nologu, right? We're

19:59

living in a rule by a

20:01

counsel system. And so my point to

20:03

say that is not that I dislike the Supreme Court or

20:05

I dislike Congress, but

20:07

to say that either

20:09

the way that you justify it is at

20:12

least from my perspective sort of immaterial,

20:14

right? We've already seen that, you know, our

20:16

elected officials don't do what we want. And

20:19

so I don't really see

20:21

the harm in formalizing that process effectively.

20:25

So, I mean, that does sound like

20:30

you've given up on republicanism. I

20:32

mean, there was a time in

20:34

my lifetime when a politician would

20:36

change course if he felt

20:38

the people were turning against him. Which

20:41

obviously, for instance, with Joe Biden in the

20:43

border isn't true at all. I mean, he

20:45

pretends, but he's not going to change course

20:47

one little bit. So, but

20:49

there was a time when people were

20:52

more responsive to when

20:54

politicians were more responsible to

20:56

the people, but people were also more

20:58

interested in their liberty. I mean, I

21:01

think the things that happened in 2020

21:03

when people were like, you're a

21:05

bad person if you don't shut yourself up in

21:08

your apartment, don't go to church and

21:10

so on, that stuff didn't exist

21:12

before. So there has been a change. There's

21:14

no question. We're not in a steady state.

21:16

This is an actual decline. And as you

21:18

say, a bottleneck, which I think is also

21:20

true, my

21:23

question, I guess, is as a

21:25

conservative, you're not saying we've got to get back to

21:27

point X. You're saying we've

21:29

got to move forward to something else

21:31

or just accept the fact that it's going to

21:33

be an oligarchy. And the question is, who are

21:35

the oligarchs? Is that a fair way to put

21:37

it? So, so sure. And

21:39

if we're talking about the change, I

21:42

sort of view, and

21:45

maybe this will be unpopular with your audience,

21:47

but effectively, America is a

21:50

non formalized empire, right? We have kind of

21:52

these satrapies around the world. Like we have

21:54

bases and basically, if you don't do what

21:56

we want, you'll get a knock on the

21:58

door. And so what that means

22:01

is we don't run ourselves like a republic anymore.

22:03

I agree, we were a republic at one time.

22:06

And sort of slowly from about really

22:08

1865 to 1945, we lost the pieces of that republic. So

22:15

I like to look at FDR. You

22:17

say there was a time at which we

22:19

were, politicians were

22:22

more susceptible to

22:24

public pressure. And

22:26

in certain instances that may be true. But

22:28

in the case of FDR, who effectively

22:31

made our modern American system what it

22:33

was, we're all kind of living in

22:35

his world. When he was

22:37

effectively a dictator, for instance, quite notably,

22:39

took all of the gold in the

22:41

country. Basically said like, it is

22:43

illegal now to have more than a certain amount of

22:45

gold, you have to put it in my piggy bank,

22:47

Fort Knox. And so to

22:50

say, I think that we sort of in America

22:52

are on our kind of like, you know how

22:54

the French will number their republics? I

22:56

think they're on their like fifth or sixth republic.

22:58

We sort of have the same thing in

23:00

America. And don't get

23:03

me wrong, there obviously is a continuity, both

23:05

in the kind of ideas we refer to,

23:07

you know, the documents we pull from and

23:09

obviously the people as well. But

23:11

there are sort of chapters of this thing. And

23:13

I think that you mentioned at the beginning, we're

23:16

coming to the end of something. And to me,

23:18

I think we are coming to the end of

23:20

that sort of FDR empire. Right

23:23

now, very obviously, America is losing

23:25

ground abroad. I don't say that

23:28

joyfully, it just simply is the case. People

23:30

are looking for other arrangements in certain areas

23:33

of the globe. And

23:35

so I think that looking at that kind of

23:38

post war consensus as normal, right,

23:40

the null state, that

23:42

might have been true within the last

23:45

hundred years. But I think that just

23:47

changing material conditions as America goes from

23:49

being an empire to a quote unquote

23:51

normal country again, we will have to

23:53

shift. And one of the other

23:55

things about republics, right, is that republics

23:57

tend to be more homogenous

24:00

policies, right? They tend to

24:02

have a lot of assumed

24:04

value. We argue about a

24:06

relatively small percent

24:10

of what's up for the

24:12

human condition, right? We'll argue about maybe minor points

24:15

of foreign policy or

24:18

how to run the state. And you see

24:20

this in the debates

24:22

between Kennedy and Nixon, for

24:24

example, that they speak to each

24:26

other very respectfully. They'll say things like,

24:28

oh, we agree on the end state,

24:31

but we disagree on how to get there. And

24:33

so what we've seen is, as

24:36

that crack has widened, as

24:38

the dialect has increased its scope

24:40

to the point where the very nature of

24:43

what it is to be man and woman,

24:45

right? The two basic categories of humans, or

24:47

even what it is to be human, right,

24:50

have entered the scope of politics.

24:53

And this is really because of how

24:55

the left works, right? The left works

24:57

by pulling apart and breaking apart bonds

24:59

to release power, right? It's like splitting

25:01

an atom. You get a ton of

25:03

political energy power, but you're also

25:05

left with this sort of radioactive sludge.

25:08

And really, that's the situation we're

25:10

in. We're sort of left in

25:12

radioactive sludge. And what is up

25:14

for debate has gone so totalizing

25:16

that really these two factions cannot

25:18

live together, because we are no

25:20

longer two factions in a republic arguing about

25:22

like, oh, should we veer to the left,

25:24

right? Or veer to the left? It's

25:27

a war of beliefs. We're arguing things

25:29

that are not necessarily policy propositions. Like

25:31

when's the last time you heard anyone

25:34

talk about policy? It is these

25:36

fundamental questions, what is a man? What is

25:38

a woman? And so when it talks about

25:40

what does my end state look like? It's

25:42

a non politicized country, right? A country

25:44

where obviously politics always exists. But

25:46

politics is confined to governance,

25:49

not to, you know, what is it to

25:51

be a man? What is it to be

25:53

a woman? You know, what is good? You

25:55

know, are you a murderer for eating meat,

25:57

something like that. And so to me, I

26:00

see that as an end goal and when I

26:02

look at epochs in the past even relatively recent

26:04

ones, I see depoliticized eras

26:07

now, obviously Americans have always Really

26:10

enjoyed politics right like you can read back

26:12

to you even 200 years ago and people

26:14

would get into riots and fights over Local

26:17

racism that's probably helped but there's a

26:19

difference between that and you know

26:21

I am going to burn down the whole country because

26:24

I feel aggrieved because of certain

26:26

special interests, right? You know I

26:28

demand that you refer to me

26:32

a 230 pound Alabama linebacker as a woman

26:34

because I put on a dress Right to

26:36

me. I think that is a reasonable ask

26:39

so I have to

26:41

ask this now that one

26:43

of the things I hear a lot of young

26:45

people talking about is the role of one

26:48

religion and and to race and It

26:53

seems obvious to me that many of the problems

26:55

that the postmodern Philosophers

26:58

have emanate from the fact that they have lost their

27:00

faith that they're basically Looking at a

27:02

universe that has no other meaning than the matter

27:05

in front of them They even say that and

27:07

so of course every even language starts to have

27:09

no meaning you can say a man is a

27:11

woman It doesn't have any valence

27:13

whatsoever. It's like there's no reason

27:15

not to say it and and of course

27:18

The left has gone a long way to

27:20

tearing us apart over race and they've they've

27:23

now they're now demonizing white

27:25

men Which I think is a really bad idea

27:27

since they're still in the majority but also because

27:29

they have a lot of the expertise that you're

27:31

talking about and I don't

27:33

blame young people for young white men

27:36

for feeling angry about that I'm

27:38

concerned about it because I think that Racialism

27:42

basically has a pretty ugly history But

27:45

I'm wondering where what you see in the

27:47

future when you talk about the idea of

27:49

okay Jay Burton gets everything he wants What

27:53

is the what is our

27:55

ethnic makeup? What is our religious makeup

27:57

are those things? Can we maintain the?

28:00

basically kind of open free society that we

28:02

have or does that have to change? So

28:05

sure, I think that one of the things, and

28:08

that open society is a useful phrase to

28:10

go at, I think that we have to

28:12

realize there are certain things

28:14

we may personally enjoy and have benefited

28:17

from that probably led us here. And

28:20

I think about, for instance, you can see this in the

28:22

economic space when it comes to something like globalism, right? I

28:25

benefit from the fact that Jeff Bezos can

28:27

ship me cheap stuff at a

28:29

moment's notice, right? I like that, but

28:32

it's probably not great for society. And

28:34

so let's kind of step that, put those in

28:36

two separate boxes. So let's take

28:38

the ugly one first, which is race. And

28:42

I sort of share your kind

28:45

of distaste for

28:48

just out and out racialism. It's

28:50

kind of gross and it's a little bit, it

28:53

can be sort of mean spirit,

28:55

right? And that's not the direction I want to take

28:57

this. But I think that one of

28:59

the things that we are going to have to address

29:02

is what does a

29:04

fair society look like? And

29:07

I think that we

29:09

can take that one of two directions, right,

29:11

which is the leftward path, which is full

29:14

equity, right, you will get the same thing.

29:17

And from a certain perspective,

29:20

that's fair, but I view that as

29:22

tremendously unjust, right? Because you were giving

29:24

people not what they deserve. But

29:27

if we give people what they deserve,

29:29

we are going to have unequal outcome.

29:32

And so to me, I'm not

29:34

particularly interested in micromanaging those unequal

29:36

outcomes. They will shake out. Like

29:38

I'm sorry, I will never be

29:40

a world-class sprinter. And

29:42

as long as there isn't a government

29:44

apparatus designed to make me one or

29:46

punish people until I am made one,

29:49

I think that's probably something we can do. I

29:51

think that there's an obsession on certain parts

29:53

of the radical, right, about kind of like

29:55

race science. And they

29:58

may not even be wrong, but I think it's... very possible

30:00

to have a society where that's something you can

30:02

talk about like adults, right? You can say like,

30:04

okay, you know, people of African descent

30:06

tend to have sickle cell at higher rates. And

30:09

I think that part of the

30:12

reason that has so much mystique is

30:14

that it is so anathema-tized. It's

30:16

something you can't touch. But I think that

30:18

we can talk about this like adults and

30:20

say like, yes, okay, there are population level

30:22

differences. But, you know, it's

30:24

generally rude, you shouldn't, without

30:27

knowing someone make that assumption. I think that's something

30:29

we can do as adults. Also,

30:31

if we talk about national identity, I

30:35

think that this idea that, you

30:37

know, nationhood is simply

30:40

kind of a simple

30:42

choice of a set, right? You get to pick

30:44

what you are, you can pick your

30:46

sexuality, you can pick what kind of person where

30:48

you're from. I think that that's

30:51

a really bad idea. And I think that

30:53

wanting to stop the needle and say, well,

30:55

it's ridiculous to say that, you know, I

30:57

am XYZ gender, but

30:59

anyone can be, you

31:02

know, French, a French is probably a bad example, but anyone

31:04

could be English, anyone can be German. I

31:07

think that we have to realize that that is

31:09

a continuum, right? That idea progressed from one category

31:11

to the other. And in

31:13

America, it's a little bit tough,

31:15

right? Because America has been fed

31:17

by different waves of

31:20

immigration. But I think if we're honest,

31:22

we look at the 1964 immigration

31:24

act and see that the country radically

31:27

changes before and after. Obviously,

31:29

there are still minority groups in

31:31

America. But before

31:33

and after things dramatically change. And the kind

31:35

of replacement level migration we've seen more and

31:38

more and more really begins as

31:40

Genesis there. And I see that as a very

31:42

bad thing. And bad for a

31:44

number of reasons. One, it doesn't actually solve

31:46

the problems of these countries we're pulling people

31:48

from. We're kind of just stealing their smartest

31:50

people and leaving them immiserated. And

31:53

Also, I think it's kind of a bad way

31:55

to go about politics to just say, hey, if

31:57

you have a problem, leave and come Here. right?

32:00

That's it. That's very perverse incentives. But.

32:02

But also it it is part of the

32:04

reason that that crack and culture that we've

32:06

been talking about is really they exacerbate. Because.

32:09

To be honest right the way that

32:11

someone who is kind of bone deep

32:14

friends in. You. Know that the

32:16

Miss of America. right? The the cultural

32:18

narrative of America is very different from someone

32:20

even with the best intentions who's been here

32:22

for two years, has been here for five

32:25

years. And does that mean we put a

32:27

wall up and don't know anyone in know.

32:30

But ten million people is? quite a

32:32

lot of people say oh, it's sense

32:34

Bidens taken office and. That.

32:36

Will change the culture and I think that

32:39

in a one of the things that I

32:41

love about older movie. Or. Is

32:43

looking back into a world where.

32:45

Different groups of people are truly

32:48

different. right? Let's you go to France

32:50

and you'll see a guy with a barrage of our

32:52

get into smoking a cigarette. Use. Your

32:54

go to. Your. Dot. In.

32:57

Africa and see someone in traditional garb.

32:59

You go to South American, see some

33:01

with lots and you. As society has

33:03

become more and more globalized, those edges

33:05

are being worn off. You. Can

33:07

go find the Starbucks in any major city in

33:10

the world. And. There are certainly

33:12

nice things about that, but I

33:14

think that we have to recognize

33:16

that these categories Male Female. These

33:18

countries. These these cultures are real.

33:21

And. There's something good and. At.

33:23

Well ordered about having those

33:25

barriers. And. So don't get me wrong,

33:27

like I recognize that there are differences between

33:29

different cultures and different racial groups. I think

33:32

that's a good thing. And. I think

33:34

it's something we need to address. But. We

33:36

can do it without. Kind of. You

33:38

know, Being overly chauvinist sticker, you

33:40

either antagonizing each other on on

33:42

racial or cultural once. I.

33:45

Got to stop there. Unfortunately, I really

33:47

enjoyed talking to a where can people

33:49

find yourself. To. Sure if the

33:52

the Zebra and show is my primary output,

33:54

you could find out on Apple Spot a

33:56

file you tube anywhere you listen to podcasts

33:58

at the same you. I also find me

34:01

on such stack of the blogging platform under

34:03

the same name and again Andrew Thank you

34:05

so much the opportunity! I really enjoyed speaking.

34:07

Do. Ya. Know I really enjoyed listening

34:09

to. I was obvious you're show it to have you

34:11

back out. We'll come back another time. Yeah. Thank

34:13

you very much. I'm glad I did

34:15

that. Really interesting talk of I'm a little

34:17

a little less slowed. The sparing Sisters are

34:19

full of As and I hope you will

34:21

come to the show on Friday for the

34:24

and reclaim so I'll be there. I hope

34:26

you will be there as well.