00:06:44.760That's just one example of how now – and actually, Shelby Steele, who influenced me,
00:06:49.860who's an African-American conservative writer, he argues that a lot of these policies are just virtue signaling,
00:06:56.320often from liberal whites who want to show that they're not the bad whites.
00:06:59.940Actually, there's very little concern with what this is going to do to achievement for the particular group concerned.
00:07:07.760And so, yeah, I think that one of the downstream effects, if you like,
00:07:11.080is this damages the life chances of the very groups that progressives claim to want to help.
00:07:18.700We can see something similar on the indigenous issue.
00:07:20.940I mean, if you're encouraging a culture of dependency, if you're not really tackling the root problems of what's driving some of the social issues on reservations,
00:07:31.880for example, then you're not solving the problem.
00:07:56.940And, of course, what this does also is it drives polarization.
00:08:00.440So it damages the very groups that are supposedly to be helped, but it also alienates other groups.
00:08:08.120So another example would be affirmative action, which misallocates students to universities.
00:08:14.460So it will put students who have lower SAT scores than required for, say, a physics course at MIT into MIT when they should be at a good but not very top university.
00:08:25.280And so they wind up dropping out of those courses at higher rates and not fulfilling their potential or switching to, you know,
00:08:33.360sociology or Africana studies or other courses that are not going to get them the kind of earnings.
00:10:45.740It could be patriarchy or some other structure that we somehow can't measure independently of the disparity.
00:10:52.620And so we can't actually make a causal statement.
00:10:55.300And so, yeah, you get this spurious reasoning.
00:10:57.640The other thing I would say is in addition to positing that any kind of disparity is evidence of some kind of systemic bias and discrimination,
00:11:05.840which can only be cured through some kind of affirmative action policy, there's also this hypersensitivity aspect.
00:11:12.540So the two elements of this kind of fuzzy ideology are, one, equal outcomes for the sacred groups.
00:11:19.580And secondly, hypersensitivity to the group such that any speech which offends even the most sensitive member of such a group is a form of blasphemy.
00:11:30.880And so anyone who utters that speech, it could just be something as simple as mispronouncing someone's surname.
00:11:36.540Anything like that becomes grounds for the charge of racism and for cancellation, kind of excommunication,
00:11:42.820because you've profaned a sacred group by insulting that group.
00:11:46.660What that means is this is a profound threat to free speech, for example, and the pursuit of truth.
00:11:52.860I mean, I'll use an example from Canada.
00:11:55.100Can we actually pursue truth on something such as the so-called mass graves in Kamloops?
00:12:01.400Well, if that's seen as offensive to members of a particular minority group,
00:12:06.080the argument from WOKE is that those sensitivities come before truth.
00:12:09.940Or similarly, if you believe that, you know, a woman is biologically female, biological males cannot be called a woman, that too.
00:12:20.000Again, truth is subsumed beneath sensitivity.
00:12:23.580So this is really the dilemma that we find ourselves in.
00:12:26.240There's a fascinating dilemma you touch on here, which is the unwillingness in many cases for conventional conservative parties to tackle these issues.
00:12:38.120When conservatives do talk about these things, they're accused of stoking the flames of the culture war, of being divisive, of doing all of this.
00:12:44.440But you make a bold claim here, which I wanted to, and I really tried before speaking to you to come up with a counterpoint to disprove this.
00:12:52.740And I have not yet been able to, although I do have some questions about it.
00:12:57.040You say political change on culture war issues can only come from right-wing parties.
00:13:02.360If they succeed in making left-wing parties pay an electoral price for doing the bidding of progressive activists,
00:13:07.720this will empower the materialist center left against the influential young cultural socialists.
00:13:13.140So I think you're broadly right there.
00:13:16.180But I guess where I was trying to find a weakness in the argument is that I thought that the path might come from the galvanization by the left of itself,
00:13:26.880and that it would be the J.K. Rowling types, for example, the anti-woke leftists that have more political power in this, in a sense,
00:13:35.400because they're part of the left-wing coalition.
00:14:00.500There is also the components of the worldview are largely about guilt over forms of past or present inequality and discrimination.
00:14:11.340And secondly, a kind of compassion for specific minority groups.
00:14:15.640And any claim that's made in the name of diversity, equity, inclusion of these groups is something that they are going to be very attracted to.
00:14:23.760And so a Rowling, for example, is not necessarily going to be accepted.
00:14:29.640Her claims are not going to be easily accepted by the left, most of whom want to remain on side and who want to sort of see themselves as good people,
00:14:38.220by which they mean people who are allies to minorities.
00:14:41.700And so I don't believe the left can reform itself, actually.
00:14:45.800I think we have an example of that to some degree in universities, which have had a problem with speech codes and free speech violation for certainly since the first speech codes came in in the late 1980s
00:14:57.020and have almost all been struck down as unconstitutional in the U.S. context.
00:15:00.840But still, universities have just not been able to reform themselves on free speech.
00:15:05.380Unfortunately, I believe it's the case that unless there's an incentive coming from outside, that, you know, there is probably a group that's biddable,
00:15:16.460but they need to be able to point to some external force and to say, look, if we don't want the government clamping down on us,
00:15:22.640we're going to have to get rid of our speech codes and start defending free speech, for example, on campus.
00:15:28.220Without being able to point to that, they're liable to be seen as either traitors or insensitive to minority groups.
00:15:36.160And I just don't think the bulk are willing.
00:15:39.080And I have survey data on that, which would show, you know, for example, if you look at academics today in Canada, the U.S., Australia, Britain,
00:15:48.140you know, by a two to one margin, roughly, they support mandatory diversity statements.
00:15:53.980It is only when there's pressure coming from the media and from politicians that they may decide, as it has occurred in a few universities, to abandon these things.
00:16:03.960If it were just up to them, do I think they would abandon them?
00:16:07.440There just simply is too much support for them within.
00:16:10.300So, yeah, I'm afraid I'm going to have to stick with the incentives model.
00:16:14.620I'm curious about your perspective on, well, on a couple of aspects of this, but one of them is how, or if you fear there's an overreaction problem that can come from the right.
00:16:29.620And one example of this, and you touch on this in your book that, you know, the old, you know, does the gay baker or does the Christian baker have to make the gay wedding cake question?
00:16:39.140And I think the standard resistance we saw to that cultural imperative from the right was private business, they can do what they want.
00:16:49.260It was an appeal to that libertarian idea of personal choice.
00:16:52.680I also saw, you know, during COVID, people on the right say businesses should not be allowed as private businesses to have a vaccine passport, for example.
00:17:03.120Because the point that I made was that if an individual business wants to do that, that's its right.
00:17:07.320And I use the Christian baker worldview that I had on that.
00:17:11.460And you had some people on the right that say, no, they shouldn't have the right to do that.
00:17:14.680And part of the trend that I've identified, and I'm curious if you see this, is that there are some people, not all, that want to use the same institutional power and levers that the left uses against them, rather than sticking to that initial libertarian premise.
00:17:33.120Well, yeah, and this opens up a big debate, right, between libertarians and other kinds of conservatives.
00:17:39.340I'm kind of with you on the examples you just cited.
00:17:43.200But I think, so for example, I think probably many of us would support the Civil Rights Act, this idea that you can't discriminate on the basis of race if you are offering a public service, for example, refusing to serve a black customer or hire a, you know, hire a woman or something of this nature.
00:18:01.460Now, true free associationists would say, no, if you really want to hire all men and you don't want to hire anything but whites, you should be allowed to do that.
00:18:10.580I'm not, I'm sort of more on the side of saying, well, in certain, for certain characteristics, I think it's reasonable to have a quality law.
00:18:19.660But while that may be morally right, it's also intellectually inconsistent.
00:18:23.120Well, I think you can, I think you can sort of draw a line and you can have kind of a happy medium.
00:18:30.240I'm kind of a utilitarian in some ways, so I sort of believe in these optimal points.
00:18:34.060I think you can have on certain characteristics, it should be free association.
00:18:37.740On other characteristics, I think that you can insist on non-discrimination.
00:18:46.200I mean, I think if you're having, obviously, if you have a Catholic club or a Catholic church, you can restrict it to Catholics only.
00:18:53.920And I think there's nothing wrong with all male clubs either, by the way.
00:18:56.620If this is part of the function of the club, if that is germane to the, and there have been a number of court cases that have established when you can discriminate.
00:19:06.020You can have Chinese cooks and waiters in a Chinese restaurant, but you can't have, you know, an all Chinese only policy of hiring at a bank, for example.
00:19:15.060So I think that this is something that the judges have come up with a certain happy medium on where that line is.
00:19:21.800What I would say, though, is I think that, you know, increasingly in Britain and in Europe, we have this view that philosophical belief is now a protected characteristic.
00:19:31.880So firing somebody because they say that a biological male is not a woman, cannot be a woman, is no longer permitted.
00:19:40.000I mean, that's the kind of thing that I would support.
00:19:41.680I mean, I think that I do support to some degree the, you know, the use of these protected characteristics if you're offering a public service and if the mission of your organization is not specific to that particular characteristic, like a Chinese restaurant, for example, which would be justified in hiring Chinese only, I think is different if you are a bank.
00:20:02.000You can't just hire Democrats, for example.
00:20:08.000Because we have agreed, if we accept your premise, that any political change has to come from the right.
00:20:14.000But there has been, I mean, the U.S. Republican Party is one example where they've been relatively unafraid in many areas of going after critical race theory and gender ideology.
00:20:24.300The U.K. Tories periodically find a spine.
00:20:27.160It's not long lasting, but they do it.
00:20:29.320But the Canadian Conservatives have perennially been challenged by not wanting to go near these issues at all, by saying, no, no, no, we're just going to talk about lower taxes and this and that.
00:20:39.760And, you know, at a certain point, I do think it's changing now.
00:20:43.520Pierre Polyev has obviously had more of a willingness than his predecessors to engage on these issues.
00:20:48.460Rishi Sunak, I think, tends to cosplay as a culture warrior at times.
00:20:51.860And as long as he just keeps doing that, I guess, you know, maybe the right things will happen.
00:20:55.820But do you think this will be long lasting?
00:20:58.100Do you think there is a legitimate political opposition to this right now?
00:21:03.940And I this is where I'm sort of I contest the arguments of some who are more pessimistic on this front or perhaps, I mean, people like Yoram Hazonian to some degree.
00:21:13.140Well, if we just stick with Hazonian people who say liberalism has failed, liberal democracy has failed, we have to move to a post liberal dispensation.
00:21:22.560I think within liberal democracy, there's a lot we can do.
00:21:25.120And I think, for example, I think that the education system has to be a focus.
00:21:30.620I just think it's intolerable to allow an institution which brings up the next generation to indoctrinate those children into cultural socialism, for example.
00:21:43.220So whether that be critical race, radical gender ideology, just this sort of ethos in the classroom, I think, is shaping the worldview of another generation.
00:21:52.660So that really needs to be much more of a focus.
00:21:55.480And I think it will become more of a focus in Canada.
00:21:58.140I think this is only really just begun in the U.S., really, in the last few years.
00:22:03.560And I think it's already bringing results.
00:22:05.620And I think it's entirely legitimate at the K to 12 level.
00:22:11.300But, yeah, I think that the Canadian conservatives have really only just dipped their toe in the water and there is far more that needs to be done on this.
00:22:20.900And also, I think part of it, as we discussed earlier, it's not just, you know, battles over cancel culture on campus or a bit of DEI in the civil service.
00:22:29.740I mean, this has actually got this is actually has huge implications for, let's say, Canada as a country or the West as a civilization.
00:22:38.840You know, if you can't have an even handed discussion of national identity because you have a myth about genocide against the indigenous taking place in residential schools, for example.
00:22:49.820And it's all about sort of shredding your national past.
00:22:54.040You'll have nothing for a population to unite around.
00:22:57.940And so what you'll get is sort of one side like Trudeau pushing a, you know, we're going to have no identity.
00:23:04.200We're going to be post-national and we're going to basically damn all of our past as nothing but white supremacy.
00:23:11.320If that's sort of your attitude, then I think you're heading into a highly polarized climate, which just makes all policymaking more difficult.
00:23:19.820Not to mention, by the way, all of the impacts, the downstream effects on educational performance, health care, crime, immigration, all of these issues, which we can't discuss them properly.
00:23:31.960If they're surrounded by red lines and sacred cows, we're just not going to be able to attain the kind of progress we want.
00:23:38.540And that's kind of why sort of one of the points in the book is really that we have a kind of choice between cultural socialism and cultural flourishing.
00:23:46.620Just the way we had a choice in the Cold War between economic socialism, which was about some kind of perfect equality, leveling things down, and emiserization.
00:23:56.200And so we're heading towards a kind of cultural emiserization, and we really have to find a way of sort of making sound moral arguments that would push back against that.
00:24:05.940One of the chapters you explore considerably in the book, and it actually times when we're having this interview, is the residential schools debate in Canada.
00:24:17.000Now, this is the third anniversary of the claim of hundreds of unmarked graves for which there has been no further advancing of that claim beyond what was made three years ago.
00:24:27.180And when you talk about sacred cows, this is probably the most acute and illustrative example in Canada of an issue in which all of the things that we would do of any other claims of this nature have not happened and will not happen.
00:24:42.120And while there's been a little bit more of an openness by the media to ask some of these questions, it's still relatively confined in scope to people I could list and count on one hand in Canadian media.
00:24:54.620And I was curious if you could just take your thoughts on wokeness or cultural socialism in general and apply that to this debate in Canada.
00:25:05.040Yeah, I mean, well, it's a sort of prime example.
00:25:07.720It's almost exhibit A, even more than the George Floyd moment in the U.S., that what you have here is sensitivity to not offending a particular sacred group.
00:25:21.460And it's sort of the mainstream society that's made them sacred, actually.
00:25:26.000But an unwillingness to offend that group is more important than truth, is more important than freedom of expression, for example.
00:25:32.760And this is a perfect illustration of that particular tradeoff.
00:25:36.340And what it obscures is what Jonathan Rauch at the Brookings Institute calls the truth-based order.
00:25:43.940And what we've seen is on the gender issue, some of the politicians are now willing to challenge claims around truth, around gender, for example,
00:25:55.280and to actually start to push back a little bit on the trans activist position.
00:26:00.780So we've seen Blaine Higgs in New Brunswick and Scott Moe in Saskatchewan and Daniel Smith in Alberta, although we haven't seen Premier Ford in Ontario.
00:26:09.740But what we haven't seen anything any of is a willingness to actually challenge the national narrative that's been installed by the left and through the Indigenous residential schools question.
00:26:21.840And in fact, there were people on the left who sort of were saying after George Floyd that we would love to have something like a George Floyd moment.
00:26:30.900It provides power to the left to deconstruct the established Canadian national identity.
00:26:37.120So I guess the question for the political class, we have seen some in the media, yourself, True North has been immensely important in this.
00:26:45.380The National Post has been important in this.
00:26:47.360But what we haven't seen is any sort of willingness among the political class to actually now start to say we made a mistake.
00:26:57.280Actually, national cohesion and identity is important.
00:27:00.260And we are actually going to take a stand.
00:27:01.940And I think the public will be behind them because, as I showed, I mean, in this survey that I conducted for the Macdonald-Laurier Institute, you know, Canadians by a two to one margin do not want Sir John A. Macdonald's statues to be removed.
00:27:14.400They support the existing narrative of national identity and they don't like what's happening.
00:27:20.340So I think if some politicians had the courage, as on the gender issue, to make the first move, who is going to be the Blaine Higgs on the residential schools question in Canadian politics?
00:27:31.260I think whoever does make that move is going to find a lot of support.
00:27:35.280Now, if they continue to not have the courage to do that, I think I can't see where Canada avoids growing deep in polarization.
00:27:43.980Because without a unifying narrative, which unifies the past and the present, there's just no way to build the cohesion, particularly in a country that has increasing numbers of splits, large-scale immigration, without anything to assimilate into, I think Canada's headed for trouble.
00:27:59.680So as we conclude on this topic in general, let me ask you, Eric, about the motivation question.
00:28:08.780Because I do believe, and perhaps I'm overly naive, that there are people that genuinely believe they are doing something important.
00:28:50.760Well, when I say pure of heart, I think most of them genuinely believe it.
00:28:54.460And I say that because I've conducted surveys, for example, of academic faculty, but also of the wider public.
00:29:02.100And, you know, if we just take the academic faculty, for example, no one's looking over their shoulder to see whether they tick the right box.
00:29:09.500And they're still expressing, as I mentioned, you know, two to one support for mandatory diversity statements.
00:29:14.880They support political correctness by a margin of almost four to one.
00:29:19.140I think there is this what's happened is you've had a number of layers, this idea of equality of outcome for identity groups.
00:29:26.780This view that there just should be an even distribution across male, female, across white, non-white in desired occupations.
00:29:34.120And if we haven't got that, there's something wrong.
00:29:36.420I just don't think that's questioned by a lot of left liberals, not the cultural Marxist radicals, but the left liberal group, which I really think is the key group.
00:29:44.840And similarly, when it comes to sensitivity, there's no real firewall on how sensitive we should be.
00:29:53.420And I think just these kinds of basic impulses have really driven attitudes amongst this group.
00:29:59.840And so I just don't I don't think it's cynical power manipulation.
00:30:02.700Really, I really think it is genuine belief.
00:30:05.220And this gets down to a kind of a point that Jonathan Haidt makes, which and Greg Lukianoff, this idea of always trust your feelings.
00:30:11.720You know, people feel these moral emotions, which is what guides them, but they don't actually question where those moral emotions stem from.
00:30:19.320And those emotions really stem from a cultural learning process and an ideological process, which I don't think a lot of left leaning Westerners have really examined.
00:30:31.160And I think if they do examine them, they'll realize that there is sort of a when it comes to culture, left liberalism, the progressivism doesn't really have any limits, any guardrails.
00:30:44.620I think there's a check, you know, left liberals believe in the free market.
00:30:48.220They also believe in state intervention and they believe in a mixed capitalist dispensation.
00:30:52.640But when it comes to culture, there's just an unbounded desire for more equity, more inclusion, more diversity.
00:30:58.120And I don't think they've really thought through that those things have overshot the optimum.
00:31:02.940And I think that's what we're living through is a kind of overshooting of the optimum on a lot of these progressive values and how we come back from that.
00:31:10.200I think will be the story really of the coming decades.
00:31:13.300The book offers a very cogent diagnosis, but also a 12-point plan, as the subtitle says, for rolling back progressive extremism.
00:31:23.160So for people that feel very consumed by this, people that feel very overwhelmed by this, what's the first step?
00:31:30.180Well, the first step, I believe, is actually that conservative politicians need to raise the salience of this issue.
00:31:38.900This issue has to become more important for conservative parties and politicians.
00:31:43.300And if that means that you may not be able to spend as much time talking about economics and foreign policy, I actually think this is a absolutely central issue for voters as well.
00:31:55.480And then government's actually government, which is the only institution that the sort of two-thirds majority that isn't woke in Canada or the U.S. or Britain, that is the only institution they can hope to control.
00:32:08.340And what that means is the elected government is going to reform all of the institutions, schools, for example, the civil service, even the selection of the judiciary has to become something where there's more attention paid to cultural ramifications.
00:32:24.280What are the flags and emblems flown on government buildings on public property?
00:32:28.700All of that has to become, I think, more important because it's as if I use the example of, you know, imagine every flag in Canada was changed to the Chinese flag.
00:32:37.920And you could say it doesn't matter because things would go on as usual.
00:32:41.580Nothing really would be affected materially.