Juno News - Identity politics and grievance culture are killing civilization

00:00:00.000 Welcome to Canada's Most Irreverent Talk Show.

00:00:06.720 This is The Andrew Lawton Show, brought to you by True North.

00:00:12.060 Coming up, Mark Mielke and I talk about how grievance culture, victimization, and identity politics are destroying civilization.

00:00:21.300 The Andrew Lawton Show starts right now.

00:00:24.840 Welcome to The Andrew Lawton Show, Canada's Most Irreverent Talk Show here on True North.

00:00:32.980 As you know by now, we try to do things a little bit different on the weekend show.

00:00:37.060 We take a big issue and delve into it with a panel of guests, but every now and then someone comes on who I think can carry the weight of an entire panel all by themselves.

00:00:46.280 And there's no one more suiting of that description than Dr. Mark Mielke, who has done so much, everything from writing political platforms to columns to writing a book, which we're going to delve into today.

00:00:59.040 The Victim Cult, how the grievance culture hurts everyone and wrecks civilizations.

00:01:03.900 It actually came out a couple of years ago, but has just been re-released with the U.S. audience in mind.

00:01:09.880 And it's actually more prescient than ever, even though it does have a couple of years on it now.

00:01:15.360 I wanted to welcome to the show Mark Mielke.

00:01:17.000 Mark, it's wonderful to have you.

00:01:18.320 Thanks very much for joining me today.

00:01:20.480 You bet.

00:01:20.900 Thanks for having me, Andrew.

00:01:22.320 Most political books now, I should say, do not have a shelf life longer than about seven minutes.

00:01:27.920 I mean, it seems like a lot of books are kind of written the way that I would view an article or a column, where they have a moment, they sell, and then no one never picks it up again.

00:01:37.540 Your book, obviously designed with staying power in mind.

00:01:41.340 Why re-release it two years later?

00:01:43.840 Well, in part, I mean, The Victim Cult is actually not a political book, I guess.

00:01:48.200 That's part of it.

00:01:49.160 It's really kind of a cultural analysis of the human condition.

00:01:53.920 And very simply, you know, why do people think of themselves as victims?

00:01:57.880 I mean, other than the obvious, that there are plenty of tragedies in human history now.

00:02:02.060 But, I mean, why is it that people delve into the grievance culture these days?

00:02:07.000 Why does everyone seem to be a victim these days?

00:02:09.160 Why is that?

00:02:11.640 And what's driving that?

00:02:13.440 So I think that that's part of the reason for the staying power.

00:02:16.260 As for the U.S. edition, what I wanted to do is I wanted to look at some specific U.S. issues for an American audience, right?

00:02:22.260 So the Canadian edition of The Victim Cult looks at First Nations, for example.

00:02:25.520 And the author, the person who wrote the foreword, Ellis Ross, agreed with me that, look, successful First Nations in Canada are those who maybe acknowledge the past but don't get stuck there.

00:02:36.820 And he knows that from personal experience at the highest of First Nation.

00:02:40.640 The American edition, I looked into Black Lives Matter and the recent uprisings, you know, from, you know, from, you know, some affiliated with BLM and others, you know, ever since, you know, verdicts, a number of verdicts in the last couple of years have torqued up this issue again.

00:02:56.060 And this notion that there's an institutional racism that exists in English-speaking countries, whether it's Canada or the United States.

00:03:02.740 So I wanted to give the American audience a chance also to look at this notion of real victimhood and fake victimhood.

00:03:09.620 And in essence, why it almost doesn't matter whether someone is accurate about past victimization or now, why one had better be careful, because if you get stuck there, one can guarantee you and the rest of your society won't flourish.

00:03:24.260 Even in my lifetime, and I am not a particularly old person, the meaning of the word victim, or I guess the moral weight of it has changed considerably.

00:03:35.040 Growing up, a victim was not something you wanted to be.

00:03:37.820 We had a lot of rhetoric around why you should prioritize being a survivor over being a victim, just as one example of the linguistic approach to this.

00:03:46.200 Now, it seems in a lot of climate, certainly on university and college campuses, but I'd argue in a much broader sphere as well, being a victim is one of the best things you can be.

00:03:58.540 It makes you woke.

00:03:59.660 It puts you into the in crowd.

00:04:01.420 And I'm wondering if there, in your view, was a marked point at which that shift happened, or if it's been quite a long trajectory leading there.

00:04:09.460 Well, maybe it's the influence of the me culture over the last 50 years. 0.95

00:04:14.020 I don't know if there's an exact point in history.

00:04:17.000 In fact, I think this is kind of a human fault to dwell on something.

00:04:24.100 But I think it's also, you know, with a lack of understanding or lack of historical awareness, maybe it's perfect for our social media culture, where really people thinking, you know, 120, you know, item, you know, tweets or something.

00:04:39.200 I mean, I think part of it is just that, you know, let me go back to the beginning.

00:04:44.740 Let me put it that way.

00:04:45.800 I tell the story of, you know, the narrative, the creation myth of Adam and Eve, right?

00:04:50.360 And most of your, you know, viewers might well know that.

00:04:52.940 So God says to Adam and Eve, you know, don't eat from the fruit in the garden of good and evil, from the fruit of the tree.

00:04:59.960 Well, you know, somebody picks an apple or whatever it is.

00:05:04.000 And God comes and says, well, you know, who picked this?

00:05:07.040 And Adam, you know, Adam blames Eve.

00:05:09.740 Eve blames the serpent who, you know, said, yeah, go ahead and pick this.

00:05:12.420 You'll be fine.

00:05:13.700 There's this blame game in human history, right?

00:05:16.880 Whether it's stories like that or whether you go back into the history of, you know, how wars start

00:05:22.560 or how even genocides start.

00:05:24.200 I mean, one of the longest chapters in the book is actually about the Rwandan genocide

00:05:27.560 and how the majority Hutus felt pressed upon by a minority of the Tutsis.

00:05:32.580 The Tutsis were at best 10% of the population of Rwanda post-independence in 1960s.

00:05:38.160 The Hutus, though, take issue with the Tutsis.

00:05:41.360 You know, they argue there was some privilege over the decades, partly true, partly not.

00:05:45.140 But nonetheless, the majority Hutus, 85% of the population, feel like they're picked on

00:05:51.620 by these successful Tutsis.

00:05:53.680 And so for three decades, they propagandized against them in the education system, in state

00:05:58.220 media and elsewhere, ban them from politics and warn them they'll be killed if they try

00:06:02.820 and influence the political landscape for Rwanda.

00:06:05.800 I mean, so you can find examples in history, you know, extreme ones like that, or you can

00:06:10.680 you can find mild ones on campuses in the United States and Canada, where people with basically

00:06:16.200 no historical grounding, you know, get a little teary-eyed at what they call microaggressions.

00:06:21.960 I mean, that's the really shallow end of the analysis in that sense, or the, you know, the

00:06:26.580 mild end really compared to, you know, genocides in human history.

00:06:30.800 But it is part of the same continuum in the sense that people fasten onto one thing as the

00:06:36.960 reason for the, for the reason that way, sorry, for the reason they are today, for the state

00:06:42.100 that they've arrived at today.

00:06:43.180 And that's part of the problem.

00:06:45.000 If we're looking at this either on a psychological level with individuals or on a historic level

00:06:50.480 with states and regimes and governments, I guess the question is, what's the benefit you

00:06:55.780 get when you declare yourself a victim or view yourself a victim?

00:06:59.660 Is it just in some of these cases, a tactical measure?

00:07:02.600 If you say you're a victim, then it gives you license to fight back in self-defense?

00:07:06.120 Or is there something more fundamental there?

00:07:09.380 Well, it gives certainly an emotional charge to it, doesn't it, right?

00:07:13.280 If someone says, look, you know, my ancestors were beat up by your ancestors, and it's true, 1.00

00:07:19.800 then all of a sudden there's a wariness of debating, you know, perhaps modern day cause

00:07:24.300 and effects.

00:07:24.740 I mean, let's, let me be more specific.

00:07:27.220 And so, for example, I've done a lot of First Nations policy over the last 25 years.

00:07:31.300 And I also grew up in Kelowna, near the West Bank First Nation.

00:07:34.340 And I noticed pretty early on that the West Bank First Nation near Kelowna, BC has been

00:07:39.980 one of the most successful First Nations in the country.

00:07:42.820 And then later on, Ellis Ross, who I mentioned, wrote the foreword to the Canadian edition

00:07:46.360 of the victim cult, you know, has been successful because he turned his First Nation around him 0.91

00:07:51.520 and the others on council doing deals with LNG companies and the rest of it, and just basically

00:07:56.360 pursuing prosperity.

00:07:58.000 They don't negate the past.

00:07:59.480 They don't downplay the past, but they don't get stuck there.

00:08:02.560 Now, compare that to, again, unsuccessful First Nations, where the narrative might be

00:08:07.580 what happened 50 years ago, whatever event you want to choose, or 100 years ago, is the

00:08:14.200 reason we are the way we are today.

00:08:16.040 And there are plenty of First Nations leaders, unfortunately, who, you know, parlay that narrative

00:08:20.240 out there.

00:08:20.720 That's a mistake.

00:08:22.200 And let me give you a clear example of why.

00:08:25.140 Because the problem with First Nations today is really not what happened 50 or 100 years

00:08:30.100 ago.

00:08:30.380 With respect, you can acknowledge wrongs in history, but the cause and effect link really

00:08:35.440 isn't there.

00:08:36.000 I would submit that the problem on many First Nations reserves today is the fact that they're

00:08:40.260 in the middle of nowhere.

00:08:41.380 They're in northern Canada, far from economic opportunities.

00:08:44.020 They have a collectivist style of property ownership, and so no one can build up their

00:08:50.520 own personal wealth.

00:08:51.960 Instead, you're always, in one sense, in debt to the political leaders of the band, which

00:08:55.620 can often be based on family.

00:08:58.360 So that's a real cause of poverty on reserve, which only makes sense.

00:09:04.160 And that's why you see the average First Nation income less than, say, other Canadians,

00:09:08.980 because a greater majority of First Nations people live in rural areas, often on reserves.

00:09:12.800 And so that's what explains, actually, the poverty of some First Nations.

00:09:18.920 Now, if you do an apple-to-apple comparison, the positive thing is, if you get an education,

00:09:24.980 if you move closer to the city, a First Nations young adult will have the same income as any 0.79

00:09:30.440 other Canadian.

00:09:31.180 And I know this from Statistics Canada data.

00:09:33.580 It's in the book.

00:09:34.260 It's in the victim cult where I profile this stats can reality, where a university-educated

00:09:40.440 young person, between 25 and 34, will earn exactly, in fact, just a little bit more than

00:09:45.880 the average non-Indigenous First Nations person in the country, if they've got a university

00:09:51.720 degree, work full-time, full-year.

00:09:53.160 So you do an apples-to-apple comparison, and you find that this notion that First Nations

00:09:58.420 are laggards income-wise simply isn't true when you do an actual apple-to-apple comparison.

00:10:04.120 That's actually positive, because it shows the effect of income, sorry, education choices,

00:10:09.920 and also location on one's income.

00:10:12.080 It means no one has to be stuck in a subpar environment.

00:10:16.280 But unfortunately, there are some First Nations leaders who actually think the solution to

00:10:19.920 everything is to try and bring the mountains to Muhammad, then take Muhammad to closer to 0.97

00:10:26.080 the city.

00:10:26.400 One interesting point that I would take from that is that it does work both ways as well.

00:10:33.240 You also have a paternalism factor there in, I think, a lot of victim dynamics, and I'd

00:10:38.340 say the First Nations are no exception, where you've got some people that want to be seen

00:10:42.560 as the saviors and the protectors, and they kind of keep the status quo when it isn't working.

00:10:48.940 Well, they do, and in fact, they reinforce it.

00:10:50.920 And again, this is a popular but dangerous narrative today, this notion of cultural purity.

00:10:54.960 And you hear this a lot, that if only we can get back to kind of a pure Indigenous culture.

00:11:00.860 And I get it.

00:11:01.560 With respect, what it is, it's a psychological response.

00:11:04.280 It's a reflex to having been abused in the past, that, you know, you want to find your

00:11:09.240 true identity, right?

00:11:10.560 Especially when others in the past have made, you know, living out that identity somewhat

00:11:16.720 difficult, to put it mildly.

00:11:18.620 But again, I would say, look, First Nations Canadians received the vote in 1960.

00:11:22.940 It was horribly wrong that it was ever taken away from, but it has been 60 years.

00:11:28.440 And so I think you need to look elsewhere for some of the problems on First Nations today.

00:11:32.060 But the danger is when people say, if we sort of retreat to a pure culture, Indigenous Canadians

00:11:39.140 have done this.

00:11:39.980 You see some Black Americans, not the majority, also think this, but some leaders who I would

00:11:45.500 think are irresponsible in this.

00:11:47.200 Here's the problem with that argument.

00:11:49.620 Culture won't save you.

00:11:50.900 And in fact, what we know in human history is that it's the adoption, you know, whether

00:11:55.660 you beg, borrow, or steal from other cultures, that makes your own culture successful. 0.96

00:12:00.180 So Europeans are a great example. 0.99

00:12:02.580 They stole Arab numbers from, you know, the Arab world, you know, over 800 years ago now. 0.70

00:12:08.060 Had we been all stuck with Roman numerals, I can guarantee you that modern mathematics and

00:12:12.660 insurance calculations and actuarial calculations could never have arrived.

00:12:17.160 We had to use Arab numerals, not Roman numerals.

00:12:20.440 And so cultural appropriation, as you call it, or I would call it cultural sharing, is

00:12:24.740 actually a positive thing.

00:12:26.200 But we have many people these days that think, no, the solution is to kind of retreat into

00:12:30.120 a silo.

00:12:30.700 I mean, in addition to being practically incorrect, it's actually really a rebuttal or a, you know,

00:12:39.260 a rejection of the vision of Martin Luther King Jr. that we should all be judged on the

00:12:43.140 character of our skin and not something else.

00:12:45.760 I mean, I would say it's the same with policy and ideas.

00:12:48.100 Does the idea work?

00:12:49.180 It doesn't matter whether it came from the English or the Europeans or an Indigenous Canadian.

00:12:53.540 Is the idea working in reality?

00:12:55.480 If it is, adopt it.

00:12:56.840 If it doesn't, reject it.

00:12:57.940 Cultural appropriation is a fascinating one because it's one of so many ways, and I'd

00:13:03.860 say it's probably one of the more significant ones, in which the liberal progressive lens

00:13:09.140 of 2021 is applied very anachronistically to an entirely different era.

00:13:15.640 And for starters, the problem with cultural appropriation, or one of the problems with

00:13:20.100 it, is that, you know, the pre-Westphalian nation state was a lot different than the nation

00:13:26.040 states of the last, you know, 400 and some odd years.

00:13:29.340 So the fact is, borders were a lot more malleable.

00:13:32.180 We didn't have these neat little divisions.

00:13:34.100 And everything from food, to music, to people, to languages, we're all crossing these regions.

00:13:40.660 I mean, you head to Europe, North Africa, the Middle East, and you see all of these examples.

00:13:45.220 I'd say food is probably one of the more notable, where all of these different cultures have,

00:13:49.060 as you've said, taken from each other.

00:13:50.460 They've built something new.

00:13:52.140 I don't know why that has ever become a bad thing.

00:13:55.620 I know it sounds so trite to say such a cliche, but imitation truly is the sincerest form of

00:14:00.920 flattery.

00:14:01.560 And when you start taking something that you've seen elsewhere and saying, yeah, we should do

00:14:06.000 that, that shouldn't be something that we shy away from as a culture.

00:14:10.680 No, we shouldn't, actually.

00:14:13.460 And again, in history, the most successful cultures have been those that have, as I mentioned

00:14:16.940 a moment ago, beg, borrowed, or steal, stolen ideas, and what works from elsewhere.

00:14:22.140 Let me give you an example of the danger, though, this notion of cultural purity.

00:14:26.940 Another lengthy chapter in the victim cult is about the experience of Germany.

00:14:31.180 Most people are familiar with the Nazis and Adolf Hitler and the notion of racial purity,

00:14:35.900 especially after 1933, when Adolf Hitler gained power and the Nazis gained power and where that

00:14:40.520 went.

00:14:41.180 What most people may not realize is that Germany, though, and Germans in particular, most of them,

00:14:45.700 or a good chunk of them, were stuck in this notion of cultural purity long before Adolf Hitler came

00:14:50.700 along, and long before the notion of racial purity came along.

00:14:53.720 And this was a psychological response to being occupied by the French. 0.70

00:14:57.920 In the late 1700s and early 1800s, German lands were occupied by France.

00:15:03.260 And as often happens in occupation and wars, there were some pretty awful things that the French 0.98

00:15:08.160 did to the Germans.

00:15:09.400 Now, you finally throw off the French in the early 1800s as a German, and what do you do? 0.79

00:15:13.900 You look around and you think, we never want to be conquered again.

00:15:17.040 How do we make ourselves strong?

00:15:18.880 And so, again, it's a psychological reflex where you think, how can we become pure, pure

00:15:24.740 German again? 0.73

00:15:25.280 And they look back in history and they romanticize, and literally, to use a kind of a modern, you

00:15:29.540 know, cliche, they wanted to make Germany great again by looking back to the time of, you

00:15:35.140 know, past emperors that were more successful than in recent decades.

00:15:38.420 So they do this, and they focus on this notion of pure culture.

00:15:42.180 And you see philosophers like Hegel and others who, you know, who get into this, you know,

00:15:48.180 write about this in the late 18th century, early 19th century.

00:15:51.280 And they begin to romanticize, you know, this mythic German Nordic culture going back 600

00:15:57.420 years.

00:15:57.940 Now, the danger in this is that it excludes almost everyone who's not German, who's not 0.57

00:16:03.940 Protestant.

00:16:04.820 So they exclude Jews.

00:16:06.720 You know, they exclude, you know, Catholics if they live in northern, you know, Germany.

00:16:11.440 They exclude the British. 0.99

00:16:13.960 They don't like the English, and they don't like liberalism, by the way.

00:16:16.700 They don't like capitalism.

00:16:17.800 They're very collectivist.

00:16:19.200 And so this goes on, you know, for probably 60 years before the notion of race purity comes

00:16:24.760 out.

00:16:25.180 So the Germans are enthralled by this notion of cultural purity and then race purity. 0.59

00:16:29.020 And, of course, so they're paranoid and actually antagonistic towards ideas from outside the

00:16:35.720 country.

00:16:36.500 And we see where that went starting in 1933 in the most destructive way.

00:16:42.980 One note, and I know it's getting a little bit outside the book here, but I'd say that

00:16:46.860 clinging to purity doesn't do anyone any favors.

00:16:49.680 You look at Japan as a notable example of this, still to this day trying to cling to 1.00

00:16:54.240 this idea of being a pure ethnostate.

00:16:57.260 And as a result, they have a population in decline.

00:17:01.200 Well, that's an example.

00:17:02.200 And perhaps another Japanese example is what happened between the early 1600s and about

00:17:06.740 18, the mid-19th century, when Commodore Perry forcibly opened up Japan to trade, right?

00:17:12.740 Japan was pretty culturally pure, pretty independent for two and a half centuries, but

00:17:18.480 relatively weak vis-a-vis the rest of the world and vis-a-vis a rising power like the

00:17:22.960 Americans, because they weren't learning the latest in technology or, you know, expanding 1.00

00:17:27.840 their economy in a way that would allow them to be stronger economically vis-a-vis the United

00:17:31.920 States or anyone else.

00:17:33.540 So it's another example of where this notion of cultural purity or isolationism, really

00:17:38.340 kind of cultural isolationism, can come back to haunt you.

00:17:42.940 So to bring it back into the contemporary context, when you have people that believe

00:17:47.560 that a restaurant serving an ethnic dish from another country is something that borders on

00:17:52.880 a hate crime, or people that believe you can't wear the cultural dress of another country

00:17:57.700 that you might have picked up on vacation.

00:17:59.580 I mean, I know these are very silly examples, but they are part of a more serious trend, which

00:18:05.540 is a refusal to understand these very trends in history that you've just pointed out.

00:18:10.880 Well, exactly.

00:18:12.340 And in the victim cult, they kind of categorize various victim cults, right?

00:18:15.960 These notions, I'm a victim and here's why, into mild, moderate, and murderous.

00:18:20.120 And we've talked about the most horrific examples, some of the murderous examples, some of the

00:18:23.820 genocidal examples just now.

00:18:26.300 But it does appear on, again, the mild spectrum, if I can put it that way, the mild side of the

00:18:31.540 spectrum, and so you do have Yale University students in 2015, who after, you know, a

00:18:37.240 professor talks or sends an email around, you know, basically saying, look, you're adults

00:18:43.600 at Halloween, don't worry about the costumes you wear.

00:18:45.700 This after Yale administration sends out an email warning the opposite.

00:18:50.680 This Yale professor ends up in hot water with students on campus who become offended by

00:18:56.960 the notion that others might wear a costume from another culture.

00:19:01.100 This morphs into like one fifth of the student body at Yale marching at the president's home

00:19:06.380 at midnight.

00:19:07.340 I mean, talk about pitchforks, you know, virtual pitchforks. 0.96

00:19:11.240 I mean, it's just this becomes ridiculous. 0.85

00:19:13.580 And what it does is it actually shows how out of touch maybe too many Americans and Canadians 0.83

00:19:21.220 are these days with actual victimization.

00:19:24.120 I mean, nothing in the victim cult, nor in the victim cult do I downplay actual victimization

00:19:28.440 or the tragic effects of that.

00:19:30.880 But if you think you're victimized because someone else has worn maybe your, you know,

00:19:35.900 historical ethnic costume, you know, and, you know, in a not completely, you know, accurate

00:19:41.720 way or just because they shouldn't do it because they're not your ethnicity.

00:19:45.600 I mean, if that's victimization, I mean, I think we've reached the height of unseriousness.

00:19:50.900 I mean, another example I give in the book, because it's easy to pick on sort of the woke

00:19:54.300 left and, you know, university students these days.

00:19:57.400 I also critique Donald Trump.

00:19:59.680 I mean, Donald Trump made it to the heights of fortune or at least self-proclaimed fortune

00:20:05.260 and then fame and then the White House by always putting his visage out there, putting

00:20:10.640 his name on skyscrapers.

00:20:12.000 And yet when he ran for politics, he claimed to be a victim of everyone from, you know,

00:20:16.260 even sympathetic talk show hosts at Fox News to judges that happened to do what they should

00:20:24.280 do, which is, you know, rule on a court case in front of them that happened to involve,

00:20:27.600 you know, some of his businesses.

00:20:30.020 But he kept complaining to be a victim in 2015 and 2016 and again in 2020.

00:20:34.040 And the problem with this is just as Americans and everyone else needed a role model to say,

00:20:40.060 look, you know, I'm tougher than this, Donald Trump played the victim card. 0.83

00:20:43.880 I mean, it was actually a perfect encapsulation of how ridiculous this has become that a self-proclaimed 0.58

00:20:48.560 billionaire from Manhattan who made it to the White House thinks himself a victim.

00:20:53.440 I mean, look, no president gets fair treatment from the media.

00:20:56.900 Conservative presidents, if that's what you call him, and I think he was more of a populist

00:20:59.860 than a conservative, but most presidents don't get fair treatment from the media, including

00:21:05.320 Ronald Reagan, including Richard Nixon.

00:21:07.980 But very few presidents that I'm aware of ever complained, even Richard Nixon, who famously

00:21:12.560 said, you know, you won't have me to kick around anymore after he lost a governor's race

00:21:17.080 in California in 1962, then said to the assembled reporters, but I'm not going to cancel my newspaper

00:21:22.360 subscription.

00:21:23.460 So the only other president I'm aware of in American history that claimed to be a victim

00:21:28.120 never even took it nearly as far as Donald Trump did when he was president.

00:21:32.360 But Trump was, again, perhaps the high point of this notion of I'm a victim, a billionaire

00:21:38.060 from Manhattan, really.

00:21:40.380 That's a very interesting take on that, because, again, you could argue that there were genuinely

00:21:46.700 issues that I think he had grievances about, but it is about how you decide to respond to

00:21:52.000 those.

00:21:52.300 And I wonder if, either in the Trump case or in other cases, a big part of this phenomenon

00:21:58.200 is people wanting to find a way to abdicate responsibility in a way, to either set up in

00:22:04.080 advance or even declare after the fact that, you know, whatever you didn't do or did incorrectly

00:22:08.880 or failed at doing was actually someone else's fault.

00:22:12.780 And I think we see this a lot in, you know, in certain countries.

00:22:16.460 It's, oh, well, I can't do this because we have to deal with this.

00:22:19.200 And individuals, you see it on a one-to-one, person-to-person basis.

00:22:23.060 Oh, you know, I would go and, you know, do X, but I can't because Y. 0.98

00:22:27.120 And I know that that seems like such a simple observation.

00:22:31.360 And I don't know if it's self-preservation or something else, but there does seem to be

00:22:35.740 this sense of declaring victimhood as a way to really just rationalize failure in some

00:22:41.760 ways.

00:22:43.020 To rationalize failure and also to rationalize, you're right, a flight from responsibility.

00:22:49.200 And one of the first chapters in the victim cult, I actually look at the mindset of terrorists,

00:22:53.500 believe it or not.

00:22:54.460 And they often think of themselves as victims or that they're fighting for victims, you

00:22:59.960 know, even though they're creating new ones in their terrorist acts.

00:23:02.300 So, and it doesn't matter if you're like a Norwegian terrorist, you know, you know, who

00:23:07.340 happens to have white skin color, who's complaining about Muslims, you know, Brevik about a decade 0.89

00:23:13.020 ago, or if you're on a U.S. Army base in Fort Worth, Texas, and you shoot, I think it was

00:23:18.940 10 people, and you're a Muslim American claiming to be a victim there. 0.85

00:23:24.080 In both cases, they both claim to be standing up for their particular tribe, right?

00:23:28.880 And in this case, a religious or ethnic tribe.

00:23:31.180 And, and it's, and of course, it's utterly destructive and murderous.

00:23:36.480 But even terrorists think of themselves as victims and fighting for victims.

00:23:41.000 And that's, in fact, how they justify their terror.

00:23:43.620 And of course, all it does, though, is it continues.

00:23:47.680 The cycle of violence is a cliche, but it continues a new rampage of blood.

00:23:54.280 And again, you know, we're, we're back to the, the murderous type of victim cults, but

00:23:59.860 it's, it's a dangerous grievance to hold on to, as opposed to looking around you and

00:24:04.260 going, okay, again, you know, what, what does success look like?

00:24:08.180 What does flourishing look like?

00:24:09.180 I mean, one of the things I try and point out in the victim cult is I'm not saying if

00:24:12.380 you've actually been abused or your, you know, your tribe has been, that you simply

00:24:17.140 have to take it.

00:24:18.640 No, it's not just a boots.

00:24:19.920 It's not just to pick yourself up by your bootstraps and stop complaining messages you're

00:24:23.360 sending.

00:24:23.900 No.

00:24:24.280 No, because what I do in the last two chapters of the victim cult, I looked at East Asian 0.99

00:24:28.440 Americans and Canadians.

00:24:29.660 So between 1850 and 1950, if you were Japanese or Chinese origin and you can't be Canada or

00:24:36.200 you were born here, but you know, your grandparents or great grandparents came here, Asian, Asian

00:24:42.660 Americans and Asian Canadians were indeed victims of a pretty discriminatory prejudicial

00:24:47.680 government policy in that century.

00:24:50.020 And it starts pretty quickly after, after the first arrivals in 1850.

00:24:53.760 Chinese Americans, you know, Japanese Canadians and so forth a little later on.

00:24:57.360 But what I found was when I did the research for the victim cult was that in both cases,

00:25:02.260 and those are, those are two ethnicities to focus on because there's some great historical

00:25:05.800 data and, and, and, and narratives that you can draw from is that, for example, Chinese

00:25:11.480 merchants in San Francisco and New York and in Chicago fight back in the legal system when

00:25:16.300 local discriminatory city councils try and basically run them out of business with discriminatory

00:25:21.180 bylaws that really were applied only to them.

00:25:23.280 Now you've got a labor leader in the United States, labor unions were very racist against

00:25:29.080 Japanese and Chinese Americans for a hundred years, late 19th century, you've got a Japanese 0.98

00:25:34.120 American that says, look, I'd like Japanese to be able to join your union.

00:25:37.620 He found his own union to fight for, you know, labor rights at the time.

00:25:41.520 And, but as rejected by the main, you know, American Federation of labor who see themselves

00:25:47.120 only as a white organization.

00:25:49.480 And sometimes Japanese and Chinese Americans and Canadians succeeded.

00:25:52.820 Sometimes they didn't.

00:25:53.820 But they fought back in the courts and politics where they could.

00:25:56.660 But the interesting thing was they never stopped striving and actually trying to integrate, which

00:26:01.080 is different from what you hear from today's self-proclaimed victims.

00:26:04.180 And sometimes they are, sometimes they're not.

00:26:06.360 Japanese and Chinese Americans, to use that example, there's some great data from 1920, 1930,

00:26:12.060 and 1910.

00:26:13.300 At that point in American history, the students, the children of Japanese and Chinese Americans

00:26:20.440 in 1910 are graduating from high school and college at rates slightly below, below white

00:26:24.880 Americans.

00:26:25.880 By 1920 and 1930, those same, well, the children in those years are graduating at rates from

00:26:31.780 American colleges much higher than white Americans.

00:26:34.200 Now, what does that tell you?

00:26:35.560 This is the most discriminatory period in American history.

00:26:38.580 But still, the parents said to their kids, and it's a cultural thing as well, you will get

00:26:43.240 an education and you will succeed.

00:26:46.500 And in fact, they do.

00:26:47.880 And this actually sets the groundwork for what is almost a cliche now, right?

00:26:51.480 We know that Asian Americans and Asian Canadians and average earn a lot more than other, you

00:26:55.700 know, other citizens.

00:26:56.700 And it has a lot to do with education levels.

00:26:59.040 But this started 100 years ago in the depths of the most discriminatory period in both Canada

00:27:04.540 and the United States against those of Asian origin.

00:27:09.060 So this touches on something that I'm curious to get your thoughts on, because it seems like

00:27:13.020 we've uncoupled individual experiences from what are supposed to be societal experiences

00:27:19.680 or structural experiences.

00:27:21.840 And a lot of the talk about systemic racism, for example, would inherently dictate that a

00:27:27.520 multimillionaire black person with a PhD and a master's and a law degree is somehow facing

00:27:34.500 more of an uphill battle than a lower class, poor white person from, you know, a rural part 0.82

00:27:40.420 of the country.

00:27:41.420 And I know that's an extreme example.

00:27:42.740 But in a lot of ways, that seems to be what the focus on systemic racism seems to do.

00:27:48.080 It says, well, even if someone doesn't face individual racism, the system is stacked against

00:27:52.660 them.

00:27:53.660 And in a lot of ways, this seems to be setting up that argument we were talking about a few

00:27:56.920 moments ago of, you know, people have no opportunity to succeed because of these structures

00:28:02.500 and because of these systems.

00:28:03.660 And I'm curious how you break through that, because it does seem like a lot of individuals

00:28:08.980 are being taken out of the equation here and tried to really be wedged into a bigger narrative

00:28:14.680 that may not even apply to them.

00:28:16.420 And in fact, in many cases, likely doesn't.

00:28:19.700 Well, you're onto something.

00:28:20.900 So what I did in the new US edition of the victim cult is I looked at this, this notion

00:28:24.900 of racism and how it's been redefined, right?

00:28:28.020 You know, by Ibram Kendi, for example.

00:28:30.140 The old definition of racism, to be clear, was about you as an individual being discriminated

00:28:35.400 against based on your skin color or maybe your gender or your ethnicity, right?

00:28:40.400 But people these days are really sloppy about their definitions.

00:28:43.540 I mean, look, individual, you know, individual prejudice exists, right?

00:28:47.000 You can't really get rid of that from the human heart.

00:28:49.260 I mean, you can walk, you know, you can go online or, you know, you may encounter a bigot

00:28:55.040 today.

00:28:56.220 That's hard to change by law, though I think even attitudes have improved.

00:28:59.480 It's clear that attitudes have improved in the last 70 years if you look at polling and

00:29:02.620 the rest of it.

00:29:04.340 But individual prejudice is very different from systemic racism.

00:29:07.700 And one has to be clear what systemic racism is.

00:29:10.340 It's when governments or employers or others or, you know, landlords discriminate against

00:29:18.040 you based on your skin color, ethnicity and so forth.

00:29:20.880 This was outlawed in Canada in the early 1950s in Ontario.

00:29:24.020 In the United States, the 1964 Civil Rights Act, the problem today is racism has been redefined

00:29:31.100 to say if there's a disparity between, say, the average income of black Americans and other

00:29:36.380 Americans, that must be due to racism.

00:29:38.740 But as I point out in the victim cult, there's Thomas Sowell, a famous black American economist

00:29:42.780 who grew up in the South and then in Harlem, points out.

00:29:45.100 This is nonsensical.

00:29:47.560 Groups differ all the time.

00:29:49.000 There are other things that make up your averages, right?

00:29:52.240 Average educational levels.

00:29:54.860 I mean, if you look at, for example, Mexican Americans, 13% have a university degree.

00:29:59.300 It's 23% for black Americans.

00:30:01.400 About a third of white Americans have a university degree.

00:30:04.280 Fully four fifths of Americans who have a Taiwanese ancestry have university degree.

00:30:10.340 Is it any wonder why Taiwanese Americans and East Asian Americans in general, and the same 1.00

00:30:15.780 in Canada, have much higher average income levels?

00:30:18.700 Because on average, they also have much higher education levels.

00:30:22.940 And that explains the differences in incomes.

00:30:25.160 But people like Ibram Kendi have created a cult following on the notion that any disparity,

00:30:32.320 when you start to measure these cohorts statistically, must be due to racism.

00:30:35.700 I mean, that's so mono-causal and simplistic.

00:30:39.080 I mean, it's hard to know what to do with it.

00:30:41.360 Thomas Sowell has always pointed out, look, a famous example is Washington, D.C., 1899.

00:30:47.860 There were three schools in the city. 0.84

00:30:49.800 Two are black.

00:30:50.640 One is white.

00:30:51.620 The black schools are actually outpacing the white schools in terms of score.

00:30:55.380 Students are succeeding.

00:30:56.760 And this only stops in the 1950s with education reform, reform in quotes.

00:31:00.860 And so Thomas Sowell points out, don't blame the decline of education among black Americans

00:31:07.120 on racism, because it was a pretty racist place, including in the 1950s.

00:31:12.280 But certainly before the 1950s, what happened was a decline in educational standards in the

00:31:17.880 education system, which persists today in black communities, right?

00:31:22.260 And it has a lot to do with really unfortunate educational theories.

00:31:26.100 So, yeah, I mean, systemic racism, you know, I think what happens is people get away with

00:31:31.340 using that term and they never define it.

00:31:34.040 Yeah, well, it's almost deliberate because there is no cohesive definition.

00:31:37.780 It's like the term hate speech.

00:31:39.280 You know, someone could say they are aggrieved by hate speech, but you drill down and look

00:31:43.800 at what that means.

00:31:44.660 And it may be speech that you as an individual deplore and don't like, but that doesn't mean

00:31:49.780 it's something that we have an obligation as a society to purge or criminalize.

00:31:55.580 So when we look at this in that bigger picture context here, what you're talking about seems

00:32:01.520 to be very in alignment with the trend that we're also seeing of moving more towards assessing

00:32:06.740 equality based on outcome rather than on input.

00:32:10.700 And if there is an outcome disparity, like you mentioned with wages, we assume that, you

00:32:15.660 know, the simplest answer, if we can just blame it on racism, is going to be the correct 0.94

00:32:20.840 one.

00:32:21.120 But if that isn't it, if we can't do that, as you're saying, and find that monocausal

00:32:26.360 solution and we trace it back to input, what is the breakdown there?

00:32:32.000 Well, again, so whether we're talking about Indigenous Canadians or, say, Black Americans,

00:32:37.200 you have to look for other causes other than just racism.

00:32:39.980 So a greater proportion of Black Americans historically have lived in the American South.

00:32:45.640 Why does that matter?

00:32:46.680 Well, because the American South, whether Black or white, incomes have been on average lower.

00:32:50.260 And so if a greater proportion of Black Americans are in the South, that drags down the average

00:32:55.780 income of Black Americans as well.

00:32:58.500 And so you have to understand that importance of geography or in the case of Canada, as I

00:33:03.360 mentioned a moment ago.

00:33:04.260 So if a greater proportion of First Nations people live in rural areas, again, a good 1.00

00:33:09.320 chunk of the population on reserves, which are themselves in the middle of nowhere, far

00:33:13.440 from educational and career opportunities, thus driving down incomes, that matters too

00:33:19.080 to the average salary you're going to see when you look at stats can data.

00:33:23.820 That's why you have to do apple to apple comparisons.

00:33:26.000 I mean, again, Thomas Sowell, the famous Black American economist, has looked at this in the

00:33:30.120 American context, pointed out that university-educated Black couples made as much as university-educated 0.84

00:33:36.020 white couples by, I think it was by the end of the 1980s, if not before.

00:33:40.840 So you have to do apple to apple comparisons.

00:33:44.020 There's all sorts of things.

00:33:45.320 There are all sorts of reasons why when you measure groups, they differ.

00:33:48.780 I mean, if you look at, I mean, he looked at Italians, for example.

00:33:54.140 Why do Italians, you know, dominate fishing around the world, fishing fleets around the world 1.00

00:33:59.300 historically?

00:33:59.960 Well, because they're near the ocean.

00:34:01.620 You wouldn't expect to see, for example, those of Swiss ancestry dominating fishing fleets

00:34:06.300 around the world because Switzerland is landlocked and they never had the opportunity to learn

00:34:09.800 how to run a boat, a fishing boat.

00:34:12.740 So geography, education, and families matter, right?

00:34:17.360 Two-parent families who read to their kids.

00:34:20.340 There is no difference between, say, Black Americans, you know, two-parent families who read 0.83

00:34:25.040 to their kids and the incomes that that child will later show in life.

00:34:29.300 Uh, than white Americans who read to the kids and happen to be a two-parent family.

00:34:33.140 Um, so family structure matters as well.

00:34:35.840 But, but the monocausal, um, advocates like Ibram Kendi, who say everything is due to racism.

00:34:41.220 I mean, it's really a simplistic analysis and it's actually anti-reality.

00:34:45.220 And in fact, most, you know, most, um, Black Americans don't believe this.

00:34:49.240 When Barack Obama was president, one poll showed that 60% of Black Americans thought something

00:34:54.560 else other than, uh, racism explained the differences between the averages and Black

00:34:58.880 incomes and white incomes.

00:35:01.280 I want to go to your subtitle here, how the grievance culture hurts everyone and wrecks

00:35:06.400 civilizations.

00:35:07.160 And I almost don't want to ask this, but I feel I have to.

00:35:10.480 Can civilization be saved?

00:35:13.520 Oh, certainly.

00:35:14.240 But we have to make sure we learn the right historical lessons.

00:35:16.640 So again, let's not pretend that a pure culture will save anyone.

00:35:19.520 Uh, Germans were under pure culture. 1.00

00:35:21.200 Rwandan Hutus were under pure culture. 0.99

00:35:24.160 Um, and in both cases that led to genocide.

00:35:27.840 Um, and the, the, the subtitle about, uh, in the victim cult about wrecking civilizations

00:35:33.280 actually comes from the example of both Rwanda and Germany.

00:35:36.160 But Germany is, is perhaps maybe the most instructive example because the cover of the victim cult 0.97

00:35:40.960 has a picture of St. Paul's Cathedral during World War II and the after effects of bombing.

00:35:45.920 You see smoke rising from the cathedral and around it.

00:35:49.200 And that was my nod to Germans who had already basically destroyed their own civilization. 1.00

00:35:54.240 The land of Bach and Beethoven is now known for Dachau.

00:35:58.240 And German Nazis were busily trying to destroy English civilization. 0.82

00:36:01.600 I mean, look, my last name, Milky, happens to be German.

00:36:04.720 My ancestors came over in the 1870s and then in the 1920s on the other side.

00:36:09.520 So they weren't recent arrivals.

00:36:11.600 Um, but I have no sympathy for German governance or philosophy from 1800 onward.

00:36:17.520 Um, you know, I favor English civilization, the rule of law, looking at the individual as an

00:36:22.720 individual.

00:36:23.440 And the problem is if you're sunk in a victim narrative where you're blaming stuff on 50 years

00:36:27.840 ago or a hundred years ago, or Bill Clinton blame part of the reason for 9 11 on the crusades.

00:36:33.040 Um, if you're actually trying to make those, you know, faulty cause and effect links,

00:36:36.880 um, the further you go back in history, the weaker the link becomes, then I think you're

00:36:41.280 missing modern day causes, education, family makeup, geography, um, you know, do you have

00:36:47.760 property rights on reserve, which allows you to create wealth?

00:36:50.800 Uh, what's the culture of, uh, of some, you know, black American communities?

00:36:55.040 Is it kind of pro, uh, you know, free enterprise or, or is it something else?

00:36:59.600 I mean, if you don't account for those sorts of things in history and simply say, uh, and

00:37:04.560 look around and think someone else is to blame for your situation, or there's something structural

00:37:09.280 in a liberal democracy, anywhere, we're not talking about Stalin, Siberia.

00:37:12.560 If you live in a liberal democracy and actually think the structure is holding you down, um,

00:37:17.040 that's actually pretty debilitating, debilitating.

00:37:20.160 Um, it, it makes you think you can't actually change your situation.

00:37:24.160 Well, the positive part of the victim call is actually, you can, you do have some choices

00:37:28.240 in a liberal democracy.

00:37:29.520 You can move to another city, you can get educated, um, you can try and stay together

00:37:34.000 with your spouse, as long as they're not crazy or abusive.

00:37:36.400 Maybe you can make a success story out of life that way and you and your kids.

00:37:41.920 It's kind of been a running joke on this show in the last few weeks when we've done these

00:37:45.840 big picture discussions that by the end of it, everyone just feels everything's hopeless

00:37:49.360 and there's no point and we're all just so depressed.

00:37:51.520 So you deserve, you get the grand prize for actually coming with some, some, uh, some

00:37:54.880 prescriptions and some optimism, which I think is very much in, uh, something we're in need of.

00:38:00.000 Uh, the book is the victim called how the grievance culture hurts everyone and wrecks

00:38:04.560 civilizations. A new U S edition was just released, but you can certainly check out the

00:38:08.800 Canadian edition as well, or why not, uh, why not support a Canadian author and pick up both?

00:38:13.200 That's all at victimcult.com. Dr. Mark Milkey joins me. Mark, it's good to talk to you. Thanks so much.

00:38:18.800 And, and congrats on, on all of the success with this book. It's a, I think a very important read.

00:38:23.280 Thank you, Andrew. Anytime.

00:38:24.240 That was Mark Milkey. Always enjoy talking to authors. If you have any that you think I should touch base with,

00:38:30.880 let me know, Andrew at andrewlawton.ca, or just let me know what you thought

00:38:34.240 about all the things Mark and I spoke about. Like I said, a big topic, but very much an important

00:38:40.000 one. And with that, we have got to wrap things up. We will talk to you next week with more of

00:38:44.640 Canada's most irreverent talk show. This is the Andrew Lawton show. Thank you. God bless and good day.

00:38:50.480 Thanks for listening to the Andrew Lawton show.

00:38:52.640 Support the program by donating to true north at www.tnc.news.

Juno News - December 10, 2021

Identity politics and grievance culture are killing civilization

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