RadixJournal - 1453 All Over Again

00:00:00.000 Topic 2. 1453 All Over Again

00:00:04.800 This past week, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced that Hagia Sophia will, once again, be converted into a mosque.

00:00:15.080 The cathedral was completed in the 6th century during the reign of Justinian I,

00:00:20.660 and in 1453, Hagia Sophia was seized and made a mosque by the invading Ottomans,

00:00:26.560 who brought the ancient world to an inglorious end.

00:00:30.620 In 1934, the secularizing Turkish government converted the cathedral into a museum,

00:00:36.020 and it was designated a World Heritage Site by the United Nations.

00:00:40.460 Many in the Western world express shock and alarm by the latest developments.

00:00:45.920 The Pope, reportedly, is sad.

00:00:48.840 But being that Hagia Sophia was taken from the West more than 500 years ago,

00:00:53.340 are we really in any position to object?

00:00:55.820 The panel discusses this symbol of Roman triumph and medieval conquest,

00:01:01.500 and how this might signal the coming to an end of 20th century liberalism.

00:01:06.640 1453 is now.

00:01:12.480 It's a bit of an exaggeration, but I think what we've seen over the past week in near Asia

00:01:21.960 is at least somewhat reminiscent of that world historical point

00:01:29.780 that was the Ottomans' conquering of the Roman Empire,

00:01:36.580 the continuation of the Roman Empire in the east, or Constantinople,

00:01:40.860 and the building of minarets around the magnificent Hagia Sophia Cathedral of the 6th century,

00:01:48.860 which almost lasted 1,000 years,

00:01:51.100 and the transformation of the ancient world,

00:01:56.060 kind of the final ending of the ancient world, you could even say,

00:01:59.020 the transfiguration of the 2nd Rome.

00:02:05.780 And we're seeing it again.

00:02:07.500 So Erdogan gestured towards this over the past month

00:02:13.480 that he might very well be transforming Hagia Sophia to a mosque, 0.60

00:02:18.800 and he did it.

00:02:21.540 And he has declared that it will be open to visitors,

00:02:25.160 and those include non-Muslim visitors,

00:02:28.160 and I, of course, think that that is a good thing.

00:02:31.120 I actually have visited Hagia Sophia

00:02:32.780 when I was invited to speak at Hans-Hermann Hoppe's conference,

00:02:37.100 I guess in 2010, I believe, and maybe 2011.

00:02:41.660 You know, it's a magnificent building,

00:02:43.740 but I actually was quite disappointed with the condition that it was kept in.

00:02:49.320 But, you know, the way that I would look at this situation is,

00:02:54.720 I think a lot of, you know, you've seen patriarchs

00:02:59.220 in the Eastern Orthodox Church and so on,

00:03:01.160 and other people object to this matter.

00:03:05.440 And understandably so.

00:03:09.140 But I ultimately support returning Hagia Sophia to a mosque, 1.00

00:03:15.360 because I think it establishes the returning of Hagia Sophia

00:03:21.940 to a capital of a greater European empire of the future.

00:03:27.860 And I know that probably strikes many as outlandish,

00:03:31.060 but this is how I think that we should be thinking about these matters.

00:03:36.300 It was transformed into a museum, technically,

00:03:40.300 even though some of the accoutrements of the mosque remained,

00:03:45.460 but it was transformed into a museum during the Atatürk period.

00:03:50.080 So this was the attempted transformation

00:03:53.060 of the kind of rump state of the Ottoman Empire

00:03:56.720 into a secular nation state by Atatürk,

00:04:01.640 and the kind of secularizing nationalist influences.

00:04:05.260 And I think the transformation of that cathedral

00:04:10.380 into a museum was a kind of full expression

00:04:14.360 of 20th century liberalism,

00:04:17.660 or you could say the end of history,

00:04:19.540 in the sense that this site is no longer sacred.

00:04:24.420 It's actually a site that you can attend,

00:04:27.100 much like the Metropolitan Museum,

00:04:28.580 and you can look at the dusty old artifacts from the past

00:04:34.660 and think about how different they are

00:04:38.440 from our secular individualist world today.

00:04:42.500 And I think it kind of desacralized that building,

00:04:47.620 which does express our civilization at its very heart,

00:04:53.340 that is Rome.

00:04:54.080 And it also expresses our own humiliation in 1453

00:04:59.680 with the conquest of Near Asia by the Ottoman Empire.

00:05:05.180 And I think making it a mosque again is more honest. 0.97

00:05:09.420 It also is a way of, again,

00:05:12.680 ending this 20th century liberalism,

00:05:14.680 which I think we have to overcome.

00:05:16.560 And so the idea of retaking Constantinople,

00:05:20.920 retaking Hagia Sophia,

00:05:22.240 making it a capital again,

00:05:24.080 kind of re-enters our thought process.

00:05:28.100 It is a sacred site again.

00:05:31.000 It's not just some museum

00:05:32.420 that fat tourists can go visit

00:05:35.040 and gaze upon the past.

00:05:37.020 It's now a real thing

00:05:39.580 that is connected to a tradition.

00:05:42.300 And it is also now a kind of humiliation again.

00:05:46.300 It isn't, we don't,

00:05:47.380 we can't tell ourselves that,

00:05:49.180 well, all of those things from the past are over.

00:05:51.560 It's now just some neutral museum

00:05:55.240 that we can visit.

00:05:57.420 We now can think of it,

00:05:59.560 as we should properly,

00:06:01.520 as an expression of the greatness of our civilization

00:06:05.620 and an expression of our own humiliation

00:06:08.320 and our tendency towards decline and defeat.

00:06:13.120 And so I ultimately think this is a very good thing.

00:06:16.280 I have a deeply ambivalent take on Erdogan,

00:06:21.740 but I ultimately think this is a positive thing going forward.

00:06:26.140 It almost has to happen.

00:06:27.280 Yes, I agree.

00:06:30.960 I quite like the symbolism of it.

00:06:32.920 I quite like what it's saying.

00:06:35.560 And I can't help but have a certain degree of respect

00:06:38.880 for the chap that's in charge of Turkey.

00:06:41.300 He's taken it over, Erdogan.

00:06:43.580 He's taken it in a particular direction.

00:06:45.300 It's a direction of empowerment.

00:06:46.700 It's a direction of making the country more formidable.

00:06:49.080 It's a direction of making the country more of a player in the world.

00:06:51.900 And he's motivated by religion,

00:06:54.760 which a lot of these kinds of people,

00:06:56.700 societies that are dominant in the world tend to be.

00:06:59.980 And so, yeah, I think we should take stock of what's happened here.

00:07:09.820 So I'm not unhappy about it at all.

00:07:14.380 Yeah, I mean, it's one of those things where it's like,

00:07:16.680 it's certainly a sign of like a return to a sacred place,

00:07:20.280 as Richard was saying,

00:07:21.140 but it's also a sign, of course, of our defeat there

00:07:23.400 and the want to want to retake a sacred place back.

00:07:26.460 Because the interesting thing under liberalism

00:07:28.200 is everything becomes kind of like a museum, right?

00:07:31.660 It becomes a universal world heritage site,

00:07:35.140 which I guess, you know,

00:07:35.780 the idea of world heritage sites

00:07:37.240 was actually kind of respectable.

00:07:38.920 And that was like a conservationist movement

00:07:40.680 of how, you know,

00:07:42.160 human architecture was played off the land and the environment,

00:07:45.040 which I think is respectable.

00:07:46.140 But what ends up happening, of course,

00:07:48.320 is the idea here is that like

00:07:49.920 everything that is sacred

00:07:51.600 is just simply passed in time as an artifact.

00:07:54.860 And we've been in this enlightened age

00:07:56.780 where we have a universal rationality.

00:07:58.940 We have the UN designating,

00:08:00.560 this is a heritage site.

00:08:01.720 And, you know,

00:08:02.140 we can all come together and dialogue.

00:08:04.020 And the interesting thing about that

00:08:05.360 is when you push that message,

00:08:07.060 you're basically saying,

00:08:08.500 yeah, I respect the particularity of your religion,

00:08:10.980 but I don't actually really believe it enough

00:08:12.840 to think it's sacred.

00:08:13.660 Because, you know,

00:08:14.340 in your own particular socially constructed

00:08:17.560 contingent circumstances,

00:08:18.920 your religion is, you know,

00:08:20.440 just a construct.

00:08:21.640 But here we are being respectful

00:08:23.120 because we acknowledge that.

00:08:24.800 And what are you actually saying

00:08:25.920 to the person in that religion?

00:08:27.160 You're basically saying that

00:08:28.400 it's just completely constructed, right?

00:08:30.580 And so it's a way of deconstructing it

00:08:32.680 through the idea of dialogue.

00:08:34.100 So then when you have like this heritage site,

00:08:36.760 and it's basically like,

00:08:38.120 you know, treating the past

00:08:39.440 like just some artifact

00:08:40.620 and the secularization

00:08:41.860 upon this universal rationality.

00:08:44.580 So when you're returning to that,

00:08:47.060 it's returning it from an idea

00:08:49.340 where, you know,

00:08:50.660 it represents universality,

00:08:53.120 which means it's everywhere

00:08:54.320 and if something's everywhere,

00:08:55.500 then it's really nowhere.

00:08:56.360 It has no home.

00:08:57.180 And that's what the global condition

00:08:58.780 of liberalism is,

00:08:59.740 is global homelessness.

00:09:01.380 And so when you're returning it

00:09:02.180 to a sacred place,

00:09:02.960 you're not only saying

00:09:03.860 this is a place,

00:09:05.660 this is what we have,

00:09:06.480 this is what we've conquered,

00:09:07.480 but it's also like, you know,

00:09:08.780 maybe come and get it, right?

00:09:11.220 It's a bit of a flex,

00:09:12.320 but this is the return away

00:09:14.780 from liberalism is the recognition

00:09:16.540 that, you know,

00:09:17.620 we don't all have the same

00:09:19.080 universal interest

00:09:20.020 when it's not always sacred.

00:09:21.400 The way in which someone

00:09:22.580 takes something that was sacred to you

00:09:24.700 and puts their own on it,

00:09:26.600 like that was originally

00:09:27.600 what it was in the first place

00:09:28.780 when it was first conquered.

00:09:30.100 And so this is just a rebirth of history.

00:09:33.060 Yes.

00:09:33.400 I think what this guy is saying,

00:09:34.860 what they're saying by doing this,

00:09:36.180 they're saying,

00:09:36.560 we Turkey have been through

00:09:38.220 this secular phase,

00:09:40.580 this phase where we,

00:09:41.980 where we supposedly at least

00:09:43.280 haven't been religious,

00:09:44.340 where we haven't had a sense

00:09:45.360 of our own eternal importance,

00:09:46.680 where we haven't had all of these

00:09:48.180 values which are,

00:09:51.180 which permit you or group

00:09:53.600 to better survive

00:09:54.640 in the struggle between groups.

00:09:56.900 And that phase is over.

00:09:59.060 And we are now looking

00:10:02.240 towards eternity again.

00:10:04.320 Yeah.

00:10:05.380 That's what it's saying.

00:10:06.920 We are the future

00:10:08.740 and this decadent phase

00:10:11.580 that we've been through,

00:10:12.540 this decadent phase

00:10:13.820 where we just imitated the West

00:10:15.660 and where we thought the West

00:10:16.600 was better than us

00:10:17.620 and where we,

00:10:18.660 even if they are to the point,

00:10:19.980 we thought the West

00:10:20.760 was better than us

00:10:21.520 and we felt inferior to them

00:10:23.600 and whatever

00:10:24.000 and we adopted their ways

00:10:25.700 of thinking

00:10:26.140 and we took our

00:10:27.480 most sacred religious places

00:10:29.180 and just turned them

00:10:30.120 into the hollow tour.

00:10:31.540 It's over.

00:10:32.580 We're moving away from it.

00:10:34.100 It's the past.

00:10:34.880 It's gone.

00:10:35.380 It's dead.

00:10:36.700 And I think that's

00:10:37.720 an important statement

00:10:38.920 that they have made.

00:10:40.400 Even from a conservationist perspective,

00:10:42.620 you could argue

00:10:43.860 that this is,

00:10:45.740 that Hagia Sophia

00:10:46.520 will be preserved better

00:10:48.060 when it is connected

00:10:49.420 to eternity

00:10:50.180 and not connected

00:10:51.200 to mere tourism.

00:10:53.620 And again,

00:10:54.280 I visited Hagia Sophia

00:10:56.120 and I was overwhelmed,

00:10:57.480 but I was also very disappointed

00:11:00.120 with the upkeep

00:11:01.980 of the facility.

00:11:03.480 If it is a sacred place

00:11:05.360 and declared as such

00:11:06.540 by the state,

00:11:08.300 you know,

00:11:08.620 one could argue

00:11:10.220 that the Muslims 0.99

00:11:11.020 are going to tear it down 1.00

00:11:12.100 and destroy it. 0.89

00:11:12.740 I don't think that's going to happen.

00:11:14.040 But one could also argue

00:11:15.340 that they are more likely

00:11:16.820 to maintain it

00:11:18.460 in a continuous condition

00:11:23.180 and a serious condition

00:11:26.940 as it is connected

00:11:28.600 to God

00:11:29.360 and not connected

00:11:30.600 to some tourist

00:11:31.960 from Ohio

00:11:32.660 who pays five bucks

00:11:34.200 to take a selfie

00:11:35.960 outside of it.

00:11:37.320 And so, yeah,

00:11:38.380 I think it's just

00:11:39.560 an overarching good thing.

00:11:42.220 And the people

00:11:43.080 who don't like this

00:11:44.180 are the same people

00:11:46.040 who don't want us

00:11:47.100 connected to eternity

00:11:48.100 as well.

00:11:50.100 They're the same people

00:11:51.160 who would want to,

00:11:52.360 you know,

00:11:52.760 turn the damaged

00:11:54.220 Notre Dame Cathedral

00:11:55.300 into a Disneyland park

00:11:58.140 or who, you know,

00:11:59.820 want to conserve tradition

00:12:01.500 but only in the sense

00:12:02.460 of putting it

00:12:03.400 in a museum somewhere

00:12:04.320 where the public

00:12:05.280 can go gaze

00:12:06.640 upon the past.

00:12:09.060 And, yeah,

00:12:11.260 I would,

00:12:11.920 in a kind of funny way,

00:12:14.240 trust this cathedral's

00:12:17.720 upkeep to Muslims 1.00

00:12:18.980 before I would,

00:12:20.040 I would really trust it

00:12:21.280 to liberals

00:12:22.340 who simply would want

00:12:24.380 to neutralize it.

00:12:25.500 They might very well

00:12:26.240 maintain it

00:12:26.860 and that is something

00:12:28.520 that is respectable.

00:12:30.000 On the other hand,

00:12:31.360 though,

00:12:32.800 you could get

00:12:33.520 certain branches

00:12:34.620 of Islam

00:12:35.240 that were opposed

00:12:36.060 to art

00:12:37.420 and whatever

00:12:37.820 that were iconoclastically

00:12:39.020 tear down

00:12:40.820 some of the

00:12:41.880 historical artifacts.

00:12:44.380 I don't think

00:12:44.720 they're going to do that.

00:12:45.460 I think on one level,

00:12:46.960 even though they won't

00:12:47.580 admit it,

00:12:48.400 is that it is

00:12:49.700 a source of pride

00:12:50.680 in the sense

00:12:51.460 that it's something

00:12:52.000 that they conquered.

00:12:53.060 I mean,

00:12:53.220 that was one thing

00:12:54.120 that I noticed

00:12:55.900 when I was visiting Turkey

00:12:58.840 is that it,

00:13:01.220 maybe this was

00:13:02.060 just my perspective,

00:13:03.020 but it felt like

00:13:04.300 it was occupied territory.

00:13:06.900 There were these,

00:13:07.500 you know,

00:13:08.160 red flags

00:13:09.440 flying over places

00:13:11.540 that almost seemed like

00:13:12.940 they had just been

00:13:14.460 stamped down

00:13:15.500 into the ground

00:13:16.280 by a military.

00:13:18.660 It seemed occupied.

00:13:20.660 There seemed to be

00:13:21.320 a kind of disconnect

00:13:22.280 with the older parts

00:13:24.060 of the city

00:13:24.620 and the state.

00:13:27.340 And I think

00:13:28.300 they might very well

00:13:29.180 want to keep it

00:13:30.000 as a,

00:13:30.620 you know,

00:13:30.860 sign of their

00:13:31.860 badassery,

00:13:33.360 which is,

00:13:34.220 again,

00:13:34.880 something that I respect,

00:13:36.680 even if it's not

00:13:37.780 the badassery

00:13:39.180 that I would want

00:13:40.280 to promote.

00:13:40.720 Yeah,

00:13:43.380 well,

00:13:43.500 right now it's,

00:13:44.320 you know,

00:13:44.660 it's on a geologic

00:13:46.160 fault line.

00:13:47.580 It's,

00:13:48.180 I think I read somewhere

00:13:49.300 that it's like

00:13:50.120 looked after maybe

00:13:51.660 once a month

00:13:52.380 with a worker

00:13:53.000 at the moment.

00:13:53.980 So maybe it'd be

00:13:55.000 better with,

00:13:56.080 if it becomes a mosque,

00:13:57.080 at least when it comes

00:13:57.600 to preservation,

00:13:58.980 but that also might,

00:13:59.960 they just might change

00:14:00.940 more things about it

00:14:01.900 when it comes to

00:14:02.620 redoing the maintenance,

00:14:03.540 which could be

00:14:04.920 rather unfortunate.

00:14:07.740 Yeah,

00:14:08.400 and in terms of

00:14:09.820 the West,

00:14:10.720 if you really

00:14:12.320 want it preserved,

00:14:13.060 why don't you

00:14:13.320 take it back?

00:14:15.320 You know?

00:14:15.760 I mean,

00:14:16.400 why are you

00:14:17.080 complaining?

00:14:18.640 You know,

00:14:19.360 this is actually

00:14:20.120 in our control.

00:14:21.260 We had multiple

00:14:22.240 opportunities

00:14:23.180 to retake

00:14:24.600 Constantinople

00:14:25.460 and we failed

00:14:26.660 because we were,

00:14:27.780 we were weak.

00:14:30.140 So it,

00:14:31.260 it,

00:14:31.540 it stands

00:14:32.480 as a kind of

00:14:33.600 challenge

00:14:34.120 that I think

00:14:34.720 will wake up

00:14:35.620 white people.

00:14:37.040 I,

00:14:37.580 I want it too.

00:14:38.800 I want to tear

00:14:39.660 down the minarets.

00:14:41.160 Although we would

00:14:42.060 do it

00:14:42.440 safely and humanely.

00:14:45.400 But I want this

00:14:46.660 to be ours.

00:14:47.680 I want this to be,

00:14:49.080 you know,

00:14:49.480 if I could imagine

00:14:50.600 a capital

00:14:53.420 of

00:14:54.520 the coming

00:14:56.100 ethnostate,

00:14:56.780 it would certainly

00:14:57.480 be in near Asia.

00:14:58.900 It would be

00:14:59.120 Constantinople.

00:15:00.260 I want us

00:15:01.260 to do this.

00:15:02.080 but so we've

00:15:03.580 got to do it

00:15:04.160 and stop

00:15:04.640 complaining

00:15:05.160 about people

00:15:05.940 or,

00:15:06.320 or,

00:15:06.700 or just

00:15:07.200 regressing

00:15:07.960 to some

00:15:08.520 20th century

00:15:09.340 liberal mindset

00:15:10.480 of,

00:15:10.960 you know,

00:15:11.440 oh,

00:15:11.860 we should

00:15:12.160 keep it

00:15:12.600 as a museum,

00:15:13.460 a tourist

00:15:13.880 site.

00:15:14.580 That's,

00:15:15.100 that's, 1.00

00:15:15.620 that's bullshit. 1.00

00:15:16.160 We need to 1.00

00:15:17.020 overcome

00:15:17.320 liberalism

00:15:17.980 ourselves

00:15:18.660 and we

00:15:20.280 need to,

00:15:20.960 to take it

00:15:21.560 back.

00:15:23.400 Well,

00:15:23.760 it's really

00:15:24.040 illusion breaking.

00:15:25.100 I mean,

00:15:25.240 that's what the,

00:15:25.880 the UN

00:15:26.500 and all these

00:15:27.360 other bodies,

00:15:28.400 that's the appeal

00:15:28.980 they're making

00:15:29.440 to.

00:15:29.800 It's like,

00:15:30.120 it's an appeal

00:15:30.660 to universal

00:15:31.240 rationality where

00:15:32.340 there is no

00:15:32.780 difference between

00:15:33.600 where you are,

00:15:34.540 who you are,

00:15:35.060 what your race is,

00:15:36.380 religion,

00:15:36.840 like that.

00:15:37.240 It's just like,

00:15:37.680 well,

00:15:37.780 don't you want

00:15:38.220 to keep this

00:15:38.680 as a nice site

00:15:39.500 for the world?

00:15:40.880 You know,

00:15:41.040 you think twice

00:15:41.720 about what you're

00:15:42.260 doing.

00:15:42.680 This is,

00:15:43.320 you know,

00:15:43.480 come on,

00:15:43.780 be reasonable

00:15:44.320 about this.

00:15:45.500 And,

00:15:45.800 you know,

00:15:45.920 reason here

00:15:46.520 is of course

00:15:47.080 Western liberal

00:15:47.800 reason.

00:15:48.720 And so this

00:15:49.200 is like really

00:15:50.280 breaking that

00:15:51.180 illusion that

00:15:51.940 this Western

00:15:52.440 liberal reason

00:15:53.060 is something

00:15:53.420 that's universally

00:15:54.120 shared.

00:15:55.600 In this sense,

00:15:56.480 it's a necessary

00:15:57.080 process.

00:15:59.500 Yes.

00:16:00.940 Yeah.

RadixJournal - July 14, 2020

1453 All Over Again

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