RadixJournal - Beyond Your Borders

00:00:00.000 Well, I was just about to talk about the border bill, but I'll just leave that.

00:00:07.260 But do you have any thoughts on this?

00:00:09.380 Are there similar things occurring in the UK in the sense that migration is becoming the, at least for the moment, the chief issue?

00:00:21.380 It's something like liberals are turning around on and liberals are claiming to be closed border defenders or closed border enjoyers, I guess.

00:00:32.900 There actually is, because Keir Starmer, the labor leader, who is a kind of Blair apprentice, basically, I mean, direct apprentice of Tony Blair, is basically strafing the Tory party from the right on immigration and on especially illegal immigration,

00:00:57.240 which is how I think the powers that be hope to contain the issue, really, to focus.

00:01:05.480 In America, it's all about the southern border.

00:01:09.320 In this country, it's all about the, quote unquote, small boats, which, I mean, it is remarkable that, you know, this nation has been an island nation for over a thousand years.

00:01:24.300 And suddenly, in the 21st century, we've forgotten how to stop boats coming.

00:01:31.760 I mean, we stopped the Spanish Armada in, you know, with a much worse technology than we have now.

00:01:41.300 But, yeah, it is.

00:01:44.140 But it is becoming an issue.

00:01:45.820 So, Keir is kind of playing the centrist, which is the path to power, basically.

00:01:53.320 That's what I sensed, like, many years ago, even.

00:01:55.760 But, yeah, go on.

00:01:57.340 Well, it's very funny, Richard, because Keir Starmer looks like you, as everybody points out.

00:02:02.520 He kind of looks like your uncle or something, or like he could be your uncle.

00:02:05.560 He might literally be, yes.

00:02:07.480 And he is hated by the left in this country, who call him the Daily Starmer.

00:02:13.940 That's his nickname.

00:02:16.400 Because he's completely purged the Corbynista left, the far left of the party.

00:02:22.980 I mean, it really was like a kind of Stalinist purge of all of them.

00:02:26.520 And he has completely taken control of the party and walked back all of the promises that he made when he became the leader.

00:02:34.920 So, I mean, at this point, Labour are to the right.

00:02:37.520 It's interesting how they all go in parallel.

00:02:39.900 Because remember four years ago, Bernie Sanders was on the verge of winning the Democratic nomination.

00:02:47.160 He had won Nevada.

00:02:49.120 He got crushed in South Carolina.

00:02:51.680 And it was this weird dynamic where this old white man was able to command the black vote in the South.

00:02:59.700 I mean, it's just bizarre when you...

00:03:02.000 It's like always with things, like the opposite of what you expect is like what you should bet on happening.

00:03:09.400 It's funny, but...

00:03:10.420 One of the...

00:03:11.080 I mean, we could even use this to segue into what we're going to talk about, which is that...

00:03:16.680 One of the things that has interested me is the harmony of legislation since the Second World War.

00:03:27.400 So, I mean, you will all know about the 1965...

00:03:31.800 Was it 64 immigration?

00:03:34.380 65 immigration.

00:03:35.200 65 immigration bill when they basically opened up the borders again in America.

00:03:39.560 But what is probably less well known is that at exactly the same time as LBJ was doing all this great society stuff in this country, there was a race bill passed.

00:03:55.100 There was an immigration bill passed, basically allowing former Commonwealth people to become automatic citizens of Britain.

00:04:06.760 There was a criminal justice reform, basically liberalizing the system in harmony with what America was doing at the same time.

00:04:19.900 And there is that pattern basically holds...

00:04:25.760 I mean, you know, when you had Reagan, we had Thatcher.

00:04:29.220 So there is this kind of, you know, when you had Trump, we had Brexit.

00:04:34.580 There's this strange harmony that happens.

00:04:38.660 And one of the weirdest things is that actually the UK tends to get in a couple of months before the US often, where there's a, you know, like Brexit happened a little bit before Trump, right?

00:04:52.940 Yeah.

00:04:53.100 If you have a look at all of that...

00:04:54.220 Thatcher was in 78 or something like that?

00:04:56.420 It was...

00:04:56.680 Thatcher was 79, Reagan was...

00:04:58.300 79, yeah, just a little bit before Reagan.

00:05:00.540 And all of that kind of liberal immigration stuff happened in 63, 64 here.

00:05:07.460 So, and that happened in 64, 65 there, right?

00:05:10.360 So that is one of those things I've never quite been able to work out why there's that harmonization.

00:05:18.100 I mean, I've got my own perfectly easy explanation, which is that the Europe since World War II has essentially been a vassal colony to the kind of unofficial empire of the Americans.

00:05:33.640 And Britain's role in that empire is essentially to be the regional, how would you describe it?

00:05:45.140 Like the regional lieutenant or the regional, you know, to oversee...

00:05:49.640 Are you suggesting that as well?

00:05:52.140 Because it happens...

00:05:52.800 Well, yeah, not only the guinea pig in terms of domestic policies, but also the...

00:05:58.800 To oversee the region of Europe and to make sure Europe is kept in line. 0.63

00:06:05.760 I mean, I have a slight conspiracy theory, but I have a view that the pro-Brexit forces in this country were actually sneakily American aligned.

00:06:19.920 And that the anti-Brexit forces were quietly working towards a geopolitical agenda that detached Britain from under the wing of the eagle.

00:06:38.600 And this has only really become fully obvious, I think, in the fullness of time since Brexit happened.

00:06:45.680 And, I mean, I should mention, I voted Remain, by the way, which is very...

00:06:51.860 Oh, you voted Remain.

00:06:52.680 Well, that was...

00:06:53.040 Which is very controversial.

00:06:54.660 Well, I came out against Brexit, and I was, of course...

00:06:57.780 I mean, I am a contrarian.

00:07:00.020 I mean, it's very true.

00:07:01.720 But nevertheless, it doesn't mean I'm wrong.

00:07:04.080 And I just...

00:07:04.860 I came out against Brexit, and yeah, all the typical things were said about me.

00:07:09.920 And then five years later, they all agree with me.

00:07:12.680 Isn't that funny?

00:07:13.340 But they don't give me credit.

00:07:15.440 Isn't that also funny?

00:07:16.680 It's all just very funny.

00:07:19.160 But...

00:07:19.560 Yeah.

00:07:20.120 Go on, go on.

00:07:20.560 Okay, one thing I will say, though.

00:07:22.040 Okay, I...

00:07:23.260 You can explain a lot with...

00:07:27.080 What is, in effect, a sort of elite conspiracy theory?

00:07:31.720 Like, they have this agenda, and they're going to roll it out at the same time, you know, across different lands.

00:07:39.600 They might even try it out here first.

00:07:41.460 That's fair enough, and I'm sure there's actually an element to that.

00:07:46.720 But I think there's a kind of bigger question about this.

00:07:50.740 And this goes to my own general outlook, which might be different than yours, which is that I do obviously think there are elite actors, of course.

00:08:05.120 But I'm not sure they're as in charge as Alex Jones thinks they are.

00:08:13.180 And I think they actually...

00:08:14.400 I think they're actually...

00:08:15.780 Oh, yeah.

00:08:16.920 Guys, when you come in, mute.

00:08:18.020 I think they might really lack vision and lack a coherent long-term agenda.

00:08:26.640 I think Alex Jones, to use him as just a placeholder here, is wrong.

00:08:31.560 And I think there's a lot to be said for what I guess could be called collective social mood and convergence.

00:08:42.820 I mean, I recently read, like, a short history of the Soviet Union by Sheila Fitzpatrick.

00:08:50.200 And it's really uncanny the degree to which the Soviet Union was converging culturally and even psychologically with the United States, say, post-Stalin.

00:09:04.800 And there does seem to be a way where kind of like communism found its way to capitalism and then capitalism found its way to communism and they just kind of converged into one thing.

00:09:19.560 And even like the promotion of consumerism was happening quite a bit in the Soviet Union.

00:09:24.540 I think we miss this as people in the West.

00:09:27.740 And so, again, I'm not going to dismiss an elite conspiracy theory, but I'm also not going to endorse it.

00:09:39.220 I think there are consensual factors.

00:09:41.620 We are a herd animal.

00:09:44.440 And, you know, you see, like, just to use an evocative example, I mean, birds flying in a flock,

00:09:51.280 it's actually impossible for the bird on, say, the far left of this, you know, moving body to know what the bird on the far right is doing.

00:10:06.200 He or she can't see it.

00:10:08.980 He can't hear the sound.

00:10:11.080 But they move simultaneously.

00:10:14.160 And so I don't want to sound too woo-woo here, but we have ways of communicating.

00:10:19.860 They're ways of acting as a larger group that go beyond the rational.

00:10:28.800 Let me put it that way.

00:10:30.920 No, I mean, I effectively agree with that.

00:10:33.660 The collective subconscious might be one related concept that you're getting in.

00:10:38.560 Yeah, I think there is one.

00:10:40.320 And to understand what that is, is interesting.

00:10:43.280 How we communicate, how the vibe changes.

00:10:46.440 You know, people use that word and it's kind of silly to use it.

00:10:49.100 But it's also very true.

00:10:51.540 I think social mood is a really interesting phenomenon.

00:10:55.800 Why do we, why does this movie.

00:10:58.000 It's like guys, yeah.

00:10:59.120 Why does this movie appeal to us right now?

00:11:02.040 Why does this song appeal to us?

00:11:03.660 I think those are interesting questions.

00:11:05.180 I mean, I do agree with that, Richard.

00:11:06.780 And I wrote, funny enough, before this stream and partly inspired by a conversation I was having, a friendly joshing I was having with Mark on Twitter.

00:11:20.440 I wrote an article called, I'm having to pull it up because I can't remember the name of it.

00:11:25.200 It's called the James Lindsay debate club theory of history.

00:11:28.860 Right.

00:11:29.460 Where I essentially outline why I think a lot of elite decisions are exactly, as you say, non-logical, downstream of feelings in the moment.

00:11:46.900 I mean, I'll give you an example, right?

00:11:51.160 And we mentioned that 1965 immigration legislation, okay, that came in.

00:11:59.500 Now, one of the things that happened in America, I don't need to explain this to the people on this call, was that there was a kind of mini circulation of elites within America.

00:12:07.580 The so-called Ellis Island Coalition came to prominence, and there are statistics that show that by the mid-60s, 50% of all of the law faculty in America were Jewish, for example.

00:12:26.800 Now, why were those lawyers who basically all campaigned for civil rights and so on, so in favor of immigration?

00:12:40.240 And as I say in the article, it doesn't have to be anything more sinister than the fact that those, as recent immigrants from a minority group, may have felt safer, you know, in a country that was welcoming immigrants.

00:12:59.200 It kind of makes sense, right?

00:13:00.980 Recent immigrants tend to be more pro-immigration to the country they're going to, because it just makes sense.

00:13:08.140 It doesn't need to be this kind of long-term, kind of overarching plan or anything.

00:13:15.880 It could just be that they are responding to what Pareto call their sentiments, if you want to put it that way.

00:13:23.160 And you could argue that the evidence that it wasn't very well thought through is the fact that Jews in America, and especially in Europe, are now wondering if this was such a good idea.

00:13:36.500 Because, as you've discussed on this show many times, the less homogenous population is actually more hostile to them than the society has existed in the mid-60s and the 70s.

00:13:52.800 Oh, yeah.

00:13:53.220 There's no doubt about that.

00:13:54.960 As Douglas Murray is lamenting, he wants his country back.

00:13:58.740 We're a Zionist island.

00:14:00.580 We always have been.

00:14:01.940 That blessed isle.

00:14:06.680 Apart from the few hundred years where they were expelled, yeah.

00:14:10.040 Right.

00:14:11.060 Well, yes.

00:14:14.600 Yeah, go on.

00:14:15.940 Well, so we wanted to have a joust on petty nationalism.

00:14:21.620 I mean, do you want to introduce the idea, Mark?

00:14:24.260 Well, yeah, I think it would actually be better if academic age, because it's his idea, ultimately.

00:14:32.940 Okay.

00:14:33.500 Which I think he can outline better than I can.

00:14:36.160 But I think that, and he can correct me if I'm wrong, but I'll give a kind of general outline of what I think he's saying.

00:14:43.240 And that's essentially that, you know, it's actually kind of, I mean, this is something that's existed in the DR for a long time, this argument.

00:14:52.660 Though, of course, academic agent, I think, is putting his spin on it and is bringing a kind of new, fresh, original perspective to it, of course.

00:15:03.000 But this idea has existed in the DR is that, you know, the sort of the racial problems or the political problems in Europe are distinct from those in America, because in Europe there is more sense.

00:15:19.260 And some of this is sort of kind of undeniable, you could argue, but there's a kind of ethno nationalist perspective among the various, you know, independent European countries where they are.

00:15:30.540 They're concerned about preserving Frenchness, they're concerned about preserving Britishness, and so forth.

00:15:36.140 Or at least they are in the kind of dissident right.

00:15:38.040 This is, you know, this is obviously a sort of phenomena among some people in the dissident right.

00:15:42.440 Whereas in America, there is this idea of a kind of more blended or homogenized white that is not, you know, French or is not British, but rather is this kind of new, part of this new ethnogenesis, the American, right?

00:16:00.540 But that we, the concept of white is even kind of an American concept.

00:16:05.140 This is the argument that I think academic agent is going further with that thought and saying even the idea of like identifying as white is ultimately a kind of American idea, or at least a colonial idea.

00:16:23.220 Because probably he would apply it to Australia or South Africa as well, it seems, because it's a similar colonial experience where they're interacting with the non-white and so forth. 0.99

00:16:35.600 But I don't want to put words in his mouth, you know, because he's academic agent, so he can be as articulate at least as the rest of us, and probably more so in a lot of cases.

00:16:48.800 So I'll let him present the case.

00:16:51.600 Yeah, I mean, I should really explain that the genesis of this idea that many of our ills ultimately come from America has to be, has to go back to Julius Evola and also Francis Parker Yockey, who heavily influenced my thinking on this.

00:17:15.580 And actually, it was their stuff that made me look again at the history of US-UK and US-European relations.

00:17:29.360 And I mean, just to very quickly outline the kind of Evola-Yockey line, during the Cold War, they argued Europe was caught between two civilizational enemies, Russia to the right and America to the left.

00:17:48.640 And the argument was basically that even though Russia was a deadly foe, which would basically be like a brute stamp on your head, America was in a way an even worse enemy, because rather than rubbing you on the head, it would slowly poison you from the inside, pretending to be your friend. 0.71

00:18:12.640 Whereas in fact, it's like a kind of civilizational acid that destroys all distinctions, dissolves all localities, and ultimately dissolves the races as well.

00:18:29.000 Probably the most easy, short introduction on this is Evola's pretty controversial essay, Negrified America.

00:18:41.240 Obviously, he was writing in the mid-century, so forgive his language, but he basically argues that because of certain things that happened as historical quirks in America's history,

00:18:58.200 there is something about the Negro culture soul, if you want to put it that way, that has seeped into the American character in all sorts of hidden ways.

00:19:13.160 And there's various other influences as well, including Jewish influences, that have basically led to this kind of deadly anti-traditional cocktail that in time, he argued, would end up destroying old Europe.

00:19:36.960 Now, what's striking about that essay and his other essays on America is that he was writing in Italy in the 60s and the 50s, like a pretty much 100% Catholic country back then, and probably people thought he was crazy.

00:19:51.280 But now you can fast forward to see the world of 2023, and I turn on my television, and it's just chock full of black people, 24-7 pretty much. 1.00

00:20:05.080 And the European, you know, it really feels like many of these things are being imposed on Europe from without, right?

00:20:14.380 You know, and it comes back to what we were saying about the strange harmony, where, you know, it just so happens that as America was experiencing a massive invasion of its southern border and huge immigration problems,

00:20:29.240 so these policies are being imposed here and all across Europe.

00:20:34.000 In the German case, the American army is still literally there, but in fact, the Americans still have bases in this country, going back to terrible and traitorous deals that Winston Churchill did.

00:20:49.120 And I've been doing a series recently kind of exploring the history of exactly what went on between the wars and during World War II.

00:20:59.120 And, I mean, I've come to the conclusion that Winston Churchill is probably one of the worst leaders in this country's history, if not the worst,

00:21:06.960 because basically what he ended up doing was mortgaging off the entire empire and essentially gifting large portions of British property, territory, colonial territories to America,

00:21:21.540 you know, you know, just because he had this belligerent, almost psychotic need to defeat the mid-century Germans.

00:21:33.320 I mean, you can do your own studies on psychologically on why that may have been, maybe it was his debt, maybe it was because he was half American or whatever.

00:21:41.700 But it is very difficult to look beyond what went on there and the fact that the experience of Europe since World War II is basically to become more and more Americanized.

00:21:59.360 Because this used to be a topic that the left would talk about a lot when I was growing up.

00:22:04.540 They called it American media imperialism.

00:22:08.100 I don't know what's happened to the left.

00:22:09.580 They don't seem to talk about that anymore.

00:22:11.040 They seem to have been captured.

00:22:12.860 They've all become vowsha or whatever.

00:22:14.500 They all seem to be happy with this now.

00:22:16.080 But, you know, there are, I think, deep psychological differences between the character of old Europe and the mentality of, you know, the American, you know, as a kind of archetype.

00:22:37.560 The easiest way I would put it would be that if you think of Lord of the Rings, okay, the hobbits of the Shire and the idea of the Shire and the idea of loving your home and kind of wanting to dig in roots and defend the castle, I think is deeply ingrained in this country.

00:23:02.540 Whereas in America, because of its big open spaces and its open roads, there's always been this attitude that actually you can just leave, you can just move.

00:23:17.140 I remember reading a stat once that the average American moves 11 times in their life and possibly up to 14 times now.

00:23:26.480 That's a lot.

00:23:27.400 I think in Britain, it's four times people will move here.

00:23:30.860 And if you have a look at the way that America is dealt with its deeply ingrained problems, like the racial issue and so on, it has been a story of white flight, basically. 0.51

00:23:43.740 Well, you can't really do that in Europe.

00:23:46.440 And you certainly can't do it in Britain because there's nowhere to move.

00:23:51.640 There's nowhere to go.

00:23:52.620 But nonetheless, this seems like this way of living seems like it's being imposed.

00:24:05.020 Thomas Carlyle called it nomadism, right, as opposed to the idea of the Shire, which is kind of static.

00:24:11.340 And, I mean, Spengler even talks about becoming a plant, like the peasant becomes a plant. 0.72

00:24:20.240 And, you know, America just isn't like that.

00:24:22.960 It's a nation of bourgeois, if you want to put it that way.

00:24:25.100 And these are kind of deeply rooted issues.

00:24:32.780 And, I mean, in a way, the position I've been arguing for the last year, two years, three years, has basically been the default position on the right in Europe forever.

00:24:46.540 You know, it's not just Evelyn and Yoki who argued along these lines.

00:24:51.200 It was almost every European racist up until World War II pretty much saw things in that way.

00:25:00.780 I'm not saying that.

00:25:02.880 I mean, there are other issues to do with the Constitution and textualism and propositional nation and so on and so forth.

00:25:10.360 But why don't we start there?

00:25:13.320 Let's start there and see where it goes.

00:25:16.540 Well, I...

00:25:19.500 Do you, Richard, do you want to...

00:25:21.160 I mean...

00:25:21.500 Yeah, I'll...

00:25:22.820 So long as you don't have the feeling that we're ganging up on you, because I think you're making excellent points and so forth.

00:25:29.500 But I just don't want you to get that impression of bad hospitality.

00:25:33.860 Because I'm actually happy to have Richard have a discussion with you just so that impression is not given or one of us.

00:25:40.720 But, you know, you understand my point.

00:25:43.700 You're a welcome guest here.

00:25:45.160 And we're just having fun.

00:25:46.320 Yeah.

00:25:46.820 Of course.

00:25:48.400 But...

00:25:49.120 So I would like to make my points as well.

00:25:52.160 But I want to remove that impression.

00:25:54.340 And if other people have...

00:25:56.420 If there's a caller that is more of an academic agent's mindset, they can also chime in as well.

00:26:02.560 But I think there'll be enough representation from sort of the pan-European perspective.

00:26:08.100 In any case, Richard, please.

00:26:09.240 Yeah, I think there's a lot of truth to what you've said.

00:26:16.480 And I've actually mentioned this in previous discussions here.

00:26:19.640 I mean, the negrophilia is an important component of these things.

00:26:25.500 Now, you see very strong negrophilia in France as well.

00:26:29.280 There's actually a book I've never read, but I've often seen it about this just obsession in the early 20th century, particularly 1920s and so on.

00:26:41.660 And it is a kind of weird situation where these people were enslaved.

00:26:49.820 They were another class.

00:26:52.340 But I think it's also wrong to think of American slave owners as hating their slaves or being sadistic.

00:27:02.080 I mean, I'm sure some or maybe even many were.

00:27:06.320 And I'm not defending chattel slavery as an institution.

00:27:09.760 But I think there's an interesting book called Roll, Jordan, Roll and others where it's like the predominant emotion of slave owners as a slave was, in fact, love.

00:27:24.400 And they were treated as innocent hobbits, maybe even, to borrow your metaphor from Tolkien.

00:27:33.040 And this flips from, you know, almost hate.

00:27:40.080 You know, there's a fine line between love and hate.

00:27:42.260 It kind of flips between hating them, oppressing them, but then kind of secretly being fascinated by them and looking at them as in an almost racist way as more connected with vital energies or even animalistic energies.

00:28:02.200 And you can see that in pop music.

00:28:05.040 You can see that in jazz.

00:28:06.480 You can see that all over the place.

00:28:08.660 And I don't know.

00:28:10.400 I guess I have some ambivalent feelings about that.

00:28:15.360 I also despise rap music, but I don't also want to discount African-Americans' contribution to popular music.

00:28:27.440 But I can see that.

00:28:29.520 And, you know, Frederick Jackson Turner, very famously, and he was not a prolific writer, but a brilliant one, he also agreed with you that there is just a profound difference in the American psyche to old Europe.

00:28:50.060 And he saw this in the notion of the frontier, which is one motif that he brings up.

00:28:59.740 It is, the word means the opposite in the United States as it means in Europe.

00:29:05.520 So, you know, we think of like, you know, doctors without borders or médecins sans frontières, like they are without borders.

00:29:15.420 So the frontier means a border in Europe.

00:29:18.720 If you're a Prussian, you're surrounded by hostile actors.

00:29:22.400 You've got to guard the border.

00:29:23.620 You know, Prussia was an army in search of a nation.

00:29:29.860 Some other people have made a caustic, although insightful comments about the German-Prussian spirit in that sense.

00:29:37.860 And in the United States, the frontier was the exact opposite of a border.

00:29:42.620 It was a wide open space that you can go out into and transform to your linking.

00:29:50.940 And that, you can see some analogs to that, maybe even like the movement across Siberia.

00:30:01.000 I mean, you can find some analogs of that in Europe, but it is uniquely American.

00:30:06.860 And I think it added to our psyche.

00:30:11.780 Turner also had some really interesting lines about how technology would decrease as you went into open space.

00:30:19.600 So in Boston, you were riding a trolley car.

00:30:23.220 And then as you moved to the Midwest, you were riding a wagon.

00:30:26.800 And then as you went to, say, the Pacific Northwest, you hopped into a canoe.

00:30:30.740 So you were like going forward while going backwards in terms of technological development.

00:30:37.980 There's also an interesting connection of the Bostonians loving the latter books of the Bible, like the Gospels.

00:30:46.820 And then once you get out deep into open space, you're reading Exodus and the Hebrew Bible and so on.

00:30:54.280 A lot of fascinating things that I think are still impactful.

00:30:58.720 They still are impactful on American character.

00:31:02.160 But I guess what I would – so I agree with so much of what you're saying.

00:31:08.000 But I guess I would push back in the sense of wasn't Europe really at its best when it connected with that kind of desire for expansion and exploration?

00:31:25.480 And isn't it in a way kind of at its worst when it's acting like they're hobbits living in the Shire? 0.91

00:31:34.100 And, you know, I often will put these things into historical context.

00:31:38.740 Like if you want to thank someone for the nation state in Europe, you need to thank one man, and that is Woodrow Wilson.

00:31:47.120 Perhaps the most intelligent president, certainly the most intellectual president in American history, although I guess he has some rivals in that regard.

00:31:59.020 But he offered, in contrast to Bolshevism or communistic revolution, he offered the nation state and ethno-nationalism as his response or answer to Bolshevism.

00:32:17.580 And what has been the history of Europe under segregation than a sort of Shire?

00:32:29.560 You know, like American tourists love this when they go to old Europe and they go to some little Italian town where, you know, someone's using a screwdriver on a Vespa and they're drinking espresso.

00:32:42.920 It's just so authentic, isn't it?

00:32:44.720 Well, all of that is the authenticity of subjugation.

00:32:49.840 And Americans, their long-term strategy of American empire is putting you into a little nation state where you can't fundamentally challenge the United States' global power.

00:33:08.100 And so I guess I would, I mean, look, I agree with you in a lot of criticisms of American culture, but I, first off, I guess my rejoinder would be, I wonder what exactly it is that Europe is offering.

00:33:25.260 Because you can't, like, you can play defense, but at some point you've got to score on the other team.

00:33:32.820 Like, you can't, you can't just say, like, you're advancing, you're advancing, you're advancing, unless you advance.

00:33:39.300 Like, the best defense is in offense, so to speak.

00:33:42.920 And so, like, offering the shire or rootedness, this seems to be a kind of, like, quaint, if attractive, but fundamentally weak rejoinder to an obvious fact that America is a dominant power. 0.53

00:34:04.760 Yeah, I mean, historically what I'd say is that there's no getting outside the issue of class and even the issue of caste, right?

00:34:17.660 Which, again, is something that has been a little bit alien to the American spirit, although I am aware Virginia, et cetera, had kind of aristocratic pretensions and, in many ways, forms.

00:34:34.760 Right, but that was, unfortunately, that was defeated, right, by the Civil War.

00:34:39.840 So, it was the North that won, and the North was not like that.

00:34:45.240 But, historically, the plant-like peasant, if you want to put it that way, the hobbit, the shire, you know. 0.53

00:34:52.600 And, in fact, Tolkien himself has got an amazing quote that somebody put on Twitter the other day about not being part of the shire himself. 0.56

00:35:01.480 And, actually, like, in his darkest moments, like, actually despising how stupid the people of the shire are and so on, but then wanting to kind of protect them and make sure that they always had it. 0.95

00:35:14.400 And he actually dramatizes this through the Lord of the Rings, because if you remember, certainly in the movie version, right, if you remember the movie version of the Lord of the Rings, Frodo doesn't want to go back to the shire. 0.76

00:35:30.880 Because Frodo is essentially an aristocrat who develops an adventurous crusading spirit during his journey.

00:35:42.080 And he's like, I don't want to go back.

00:35:43.640 I think he ends up going off with the elves or something at the end.

00:35:47.280 He doesn't want to go back to the shire.

00:35:48.660 So that the conquering element, the crusading element, was always kind of outsourced to the warrior class.

00:36:00.300 If you think of the Spanish conquistadors, it was only, what, like 10,000 men or something, 20,000 men.

00:36:06.120 It wasn't all of Spain that did it.

00:36:07.760 It was just a few exceptional men.

00:36:10.460 And so it was with most of the empires.

00:36:16.860 It wasn't, you know, so you have to then think, well, there's a relationship between the warriors who look after the peasants in exchange for taxes and so on and so forth.

00:36:32.400 They get to live in the shire and be safe and occasionally, you know, should they volunteer, get called up for war or whatever.

00:36:42.320 And the warriors do the warrior-ing.

00:36:46.040 And, I mean, there are other castes, priests and merchants as well, who enter into the picture.

00:36:51.060 So, I mean, that is how it's worked historically.

00:36:56.640 But, of course, none of that exists anymore because we are now prone to think about, you know, all things have to involve all people and be open to all people.

00:37:10.620 So, again, this is a kind of a, you know, it's a traditional versus modern way of thinking, I guess.

00:37:16.880 It's the American, how can I put it, the...

00:37:23.260 Well, I guess what I would suggest, just a quick rejoinder, I think the shire is a modern way of thinking.

00:37:30.420 Go on.

00:37:31.640 Well, that's kind of why I was trying to turn the tables on you in the sense that, I mean, this is almost like a touchstone or watchword for me,

00:37:40.020 but the Paris Peace Conference of 1919 established this notion of you have a right to a homeland.

00:37:50.560 I mean, this is what people say totally understandably.

00:37:54.120 I say it myself about Palestinians.

00:37:55.980 You have some right to live in your own little shire and to be happy.

00:38:02.000 That's a modern notion, in fact.

00:38:04.100 And maybe it is a romantic notion and maybe it's a kind of backward-looking notion, but it's a modern notion.

00:38:09.680 There are that notion of opening things up to more people, expansion, regulation of the planet.

00:38:19.840 This is also an ancient notion that you can see with Alexander, you can see with Rome, I mean, for better and for worse.

00:38:29.180 And so I guess my fundamental rejoinder is that whatever we want to say about Hollywood, it taught the world new ways to dream.

00:38:41.300 Like it offered a fantastical, attractive, forward-looking, maybe even dangerous notion of togetherness or so on that was kind of articulated through Americanism.

00:39:01.520 And for that to be defeated, you have to have an equally, if not more compelling vision.

00:39:11.260 And I guess I would just say that the shire ain't it.

00:39:17.780 Well, I mean, it wasn't even it for Frodo, as you yourself to admit.

00:39:23.180 Hey, if I could jump in, if I could jump in just for a second here.

00:39:27.500 Yeah, and I'll try to make my point succinctly, so I allow both of you guys time to talk as well.

00:39:33.500 But, yeah, what I would say is that, I mean, bringing up Lord of the Rings is interesting, too, because part of it goes to a sort of interpretation of that work.

00:39:46.820 What is Tolkien saying?

00:39:48.780 And what he's saying is interesting in the sense that it's unclear that he's, you talk about his ambivalence as it concerns the hobbits, and I think that that comes out in the work as well.

00:39:58.760 It does seem that the hobbit is a kind of subtle caricature to some extent, a kind of self-effacing caricature, ostensibly of the Englishman.

00:40:09.180 But I think that that is generally what he's saying, even of the sort of petty nationalists, right?

00:40:16.000 Though it is interesting that a lot of the names appear to be Frankish, like Pippin and so forth, right?

00:40:22.520 There could be another, you know, and he himself has said that, though I think that this is not entirely true, that he dislikes sort of the kind of one-to-one comparison and symbolism and so forth.

00:40:35.900 I think the dwarves, for example, have a kind of striking resemblance to Jews, and that does seem intended. 0.94

00:40:40.740 But there could be a kind of more looseness in general to his metaphor.

00:40:45.440 But yeah, so what I would say, though, is in that book as well, we see, and I surmise that this is a kind of metaphor about, because he was a Catholic, it's about, you know, imagining the way that a Catholic West can stand up to these encroaching forces of darkness,

00:41:09.520 whether they're Islam or, you know, anti-Christian, but also anti-European forces.

00:41:15.720 So this famous scene that's depicted in Peter Jackson's film, where Aragon says, men of the West stand, right?

00:41:24.320 And before that, this sword, which I have to guess represents a kind of cruciform or cross, and maybe that's not the case,

00:41:34.160 but it represents a kind of unifying of, you know, these different factions, whether they're dwarves or elves and man and so forth, of the good people versus the bad people.

00:41:45.620 And when that sword becomes whole, and Aragon wields it against the orcs and these sort of underworld creatures, that almost what he's saying, it's almost a kind of pan-Europeanist vision, you could argue,

00:42:02.700 that Tolkien is almost sort of, you know, placing a kind of pan-Europeanist vision, and in some ways might even be making a kind of subtle argument against the Shire,

00:42:14.460 which is kind of depicted as a sort of declining phenomenon, or at least to the associate, you know, there's this idea that they're going to the West,

00:42:22.760 especially the elves are disappearing and so forth.

00:42:25.580 And the elves, I think, probably represent, at least in part, a kind of Nordic, you know, older, maybe pagan type, you could, you know, at least from Tolkien's perspective.

00:42:37.040 So, but, so it is an interesting thing to talk about in this context, but to your other arguments, though,

00:42:42.800 I mean, I think that there is definitely a kind of tradition of, and a relatively old tradition as well, of, on the right, of Europeans thinking about pan-Europeanism.

00:42:55.740 I mean, we see it with Nietzsche, of course, who, I guess we could say Nietzsche is neither on the right or left,

00:43:03.040 but if we were to put him somewhere, I think that it's, in good faith, I think that we can put him on the right,

00:43:09.340 even though people on the left try to claim him, and probably as a way of mitigating him.

00:43:14.380 But I think that we can classify him as a thinker on the right, you know,

00:43:19.900 but Napoleon, of course, would have been a pan-Europeanist, you know, I'm sure as an Englishman,

00:43:27.600 that's not necessarily, you know, not necessarily, you don't necessarily identify with Napoleon,

00:43:32.300 but he's an example, of course, of a European, and modern in many ways, of course, I would say, hasten to add,

00:43:39.140 but others before him, of course, in the philosophical or literary world, in France, Victor Hugo, and who's a good, like an Englishman,

00:43:51.200 but this is a modern example, of course, or a relatively modern example, would be Mosley.

00:43:56.220 Mosley was a big, you know, pan-Europeanist, and how significant a figure he is, is another question.

00:44:03.600 Yaki, I do, you know, I've read Yaki as well, and I enjoyed Yaki.

00:44:09.920 He wrote when he was very young, though, so I think that there's a kind of incompleteness to his worldview.

00:44:16.880 I mean, I like, but his idea, too, though, of course, is this idea of Imperium,

00:44:21.060 which I think that you're, it sounds like, from you, I'm getting a kind of pan-Europeanist perspective,

00:44:26.540 which is better than a petty nationalist perspective, from my view.

00:44:31.320 You know, I'm a pan-Arianist, so we want to be included, too, man.

00:44:38.040 But, you know, if we're not, I think that, you know, this perspective is, I think, ultimately the kind of correct perspective,

00:44:44.960 you know, from my understanding, a kind of pan-Arianist view, a globalist view, ultimately.

00:44:51.960 But I, and then Ebola, you mentioned as well.

00:44:58.180 Yeah, so I was, I'm kind of aware of their view of both Russia and Europe, or rather, Europe's place between Russia and America.

00:45:10.760 I mean, I think that it is interesting that Yaki is, because Yaki, of course, more than Ebola, is a kind of radical anti-Semite.

00:45:21.820 He has all these euphemisms he uses for Jews, like the culture distorter and so forth, right?

00:45:27.900 But one word that I really appreciate, or one term that he developed that I really like is the culture-bearing stratum.

00:45:35.620 I think it's a very useful term, or it's a kind of cool, like sort of ideal, especially for people that are sort of presently out of power,

00:45:43.500 for them to kind of develop a culture-bearing stratum in the way that I'm looking at or interpreting it,

00:45:49.280 maybe even as a kind of nascent aristocracy or nobility, at least of spirit and intention or goals and aspirations and so forth.

00:46:02.200 But I, what I would say, I think that, you know, it is interesting, though, that Yaki is kind of making these distinctions with Russia and America,

00:46:13.320 given how much of an anti-Semite he was.

00:46:15.560 Because the other thing, and I think that this also may, to some extent, I think that Europeans,

00:46:21.380 especially of a kind of petty nationalist perspective or of a pan-Europeanist perspective

00:46:27.120 that is seeking to exclude America or differentiate itself from America,

00:46:32.880 I think that speech laws are a factor here, often, because they can't really say,

00:46:41.740 well, I mean, ultimately, it's a Jewish problem, essentially, or, or, so America...

00:46:47.560 I mean, is that really true, though?

00:46:51.460 What? Hey, please, be quiet.

00:46:55.120 Yeah, don't let the Europeans get involved. 0.98

00:46:56.920 So, so, so in other words, America could become a kind of euphemism, in some cases, right?

00:47:08.020 You know, to your point, though, it's, and the other thing, too, is, of course, is that the world has changed.

00:47:13.920 And you say that, in the left, the leftists did complain about this kind of American imperialism,

00:47:18.920 which, again, had a kind of strong sort of Jewish engine to it, or Jewish component to it.

00:47:25.980 And, but that is something the left would not point out, of course, right?

00:47:30.160 Because that would be anti-Semitic.

00:47:32.920 So I think that the, I think that that is part of what people are deciding is a kind of American influence.

00:47:41.520 I think that a huge part of that, of course, is, is Jewish, essentially, in origin.

00:47:47.160 And, you know, so, you know, and I am reluctant to, I, you know, on some level, I'm reluctant to defend myself as an American,

00:48:00.440 because, again, I see myself, first and foremost, as Aryan of the white race and so forth.

00:48:06.620 But, I, on the other hand, I think that we do need to have a kind of sober understanding of this phenomenon.

00:48:16.040 Otherwise, we're misdiagnosing it.

00:48:19.240 And, and I think that, in any case, I think that I've, I've said enough.

00:48:24.840 I'll probably add more later, but I'll let other people jump into the conversation.

00:48:29.560 Yeah, can I say a thing about this, like, the hate speech thing is that, yeah, I don't really think it's, like, true that it has, like, a chilling effect on speech,

00:48:41.580 because, you know, like, my experience is that Europeans tend to be much more vocal about these issues, even though they're all hate speech laws.

00:48:50.220 So, what was I going to say?

00:48:52.780 I mean, like, Europeans are more bold?

00:48:56.180 Yeah.

00:48:57.380 About what?

00:48:58.080 In my experience.

00:48:58.300 About, like, your racial issue and immigration and such, I think.

00:49:06.660 Well, that's definitely not my experience.

00:49:09.500 I mean, I, I mean, yeah, because I can't really think of, like, what you might call a prominent influence or, like, something of the equivalent has been, like, arrested for, like, political stuff in Sweden or something.

00:49:21.660 Like, like, on the contrary, but I have this experience when I talk to Americans that, like, all of them say that, oh, I can't get involved because I will lose my job.

00:49:30.920 Or I can't show my faith because I will lose my job.

00:49:33.680 And it's just, like, I've never even had that experience with, like, Swedish people who are quite open with going to demonstrations and such.

00:49:39.900 Yeah, but they're putting people in jail in England.

00:49:42.860 I mean, let's, let's be honest here, right?

00:49:45.120 Yeah.

00:49:45.500 So, and what people used to say is that, and maybe this.

00:49:50.540 I'm going to let academic agent jump in because he's the guest.

00:49:53.300 Oh, hang on.

00:49:54.240 When we say Europe, are we talking about continental Europe?

00:49:56.740 Or are we talking about Britain? 0.94

00:49:57.760 Well, I mean, I would agree that the Europeans are more overtly, quote, unquote, racist than the British are, in my experience. 0.90

00:50:10.760 Like, the European nationalists that I've met tend to be a bit more forthright, apart from the ones from Germany who have to be more clever, obviously.

00:50:18.120 But even them, even the Germans I've met privately are more kind of, you know, a bit more gung-ho about it.

00:50:30.860 Yeah.

00:50:31.640 I mean, I would generally agree that.

00:50:34.620 But it's kind of anecdotal, you know.

00:50:37.900 There are some.

00:50:39.180 Yeah, go on.

00:50:40.420 So speech laws may or may not be a factor here or there.

00:50:43.900 Would you say that they're not a factor in terms of the diagnosis of, you know.

00:50:49.340 I mean, in terms of my.

00:50:51.140 An American phenomenon rather than a Jewish phenomenon. 0.65

00:50:55.480 In terms of the way I'm thinking, Mark, is that I'm not really even thinking in terms of the.

00:51:04.200 I mean, the Jewish element is a factor in the, in what has happened to the culture. 1.00

00:51:08.980 You know, we negrified America and jazz and all of that.

00:51:13.480 That there's a, there's a, there's an unmistakable Jewish role in what you might call.

00:51:18.540 And what's happened to Europe.

00:51:20.080 And what's happened to Europe, right?

00:51:21.500 Because it's become American on the day.

00:51:23.580 Or Judea would be another way of saying it, right?

00:51:25.820 That, that is all undoubtedly there.

00:51:28.080 But one of the problems, I guess, I, I have is that the geopolitical incentives, if you want to put it that way, cannot really be overlooked.

00:51:43.280 And, and especially what has actually happened.

00:51:46.040 So, I mean, since Wilson, but especially since FDR, FDR, among other things, was a pathological anti-colonialist.

00:51:57.060 I think you'd all agree with that, right?

00:51:59.220 And one of the things that Evola and Yoki turned me on to is what is, what people might call Cold War revisionism, right?

00:52:09.260 There's a kind of cartoon version of the Cold War, that it's capitalism, right-wing American capitalism versus left-wing Russian socialism, right?

00:52:19.400 But that's not really the story.

00:52:22.440 And there are many examples of the Americans and the Russians actually basically being on the same side when it came to decolonization of the European powers.

00:52:36.340 And in some cases, I mean, there's a, there's a very interesting case study in Angola, for example, where there was no left, there was no kind of left-wing force in some of these places until America went in and set them up, right?

00:52:57.360 And so that there's a kind of, now you could attribute all of that to who happens to be in charge of America.

00:53:05.160 But I also feel like there's something about the unit, the political entity of America since its founding, that basically was founded in rebellion against the whole world, if you want to put it that way.

00:53:23.200 And the story that I've seen, you know, the more I've studied it is that essentially wherever America could screw over the European powers, including Britain, it has done basically, especially when it comes to dismantling the old colonial, the old empires.

00:53:47.060 And so that's also been the story of France and England, though, and, you know, in England and Germany and so forth, right?

00:53:55.060 Well, I mean, they were more a case of overt rival powers who actually had wars, you know, you know, Napoleon versus the British Empire, you know, old fashioned fights over territory.

00:54:09.660 They will fight with the Dutch for a while, you know, you know, you ally with the Germans against the French or ally with the French against the Germans.

00:54:18.620 I mean, that is just basically how Europe always was up until the imposed peace since 1945.

00:54:28.500 And I mean, there's an argument to say, and I don't know how I feel about this, but I have seen this argument made that that competition between the various powers of Europe actually is what gave it its vitality.

00:54:47.580 It is what it is what made it so innovative and vital and what spurred these powers on to essentially take over the entire world.

00:54:59.420 Yeah, Charles Murray seems to kind of insinuate that a little bit in his forget what's the name of his book.

00:55:06.060 It's about achievement.

00:55:08.160 But yeah, it's like human greatness, human accomplishment or something like that.

00:55:12.320 He doesn't make that argument directly, but I think that he points to periods where innovation is correlated with warfare or military success among this European power that in any case, continue your point, please.

00:55:28.740 I mean, there's certainly some truth.

00:55:30.760 I mean, look, I would say that a lot of American achieved like a lot of the greatest American moments came out of the fact out of its competition with the Russians, right? 0.98

00:55:42.320 I mean, with the USSR, if they kind of spurred each other on and, you know, sometimes they spurred each other on in good ways, like for technology.

00:55:52.760 In other ways, they spurred each other on in really bad ways.

00:55:56.640 Like, for example, I've seen quite a bit of evidence to suggest that a lot of the civil rights stuff and social liberalism and kind of what we might say kind of more gay direction that America has gone in since the 50s was pretty much spurred on by Soviet critiques.

00:56:25.640 So as long as the Soviets could say, oh, look at how you treat the blacks or look at how, you know, you say you're the country of freedom, but why you got Jim Crow's rules then?

00:56:37.360 Or, you know, you know, so a lot of the left wing moves of the Americans during that period, you could argue was in response to Soviet critiques.

00:56:50.300 So they would look better, you know, in the eyes of the world versus the Soviet in that kind of game for the hearts and minds of everybody. 0.94

00:57:04.740 Have you guys come across that sort of material that?

00:57:07.140 Oh, yeah, I undoubtedly, oh, so much of the great society thinking, et cetera, was a response to the Soviet Union, no doubt. 0.65

00:57:19.720 But, you know, for better and for worse, there wouldn't have been a moon landing without the Soviet Union and et cetera, et cetera. 0.89

00:57:27.600 Yeah. So I think it's academic.

00:57:31.360 I just noticed that we're at the end of an hour.

00:57:33.740 If you can stay longer, we would love it.

00:57:35.420 But I've got I've got about 10 minutes.

00:57:37.520 I did find that Tolkien quote as well, by the way.

00:57:39.920 So I'd like to read that before I go as well.

00:57:42.040 That'd be great.

00:57:42.760 But did you want to come back on any of that stuff?

00:57:46.840 No, no, no.

00:57:47.720 I think I've said my piece. 0.96

00:57:50.940 The Tolkien quote is says, I should like to save the Shire if I could, though there have been times when I thought the inhabitants too stupid and dull for words and I felt that an earthquake or an invasion of dragons might be good for them. 0.88

00:58:07.620 But I don't feel like that now.

00:58:09.280 I feel that as long as the Shire lies behind, safe and comfortable, I shall find wandering more bearable.

00:58:16.920 I shall know that somewhere there is a firm foothold, even if my feet cannot stand there again.

00:58:23.020 So that is the that is a quotation from the Fellowship of the Ring.

00:58:27.920 So, yeah, there was one thing I wanted to come back on you, actually, Richard, where you talked about Wilson and the nation.

00:58:39.280 And the Shire.

00:58:39.980 Yeah.

00:58:41.440 Really, the conception of the Shire that I had in mind was possibly pre-nation state or pre-it's more or less feudal conception where, you know, it's a lot more local.

00:58:55.260 You know, the Shire is a small little place, a village where the peasantry have allegiance in vassalage to their local baron or lord who in turn has allegiance to, you know, the earl or the duke or the king, you know, in a kind of hierarchical great chain.

00:59:17.460 That is, you know, a much, a much older conception.

00:59:23.140 But really, I think that is what that is something that that is a structure, enduring structure that animated a lot of Europe.

00:59:34.960 And there's an argument to say that even things like the Industrial Revolution, things that are typically attributed to capitalism and things like that, were actually built on the skeleton of those enduring structures.

00:59:55.000 There's a very interesting treatment of that by Joseph Schumpeter in his famous book, which I forget the name of now.

01:00:04.780 It's a Socialism, Democracy and Capitalism.

01:00:08.020 But he basically argues that the only reason that so-called laissez-faire capitalism or industrial capitalism worked so well for Britain is because it could essentially leech off the old, enduring structure of society.

01:00:28.880 And he argued that in time, the corrosive effects of the market, essentially, which basically dissolves or always dissolves social bonds, would in time wreck the very thing that it was built on.

01:00:48.080 And I mean, you know, the fullness of time has probably borne that out because very few of those structures now exist, right?

01:00:56.360 Right.

01:00:56.660 So there is an argument to say that that whole way of being was part and parcel of what was called Europe or what was called Western man, which now feels like it's coming to the end, you know, as peer prophets of doom may be coming to the end of its, you know, maybe that whole civilization is moving off into the sunset.

01:01:26.160 So like the elves in, like the elves in Lord of the Rings, I don't know.

RadixJournal - February 07, 2024

Beyond Your Borders

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