The Charlie Kirk Show - Truth Matters ft. Robert George and Cornel West

00:00:00.000 Hey, everybody.

00:00:00.000 Charlie Kirk here, live from the Bitcoin.com studio.

00:00:03.000 My conversation the entire episode here with Dr. Cornel West, who ran for the presidency, actually, as a third party, and Dr. George.

00:00:12.000 How can we find fruitful discussion despite big disagreements?

00:00:17.000 How can we get closer to the truth despite differing worldviews?

00:00:21.000 Great conversation all hour.

00:00:23.000 I think you'll really enjoy it.

00:00:24.000 Email us, as always, freedom at charliekirk.com and get involved at Turning Point USA at tpusa.com.

00:00:29.000 That is tpusa.com.

00:00:31.000 Start a high school or college chapter today at tpusa.com.

00:00:36.000 Buckle up, everybody.

00:00:37.000 Here we go.

00:00:38.000 Charlie, what you've done is incredible here.

00:00:40.000 Maybe Charlie Kirk is on the college campus.

00:00:42.000 I want you to know we are lucky to have Charlie Kirk.

00:00:46.000 Charlie Kirk's running the White House, folks.

00:00:49.000 I want to thank Charlie.

00:00:50.000 He's an incredible guy.

00:00:51.000 His spirit, his love of this country, he's done an amazing job building one of the most powerful youth organizations ever created, Turning Point USA.

00:00:59.000 We will not embrace the ideas that have destroyed countries, destroyed lives, and we are going to fight for freedom on campuses across the country.

00:01:08.000 That's why we are here.

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00:01:27.000 That is noblegoldinvestments.com.

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00:01:33.000 Very excited for, we're here at the bitcoin.com studio for the conversation

00:01:40.000 Conversation that we're going to have this hour, and it's needed more than ever.

00:01:45.000 When I go to these college campuses, I try to model civility the best I can.

00:01:49.000 I don't always do that.

00:01:50.000 I fall short of the standard.

00:01:51.000 But two men in the public eye have modeled what it means and what it looks like to have fruitful disagreement in an age of division.

00:02:03.000 And they are two professors at Princeton University.

00:02:07.000 First, it's Dr. Cornel West, who is the Dietrich Bonhoeffer Professor of Philosophy and Christian Practice at Union Theological Seminary and Professor Emeritus at Princeton University.

00:02:18.000 And Robert P. George is the McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence and Director of the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions at Princeton University.

00:02:27.000 Both Dr. West and Dr. George join us for the full hour.

00:02:31.000 Great to see you both.

00:02:32.000 Thank you for taking the time.

00:02:33.000 And you have both now co-authored, I should say, this book, Truth Matters.

00:02:39.000 Dr. West, I'll start with you because we are the least ideological aligned, so it'll be fun to start with you, but it'll be great to be chatting.

00:02:47.000 Dr. West, welcome to the program.

00:02:49.000 Tell us about the book.

00:02:51.000 Well, first, I want to just thank you for having both of us talk about it.

00:02:55.000 God bless you and your precious family.

00:02:57.000 But no, we're fundamentally committed to a pursuit of truth.

00:03:01.000 We recognize that we're cracked vessels, we're fallible and fallen.

00:03:05.000 But truth is bigger than all of us, just like beauty is, just like God is, just like goodness is.

00:03:12.000 And to be able to spend these 20 years with my dear, dear brother, Robbie, though I have a deep love with my brother.

00:03:20.000 Love is not reducible.

00:03:22.000 The politics and brotherhood and friendship is not reducible to being correct on political issues.

00:03:28.000 I think Brother Robbie's wrong on a whole host of things.

00:03:32.000 He thinks I'm wrong on a whole host of things.

00:03:35.000 But I can revel in his humanity, and I can take seriously the counterarguments he has against me.

00:03:42.000 I think it cuts deeper than civility, though, Brother Charlie.

00:03:45.000 It's really a matter of humanity.

00:03:47.000 And it also has much to do with what it means to be a follower of Jesus of Nazareth.

00:03:53.000 We can get into that later.

00:03:55.000 Well, very good.

00:03:56.000 Dr. George, add on to that, add some context or detail.

00:04:00.000 The book is Truth Matters.

00:04:02.000 And talk about this friendship that you have with Dr. West.

00:04:05.000 And how do you remain friends despite the fact that you guys have polar opposite views on many pressing issues?

00:04:14.000 Well, Charlie, first, thanks for the opportunity to be on the show.

00:04:17.000 I love being on with my brother, Cornel West.

00:04:19.000 And it's so good to see you again.

00:04:21.000 It's been several years since we've seen each other.

00:04:24.000 I'm hoping that we can get together sometime soon in person again.

00:04:27.000 But it's lovely to be on your show.

00:04:29.000 I knew you before you were Charlie Kirk, and now you're Charlie Kirk, a big important contributor to our public discourse here, and just so delighted that things have gone this way for you and that you're a force out there.

00:04:43.000 I love your dialogues.

00:04:45.000 You're really trying to practice what Cornell and I have been preaching.

00:04:49.000 You know, you mentioned that sometimes you fall short.

00:04:51.000 Well, we all do.

00:04:52.000 Cornell and I do.

00:04:53.000 As Cornell said, we're all cracked vessels.

00:04:55.000 We're frail, fallible.

00:04:58.000 Fallen human beings.

00:04:59.000 But that doesn't mean that we can't and shouldn't do our best to engage with each other in a way that's genuinely fruitful.

00:05:06.000 And that really gets us to the book.

00:05:09.000 One of the great blessings of my life has been my friendship with Brother Cornell.

00:05:13.000 And this really began in earnest back in 2005, 20 years ago, when we began teaching together.

00:05:20.000 Teaching the great books of Western civilization to these brilliant young Princeton students.

00:05:28.000 Teaching Sophocles' Antigone, Plato's Apology, St. Augustine's Confessions, and on and on up to the 19th century with figures like John Stuart Mill and John Henry Newman into the 20th century teaching John Dewey and C.S. Lewis and Martin Luther King.

00:05:45.000 And I just found that working with Cornell, I was learning every day.

00:05:51.000 It didn't matter whether we ended up agreeing or not.

00:05:53.000 I was deepening my own understanding in my engagement with him.

00:05:57.000 Kindly says that he has the same experience and has had the same experience deepening his understanding whether we happen in the end to come to the same place or not.

00:06:07.000 The title of the book says it all.

00:06:10.000 It's what we fundamentally share and that is a belief that truth matters.

00:06:15.000 Getting at the truth.

00:06:16.000 Being in touch with reality.

00:06:18.000 Not living with falsehoods.

00:06:20.000 Not descending into dogmatism and ideology and tribalism.

00:06:24.000 Putting truth above all.

00:06:26.000 Whether it squares with our preconceived notions or doesn't square with our preconceived notion.

00:06:32.000 And I'm dedicated to that.

00:06:33.000 And Cornell is dedicated to that.

00:06:35.000 And I can tell you, that creates a powerful bond between two people.

00:06:39.000 A bond that's much stronger than anything that may divide us.

00:06:45.000 We do disagree on many very important things.

00:06:47.000 But we are fundamentally united in our desire to get at the truth and to work together to get there.

00:06:54.000 So in our conversations...

00:06:56.000 Which have been going on for 20 years inside the classroom and outside the classroom and now in print in our book Truth Matters.

00:07:01.000 For 20 years, we have been talking and debating and discussing and arguing with each other, not with a view of defeating the other guy.

00:07:12.000 I never set out to defeat Cornell in an argument.

00:07:14.000 He never sets out to defeat me.

00:07:16.000 We work together in a partnership trying to provide the best arguments on the competing sides with the common goal.

00:07:25.000 The common aim of getting at the truth of things.

00:07:30.000 And as a result of that, I've found my own understanding deeply enriched.

00:07:34.000 I've found the understanding of our students.

00:07:36.000 Whether they are right, left, or center, Charlie, I have found the understanding of our students deeply enriched.

00:07:41.000 And I just wish that we could present to you some of our students so that they could give you their testimony.

00:07:46.000 I've heard it.

00:07:48.000 Or you get a couple of guys together in truth-oriented discussions.

00:07:52.000 That's what it's all about.

00:07:54.000 Getting at truth.

00:07:56.000 I want to get into this deeper philosophical question of what is truth?

00:07:59.000 Because when I go to campuses, a lot of students say there is no absolute truth.

00:08:02.000 And I ask, do you believe that?

00:08:04.000 Absolutely.

00:08:04.000 So I want to get into that.

00:08:05.000 But Dr. West, let me ask you a more fun question right off the bat based on that, which in this dialogue, and I'll ask it of Dr. George, has your mind changed?

00:08:15.000 Has any of your opinions shifted because of this 20-year ongoing dialogue with your friend?

00:08:22.000 Oh, absolutely.

00:08:24.000 Absolutely.

00:08:25.000 Brother Robbie pushes me against the wall and makes me come up with specific ways in which markets themselves may have virtues that I may have downplayed.

00:08:35.000 And I push him against the wall and he begins to see the crucial role of government and the need to balance.

00:08:42.000 But fundamentally, see, Robbie and I are abolitionists in terms of we want the abolition of poverty.

00:08:47.000 We want the abolition of cowardliness.

00:08:49.000 We want the abolition.

00:08:50.000 Of dogmatism, the abolition of tribalism, we know it will never happen because human beings are human beings, but we can fight against it.

00:08:58.000 Philosophically, I thought that Vico was the greatest Italian philosopher in the history of all time.

00:09:03.000 He's convinced me now that Aquinas is.

00:09:05.000 I've always had a great appreciation of Aquinas, but what does that mean?

00:09:09.000 Well, Robbie is a Catholic, and I'm very much a hang-loose Baptist, and therefore I had to have an appreciation.

00:09:17.000 We've struggled over claims about faith and grace and what have you.

00:09:22.000 So it's philosophical, it's theological, and it's political.

00:09:26.000 On abortion, for example, we've had sustained discussions and debates on abortion.

00:09:32.000 And he pushes me against the wall, and I try to push him against the wall in a loving way.

00:09:38.000 We just want to make sure that we are true to the Imago Dei.

00:09:43.000 Precious human being made in the image of a loving and almighty God and therefore have a certain sanctity and dignity that the world didn't give them and the world can't take away.

00:09:53.000 We take very seriously that Christian practice and our Christian faith, and therefore when we talk about gays or lesbians or trans or what have you, it's not out of hate, even as we have disagreements in terms of what kind of practices ought to be enacted.

00:10:10.000 That's the crucial thing that I love about Robert.

00:10:13.000 He says what he means, means what he says, and he's got an integrity.

00:10:16.000 He's got a compassion, and that makes a difference, my brother, Charlie.

00:10:21.000 Very good.

00:10:21.000 Dr. George, I'm going to ask you that question after the break.

00:10:23.000 We have to take a short radio break here, and then we'll get into the deeper stuff.

00:10:27.000 What is truth?

00:10:28.000 How do you respond when someone says there is no truth and there is just power?

00:10:32.000 Because in some ways they're rejecting the idea of dialogue.

00:10:35.000 And I'm curious how, because what makes your partnership so exciting is you both have actually consented to a principle that dialogue will bring us closer to the truth.

00:10:44.000 That's literally what dialogue means, dialogos.

00:10:47.000 What happens when you're talking to somebody that rejects that, though?

00:10:49.000 What happens when you're having a dialogue?

00:10:51.000 They say, no, no, no, actually speech is a waste of time.

00:10:54.000 So I'm interested how you both would respond to that or deal with that.

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00:11:41.000 So, Dr. George, we're talking about the dialogos, dialogue, and the pursuit of truth.

00:11:47.000 Care to comment on that and how to get closer to truth, we must have dialogue?

00:11:54.000 Well, we do.

00:11:55.000 We human beings, of course, are social by nature, so it's our nature to interact, to form communities, to form friendships.

00:12:04.000 There's a dark side as well.

00:12:06.000 We also form animosities and so forth.

00:12:09.000 But friendships are integrated around common activities and common goals.

00:12:14.000 And one activity that we can integrate a friendship around is the one that Cornell and I have fundamentally integrated ours around, and that is the pursuit of truth.

00:12:23.000 And we both realize that we've got a better shot at getting nearer to truth, nearer to the fullness of truth, if we cooperate, if we pursue truth together.

00:12:37.000 Than we do if we just try to pursue truth individually.

00:12:42.000 And we do that by presenting the best arguments that we can think of on the competing side.

00:12:48.000 So if I'm inclined in a certain direction on an issue, it could be a philosophical issue, it could be a public policy issue, it might be the question of abortion, it might be the question of whether we should have affirmative action policies, whatever the question is.

00:13:02.000 If I'm inclined in a certain direction...

00:13:04.000 I lay my considerations on the table for Cornell in the form of reasons for my beliefs, and I invite him to tell me if there's something defective in my reasoning, if I've got something wrong.

00:13:18.000 If so, what have I got wrong?

00:13:19.000 And he'll do that for me, and then I'll be able to reflect on those counterarguments.

00:13:23.000 Same thing on his end.

00:13:24.000 He'll give me his reasons for his position.

00:13:27.000 And then I'll think about those and I'll tell him why, if I'm not persuaded, I'm not persuaded.

00:13:32.000 What the considerations are that still leave me where I was, that don't move me.

00:13:39.000 But as I say, in my experience, and I think this is the experience of anybody who's worked together with someone else or a group of people in the pursuit of truth, even if you don't end up reaching agreement, you're deepening your understanding of the issue.

00:13:54.000 You come out of it in a better place, a fuller, richer understanding of the truth than you would otherwise have.

00:14:00.000 And it doesn't matter in the end whether you have persuaded each other.

00:14:07.000 The deepening of understanding is itself a good thing.

00:14:10.000 Now, ideally, you got to the truth of the thing.

00:14:13.000 But if you're deepening understanding, you're at least getting closer to the truth of the thing.

00:14:19.000 So, Dr. West, let me ask you about two and a half minutes.

00:14:22.000 I'm going to ask you the million-dollar question.

00:14:23.000 Well, then, what is truth, my friend?

00:14:25.000 What is truth?

00:14:27.000 Yes.

00:14:28.000 Powerful question, though, brother.

00:14:30.000 There's truth, capital T, that none of us have access to, and there's truth, small t's, that we have access to, but we have to recognize we could be wrong.

00:14:37.000 And he claims we put forward a failure.

00:14:39.000 Now, as a Christian, you know, I believe that Jesus Christ is the truth, the flesh of occasion, the concretization of truth.

00:14:46.000 And that is in the form of a love that has the capacity to transform who we are.

00:14:52.000 So I make a radical distinction between love of power versus power of truth.

00:14:56.000 But the truth itself, capital T, none of us have access to.

00:15:01.000 We look through a lens darkly.

00:15:05.000 So we have to have a humility.

00:15:07.000 The way to truth requires humility, maturity, but...

00:15:14.000 Endless quest for truth, making sense of the world and hooking up with reality.

00:15:21.000 So you can imagine, we could have a whole seminar on that question, what is truth?

00:15:25.000 But that's just the beginning of an answer, my dear brother.

00:15:29.000 So just a quick follow-up, and it's only a minute, and then we'll do it after the break.

00:15:32.000 How would you say, how would...

00:15:34.000 Is it worth having a dialogue with someone who says that truth is not objective, absolute, or universal?

00:15:39.000 Rather, it's relative and constructed.

00:15:41.000 Is that even worth having a discussion with that individual?

00:15:44.000 Oh, absolutely, because they believe that that relativistic claim itself is true.

00:15:49.000 Correct.

00:15:50.000 No, that's right.

00:15:50.000 So at some point, there is an absolute truth claim above their statement.

00:15:55.000 And you tell them, when they die, their death is itself a reality that is true.

00:16:03.000 There's coming a time when they die.

00:16:05.000 That's a fundamental truth they cannot deny.

00:16:08.000 So in that sense, there's a contradiction for them to be relativistic.

00:16:12.000 Contextual is different than relativistic because we all have a context.

00:16:16.000 That's why we are fallen infallible, and that's why we're crack vessels trying to love our crooked neighbors with our crooked hearts.

00:16:22.000 But the humility and the maturity is crucial, and that's what I think Robbie and I always stress.

00:16:28.000 Humility, maturity.

00:16:31.000 Fallibility, openness, and might never makes right, even though might is always seemingly in the driver's seat.

00:16:39.000 We're going to pick this up after the break, and I want to get into that because it is difficult for me to dial.

00:16:45.000 Of all the conversations I have, it's the most difficult where they will say, there's nothing but your own truth.

00:16:50.000 There's nothing transcendent.

00:16:52.000 There's nothing external.

00:16:53.000 There's nothing agreed upon.

00:16:54.000 It's just my truth and your truth.

00:16:56.000 It's a very difficult thing for me to do, and that's the whole part of your book is that truth matters.

00:17:01.000 And you guys have something very rare because in your friendship you both have at least the teleological agreement that you want to try to get closer to ultimate purpose.

00:17:11.000 I don't always find that with the students I talk to, so maybe you guys can help me.

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00:18:19.000 So, Dr. George, I'll start with you.

00:18:21.000 Dr. George, there is a belief that is taught in many universities across the country, I'm sure you guys don't teach this in your particular classrooms, that it don't give the opposition the right to speak.

00:18:34.000 Speech is just kind of a construct that instead it's all about power.

00:18:39.000 There's an element of repressive tolerance that why would we allow conservatives to have a voice?

00:18:47.000 Draw back to Marcuse and some element.

00:18:50.000 But I see this all the time when I go to college campuses where students, some will say, not a majority, but a very vocal minority, that speaking to you is a waste of time, that this is just all about power.

00:19:00.000 How do you think about that?

00:19:03.000 How do you persuade somebody differently?

00:19:06.000 And just take it from there.

00:19:10.000 Sure.

00:19:11.000 First, I want to echo what you said about Hillsdale College.

00:19:14.000 What a wonderful institution it is.

00:19:16.000 And those online courses are terrific.

00:19:18.000 Yes, they are.

00:19:19.000 I had the opportunity to visit Hillsdale last year and give a lecture up there at the invitation of President Arnn.

00:19:26.000 And I was so impressed by the students as well as by the faculty.

00:19:29.000 And, of course, President Arnn himself has just...

00:19:32.000 Done an amazing job in building Hillsdale into such a powerhouse intellectual institution.

00:19:39.000 So, bravo to Hillsdale.

00:19:40.000 I'm delighted that you're associated with him, Charlie.

00:19:43.000 I didn't know that.

00:19:44.000 All right.

00:19:46.000 So, the belief that it's really just all about power and that reason is impotent, that reason's role is merely to...

00:19:59.000 Help you to figure out how to get what you want, whatever it is you happen to want, by whatever means necessary.

00:20:07.000 And that at the end of the day, all of our aims, goals, objectives are given not by rational reflection, deliberation, judgment, but rather by desire, by the will, the will to power.

00:20:24.000 We find this in Plato's Republic, in the figure of Thrasymachus.

00:20:29.000 Arguing, essentially, that makes right.

00:20:31.000 So, first thing we should notice, and this is why I bring it up, is there's nothing new here.

00:20:36.000 This didn't just arise in the 1980s or 1990s or 1960s.

00:20:41.000 It's a very old view.

00:20:43.000 Socrates is contending with it in the discussions with Thrasymachus and others.

00:20:50.000 Now, what's wrong with the view?

00:20:53.000 What's wrong with the view is that it's false.

00:20:55.000 We can reason our way to judgments, even judgments about very important, deep matters, questions of human nature, the human good, human dignity, human rights, human destiny.

00:21:08.000 But it's hard, and we're fallible, which means we can get it wrong.

00:21:14.000 But the fact that we're fallible and can get it wrong doesn't mean that there is no truth there.

00:21:19.000 It's simply a non-sequitur to suppose that you can infer from our fallibility.

00:21:24.000 The absence of truth, or even that it's impossible for us to get at the truth.

00:21:27.000 Now, we can't get at the truth fully.

00:21:30.000 Nobody's going to know everything that there is to be known and know it perfectly.

00:21:35.000 And we all know that in our heads, even right now, all of us, every single one, every single person on this planet has some false beliefs in his head.

00:21:43.000 But presumably, we don't want to have false beliefs.

00:21:46.000 We want to have true beliefs in our head.

00:21:47.000 We'd like to swap out the false beliefs for true beliefs.

00:21:51.000 And now this gets me...

00:21:52.000 Charlie, to your question about why we should respect the freedom of speech of others, and not only respect their freedom of speech, but also listen to them and engage them in a truth-seeking spirit.

00:22:03.000 And that's for this reason.

00:22:04.000 Those false beliefs, they're going to stay right in our heads if we never allow them to be challenged.

00:22:11.000 The only way we have a hope of at least removing some of those false beliefs and replacing them with true beliefs...

00:22:18.000 Being in touch with reality, getting the truth of matters, is if we allow ourselves to be challenged.

00:22:23.000 We accept criticism.

00:22:25.000 We don't shut down the critic.

00:22:27.000 We don't punish him for challenging our cherished, deeply held, identity-forming convictions.

00:22:33.000 And not just that, the only way we're going to get those false beliefs out, at least some of them, is by listening to whatever the reasons and arguments and evidence is that our critic can produce in the hope of showing us that in fact we're...

00:22:47.000 Wrong about something.

00:22:48.000 We all have the experience of changing our minds, right?

00:22:51.000 I certainly do.

00:22:53.000 I haven't always believed exactly the same things.

00:22:56.000 I had a very dramatic intellectual conversion experience when I was a sophomore.

00:23:01.000 College, as a result of reading one of Plato's dialogues, the dialogue called Gorgias, which caused me to change my mind about a whole lot of things.

00:23:09.000 What was the same me, the moment before and the moment after, the same desires, interests, background, tribal allegiances, and so forth, but somehow I moved from one position about politics to a different one, from a more liberal to a more conservative position.

00:23:23.000 And that's because Plato, my interlocutor, made me think.

00:23:28.000 He offered criticisms of views that I had held, rather uncritically as it turned out.

00:23:33.000 I was just a kid.

00:23:34.000 But he offered criticisms that I found persuasive.

00:23:38.000 If we're to have any hope...

00:23:41.000 Of increasing the number of true beliefs and decreasing the number of false beliefs that we have.

00:23:46.000 We've got to allow our critics to speak.

00:23:49.000 We can't immunize ourselves from criticism of our views.

00:23:52.000 And we need to listen to that person, not just sit by and politely let him talk.

00:23:57.000 Genuinely listen in a true speaking spirit, understanding that he might be right and we might be wrong.

00:24:03.000 Or at least he might be partially right and we might be partially wrong.

00:24:07.000 So, Dr. West, I agree with everything that you guys are trying to do.

00:24:12.000 Do you believe that the modern state of the academy in higher education is a place that fosters free dialogue, civility, respect and speech, especially when it comes towards those that might hold concerns?

00:24:25.000 No, I mean, unfortunately, it isn't what it ought to be, my brother, that every university...

00:24:35.000 And any historical moment has its own forms of orthodoxy and dogmatism.

00:24:41.000 And you can have a dogmatism of the right, a dogmatism of the center, a dogmatism of the left.

00:24:46.000 Robbie and I are committed to Socratic energy.

00:24:49.000 We don't believe in safe spaces in universities.

00:24:52.000 When you enter a space, you ought to be unsettled and unnerved and unearthed.

00:24:57.000 You ought to be willing to be critical and self-critical, just like when you have a conversation with the other brothers and sisters.

00:25:03.000 They need to be unsettled, and they need to unsettle you, mediated with respect, though.

00:25:09.000 Mediated with respect.

00:25:10.000 And we don't have that.

00:25:12.000 Unfortunately, the way we are in our universities, as you know, I'm in the situation, I got pushed out of Harvard myself because of my commitment to the Palestinian cause, not because I'm anti-Semitic.

00:25:23.000 I love my Jewish brothers and sisters, because as a Christian, I want a Palestinian baby to have the exact value as any other baby, Israeli, black, white, red, whatever.

00:25:34.000 Jesus loves the little children, all the children of the world, red or yellow, black or white, they are precious in his sight.

00:25:40.000 I believe that, literally.

00:25:42.000 And therefore, I don't want any kind of orthodoxy of a left, right, or whatever.

00:25:46.000 We want Socratic action, mediated with respect.

00:25:49.000 But then as Christians, we got something that the world believes is foolish and absurd.

00:25:54.000 We're going to love everybody, beginning especially with the least of these.

00:25:59.000 That's what the biblical text says to me, and I believe it.

00:26:04.000 So either one of you could take this, but I looked this up.

00:26:08.000 On FIRE's website, a survey done in 2020 said that, Four out of ten Ivy League students said that shouting down a speaker is always or sometimes acceptable.

00:26:18.000 These are Ivy League students, right?

00:26:20.000 This is from FIRE.

00:26:21.000 They're pretty respectable, right?

00:26:24.000 Oh, yes.

00:26:25.000 Absolutely.

00:26:26.000 I would take what they say with a lot of weight and a lot of heaviness.

00:26:31.000 They're the best in the business, Charlie.

00:26:33.000 The best in the business.

00:26:34.000 I guess this does enter into some news of the day, which is President Trump with some of the funding of Harvard and the bigger institutions.

00:26:43.000 I don't want to get too far into the politics of it, but you guys are a rare example of the pursuit of freedom of speech and dialogue.

00:26:51.000 Do your colleagues believe that?

00:26:53.000 Let's forget the students.

00:26:54.000 Do your fellow professors actually believe in this?

00:26:56.000 Because their students certainly don't.

00:27:01.000 Not enough.

00:27:02.000 Not enough do.

00:27:03.000 Some do.

00:27:04.000 Cornell and I had the privilege of joining together with, we're now up to a thousand, almost a thousand, professors from universities all over the country.

00:27:14.000 And across the ideological spectrum, we formed the Academic Freedom Alliance.

00:27:20.000 We're doing the work that, at another time, at a better time, the AAUP, the American Association of University Professors, would have done.

00:27:29.000 But they don't seem to be holding up the standard of free speech and academic freedom in the way they should, in my opinion.

00:27:37.000 So we created a new organization of people who are dedicated to freedom of speech, and we're trying to preach this gospel.

00:27:44.000 We're trying to preach it to our colleagues, and we're trying to preach it to our students.

00:27:50.000 And the main way we're trying to preach it, it's not the only way, but the main way we're trying to preach it is by example.

00:27:57.000 Cornell and I are trying to...

00:27:59.000 Lead here by example.

00:28:01.000 We want to show people how you engage in robust but civil truth-seeking discourse.

00:28:10.000 We want to try to model the frail, fallible human beings that we are.

00:28:15.000 You know, as Cornel says, craft vessels, we're still doing our best to model.

00:28:20.000 What it means to listen to somebody else in a truth-speaking spirit.

00:28:24.000 Let me just interrupt, only interrupt because in the spirit of time, Veritas, which literally means truth, which is what Harvard is supposed to care about, right?

00:28:31.000 Is the pursuit of truth the most important thing, do you think, to the current composition of elite universities?

00:28:38.000 Dr. West, do you think that if you had to distill, if they had to self-describe their mission statement, because to be perfectly honest, Dr. West, when I hear their own university presidents talk, it's...

00:28:47.000 Not about truth.

00:28:48.000 It's about diversity.

00:28:50.000 Oh, no, no.

00:28:51.000 I hear what you're saying.

00:28:52.000 But keep in mind what we mean by truth here, though, that yes, the pursuit of truth ought to be central.

00:29:00.000 But truth is a species of the good in the sense that the way to truth requires trust, integrity, humility, openness, and respect for others saying what they say, even when you radically disagree.

00:29:16.000 So truth is not some abstraction that you're just trying to grab.

00:29:19.000 It requires a process so that character formation, what I'd call soul craft, that's old language going back to medieval times, right?

00:29:28.000 Your soul has to be shaped in such a way that you have an integrity, honesty, decency, so that your quest for truth is a genuine one, not just a rationalization of your own opinions and dogma.

00:29:44.000 Please, Dr. George, one minute.

00:29:46.000 Please comment on that.

00:29:47.000 Yeah.

00:29:48.000 So, I mean, we've got to get back to the mission of universities, which is truth-seeking.

00:29:53.000 Truth-seeking for scholars as researchers, truth-seeking for students as learners.

00:29:58.000 And that means that the fundamental mission is not social justice, and the fundamental mission is not training people to go into Goldman Sachs.

00:30:06.000 Those are fine.

00:30:07.000 It's good that people struggle for causes they believe in.

00:30:09.000 It's good that they get good jobs.

00:30:11.000 We want our students to be active in the world.

00:30:13.000 We want our students to get good jobs.

00:30:14.000 We want them to have good professional careers.

00:30:16.000 But those are not the mission of the university, not the fundamental mission.

00:30:20.000 We can carry them on, fine.

00:30:21.000 As long as we keep our focus where it belongs, on the central mission, getting at the truth of things.

00:30:27.000 Whether the truth is pleasant to us or not pleasant to us.

00:30:30.000 Whether it's what we want to hear, whether it flatters our preconceived notions, whether it serves our tribal interests, or whether it doesn't.

00:30:38.000 Amen.

00:30:39.000 Stay right there, both of you.

00:30:40.000 We have one more segment.

00:30:41.000 Check out the book Truth Matters.

00:30:43.000 Boy, is this a...

00:30:44.000 We could do five hours on this topic.

00:30:46.000 In fact, I bet they...

00:30:47.000 Could teach quite a course together.

00:30:49.000 This has been a real treat.

00:30:50.000 Truth Matters by Dr. George and Dr. West.

00:30:52.000 Check it out right now.

00:30:53.000 Check it out.

00:31:09.000 Across the U.S., over 7.5 million businesses, from family-owned shops to entrepreneurs, are using TikTok to compete and grow.

00:31:15.000 We use TikTok all the time on The Charlie Kirk Show.

00:31:18.000 In fact, 74% of businesses on TikTok say TikTok has allowed them to scale their operations, increasing sales, and expanding to new locations.

00:31:26.000 And that growth means jobs.

00:31:28.000 Today, there's over 7.5 million U.S. businesses on TikTok employing more than 28 million people.

00:31:33.000 And that number keeps growing.

00:31:34.000 Small businesses thrive on TikTok.

00:31:36.000 Learn more about TikTok's contribution to the U.S. economy at TikTokEconomicImpact.com.

00:31:44.000 Dr. George, why don't you plug the book, how people can find it, and how they can see more of the dialogues between you and Mr. West, please.

00:31:52.000 Well, yes, the book is available at all the online booksellers.

00:31:57.000 It's available in both paperback and, as I just learned, in hardcover, wherever books are sold.

00:32:05.000 Very good.

00:32:06.000 And Dr. West, is this the first collaboration between both of you as far as a book together?

00:32:12.000 That's crystallized in this way.

00:32:14.000 I've been collaborating with my brother for 20 years, I'm telling you, so that it depends on what form.

00:32:21.000 Very, very much so, but certainly this text is a kind of...

00:32:26.000 We've been among the well-to-do, the working classes.

00:32:32.000 We've been in Catholic churches.

00:32:34.000 We've been in Baptist churches.

00:32:36.000 We're just trying to bear witness, Brother Charlie.

00:32:38.000 We're trying to bear witness.

00:32:39.000 We've written a lot of little essays together, but this is our first book project.

00:32:43.000 Truth Matters, a dialogue on fruitful disagreement in the age of division.

00:32:46.000 We're going to end on that topic.

00:32:48.000 So, Dr. West, I'll throw this question to you, which is...

00:32:52.000 Truth matters.

00:32:54.000 You would argue probably that we are increasingly a country that has not valued truth and we're not pursuing truth nearly enough.

00:33:00.000 You ran for the presidency rather admirably, which, by the way, I have to thank you for taking a lot of votes away from Kamala Harris.

00:33:06.000 So please, thank you very much for that.

00:33:10.000 He's taking a lot of grief for that.

00:33:13.000 Most of them came from non-voters, but they'll go right. 1.00

00:33:16.000 I'm here publicly thanking you for your service to the republic, my friend.

00:33:22.000 You played a critical role in saving the civilization.

00:33:25.000 So with that, though, what would you say, and nothing you could say will offend me or the audience, are some of the barriers towards the pursuit of truth in our society and our culture today, and what can we do about them?

00:33:38.000 I think we have narrow ideological lens and we're not willing to learn from a variety of perspectives.

00:33:46.000 Lift every voice is the very anthem of black folk.

00:33:48.000 When you lift every voice, you're like a jazz woman or a blues man.

00:33:51.000 You're willing to go beyond being an echo and become a voice.

00:33:55.000 You know, you all were talking about Hillsdale College.

00:33:57.000 I just want to shout out my dear brother Bradley Berzer and his magisterial text on Russell Kirk as well as Christopher Dawson.

00:34:04.000 Never met him.

00:34:05.000 Learn much from him.

00:34:06.000 Why?

00:34:06.000 He's lifting his voice.

00:34:08.000 I'm lifting my voice.

00:34:09.000 We're bouncing off against each other.

00:34:11.000 Never met him in the flesh.

00:34:12.000 But why?

00:34:13.000 Because we're involved in the quest for truth.

00:34:17.000 And I, Charlie, let your listeners in on a little secret here.

00:34:23.000 There is nobody, there is no conservative scholar, including myself, who knows more about or has a deeper appreciation of the conservative intellectual tradition than Brother Cornel West here.

00:34:35.000 Now, he just revealed a little of that with his reference to Brad Bircher's book about Russell Kirk.

00:34:39.000 Cornel is a student.

00:34:41.000 He understands Russell Kirk and not just Russell Kirk.

00:34:44.000 Edmund Burke, Burke and Kirk.

00:34:45.000 Leo Strauss, Eric Vogelin.

00:34:49.000 One place you're always going to find Cornel West is at the Vogelund meeting.

00:34:57.000 So Cornell, again, is practicing what he's preaching.

00:34:59.000 He's walking the walk, not just talking the talk.

00:35:02.000 He has done his best to understand, and he does appreciate the conservative tradition.

00:35:06.000 We have some wonderful dialogues about this.

00:35:08.000 I mean, I'll tell you something.

00:35:09.000 He knows Burke better than I know Marx.

00:35:11.000 I've tried to understand Marx, but he knows Burke better than I know Marx.

00:35:15.000 That's very good.

00:35:16.000 And so let's end the conversation with this, which is...

00:35:22.000 Marching orders for the audience.

00:35:24.000 Would you encourage them to find or to, let's just say, resurrect a broken relationship that fell apart because of politics?

00:35:31.000 How do you guys keep the humanity in your dialogue?

00:35:34.000 Because so many people in this audience have brothers and sisters and nieces and nephews and grandkids that won't talk to them anymore just because they might wear a Bernie Sanders shirt or wear a Trump hat.

00:35:44.000 I'm sure both of you guys are saddened and troubled by that.

00:35:47.000 What is your final marching orders for the millions of people in the audience that have seen severed relationships because of differing worldviews?

00:35:54.000 Dr. West first and then Dr. George.

00:35:57.000 Because love is the most profound force in human life and in human history.

00:36:04.000 And the last thing you ever want to do is to truncate any kind of flow of love because of a political or ideological issue.

00:36:13.000 When you sit down, it's Thanksgiving.

00:36:16.000 Around your family, with your mama and grandmother and aunts and uncles, keep the love flowing, even though you might have political differences, because love produces the fruit of the rare joy that will help sustain you in your move from mama's womb to tomb.

00:36:34.000 Dr. George, final thoughts, please, on the severing of precious relationships over politics and worldview.

00:36:42.000 Absolutely.

00:36:43.000 I completely agree with what Cornell just said.

00:36:45.000 Let me just add this.

00:36:46.000 If you want humanity, practice humility.

00:36:50.000 It is very difficult to be inhumane, to treat other people as things or objects or even as enemies to be destroyed if you have humility.

00:37:00.000 And humility is the fruit of our recognition of our own fallibility, our own weakness, our own failings.

00:37:07.000 When we recognize that, not just notionally, but existentially, we genuinely acknowledge our fallibility, our weaknesses, then we can relate to others with humility.

00:37:17.000 And you need intellectual humility if you're going to be a truth seeker.

00:37:21.000 And then the other virtue that I think we all need to practice and model, especially for our children and for our students, is the virtue of courage.

00:37:29.000 Being willing to state your opinion with love toward others who disagree, but nevertheless, to be willing to take a chance, speak an unpopular truth, that takes courage.

00:37:40.000 And we need courage.

00:37:41.000 If we would just bring together humility and courage, we'd be nine-tenths of the way to where we need to be.

00:37:50.000 God bless you both.

00:37:51.000 Thank you for the model and example of what civil discussion means.

00:37:55.000 And Dr. West, I do want to have you on another time where we can show that civil discussion on full display about some of the top issues.

00:38:02.000 But I wanted to really make this the primary topic.

00:38:05.000 Both of you, thank you so much.

00:38:06.000 Dr. George, great to see you.

00:38:08.000 And thank you both for your great work.

00:38:09.000 Truth Matters is the book.

00:38:10.000 Everyone should go purchase it.

00:38:11.000 Thank you both.

00:38:12.000 Thanks so much for listening, everybody.

00:38:14.000 Email us, as always, freedom at charliekirk.com.

00:38:17.000 Thank you so much for listening, and God bless.

The Charlie Kirk Show - April 30, 2025

Truth Matters ft. Robert George and Cornel West

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